Are our advocates sufficiently equipped to speak up?

It’s been almost two decades since organisations started blending, and in some cases replacing, annual performance appraisals with regular feedback conversations. Notwithstanding this (and rather ironically) lawyers, tasked with being the voice for others, sometimes struggle when it comes to procuring and providing effective and timely feedback, be it to the lawyers they manage or their own manager.

Following interviews undertaken by Coaching Advocates with a number of senior HR leaders in large law firms throughout Asia-Pacific and the UK, we found that some law firms continue to employ the notional end-of-year performance review, but the majority of firms have shifted towards more frequent conversation-based models.

Before we explore what leading law firms are doing in this space, it’s important to shed light on the barriers that prevent lawyers from giving or asking for feedback.

Historically (and in some cases, presently) fee-earner performance reviews focused on financial metrics such as revenue for partners and utilisation for non-partner fee earners. An HR professional at a UK headquartered global firm remarked that “reviews that focus on metrics rather than behaviour result in a misalignment of output and reward.” And that “law firm leaders should place more emphasis on value adding behaviours such as thought leadership and coaching junior staff, (as) that would encourage fee earners to give back to the firm.”

Firms that have made a shift towards more frequent feedback conversations prescribe between 3–4 conversations per year between a lawyer and their primary supervisor, focusing on the lawyer’s career development and shifting responsibility for facilitating the conversations to the more junior lawyer. The conversations themselves are future focused, exploring the lawyer’s challenges and aspirations, rather than rehashing the year that passed.

One leading New Zealand firm found that abandoning the requirement to fill out appraisal forms created a well-received shift from “data collection” to “genuine conversations,” removing a lot of the stress and administration for all concerned and resulting in the lawyers getting more feedback more frequently.

On the basis of survey data analysis, a leading APAC law firm revealed to Coaching Advocates that the lawyers who were having the most frequent conversations with their supervisors were the most engaged and were having better experiences at work than those who were not. This finding helped to embed the value of ‘conversation’ in the firm’s culture.

However, even when lawyers appreciate the value of regular conversations, certain behaviours commonly seen in the profession continue to make constructive feedback difficult for lawyers. HR specialists working in the profession identified to Coaching Advocates the following attitudes as being key barriers:

Criticism being viewed as failure: A lawyer’s identity is often wrapped up in perfectionism and ‘being the best’, often leading to any form of criticism being internalised as failure. Senior lawyers are somewhat aware of this, which leads to heightened concern that tough feedback is then taken personally, rather than constructively. A few HR specialists commented that lawyers are generally unwilling to cause upset or be the person responsible for causing someone to leave, the consequence often being avoidance, rather than addressing the issue.

Lack of control: Lawyers are often used to having control and so to put them in a situation where they feel they have no control may cause extreme discomfort. One HR leader commented that lawyers can be frightened of being faced with a negative reaction or an emotional response.

Low confidence: When it comes to discussing behavioural issues, particularly where there is no clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ behaviour and no exact science to point to, commenting on another’s behaviour can feel risky for a lawyer and thus becomes a ‘no-go zone’.

Fear of blowback: One HR leader opined that partners are often reluctant to provide constructive feedback to fellow partners, because it might open them up to being “criticised” in return. This is in part due to the ambiguous structure of authority often inherent in law firms.

Time restraints and prioritisation: One firm that prides itself on not backing away from difficult conversations shared that often the positive feedback gets overlooked, because this isn’t always seen as a time-bound priority.

How are the top firms managing and overcoming these barriers?

Our enquiries revealed that some firms are providing their lawyers with a framework (not a script) for giving feedback and creating a contextual forum for staff to practise giving and receiving feedback. “Lawyers need the time to collect their thoughts and the space to practise and make mistakes,” one HR professional commented.

We recommend that any framework used for this purpose digs deep into developing a growth mindset and leveraging behaviours such as curiosity and acceptance to support this.

We’ve heard of one firm actively pushing their lawyers to get on their learning edge and adopt an agile ‘test and learn’ mentality.

“Investing in relationships allows more constructive conversations. Legal leaders need to celebrate what’s working and get to know their teammates as individuals. They need to understand their individual motivations and build a strong foundation. In the absence of a strong relationship, parties may not feel safe and feedback can be taken personally,” commented a senior HR leader at a top-tier international law firm.

When it comes to constructive feedback, the HR director of an Antipodean law firm attributes a commitment to honesty and not avoiding difficult conversations to the success of their performance development initiatives. In addition to this, “lawyers need to be empowered to prioritise their own learning and development and need to want to prioritise this,” they told us.

Where can firms and lawyers continue to expand to meet development challenges?

One senior HR leader noted to us that, “the culture of law firms needs to adjust such that the development of people is as important as financial metrics delivery”. Another added, “there is real opportunity for non-partner senior lawyers to become more responsible for developing their junior team mates.”

A further idea was shared by another senior HR professional who believes that working on self-awareness should become “part of the job” such that a lawyer sees their role as advising on the law, doing client marketing all while building self-awareness.”

Katie Gray, Claire Bibby, and Lara Wentworth are co-founders and directors of Coaching Advocates, a global consultancy and coaching firm for lawyers and professionals.