How to up-skill juniors, more quickly
Why does 'the business' prefer to work with senior lawyers as opposed to junior ones?
It's not because those senior lawyers know the law better (they often do, but that's not always visible to the internal client).
Being commercial
It's usually because those senior lawyers have non-legal skills that make a huge difference in the experience of dealing with legal.
This is often called being ‘commercial’, or pragmatic lawyering.
It’s things like:
How well your team scores on this impacts how the business views ‘legal’. Contract police/department of ‘no’, or a real business partner?
How to develop these skills more quickly
This is why Heads of Legal are so laser focussed on improving these skills.
And why it’s so frustrating when you see another 4 page memo, full of legalese, being sent to the business by your recently hired former law firm lawyer!
So how can we get junior lawyers to develop these skills more quickly?
Becoming the ‘voice’ in their head
Start by correcting the work a few times in detail.
So when reviewing their work, take the time to explain your thought process as you make changes.
This could be as simple as saying, “I'm rephrasing this to focus on the action we need from them”, or “I’m deleting these 5 paragraphs as they aren’t linked to a decision that our client needs to make”.
[Note: I typically like to do this by just talking out loud via screen recording, as I make the fixes. See here.]
Then the next time, start asking coaching questions. Before giving your feedback, ask, "What do you think my feedback is likely to be?" This prompts them to step into your shoes and anticipate what you’re likely to say.
Finally, shift the onus to them. Before you even look at their work, say, "I haven't reviewed this yet. Can you please check it again yourself first and ask what I'm likely to say?" This embeds the habit of self-review and self-correction.
The goal is for your voice to become their internal monologue before they send a piece of work. Over time, that voice will merge with their own, and the skills will become second nature. Which is the promised land.
Conclusion
Nearly every in-house lawyer is ultimately forced by their environment to adapt in this way. However, I've found that this active, step-by-step coaching approach can significantly accelerate the journey.
Would love to hear if you’ve encountered any other tactics that worked!
Thanks for being here,
Daniel
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Daniel van Binsbergen
CEO at DraftPilot
LinkedIn