Let’s look at a few ways your firm can solve these challenges to attract top legal talent and retain them for years to come.

1. Invest in Internal Training and Development

Most clients expect to deal with experienced lawyers due to the notion that new or junior associates are still in training. However, leaving the senior associates or partners to handle all the legal services can result in unsustainably high client bills and may force the firm to offer discounts and write-offs to keep the business operational.

Training associates internally can minimise these costs and boost attorney realisation rates. It can also directly contribute to your firm's revenue generation.

Your firm can achieve this through comprehensive training programs for new associates to fast-track their competency levels and ensure their output increases to the levels of more senior staff.

Investing in employee development also shows that your firm values the growth and career progression of its staff. This can contribute to greater employee satisfaction, retention, and appeal to new candidates.

2. Review Company Culture

Company culture often directly correlates with employee satisfaction. For talented individuals, job satisfaction can involve simple aspects such as:

• Feeling pride in your firm
• Feeling valued, getting respect, and fair treatment
• Participating in exciting or meaningful work that gives a sense of accomplishment
• Building meaningful work relationships.

You can enhance the company culture in your firm by:

• Making it a higher priority for your HR team
• Conducting anonymous employee surveys to uncover trends
• Exploring opportunities for more individual autonomy, flexibility and recognition within the team.

3. Practise Law with an Impact

There's great satisfaction in using the law to make a difference in society and young lawyers often share this drive to give back. Recognising this, many firms are focusing on aspects like corporate social responsibility to meet the evolving priorities of jobseekers.

For instance, you can showcase your firm’s dedication to justice by providing meaningful pro bono work, participating in community programs and volunteer work.

4. Ensure Continuous Support and Mentorship

Law firms can often have competitive environments, with people focusing on individual progression to the detriment of “legal/life balance”. However, the new generation of lawyers values;

• Training
• Mentorship, and
• Support in the work environment.

Consider investing in impactful programs such as stress management forums, career coaching, planning, and development workshops. These give young lawyers a sense of belonging and can be a motivator to boost productivity.

5. Embrace Evolving Candidate Demands

Our personal and professional lives intersect at one point, affecting each other. Flexible work models and innovative technology are two significant incentives for top candidates. Many talented lawyers may prefer flexibility over rigid hours or hybrid work environments that empower them to work from multiple locations.

Legal technology like LawMaster can help your firm to meet these evolving candidate expectations, with a suite of practice management tools that can power remote teams.

Conclusion

Attracting top legal talent can be challenging, but there are ways to ensure your firm has more to offer. Investing in your teams' professional development and acquiring new legal technology is a step in the right direction.

If you’d like to learn more about how LawMaster can enrich the productivity of your team and power remote work, get in touch with us today.