Have you ever considered what role you may play in the effective functioning of your office staff? I have worked with lawyers who were unhappy with the performance of their administrative assistants, and who wondered what to do to correct the situation. I have worked with dedicated firm administrators and support staff who were stressing to the breaking point from working with difficult attorneys. Even as a lawyer myself, I learned that at times I made it harder for support staff to do their best work. The information in this month’s article comes from my own experience, from coaching clients, and from informal interviews of legal support staff.
Here are some of the most common responses about what lawyers do that discourage, demotivate or down-right impede good performance by support staff. Are you brave enough to ask your staff whether you are committing any of these management mistakes?

  1. Giving work that must go out today to the assistant in the last hour of the scheduled work day (the most frequent complaint).
  2. Having erroneous assumptions about the time required to complete a task or about the other work already on the assistant’s agenda, and not making inquiries to check those assumptions. (I was surprised to discover that it usually took longer for an administrative assistant to do everything necessary to get a letter out the door than it took me to draft the letter.)
  3. Not giving the support staff all the information they need to get the project done, or even clues about where to find the needed information.
  4. Not giving the administrative assistant a heads up about the expected needs and events of the day, deadlines to meet, or the priorities to assign to multiple tasks.
  5. Blaming support staff for the attorney’s own mistakes or carelessness.
  6. Giving instructions in a cryptic, stream-of-consciousness, or fire-hose kind of way and not encouraging clarifying questions.
  7. Giving unspecific feedback, no feedback, only negative feedback, or giving feedback to the staff supervisor instead of directly to the relevant staff person
  8. Expecting staff to have the flexibility to stay 15 minutes or even hours late on short or no notice, but not reciprocating by flexing with their needs to come in late or leave early.
  9. Asking a staff person to attend to an attorney’s personal needs or wishes during peak workloads.
  10. Not assisting staff in working out conflicting demands of multiple timekeepers assigned to them, or believing that a partner’s work trumps an associate’s or a lawyer’s work trumps a paralegal’s, regardless of urgency.
  11. Conveying the impression that non-attorneys are not valuable, by excluding staff from firm functions and by not giving them input on decisions that affect them; expecting them to be team players when they aren’t treated like team members.
  12. Making it unsafe to report errors or offer suggestions for improvement by having a stern, defensive or demanding demeanor.
In my conversations with support staff, they didn’t just complain about bad experiences. They also gave examples of some of the things exemplary attorneys do, such as:
  1. Frequently give sincere acknowledgements of the specific contributions of staff and express appreciation for their efforts, including the little things staff members do on a daily basis.
  2. Work towards a goal together. Share information about the twists and turns and objectives of a case or transaction. Seek information or remain open to ideas and suggestions. It makes it easier for support staff to catch mistakes (yours and theirs), make wise decisions, and take ownership in the project when they are fully informed and involved.
  3. Take time to just chat or share information in a relaxed circumstance at least once per month. Information and feedback can flow more freely both ways without creating as much resistance and defensiveness.
  4. Make expectations and instructions clear, putting them in writing if they are detailed or complicated.
  5. Seek input and feedback from support staff. When possible, give staff an opportunity to participate in decisions that affect them, such as whether to promise delivery of something today or tomorrow or changes in attorneys assigned to work with them.
  6. Keep tone, words and demeanor respectful and professional, recognizing that a lawyer’s attitude and behavior reflects more on his/her own maturity and competence, than on the staff member’s.
    7. How do you rate? If you think you never commit any of the ‘offenses’ in the first list, you probably also suffer from a lack of self-awareness. If you are doing many of the actions in the second list, you probably have engendered loyalty, tolerance, and willingness to go the extra mile from staff members in your firm. If you are getting mixed results from staff, see whether you would like to experiment with some new behaviors. It is difficult or impossible to change other people, but we can change our own attitudes and behaviors. Sometimes when we change, others do, too.