Proficiency race: Accelerate junior lawyer effectiveness on a budget

Years of academic prowess may incline some young lawyers to believe that they are expert learners. Yet an understanding of learning as a process is not something typically taught at law school and is rarely dealt with by firms. Granted, most smart young lawyers eventually work out the important parts for themselves, but this can be a hard and uncomfortable journey. The conclusions they draw from this as an unstructured process may be based on bitter lessons in survival and end up out of alignment with the firm’s goals for organisational and
talent development.

The main developmental task of a young lawyer is to learn as much as possible on the job. While this sounds rather obvious and glib, learning effectively through experience is a very different process to achieving academic success and there is no chance for a re-take.

Firms must deliver client work to a high standard while at the same time extending their junior staff to develop gradually into the specialists they need. Monitoring, supervising and giving feedback to junior lawyers has always been a key part of
the role of a partner. This relationship
is of paramount importance in the development process.

However, for many years, firms have not considered this enough. They have invested in structures to support and manage the process of developing proficiency on the job – graduate and junior lawyer skills programmes, trainee guides to the practical elements of key areas of practice, clear competencies, independent research projects, experience checklists, formal appraisal systems, buddies, mentoring… the list goes on. The amount of time, resources and energy that firms put into developing young lawyers has been steadily increasing.

Meanwhile, clients are no longer willing to help shoulder the financial burden of developing proficiency in law firms’ junior lawyers. The focus is on value for each billable hour. At the same time, the race is on to develop stronger talent, faster. Can law firms really do more to make junior lawyers effective, in an atmosphere of continued cost pressure? Yes.

The L&D dilemma

It is important to understand the role that formal development programmes play in building proficiency.

We know that formal programmes are only part of the picture when it comes to becoming a proficient lawyer. Many will be familiar with the 70:20:10 model of learning, which has been around for more than 40 years in various guises. In essence, this model is based on the idea that most learning (70 per cent) occurs on the job, in particular through challenging experiences. Learning informally from others (bosses, colleagues, peers) accounts for the next most significant portion (20 per cent). The remaining 10 per cent of what is learned tends to come from formal sources – structured learning programmes, reading and so forth.

Here lies the dilemma for learning
and development functions within law firms. Though these functions have dramatically increased in sophistication and strategic integration in recent years, formal learning programmes are still the primary tool in our arsenal for closing the skills gap.

Are formal learning programmes irrelevant beyond compliance? Far from it. Not only are formal learning programmes an accepted and cost effective means of exchanging information and knowledge but, if they are cleverly designed, they can have an impact that goes well beyond the classroom. As long as they are kept relevant, aligned to firm strategy and designed with the bigger picture in mind, formal programmes can have a significant influence on the efficiency and effectiveness of on-the-job learning.

So, practically, what can L&D functions do to make learning on the job more efficient and effective?

Learning anxiety

Learning on the job is often unconscious. In part because of this, it can also be scary, unpleasant, confusing and threatening. Most young lawyers have
a strong, deeply ingrained aversion to failure. This is why they have been recruited. They have been through years of tough intellectual competition at school and university.

On top of this, to make it through the selection process at a major international law firm, they must also be incredibly accomplished, poised and impressive young people. They didn’t get that way by seeking out things they were not very good at. In fact, they probably consciously structured their studies away from anything they weren’t very good at and made very sure that they could excel in their chosen areas of focus. What this means is that they have been weeding out the risk of failure from their lives for years.

Then, suddenly, they are working in a law firm, dealing with real clients, real matters and real risk. What is expected is variable depending on the task, clients
and supervisor. What success looks like may not be clear and there may be no clear indicator of what exactly is the
right and wrong way to go about things.
In fact, there may not be a ‘right way’ (though there is usually a ‘wrong way’).
The prospect of failure is back, and it
can be paralysing.

Part of the skill of learning on the job is being able to learn effectively amidst anxiety-producing conditions and some cloudiness about exactly what it is that you are supposed to be learning in the first place. It is not realistic to make all learning conscious or to eliminate all anxiety from a career. However, it is possible to make the process more efficient and productive by making on-the-job learning a little more conscious and deliberate.

For more senior talent, exposure to focus on learning as a process (rather than something just about inputs and outputs) usually comes up indirectly through one-on-one coaching. But, what if some of those concepts were introduced earlier – much earlier?

Even though formal learning accounts for only 10 per cent of the content assimilated in on-the-job learning (in the form of skills and knowledge), its impact can be much broader. Well-designed formal L&D programmes, aligned with strategy and a consistent organisational focus, can have an enormous influence
on the effectiveness of what is learned the rest of the time. (See box: Designing L&D initiatives with on-the-job learning
in mind.)

 

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Designing L&D initiatives with on-the-job learning in mind

1. Don’t underestimate the ability of formal programmes to structure what is learned informally. Formal learning programmes appear to have a significant organising and validating effect on what has been garnered through less structured experiences. Design and position your programmes to dovetail with, complement and contextualise what is learned on the job and via other channels.

2. Design in opportunities for discussion and peer-to-peer learning as key elements of your programmes, and explicitly position them as part of the learning process. It can be useful to flag these and actively encourage the further exploration, challenge and analysis that will occur as a result. These opportunities are usually highly regarded by participants (“the best part was hearing the views of my fellow associates”), but at times may be mistaken for accidental by-products of the learning process rather integral to it.

3. Inform young lawyers about the process of adult learning. Young lawyers tend to be very interested in these subjects and are able to grasp the concepts readily. Understanding some of the basic theories and models can help make sense of their experiences and minimise some of the anxiety experienced during the transition from successful student to new lawyer.

4. Develop skills that build resilience and the ability to productively process experience. This includes establishing good habits around reflection, which improves the ability to recover and learn from setbacks. Simple tips and techniques can significantly improve a young lawyer’s ability to process experiences in a balanced and productive way, which can greatly influence outcomes from on-the-job learning.

5. Teach young lawyers about barriers to effective on-the-job learning. Young lawyers are receptive to research on this and can easily grasp its relevance to their development. In particular, taking a look at traps such as defensive reasoning to avoid learning¹ or understanding effective (and ineffective) use of role models can help to minimise poor outcomes and bad habits down the track.

6. Upskill more junior staff in coaching techniques and facilitate peer coaching behaviour. Although investment in one-on-one executive coaching may be prohibitive for the majority of junior lawyers, training in peer coaching techniques can usually be delivered using existing L&D staff (providing the right capabilities exist). This not only provides some good short-term outcomes, but is useful grounding for a role as a coach for future junior lawyers. Junior lawyers network with each other anyway, so why not help them and the firm to get the most from the experience?

7. Couple ‘flagship’ learning programmes with well targeted follow-up discussions. While time-intensive, this can serve to refocus participants on their new skills and encourage further reflection and discussion.

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Learning strategy

An awareness of how learning really happens should determine the design of the firm’s learning strategy. The value of formal learning programmes can be maximised through clever design and their impact extended into unstructured learning. A clear focus on not only the content, but
also the process of on-the-job learning
can help to accelerate the effectiveness
of junior lawyers.

Stephanie Abbott is director of knowledge, learning and development at Mayer Brown JSM (www.mayerbrownjsm.com)

Endnote

1. See ‘Teaching Smart People How to Learn’, Chris Argyris, Harvard Business Review, May 1991. Still as relevant as
the day it was published.