What Do You Want From Your Employees?
I was at a practice management retreat where they posed a question. Looking for a new staff member, you have the option of choosing two great people. The first has 20 years experience and can hit the ground running, but is very expensive. The second has limited experience, is a fast learner is relatively inexpensive, but will require training. Which one do you pick?
The question was very careful to be weighted evenly and the answers were more of a rorschach test of the attorney, rather than which would make a better employee. The responses were interesting. Some people like to work side by side with their employees, handing off information to type, research and get out, on a regularly through the day. Others wanted to touch base briefly during the day and then each taking care of their own work. It isn’t a matter of what’s better or worse, but what is a better fit.
I personally, want to be able to touch base in the morning and let the employee do their work.
There were a lot of good responses to the question, but the one response that stuck in my mind was a very sharp attorney that had been around for more than 30 years. He said “I would have normally said the experienced, expensive paralegal, but I’m finding more and more ‘kids’ come in with limited experience being able to find nearly anything on the internet. They can use computers and technology to run rings around experienced paralegals without technical savvy”.
That might be an exaggeration, but I think that’s right. I don’t have any interest in employees that can’t find basic information on the internet with a simple Google search.
At our office, we have both and I think both is the best play. Someone has to be able to train the "kids" as you call them. But the notion that begin about to use the Internet is a big key for a paralegal defies what we see in our practice.
We've had both situations in the law office I manage. It is very true the decision of who to hire depends on the work style and nature of the cases handled by the attorney. The other qualifier which may go with out saying is the "smarts" your potential new employee has. We've found that the brighter the employee, the less we've had to double check their work.
