Future-proofing legal talent: How to recruit, develop and retain lawyers

In the first of a two-part article on how law firms can attract and keep the best talent, Felicity Bell, Vicki McNamara and Michael Legg outline the core competencies that should be developed as part of a strategy to recruit and retain valuable employees.

In short:

• Outdated and limited criteria for choosing law firm employees should be revised to include core competencies that capture people’s unique skill-sets.
• This column discusses the importance of skills related to Self-Management, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Judgement, Professional Ethics and Adaptability.
• Along with such qualities, law firms must be conscious when recruiting staff of the wide-ranging implications of generative AI on the development of legal expertise.

More than 60 per cent of respondents to a 2024 Australian legal sector survey reported that retaining and attracting ‘talent’ was a ‘top challenge’ (Thomson Reuters, 2024, 2).

With the speed of change increasing and new issues and technologies continually developing, it seems clear that reliance on pure, black-letter legal skills is unlikely to deliver the breadth of capabilities that firms will need in the future (or, indeed, now). Yet research from around the world indicates that many large professional service firms, including law firms, continue to recruit based on narrowly focused criteria, often measured solely or primarily by high marks from elite institutions.

Organisational literature suggests that recognising and rewarding people’s unique skills is the best way to create engagement and ultimately support retention. This can be contrasted with the traditional ‘professional socialisation project’ of law, which was premised on novices learning their place at the bottom of the hierarchy. Yes, we want people to learn the accepted values and norms of the profession and their workplace, but we don’t need to crush them in the process.

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that new lawyers disliked workplace cultures where they felt they had to take responsibility for their own career development, struggled to obtain feedback, and lacked clear paths within their organisations (Bleasdale & Francis, 2020). It has long been the case that the proportion of new entrants to a law firm who self-report aspiring to partnership is relatively low, and that number does not seem to be growing. So, to what do they aspire? What goals are they pursuing, and do those exist within the firm or organisation? If they don’t, can they be created? Recognition that is based on more than billable hours will become increasingly necessary to retain legal professionals with diverse skill-sets. Those skill-sets will also become more desirable as legal services continue to become more tech-enabled and the range of services offered expands.

The Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession at UNSW Law & Justice has developed a Personal Competencies Skillset, reflecting 12 competencies that lawyers and future lawyers need. In two related articles (Part 2 forthcoming) we discuss a few that are central to recruiting (and retaining) talented people – both in terms of recognising these qualities where they exist, recruiting for them, and enabling people to develop them further.

In this Part 1, we address Self-Management, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Judgement, Professional Ethics and Adaptability.

Create pathways for people and build collaboration

Collaboration or teamwork involves the ability and willingness to work with others. They may be colleagues within a person’s firm, chambers, department or organisation, other lawyers (clients, solicitors, barristers) or business people, other professionals or experts. Collaboration brings together diverse knowledge, skill-sets and work-life experiences which are a basis for innovative problem-solving. Collaborative networks enable lawyers to tap into the collective experiences of numerous people and therefore achieve a more informed and better result. Collaboration, as a result, allows an individual to build ideas, produce innovations, and – essentially, for lawyers – complete complex tasks more efficiently.

Moreover, collaboration attracts the best talent to a firm because there is the opportunity to work with, and learn from, other experts. High-quality collaborative relationships can positively affect job satisfaction and good mental health as people develop better relationships and feel included and valued. In large organisations, feeling trust in, and engagement with, the whole organisation may be too diffuse. But people develop these feelings more readily within smaller teams and collaborative networks.

Enable self-development

Professional development is very important to lawyers, who tend to be highly motivated and goal-oriented. Self-management and adaptability are traits that enable success across many different fields, including law, but also in one’s personal life.

Self-management refers to individuals’ capacity to regulate their own emotions, thoughts and behaviours in a healthy and productive way. Self-management is regarded as a key competency for lawyers and also for law students (it is one of the Threshold Learning Outcomes for the law degree in Australia – a skill that all students must obtain). Occupations such as law which can be highly stressful and involve competing time priorities (though they also afford high autonomy and satisfaction to practitioners) typically necessitate good Criticskills.

Although it might not be something conventionally associated with law firms or legal organisations, adaptability is closely related to self-management. Adaptability means flexibility in both thinking and behaviour that allows easy adjustment to new or even novel conditions. Among the traditional professions, law has typically been perceived as slow to change, and perhaps populated by people who don’t much like change.

Arguably, this stereotype no longer holds true, but, more importantly, we usually don’t get to choose change, and change in legal services has been occurring at a faster rate, especially as regards technological development. In addition, legal problems rarely ‘stand still’. As issues evolve, lawyers must regularly revisit the ‘problem’ and adjust accordingly.

Adaptability in this context does not necessarily mean that lawyers must be able to suddenly adjust to major change – though this is a useful quality. Rather, they must be able to smoothly adapt their presentation, behaviour and even thinking as the circumstances necessitate. This quality of adaptability is also linked to the Leadership competency, as successful leaders in professional organisations are typically very good at ‘reading the room’ and adapting to different conditions – this part of manoeuvring and negotiating in leadership roles, while still maintaining integrity. (We will return to the importance of leadership in Part 2 of this article).

Develop judgement and critical thinking

Lawyers’ work is diverse, but the concept of good or sound judgement is widely agreed to be a fundamental attribute of ‘good’ lawyers, regardless of practice context. In fact, it’s been called “the most valuable thing a lawyer has” (Luban & Millemann, 1995). However, defining judgement is hard – it could be the ability to make considered decisions; discernment; good sense; wisdom. It goes beyond intelligence and expertise. It involves problem formulation or recognition, the generation of ideas for hypothesised solutions from which a form of action, a decision, is chosen.

So, judgement represents a combination of qualities, including knowledge, experience and common sense, perhaps with elements of an understanding of human behaviour and social norms, empathy and the capacity to self-reflect. Critical thinking forms the basis for judgement: it means being analytical and having a willingness to explore and inquire. It is also adaptable and reflective, tying into the adaptability and self-management competencies too. 

Critical thinking and judgement skills are perhaps the quintessential qualities that clients seek from lawyers. How law schools and workplaces develop these in lawyers and future lawyers is the subject of ongoing debate. Increasing use of generative AI to create summaries, drafts or even perform research tasks is likely to have wide-ranging implications for developing legal expertise.

Support professional ethics

Judgement is also closely connected to ethical judgement. The ‘value’ of professional ethics is immense, in both business and esoteric terms. The existence of professional rules enables lawyers to be trusted advisors: lawyers owe extensive duties to their clients, guaranteeing integrity, honesty and loyalty. At the same time, they owe duties to the courts, the administration of justice and the rule of law, guaranteeing they will bring a critical and independent mind to bear on the problems on which they are called to advise. This has not diminished over time – arguably, increased automation and reliance on technology increases the premium on ethical standards and critical thinking.

Moreover, research firmly implicates the wider firm or organisational environment in individuals’ ethical conduct and in lapses and unethical behaviour. A workplace environment where people can access support and feel able to admit to mistakes, rather than resorting to lack of honesty or cover up, is important.

In Part 2 we look at Communication/Influencing, Digital Literacy, Leadership, Creative Thinking, Emotional Intelligence and Cultural Competency.

Dr Felicity Bell is the Deputy Director of the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession (CFLP) at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law & Justice (UNSW) and Senior Lecturer at UNSW. In addition to working as an academic, she has previously worked as a solicitor in private practice and most recently as a specialist legal advisor for state government.

Vicki McNamara is the Senior Research Associate with CFLP. Before joining CFLP, she was a practising lawyer and knowledge management and legal technology leader with more than 30 years’ experience in global and national law firms and in-house legal teams, including Herbert Smith Freehills, Woolworths Group and Maddocks.

Professor Michael Legg is the Director of the CFLP.  He is admitted to practice in NSW and New York and has over 25 years’ experience in private practice, chiefly in class actions and regulatory litigation with major Australian and US law firms.

References and reading:

Lydia Bleasdale and Andrew Francis, ‘Great Expectations: Millennial Lawyers and the Structures of Contemporary Legal Practice’ (2020) 40(3) Legal Studies 376.

David Luban and Michael Millemann, ‘Good Judgment: Ethics Teaching in Dark Times’ (1995) 9(1) Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 31.

Thomson Reuters, Tech, AI and the Law 2024 Report: Australian Edition (2024) TR Tech AI and Law Australia 2024.pdf