How do you rate your skills when it comes to dealing effectively with support staff? How well do you think that staff rates them?
Ahead of a May webinar on working effectively with support staff, part of our Solutions Series, the CBA sent out a survey to law firm support staff to help identify areas where things are going well, and areas that could use some work.
The survey garnered 221 responses. When asked to rank a list of characteristics of an ideal working relationship, the respondents put these as the top five things lawyers can do to help them do their best work:
- Respecting you
- Trusting you
- Setting specific priorities and deadlines
- Clearly identifying responsibilities
- Having reasonable expectations
Support staff gave good marks in all of these categories, with 91 per cent saying the lawyers they work with show respect for their ability, and 89 per cent say they’re trusted to do the job “almost always” or “most of the time.
But fewer than 40 per cent say their lawyers are doing a “great” job of maximizing all that their support staff members have to offer.
Support staff say lawyers could allow assistants to do more in the way of drafting or finalizing routine correspondents or documents; be more receptive to training and use of new technologies; and it would also help if they provided more specific instructions with detailed deadlines and expectations.
The things that get in the way of support staff doing their best work, they say, include:
- Unrealistic deadlines
- Lack of communication
- Inefficient use of time
- Micromanagement
- Bottleneck of work sitting with the lawyer
- Not having enough information
Back in April, CBA PracticeLink talked to law firm leaders about how they maximized use of support staff. Some things to think about when you’re trying to find ways to make your office work more efficiently.