Law Times

PAGE 12 FOCUS Soft benefits foster retention Cultivating a culture BY DARYL-LYNN CARLSON For Law Times service, and late-night rides home from the office; in fact, it can be argued those types of perks are but rudimentary necessities to fulfill the job these days. Fitness programs, mentoring, sabbaticals, and workplace flex- ibility are becoming the focus of law firms that want to foster re- tention and attract top recruits. The emerging approach to retain- ing talent is in part being fueled by the attitudes of the Generation Y demographic, says Steve Nash, a lawyer and chief executive officer of The Counsel Network national legal recruiting services. "You've got young people say- B enefits at law firms are beginning to go beyond BlackBerrys, laptops, meal ing, 'I'm going to take a year off, I'm going to go learn how to bal- let dance or travel the world, and when I come back, if there's a job here, fine, if not, I'll go somewhere else,'" says Nash, speaking about young professionals in general who are under the age of 35 and have far different life expectations than their baby boom parents. "This is going to force law firms into new ways of doing things," Nash says he anticipates. "And these things do take root, and for older people too. They're seeing the younger people taking a year off and they say, 'Hey, I want to take a sabbatical too.'" While seeing a need to keep current talent, the heightened focus on retention will also en- able law firms to ensure they have leaders to stay with the firm once the baby boom demo- graphic begins to exit. "The baby boomers are going to retire and someone's got to replace them," Nash acknowledges. "We need to fill in a lot of the gaps in the 35 to late 40s range, and that's not a huge pool." So far there has not been a profession-wide urgency regard- ing succession planning as there is in some other professions such as insurance; the Insurance Institute of Canada recently completed a census and has concluded the sec- tor is facing a significant crisis in providing its services if no action to recruit is taken within the next several years. But law firms are at very least looking inward to be sure they can keep the talent they have. They are implementing measures to foster their workplace culture by facilitating everything from fit- ness to mentoring to simply a mix of good personalities, Nash says. "Law firms are taking a hard- er look at retention. Recruiting fees can run in the millions of dollars, so instead they're look- ing at their firm and asking, 'What do you need to stay?'" Nash says that progressive firms are "acting more aggressively in terms of weeding out bad per- sonalities," and are no longer shy about showing a cantankerous lawyer the door no matter how big his or her book of business. One of his clients refers to his law firm's "no asshole rule," which is readily enforced. "Noth- ing sends people out the door faster than if you have one guy or gal who is hard to get along with, is prickly or a screamer," Nash says. "Law firms are getting really sensitive to that and making sure that their senior people and the leaders and men- tors realize that there's a certain expectation of the work environment and they don't want to lose people purely because of a personality issue." Nash estimates that MADE POSSIBLE BY YOU. Robin Lynn Dlutek ( centre), who submitted the document, with Burhana Bello and Joanne Lagoudis, partners, Bello Lagoudis LLP, Mississauga ON Thank you Teraview® users. The 10,000,000TH electronic land registration was submitted by Bello Lagoudis LLP in April 2008. Over 96%* of all land registrations in Ontario are submitted electronically. * As of December 31, 2007 MADE POSSIBLE BY TERANET ©2008 Teranet Inc. Teranet, the Gateway design and Teraview are registered trademarks of Teranet Inc. All rights reserved. Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation 130 King St., W. Suite 1800 The Exchange Tower Toronto, ON • M5X 1E3 T: 416-860-6222 F: 416-860-6221 W: www.landau.com/ W: international/canada/ Untitled-3 1 5/20/08 12:33:15 PM upwards of 60 per cent of lawyers who seek place- ment through The Coun- sel Network have an "un- derlying issue" regarding a personality conflict at their law firm. "Scream- ing and yelling and dead- lines were often a right of passage," he says. "And in law, you're going to get strong personalities. But from a firm perspective, there's more of a focus on making sure they're not losing people because of those personalities." Law firms are also turn- ing attention to developing loyalty amongst their associates, he says. Aside from only the largest firms, smaller offices too are hiring law- yers as in-house directors of associ- ate development and recruitment. These directors oversee training, feedback, mentoring, and gener- ally ensure the associates are happy and have what they need. "These are small firms that traditionally didn't have those resources, and Correction On page 15 in the April 28th Law Times Legal Suppliers Guide, some information did not appear with the rest of its listing: MAY 26, 2008 / LAW TIMES The emerging approach to retaining talent is in part being fueled by the attitudes of the Generation Y demo- graphic, says Steve Nash. while [the position] is not often well defined, it's a mixture of hu- man resources, training, and de- velopment. And they want a law- yer to take on this developmental role," says Nash. "For a firm with just 35 or 40 lawyers, that's fairly unusual, so to spend that kind of money on recruiting that [direc- tor] individual is a real statement that says, 'We're really concerned about our associates and making sure people are happy.'" Even if succession planning First Canadian Title 2235 Sheridan Garden Dr., Oakville, ON • L6J 7Y5 T: 905-287-1000 T: 1-800-307-0370 F: 905-287-2400 F: 1-800-560-2844 W: www.firstcanadian W: title.com isn't the key motivator behind current retention initiatives, Nash says he doesn't expect there will be an increasing number of lawyers who will want to stay in practice beyond retirement. "The after- age-55 people, I find their life interest changes. They just want to do other things," he suggests. "So once the baby boomers start to leave in bigger numbers, then we're going to see some interest- ing things, because you're going to see the leadership in the firms moving on to do other things." Randi Bean, a former lawyer who now runs Life After Law placement service in Toronto for lawyers seeking to change their career path, says she's as busy as ever. Many of the lawyers she places have practice experience and are seeking a better work- life balance. "If they want to do some- thing different, because of the high compensation in law there's a possibility they'll have to take a cut in pay," she acknowledg- es. "But often they're willing to cut back on that, provided that there's a work-life balance." Not all lawyers who seek alter- native career paths are looking for less of a workload, however; some want a more diverse job focus or work environment, she says. The types of non-traditional law po- sitions that the agency finds for lawyers range from consulting to business development to roles in regulatory affairs. "We have candidates of all vintages, from those just out of law school and many who've been in practice for more than 10 or 20 years," she says. "I can tell any lawyer out there that if they're looking to do something different, it's certainly possible." LT www.lawtimesnews.com 3608/05.08

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