108 - The 3 Secrets to Attract, Develop & Retain High-Performance Talent

In this episode, Chrissie will take us through the three secrets that law firm owners can implement to attract, develop and retain high-performance talent.

Chrissie Wolfe is a partner at Nexa who specialises in medical and cosmetics injuries and also has a consulting business focused on supporting law firm firms and legal teams in the attraction and retention of talent.

Chrissis also has an online following of over 150,000 people between TikTok, Linkedin and other platforms and has won awards such as Solicitor of the Year, and Businesswoman of the Year and is ranked in the Legal 500 as a rising star.

To find out about Chrissie or get in touch with her go to:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissiewolfe/

Linktree: http://www.linktr.ee/ChrissieWolfe

Proudly edited with finesse by Mike at Making Digital Real ✨

Transcript

Welcome to the Law Firm Owners Podcast. I am your host, Dan Warburton. If you are a law firm equity member, partner, CEO or MD who wants to increase your profits while reducing your workload, then you are in the right place.

It's the skills that I needed to become a leader. Yeah. I'm so happy that I've met you in my life.

You've spoken about the revenue increase. It went from like 70,000 to nearly half a million. What percentage increase is that? It's over 400% in that range.

You know, our monetary returns have been insane. And what we have made in extra profit, as compared to what we spent on you, is incomparable. You've just trebled the firm's profits in one year.

Yeah. Are you getting what I'm saying? After working with Dan for a few months, my income is up, my happiness is up. This has changed my whole life.

Welcome to the Law Firm Owners Podcast. I'm here with Chrissie Wolfe, who is a partner at Nexa and specializes in medical and cosmetic injuries. Chrissie has a consulting business focusing on supporting law firms and legal teams on the attraction and retention of talent.

And she also has an online following of over 150,000 people between TikTok, LinkedIn and other platforms. And she's also won awards such as Solicitor of the Year, Businesswoman of the Year and ranked in the Legal 500 as a rising star. On today's show, what we're covering are the three secrets to attract, develop and retain high performance talent.

Chrissie, it's so great to have you here. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

I mean, you know, the listeners here haven't got you on a live Zoom call here. And I'm thinking, my goodness, bit of a young chicken, this lady. How the hell have you achieved all of this by your age? That's very kind.

I'm probably older than I look. But it's true that I've had a pretty jam-packed career, actually. I think I've squeezed every ounce of my legal career I possibly could, actually.

I started my training contract in 2011. Is that right? No, sorry, 2013, qualified in 2015. And then I was at Erwin Mitchell, which is one of the largest national law firms in the UK, until 2021, which then when I set up my consulting business and then joined Nexa as a partner.

So, yes, I've had quite a convoluted legal career and kind of always had the side hustle alongside that, which was the social media content creating, which started in about 2017 with a YouTube channel, primarily giving advice and support to young people, aspiring lawyers trying to break into the law. And that kind of morphed into events and training and public speaking, and that brand sort of grown with me. So when I started that brand, I was, I think, two years PQE and sort of talking to people at a similar level.

And then as I've grown, I've kind of maintained the content around my audience. So now I still have a lot of junior lawyers in the audience, but it's now a kind of real mixture of still largely legal profession, but people of all different kind of levels within that. So, yeah, I've never been a person who likes to sit still.

I've always been trying to get kind of every drop out of the day. Wow. Yeah, really great.

What I get from that is you've basically focused on a real challenging issue that many young lawyers have, which is either getting through, getting qualified and then getting positions, but then also climbing the ladder to be able to get, you know, the opportunities they want. But now you focus more on the other side, because as we focus on these three secrets to attract and retain talent, I guess it really helps that you really understand the youngsters and what they're looking for, so that now when you speak to the law firm owners and partners, you know how they need to shape their branding, their marketing to attract these ideal candidates, right? Yeah, that's exactly where the consulting started, actually, is I was sort of bridging this gap because I had this huge online following of junior lawyers who I really had a really strong community with and had personal relationships with in many cases, and they were really honest about how they were feeling at work. You know, they felt like they could kind of talk to me as an outlet where they couldn't talk to their employers.

And I was also sharing a lot of their same kind of worries and frustrations online myself. So I think they kind of felt that they could relate to what I had gone through breaking into the process and then being a private practice lawyer. So I kind of really understood.

I felt like I really understood that generation. And then when the great resignation happened, which sort of was timed in line with COVID, and employers were really desperate, not knowing what to do with really high attrition rates and people moving around, not being able to keep people, I felt like I had the real reasons because that was also when I quit. So I felt like I kind of had a personal, you know, attachment to this issue.

And I really understood why people were moving around and weren't happy. So I took that and then kind of made a consulting business. And I also had the other side having worked my way up in a large law firm for the last almost, you know, best part of a decade.

So I kind of had both sides of the story. I understood the pressures that law firms were facing and where they were coming from and their kind of business decisions. But I also completely understood the junior end and where their frustrations were.

So I sort of married those two things and have since built a business out and sort of built a consulting business to run alongside my practice, where I've also worked with legal teams as well. So kind of across the spectrum, but it's sort of a real passion of mine to kind of bridge that gap between what junior lawyers want particularly and what law firms and legal teams can provide. Yeah, interesting, really interesting.

So what would you say are one of the secrets that law firms need to work on to attract and retain high performance talent? I think a big thing that law firms sometimes struggle with is not embracing the kind of individual's talents, is they have a tendency to put people into moulds and kind of say that everybody has to work in the exact same way and produce the exact same results. And actually, I think that's where you get into struggles with people because the best workforce to have is a really diverse workforce with people who have lots of different skills and lots of different talents, but inevitably those people need different things to thrive. And if you have a very fixed work environment where everybody works the same hours, everybody's using the same technology, everybody has got the same targets, then actually you're going to end up either with a lot of people who are exactly the same or you're going to end up with people who are not, who are there but they're not flourishing in those roles because they're not actually having a work environment which is really adapted to suit their skillset and the way that they work.

So that is one of the big frustrations that I see is a lot of people leaving because actually they're very talented people, but actually that particular work environment is not flexible enough to really adapt to their own needs and they can't excel in that environment and they feel frustrated and they feel undervalued and that's why they end up going somewhere which does offer them that kind of tailored solution where they're really valued and they pick out their individual skillsets and talents and make people feel like they have an individual contribution rather than they're just one of many cogs in a wheel and one of a workforce. I think what people really value now is that individual touch where they're recognised for their own uniqueness rather than just kind of being one of a sea of fear in us. Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

It really resonates with the work that I do which is one of the first things with each team member is to say, hey, you've been at the firm for quite a while now and I've never asked you, what do you want to succeed at? Why do you keep turning up to work each day? What matters to you? And not only as in in the firm, like do you want to pay rise? Do you want to become partner? But what matters to you outside the business? What support do you need from me to be able to have it all? And that creates this real teamwork mentality but it doesn't happen a lot in the law firm, in most law firms, does it? No, it doesn't. I think there's this assumption everybody comes in, everybody is climbing the ladder to get to partner and that is basically, you know, ingrained in boosting your time targets and your cost targets, et cetera. It kind of assumes you come in and the trajectory you're on is just to bill as many hours as possible and bill as many costs as possible and climb up the ladder as quickly as possible.

And actually, that's kind of the assumption and I don't think anyone ever really questioned that until people started leaving. It's like, actually, maybe not everybody wants that. Maybe not everyone's enjoying it.

Maybe that's not what everyone's dream scenario is. And actually, that was sort of a turning point for me when I left because I sort of looked at the partners in the business and I thought, I'm not actually sure I want this life. Like, objectively, I want that.

I joined this firm because I wanted to be a law firm partner and I wanted the corner office and I wanted to call myself partner. And as I was actually kind of looking at the reality of that scenario and I kind of saw, you know, I saw the partners were still working incredibly hard and they were actually still coming into the office, you know, a lot of hours a week. And I thought, actually, I don't know why I'm striving to get to that because that's not even really what I want.

You know, it's ingrained in you. And it was that point where I started to realise the kind of practicalities of what being a partner in a national law firm meant. And I thought, I'm not sure I'm actually going to be happy.

You know, I'm going to get there, potentially get the badge and be happy for, you know, five minutes that I've got the badge and then go, actually, why was I striving so hard for this when this is actually, you know, not even an enjoyable lifestyle. But I think it takes a lot to actually have that realisation. I think a lot of people often don't realise that until they've spent their whole life fighting for that and then they get there and then they realise.

And I didn't want that to happen to me. So I think law firms make that assumption that everybody's coming in with that in mind, with that trajectory in mind. And that's not necessarily true.

People love being lawyers for all sorts of reasons. You know, people are really passionate about their clients. You know, people love that kind of client contact.

People love being in court. You know, there are so many rewarding things about being a lawyer that it's actually not necessarily all about getting that badge, climbing the ladder. A lot of people don't necessarily want those management responsibilities that come with climbing the ladder.

So, you know, I think there are a lot of really great things about being a lawyer and that's not always what you get out of kind of climbing that very traditional structure. I'm loving everything that you're saying. And for, you know, if you're a law firm owner or partner listening here, you know, what Chris is speaking about is what the new generations actually want.

They're not like the old generations. You know, I would say they're, they value much more, you know, enjoyment of their work and being able to create a balanced lifestyle. I mean, you know, if you look at a law firm owner or a partner, really what you are is you're an entrepreneur.

You're somebody that's looking at using other people's problems and challenges as a way to create solutions that betters their life and in the process makes money and a better quality of life for you. We don't go into business to exhaust ourselves and burn ourselves out, right? We go to create a great lifestyle. And if we're not living and breathing that great lifestyle, how the hell are we going to inspire anybody else to want to be a partner alongside us, right? Absolutely. 

Yeah. And there's so many ways to inspire people. I think one of them is kind of having that tailored approach in a way because I think law firms also, sort of the traditional style of a law firm is to think, well, the only way these employees add value to the business is by billing lots of time and bringing in lots of costs.

But actually there's lots of different ways employees can add value to a business. So, and it's kind of looking wider, you know, it's not just about how many hours are on the sheet, but, you know, we're bringing juniors in now who have brilliant personal brands, who can be brilliant for brand awareness for the firm, who can be brilliant at bringing in work, who are brilliant about connecting teams to make processes more efficient, who are brilliant with technology and picking out what processes are going to work, who are brilliant with people and great at bringing up team morale. Like these are all really, really valuable skills.

Now people should have these, should be kept in the business to do. But those aren't things that are on your, you know, associate criteria. And these are not the things that are generally managed or measured in terms of KPIs, but they're critical for your business.

And actually you should have people who excel in different measures at all of these things. And also bear in mind the people who might be brilliant connectors maybe aren't as good at time recording. And actually you can't give them those same targets.

You've got to basically, you know, enable people to play to their strengths and give them targets which are achievable for their strengths rather than just saying, you know, everybody's got this subjective target because you're going to get people who are brilliant at things, but they're frustrated because they're not going to meet the targets for other things naturally. But I think there's not, you know, there's not enough of this to what I would call kind of dynamic target setting where actually you can bring value to the business in a variety of different ways. And it doesn't matter if you're not so good at one thing, if you're really great at another, you can still reach those milestones rather than having kind of fixed targets for everyone.

Love it. That's a huge insight for me because a lot of the work that I do is about the firm owners agreeing on a target that's generally achievable for everybody. Let's say 100 billable hours per month, which is great because it's only 25 week, five a day.

However, what I'm getting from you is that some team members will just never be able to hit that or get near that. But if they're offering some other value to the firm is look out for it and seek it out and understand it so that then you can agree with them some other KPIs that they might meet and what else they're bringing to the firm. Yeah, I think that's right.

I think as well, traditionally law firms have been kind of very laser focused on sort of tangible ROI in terms of bottom line figures. You know, we can see people bringing in costs. This is how it contributes to the bottom line.

But they have struggled a little bit more to see kind of more latent ROI in terms of the value of kind of brand awareness. You know, the value of actually being a really good person who raises team morale. You know, that's not as easy to measure.

And actually, that's where I think law firms have struggled to come up with KPIs. And it's like, if we can't come up with a KPI for it, then it can't be a KPI. We need a way of measuring it tangibly.

We need to be able to report every month on the exact numerical value that you've added to the business. And we can't do with some of these things. You know, there's just no way of quantifying it like that.

And therefore, it hasn't made it onto the KPI sheet. But they are absolutely critical skills to have. And you need people in your team who have those skills because without them, your team falls apart.

So you need a way of making sure you've got those people in the business who are supported, who are valued, who have a promotion structure, who are able to kind of hit the KPIs which best suit their personality types. But historically, that's not been something I've found a lot of in law firms. Yeah, interesting.

Interesting. Okay, so secret number one is really get into the world of each employee, find out what they want to succeed at, you know, and create a position for them that has them be able to thrive in what they're good at and obviously what's beneficial to the firm rather than fitting people into a mould. So that's more about retaining talent.

But what about attracting? Come on, give us something really meaty here because as we know, it's often very difficult to fill a position in a law firm. Yeah, well, actually, I think they're very strongly linked. In fact, I do a lot of public speaking around this topic and I often link kind of attraction retention to talent as a bit like dating.

It's almost like I think a lot of the reason why attraction is often not as much of the problem actually with law firms, often they get hundreds of thousands of applications for jobs because it's a very competitive market. But actually, are you attracting the right people that you can actually sustain? Because it's all very well, like attraction is a little bit like, you know, going on a first date with someone. It's like, oh, they tick all the boxes.

This is great. You know, you've advertised one thing. They've met those criteria.

You look like a match made in heaven. But actually, you know, what happens then on like date two, three, six months down the line is you realise that actually they're not, the other person isn't delivering on the things that they promised in the job description or what they said initially. And actually, I think a lot of times law firms are advertising for people that they want who have skills that they want, but they haven't yet got the business to support.

And that's why those people often end up leaving because they're attracting the exact person that they want because they've got that, they've got the job advert right. And they've brought in someone, they know what skills they need in the business because they've got a gap, essentially, in that skill set in the business. So attract those people, but then wonder why they leave.

And it's like, because you haven't got the business environment to support that kind of person with that kind of skill set because you've got these fixed parameters or, you know, you've got the diversity angle but not the inclusion angle. It's one of those things. So I often think that actually, if you do think, right, we want to attract someone who's got a bit more of a creative skill set, for example, like creativity and kind of time recording are basically the exact antithesis of each other.

You know, creativity needs endless time and space. You know, it cannot be done on a time frame. So actually, you know, law firms advertise for these really creative people and they hire someone who's got a great creative skill set.

And then they say, okay, your fee earning target is six and a half hours a day. And you wonder why that doesn't work out. So there's a real mismatch, I think, sometimes between the talent that's being brought in and actually the business that's there to support that.

So I think businesses, before you even think about what talent you want to attract, you actually have to look at what you're going to be able to support because it's like the law of attraction. The energy that you put out is the energy that you bring in. So actually you will bring in the talent that you want if you are already embodying the values that those people have.

So if you want, you know, really highly engaged people who are creative or entrepreneurial, you have to already have that energy within your business. You have to already have that model operating and people within it who are thriving in that way. You're not just going to be able to bring in the kind of creative entrepreneurial person to fix, you know, a whole lot of people who don't have that skill set and don't operate well and aren't working in that environment.

So I think the first stage really to attracting people is you have to already be embodying the values of the people that you want to attract. That's kind of the first key point, I think. Yeah, interesting.

Interesting. And what I like is what I'm getting from what you're saying in the undertone, which is actually there's plenty of amazing candidates out there. Is that what you feel? Yeah.

Oh, there's loads. I mean, I have loads of them. I have loads of people all the time coming to me saying, you know, I'm looking for a job, you know, but I can't find a firm that I really think is going to kind of suit my skill set and who's aligned with my values.

And, you know, they've got really great CVs and they're brilliant to talk to, like brilliant attitudes, which I think is actually more important, arguably, than what's on their CV is people's attitude towards learning and how quickly they learn, how well they learn, how motivated they are to learn. And I come across brilliant candidates all the time, but, you know, there just isn't the kind of, they're scared of working in private practice because they judge and they hear the stories about mental health and hours, and they don't want to go into that type of environment. So there's plenty of great candidates about.

But actually, there aren't a lot of firms that will necessarily support the kind of skill set that they have and kind of really embody their values. This has absolutely opened my mind to what's really going on. All I'm ever hearing from my clients are, I'm now working with three, four, five recruitment agents and very rarely do they ever have anybody who fits this role.

What do you think is going on for them? I think it's a combination of things. I mean, we've already talked about a few issues. I think sometimes the job, the way they're advertising and where they're advertising is also sometimes a problem.

You've got to meet your candidates where they are. So actually, yes, LinkedIn is a great way of advertising. And yes, you can go through recruiters who generally do have a decent body of candidates, but they're not necessarily kind of hitting their kind of outer extremes as well.

I mean, I think social media is a great way of reaching people if you want people who are a bit more creative and who are kind of a bit more motivated entrepreneurial, for example, then actually using kind of wider platforms of social media is a great place to reach them. I also think as a firm, you know, making sure that you've got a clear set of values and a USP, because I think the problem is a lot of private practice firms are just seen as much of a muchness. You know, if you're in the silver circle and you do corporate and commercial work, it's very hard to distinguish between a lot of those firms, which makes it hard for candidates to have a really clear set of values, a really clear USP and what your goals are as a business and the sorts of people that you want on board.

And again, already showing that you have those people on board role models for those people I think is really important. It's inspiring people. People want to be inspired by the businesses that they work for.

And actually, I think that's where law firms have struggled a little bit historically as kind of being really inspiring businesses to work for. But I actually think those that do, you know, those that are purpose driven, those that are, you know, marketing themselves in a different way are being really authentic to who they are, are actually getting loads of great candidates with exactly the skills that they want and need. So I think where law firms are falling down a little bit on finding candidates is perhaps because they haven't figured out their own identity, which means that candidates are struggling to identify them as well.

And that makes people less interested. Yeah, really interesting. I've got a series of law firms I'm working with now.

And I'd be interested to reach out to you to say, look, do you know anyone that might like this role here? Because my clients, you know, they're not your usual law firm owners. They're entrepreneurial. They're taking, you know, courageously taking action and building great firms and ensuring that everyone has a great lifestyle within the firm.

And yet some of them really struggle to find ideal candidates. So, yeah. Do you operate as a recruiter of sorts? Yeah.

I mean, I don't have a recruitment company, but certainly I do. Yeah, I do match make candidates with firms. If firms come to me with a role and I've got a candidate, I know someone who's able to fill it and absolutely I can.

I can match make in that way. But yeah, I do do that if I find a really good match. Nice.

I might well be in touch with you myself because I'm in the process now of buying my first law firm. Wow. That's exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. Just because my clients have had so much success by implementing everything that I've been, you know, shown them has made me think, well, why don't I just go and do it myself? So I'm at the beginning of this huge mountain to climb now.

OK. Yeah. So what's the third secret you'd say to attract and retaining high-performing client, high-performing team members? One we've said so far.

We've said, valuing your candidates or your workforce on an individual basis. So assessing their unique skill sets and building an environment that caters to them. And one we said is make sure that you know your own identity and are embodying values of the people that you want to attract.

Nice. Yeah, very good. I think the third one is actually being forward thinking in terms of your approach to work because a lot of candidates now are looking for businesses which are going to survive the great AI takeover because people are worried.

People are worried for their jobs and people are worried that actually they're going to join a firm and in a couple of years they're not going to have a job or, you know, it's quite a worry at the moment in the job market. So I think firms now who are the most attractive are ones which have a clear technology strategy in terms of how they are utilising technology to A, make lawyers' lives easier because also junior lawyers, particularly juniors now, are more savvy to using tech and actually they don't want to then go into a role where they're going to be hand sifting through boxes of paper because that, you know, they know much better they don't have to do that anymore. So actually having firms that have kind of a future-proofing strategy where I think candidates can feel safer about what the future holds for them because job security is still a massive issue with the cost of living as it is in the UK and all sorts of things going on with the government which are worrying from a financial perspective.

I think people are looking for that kind of job security and from that comes, you know, having faith in your employer that they've got a strategy to make sure that there is an ongoing job for them as well. So I think it is that, but it's also just, again, it's about wanting to work for inspiring businesses who are really understanding what's going on in the market and providing a workplace which is safe but also kind of makes your job enjoyable and where you're not kind of doing things the old-school way. So I think kind of having a forward-thinking approach and a good strategy around technology and how you're going to embrace the huge changes that that's potentially going to make is something which candidates are looking for as something that's increasingly important to them when you ask what they want in a business.

So I think that's also a really key element. Yeah, brilliant. That's a really great thought.

I would never have thought of that, that candidates are actually looking for a law firm that's keeping up with and implementing technology effectively because it gives them the confidence that that law firm has a real future to give them the career progression they're looking for. Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant insight.

Yeah, I mean, there's another point there you mentioned around career progression, which is also important. I mean, this junior generation coming through are really unimpressed with the idea of kind of waiting 10 years to become partner and kind of working the way up that ladder really slowly. So I think having clear avenues for career progression that aren't 10 years long are really key as well.

And potentially that involves kind of having slightly different roles, you know, hybrid roles or different job titles throughout that actually, you know, makes people feel like they are being continuously driven forward. They are continuously growing even if, you know, you can't make partner immediately. You know, I think having those alternative ways of climbing up the ladder to make people feel like they are avenues for progression constantly.

And it's not just a case of you can only apply for a promotion once you've been at the company for three years and then you can't apply, you know, it might be an associate and then you can't apply for senior associate for another three years and then you can't apply for partner until three years after that. You know, that's a kind of unattractive career progression strategy. And that is something which candidates are asking increasingly into the, you know, what is the career progression outline? What does that look like? How quickly can I progress? That's another key question.

Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. And so coming back to embodying the values, you know, you need to be making sure that your existing candidates are getting the career progression they're looking for. So get into conversation with them and ask them outright.

Are you getting the career progression that you want? You know, and based on that feedback, you'd know whether people are genuinely happy or not, whether perhaps in the back of their minds they are in conversation with other law firms and with other, you know, recruiters as such and, you know, for a new position because you can easily lose key team members if you're not in their world and really listening to what's going on for them, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's also really having, really having good managers in place who can really read people because actually there's a lot of quiet quitting going on, which is where people kind of switch off way before they actually leave. Actually really being able to tap into people's psychology and understanding when, you know, they're not thriving, when they're not producing the same quality of work as they used to when they're not being as productive as they used to be and picking up on that really quickly and addressing what that issue is.

Because if you let that go on for months, you know, one day they're just going to hand in their notice and it's too late because they've already completely detached and disengaged. So even at that point, if you go back with, oh, you know, we can give you this promotion or we can give you this pay rise or we can give you this change of role, it's too late. By the time they've quiet quit for six months, they've just completely lost interest in it.

So I think really making sure you've got really good managers who are really good people and can kind of spot these issues in your workforce before they even spot it themselves because a lot of people just kind of think, oh, this is work. You know, it's normal to be kind of disengaged and kind of bored and, you know, this is just something I have to accept. But the problem is that when people get to that point, inevitably, that's when they're kind of their interest is going to be piqued by other recruiters and other people who come and say, actually, this is going to be really exciting and really rewarding and that's when they go.

So I think really catching people early and making sure like any drops in productivity, any change in kind of attitude or, you know, you've really got to pick up on that quickly and say, right, you know, what's going on here? How can we make this change immediately before people are completely detached from your company? Yeah, I love it. Absolutely brilliant insights. I mean, and this is really useful for me, you know, for the day that I'm leading a law firm as well.

So I'm loving this. And one of the challenges I have found, though, is even though this is the way to go, the problem that most law firms for law firm owners is that they're too focused on billing, their own billing doing work for the clients that they've had for years. And so as they have other heads of department recruit new team members and they build up a big team, they're not available and they're not there to even have these conversations and to be in the world of the team members and the employees.

So would you say that law firm owners need to really focus on decreasing their number of billable hours so they can be actually available and there for their team members? You mean from their own perspective as in their own targets? Well, yeah, it's like, well, it's like they've had these same clients, Mavis and Dorothy, that they've done their legal work for five, 10 years and then they keep contacting them to do more work, more work. And because they're the ones that's always done the work, they always assume, well, I have to keep doing the work otherwise we're going to lose them as a client, right? Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly difficult to work both on the business and in the business. You almost need that separation.

Because actually from a perspective point of view, it's really hard because you almost can't see the wood for the trees when you're the one doing the fee earning. You can't actually step back and take that bird's eye view that you need to take the whole business and see what's going on. You need to give yourself that space.

That is an entire role. Like the CEO role is an entire role in itself and it's a tough one. It covers many, many different things.

If you are also that and you are also lead case handler, fee earner, main point of contact for clients, it's almost impossible to do both those jobs effectively because to be good for your clients, you have to be able to be responsive, you have to be able to be really engaged with their case, really engaged with them and actually trying to do that and also stepping back to keep all of the plates spinning that you need to keep spinning in the business is incredibly difficult. You do need to have that space, that separation where you can actually do the running of the business and other people are actually running the individual components of the business. Otherwise, you're going to burn out as an individual but also your business is going to suffer for you doing too many parts of it.

You've absolutely hit it on the nail and this is what I've discovered is the biggest problem facing law firm owners and partners is that they are too focused working in the business instead of on it and so that's why I wrote this book. I don't know if you've heard of it, Delegate Now to Supercharge Your Profits. Yeah, I haven't heard of it but it's a great principle.

I think also that does kind of come down to as well having that one trajectory because I think the problem is with that kind of having the partner line kind of go in one direction I think is actually you've potentially got people who have made it to partner level who perhaps don't want that responsibility for the business and actually, they would rather just be lawyers and actually, if that's what they want, keep them there. If they're brilliant lawyers then let them bill, let them handle clients, let them bill work, let them go to court, let them do what they're brilliant at and actually stop trying to make them also work on the business if they're really great in the business. People who really want to get to a management point where they want to manage people and they want to be more operational, they want to run the business, great, let them fly up that trajectory and let them work on the business instead of in the business.

So, you almost need to have these kind of, that's why you need to talk to your people and understand where their skills are. Because there's not one partnership that fits all people. There are people who want to be senior but they want to work on different things and you need to allow for that which the traditional partnership role doesn't really do.

And you just work your way up until you get to the top and then you're basically managing the business and you're trying to do 10,000 things. There's no one who's ever trained to do because you don't have that training. You know, you go from fear and great fear and suddenly it's like, oh, well now you can be rewarded for being a brilliant lawyer by having this business role and this management role which no one's ever trained you for and we don't even know if you have the skill set to do.

That's it. Yeah, you're speaking my language here. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, love it. I know I could talk to you till the cows and donkeys come home.

Yeah. Fantastic. I will put a link in the description of this for where people can find you.

Generally, what's the thing that you can help law firm owners and partners with? Yeah, I think, you know, my passion is really in getting great people to work with great businesses and really finding that ideal match. So I think something which I do a lot of is training and consulting around actually amending your culture to make sure that you are really attracting the sorts of people that you want to attract and making sure you're already embodying those great values and then also how to market yourself to the candidates that you want, how to reach those people because quite often they don't necessarily just come through LinkedIn or through recruiters. There are people which are operating in different environments, particularly through different aspects of social media, different platforms and how to really reach those people and make that perfect match between candidate and firm.

Nice. Chrissie, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here and yeah, I look forward to speaking again when the time is right. Great.

Thanks very much. Cheers, bye. Bye.

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