The Legal Ladder: From Paralegal to Managing Partner
As part of Lawyer Monthly’s new series on law school, recruitment and careers in the legal sector, John Oxley, Barrister at Vardags relays an educational piece below on the journey from paralegal to managing partner, and everything in between.
Lawyers often have little idea what those above and below them in their firm actually do. Yet from paralegal to managing partner is a complex path, with each layer shouldering very different responsibilities.
As a paralegal and junior lawyer, your life is almost entirely dominated with fee-earning work, with some additional admin at the sides. Your priority is hitting targets and ensuring that your cases run smoothly, without much concern for the wider progression of the firm. As a partner or managing partner, you will be providing complex, high-level legal advice, but this will often be just a small part of your day. With seniority, one is much more likely to be concerned with the health of the firm and how work is generated. Even at large firms, where accounts, HR and marketing are vast, autonomous departments, leading partners should be acutely aware of what is going on across the business.
For many lawyers, this means a change from what they trained for and are good at – the law – to a range of new skills in business. Concerns about firm-wide utilisation, client generation and fees recovery are generally not the worries of junior fee earners, but should demand a lot of time from those on the higher rungs of the career ladder. A partner or managing partner, you has to think not only about what needs to be done by the end of the day, but also where the firm is set to be in five or ten years’ time. Some very well regarded firms have imploded and collapsed as a result of failing to stay on top of business basics such as cash flow and debt.
With this comes responsibility for the case work of everyone around them. Paralegals, trainees and NQs will largely be only concerned about their own performance – making sure deadlines are hit and their work is satisfactory. A lead fee earner or partner will have this worry for their whole team, ensuring the entire caseload remains on track and that everyone is pulling their weight and properly engaged.
The senior lawyer has to be a manager of people too – and brilliance at the law is no guarantee of management capabilities. Lawyers who reach the top generally do so because of their own ability and motivation, yet suddenly find themselves motivating and managing others. In this position the lawyer is challenged to become a leader. One has to find a way to inspire a team to pull together, and to get along, coping with all the personality clashes and personal issues which can come up from time to time. This people management can be one of the things lawyers find hardest, yet it is essential when in a position of seniority. It is vital to learn how to motivate the team when the odds are stacked and morale is slipping.
Trust in the team goes hand in hand with this. Lower down the legal ladder, there is an easy way to ensure things are done and done properly – to do them yourself. As a partner, or managing partner, this is no longer possible. There simply is not time to micromanage every aspect of a case, and to do so would impose unreasonable fees on the client. Senior fee earners have to learn what and how to delegate in a way that maintains quality and ensures that everything is done by the deadline and to the highest possible standard.
At the top of the legal ladder, one is likely to have far more freedom than at the bottom, though this can be a double-edged sword. Rather than simply following the instructions of a more senior lawyer, as is the paralegal’s lot, a firm leader has to prioritise and manage a wide-range of case and business objectives. This does mean more freedom in how to tackle and timescale problems, but equally means the pressure of fitting it all in.
The daily lives of managing partners and paralegals are hugely different. As part of the management team, the days of bundling and engrossing are over, replaced by providing high level advice and case strategy, whilst also managing your team and various aspects of the business.
There are, of course, some constants. For lawyers of every level there is the pressure of having to get things done well and on time, whether that is for a client, or for the firm. Dedication and intelligence is required from all levels of a law firm, even if new promotions mean new challenges and new skills being necessary. The challenge as an ambitious lawyer is how to manage your own performance to make the most of those changes.
