New Hire: How to Find Good People

July 27, 2021 - Law Practice Management

You know what they say: good people are hard to find. And, if you run a business, you know that it’s true.

The most difficult hurdle to law firm growth is staffing up. Managing people is definitely tough; but so is hiring the right people in the first place. The good news is that hiring well can be a learned skill, too, just like becoming a good manager.

If you’ve never hired before, or screwed it up in the past, here are some tips for getting it right the first time . . . or the next time:

Build a candidate profile. Most lawyers just draft a job description (or have someone else do it), and that’s that. But, that doesn’t give you a complete picture of what you want; it’s just a snapshot of what you need. You’re more likely to find the perfect candidate if you have a notion of what that person looks like. Drill down to specifics.
Go back to school. Hiring from your alma mater makes sense if you’re local. But, even if you aren’t, or it’s not, posting job descriptions through local colleges, universities and law schools is a great way to get vetted candidates. And, law schools, especially, are more than happy to work with you to send you an excellent candidate, if you reach out.
Choose wisely. Hiring is not about getting as many job applicants as possible — in fact, that’s what sucks about hiring. So, make an effort to get the targeted candidates that you really want. Start by building a candidate profile. But, you can also test attention to detail by requiring certain components in an application, e.g. — a writing sample; if it’s not submitted, the job applicant is dropped. Another way to thin the herd is by utilizing filtering tools in the job search engines you select.

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If you need to find you need to find the right people, we’re the right people to talk to.

The Wyoming State Bar offers free law practice management consulting services through Red Cave Law Firm Consulting.  To request a consult, visit the Wyoming State Bar’s law practice management page, and start running your law firm like a business.