Essay for organizational behavior class
Individual Reflection Paper
Organizational Situation:
The law firm Smith Jones LLP affirmatively takes a laissez-faire approach to the success of its new lawyers, its associates, based upon its hierarchical and historic employment work force practices. These work force practices necessarily lead to compliance failure for most of the associates. Smith Jones is one of many prestigious “big law” firms in the United States. The law firm has 15 offices around the United States with over 650 attorneys. The firm is staffed with administrative employees, associate attorneys and partner attorneys. An associate attorney has a yearly billable hour requirement as mandated by the firm. This requirement must be met by the associate in order to retain their employment and for the associate to matriculate into higher ranks and eventually be promoted to partner after six to ten years of employment. If the associate exceeds the billable hour requirement, then the associate will be financially rewarded and will also learn valuable and specialized lawyer skills from the work experience.
At Smith Jones, the associates are placed into specialized law groups that delegate work to them. The new associates do not control if or when they are issued work and Smith Jones does not specifically coordinate workflow. An associate may not be assigned to work for a high work volume “rain making” partner or the group they are assigned to may not be particularly busy with work. Consequently, associates may not be able to bill the required hours to be promoted up the ranks of the firm, develop as an experienced and skilled attorney and the firm will eventually terminate the employment of the associate. At the same time, the firm encourages and desires associates to “hustle” for work and bring new clients into the firm. New associates do not have any work history and no client contacts making the ability to bring new clients into the firm highly unlikely. If the associate is not able to find new work, the firm looks on that associate negatively and either no one in the group wants to work with that associate because the associate does not have acceptable levels of work product or the associate is not viewed as hustling hard enough. But, the employment system purposely creates the condition of the associate having no control over the workflow. If the associate is not receiving an adequate work flow, the associate will then have to make a critical decision on whether or not to remain at the law firm with the hope that the work flow situation will change or leave the law firm because the associate needs the work experience to develop specialized lawyer skills early in their career and be successful in “big law.”
Analysis:
In my personal experience, the law firm is keenly aware of the complete unfairness of the current system and the law firm partners will admit in private that the current law firm system, with its work flow design limiting work for associates but holding associates accountable for their work billable hours, to be adversely impacting the talent pool of their associates. And, that work flow design directly influences an associate’s ability to be promoted within the firm, adversely influences an associate’s ability to acquire skills to practice law, and is extremely inefficient for the law firm. However, the firm’s official position is that it is not willing to make any changes to the current system because the current system has always been the status quo. The law firm needs to ask itself what its true objectives are with associate development and examine if those objectives are being sufficiently served with the status quo.
In the article Selection Bias and the Perils of Benchmarking by Jerker Denrell also in week two, the author explains about the phenomenon of the blinding light of success. Selection bias is a distortion in a measure of association due to a sample selection that does not accurately reflect the target population. Selection bias is a difficult trap for a law firm to avoid because good performance within the associate workflow system is rewarded by survival. The sample of associates and partners currently in the law firm, obviously contain more successes than failures, otherwise they would no longer be with the law firm. The partners that have found success within the law firm who are in positions of management, were lucky enough to be able to successfully navigate the current system. Those partners have no personal incentive to advocate for change because if the system worked for them, then why would the system need to be changed? They also likely view their success as a barrier to entry for others and therefore they experience a built-in employment protection system.
Recommendation:
Given the preceding analysis, I recommend that the law firm completely revamps its associate work system by creating a workflow coordinator that is solely responsible for delegating work to associates. Simply stated, the firm needs to drastically change the status quo. If the firm had a workflow coordinator, this would be a completely different system than the current system. It would take out the inefficiencies and unfairness of associate promotion and development and put the onus on the firm to give work rather than having the associate hustle for work. However, there could still be potential problems with this system. If there is an economic downturn or there are significant departures of “rain making” partners, there may not be any workflow to be coordinated with the associates. This will cause the associates to deal with the same difficult realities of the previous system.
Individual Reflection Paper
Organizational Situation:
The law firm
Smith Jones
LLP
affirmatively
take
s
a
l
aissez
-
faire
a
pproach to the success
of its
new lawyers, its
associates
, based upon its hierarchical and historic employment
work force
practices
. These work force practices necessarily lead
to compliance failure for most of the
a
ssociates
.
Smith Jones
is one of many prestigious “big law” firms in
the United States. The
law
firm has 15 offices around the United States with over 6
5
0 attorneys. The firm is
staffed with
administrative
employees
, associate attorneys and partner attorneys. An associate attorn
ey has
a
yearly
billable
hour requirement as
mandated by the firm. This requirement must be met by the
associate in order to retain their employment and
for the associate
to
matriculate into higher
ranks and eventually b
e promoted to partner after six to ten
years
of employment
. If the associate
exce
eds the billable hour requirement
,
then
the associate
will
be financially rewarded and will
also
learn valuable
and speciali
zed lawyer
skills from the work experience
.
At
Smith Jones
, the associates are placed into specialized
law
groups that
delegat
e
work
to them
.
T
he
new
associate
s do
not control if or
when they are issued w
ork and
Smith Jones
does
not specifically coordinate workflow. An associate
may
not be
assigned to work for a high work
volume
“rain making” partner or the group
they are
assigned to
may not be
particularly
busy
with work.
Consequently, a
ssociate
s
may
not be able to bill the required hours to
be
promote
d
up
the ranks of the firm
,
develop
as an
experienced and skilled
attorney
and the firm will eventually
terminate the empl
oyment of
the associate
.
At the same time, t
he firm
encourages and desires
associate
s
to
“
hustle
”
for work
and bring new clients into the firm.
New associates do not have
any work history and no client contacts making the ability to bring new clients into
the firm
Individual Reflection Paper
Organizational Situation:
The law firm Smith Jones LLP affirmatively takes a laissez-faire approach to the success
of its new lawyers, its associates, based upon its hierarchical and historic employment work force
practices. These work force practices necessarily lead to compliance failure for most of the
associates. Smith Jones is one of many prestigious “big law” firms in the United States. The law
firm has 15 offices around the United States with over 650 attorneys. The firm is staffed with
administrative employees, associate attorneys and partner attorneys. An associate attorney has a
yearly billable hour requirement as mandated by the firm. This requirement must be met by the
associate in order to retain their employment and for the associate to matriculate into higher
ranks and eventually be promoted to partner after six to ten years of employment. If the associate
exceeds the billable hour requirement, then the associate will be financially rewarded and will
also learn valuable and specialized lawyer skills from the work experience.
At Smith Jones, the associates are placed into specialized law groups that delegate work
to them. The new associates do not control if or when they are issued work and Smith Jones does
not specifically coordinate workflow. An associate may not be assigned to work for a high work
volume “rain making” partner or the group they are assigned to may not be particularly busy
with work. Consequently, associates may not be able to bill the required hours to be promoted up
the ranks of the firm, develop as an experienced and skilled attorney and the firm will eventually
terminate the employment of the associate. At the same time, the firm encourages and desires
associates to “hustle” for work and bring new clients into the firm. New associates do not have
any work history and no client contacts making the ability to bring new clients into the firm