Strategies from a Legal Practice Development Expert

Law Firm Growth Podcast Episode 17: Hiring and managing superstar employees with Molly McGrath

Last week we met with RJon Robins and Discussed the Six Stages of Law firm Growth.

Narrator: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Law Firm Growth podcast, where we share the latest tips, tactics and strategies for scaling your practice from the top experts in the world of growing law firms. Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Let's get started.

Jan Roos: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Law Firm Growth podcast.

Jan Roos: I'm your host, Jan Roos, and I am here today with Molly McGrath. Thanks for coming on, Molly. Thank you for having me. So I'm super excited to have Molly here. One of the things that's come up on a lot of the other podcasts, especially with some of the people that have been really successful and make moving a lot from sport is it seems that most of the successful firms have hiring figured out.

Jan Roos: On the contrast, we've run into some conversations with people, especially that working with solos is there's this thing called the hero syndrome, Where a lot of people end up holding onto things for too long and surprise, surprise. Most of those people are in the same place one year, three year, five years from now than they are today.

Jan Roos: So I was super excited to find Molly while I was [00:01:00] searching on the internet. She is the founder of hiring and empowering solutions. And as the name implies, she's been working with hiring and empowering law firms with their next hires. So thanks again, Molly. I usually like to start the show off with a bit of a background story.

Jan Roos: So sort of an interesting business you found yourself in. Could you tell us a little bit about the journey to how to got here?

Molly McGrath: I love when I get this question about my backstory and how I got to where I am today. 22 years later, I'm always fascinated about how I got to where I am. So Long and short of it is when I moved from New York to Denver, I applied for a position in the Denver Post way back when people applied for positions in the newspaper.

Molly McGrath: And I was fortunate enough to land in a national organization that did technical legal and software training for attorneys, by and large, estate planning attorneys across the country. And one of the positions that I applied for was a practice development advisor. And I was [00:02:00] up with a national coach way back when when coaching wasn't even a street term, especially in the legal space.

Molly McGrath: And we started a practice building program for small solo law firms across the country. And every 90 days, we'd go into a conference and speak in regards to business building, team development, all the typical best practice approach things that attorneys are so very hungry and desperate for. And the conversation came up about Building a team always it always leads to it's so difficult to find good employees a business would be great But for employees struggling with hiring firing retaining Quality superstar employees and we started really breaking this down and sharing Our experience of what my mentor and my quote unquote boss who owned a law firm as well As was a national coach in Spain So I'm going to start with you, Mr.

Molly McGrath: Speaker, walking through our process of how we built his practice and the [00:03:00] mindset, the emotional intelligence, the clarity around roles, goals, and him opening up his practice and sharing with me his vision and values that he wanted in regards to building his business. And we'd speak on this, like I said, across the country.

Molly McGrath: We'd get off stage, I'd walk to the restroom, and I would get bombarded by law firms across the country saying, How did you learn how to do this? Talk to us about how we can clone you. How can we find that it really, truly became, how can we find a Molly? And from there, I realized that there was a niche and there was absolutely a desperate need as well.

Molly McGrath: And spent the time to unpack the process. That we went through. And then it evolved into creating a hiring business because I just would support attorneys across the country, give them tips, techniques, help them with their hiring for new employees, and then [00:04:00] also how to reengage in, empower their existing employees.

Molly McGrath: And from there, it really was the breeding ground for hiring and empowering solutions.

Jan Roos: All right. Awesome. Well, that's super interesting. Similar kind of question always comes up. I think the, the first thing that most people, and I'm sure this might be similar for you, Molly is, is, you know, were you a law firm owner at some point?

Jan Roos: And I'm in the same boat as somebody who kind of came into this from a different place, but you've probably at this point worked with more law firms and hiring organizations than almost any attorney on the planet. I'd probably guess, but that's super interesting. So Bring it back to sort of the early days, a bit of a change of context, because I mean, typically when people were working with this coaching organization, the hiring was kind of a facet of everything that came up, but somebody who might be coming today could be coming from totally different set of circumstances.

Jan Roos: So what do you think is important for people that are starting the hiring journey? What do you need to know besides the actual goal that needs to be made of hiring someone?

Molly McGrath: That's the one [00:05:00] biggest mistake that I see law firms and business owners making is they get seduced by the resume So they'll typically do their sourcing and their vetting process based on resumes So they immediately go to skill set knowledge the typical resume indicators and I always say don't judge people by that because People that are putting their resumes out there.

Molly McGrath: They're not professional copywriters. They're not professional editors They don't know how to sell themselves to speak into the specific needs of the job posting And we always lobby really really hard to use our five minute phone interview process It's posted on our website for anyone who wishes to use it and talk to people and hire from a place of emotional intelligence from mindset from confidence because Those human traits, if you will, are very, very difficult to train, unless you're a professional psychologist on staff and [00:06:00] or coach.

Molly McGrath: It's going to dump a tremendous and endless hours into developing the confidence and the mindset and the leadership and the drive and those attributes that that really define a key superstar employee regardless of what position they fill and also that we always say that they come with batteries included so you're able to retain them because we all know that the average hire, there's many different studies, the latest that I saw, the average hire cost you 46, 000 and if they're not around six months later and you have to go through that process, obviously it becomes quite expensive.

Jan Roos: Yeah, no, that's super interesting. And, you know, a little bit more than most people would probably bargain for when they're, you know, setting up their, they're setting up their job posting on Indeed or whatever it is. But yeah, you mentioned superstars, which I think is a really interesting concept to kind of talk on that a little bit.

Jan Roos: When you've got somebody who's maybe starting to make the first hire in their organization, I usually [00:07:00] recommend somebody get that as an, I guess, at what point would somebody start need to really look for a superstar employee?

Molly McGrath: Great question. We talk about this in both of our books extensively in regards to when to hire and then how to hire and who to hire.

Molly McGrath: So I always tell people when I get, I get phone calls all day long, when you feel yourself that you're beginning to resent the practice, you feel like you own a job. You feel like you're working so very hard, but you can't get off of that hamster wheel. And we all know it. It's typically in your gut when you're starting.

Molly McGrath: frustration, you're strung out, you're stressed out, you're exhausted, you're missing family events, you're working seven days a week. That's when, you know, it's time to hire. And I know everyone's going to say, this is the number one pushback that I get. Well, I'm not getting a paycheck. So how the heck am I going to afford this person?

Molly McGrath: And there is a way because you're leaving so much opportunity and money on the table with your [00:08:00] existing clients. Potential new clients in addition to opportunities that you can't get to to building the business So when I get that phone call You have to check in with where you're at and check your temperature And if you feel like you can't catch your breath and you're constantly in the weeds and it's groundhog day every day And you feel like you own a job That's your number one indicator that you need to hire and you just need to acknowledge that and accept that and really You be able to name it.

Molly McGrath: And then from there, there are many resources out there to figure out how you're going to afford them and the how to of going about hiring. But I always say that's your number one step of when, you know, it's time to hire. It's not based on your revenue. There's so many steps. out there when you're making X amount of dollars, when you can pay, you know, you have three times their salary and savings.

Molly McGrath: It's all hogwash. You have to pay attention because if you can't get off the hamster wheel and you can't get [00:09:00] out of the administrative assistant and wearing all the hats, you're never going to get to that pivotal point of getting over that financial hill to be able to afford them.

Jan Roos: Yeah, that's a really interesting point, too, because it's something that comes up when we're speaking with attorneys about their marketing situation, like a lot of the times, the stuff that you'd read in a study or maybe a business school textbook or something like that, you know, if you're dealing with a publicly traded company, they're talking about the the year or the quarter, but the reality for small businesses and law firms are no different as you know, a lot of times it's a month to month, week to week, or even day to day.

Jan Roos: And, you know, tough pill to swallow if you're living in that groundhog day situation to wait until the end of the calendar. Sure. But yeah, that's a really interesting point. I was, so we've got somebody who's, who's made that decision. They're deciding to go ahead and cross the Rubicon and you could probably, yeah, there's, you know, when you have the Superman solo attorney or superwoman they're kind of wearing all the hats.

Jan Roos: So what direction do you generally recommend people go in as far as who to hire out first and how to start building that out?

Molly McGrath: I have an [00:10:00] awesome exercise that is so very simplistic and highly, highly impactful and effective. What I tell people when they call me and I finally get their buy in, they say, Okay, I'm waving the flag.

Molly McGrath: I get it. I'm ready to hire. What I have them do is track everything they touch for an entire week. Just take out an old school yellow legal pad and write down everything that you touched in order of introduction. Client. Answer the phone did client emails met with the client in the conference room reviewed a marketing piece of content Whatever it might be And look at that for five days monday through friday.

Molly McGrath: That's it You don't have to time stamp it not how much time you spend on it not interested in that And then from that place what I tell them to do Is circle the things that are sucking the life out of you that you absolutely despise that you have to do Answering the phones or it might be copying and scanning documents and putting them into uploading them.

Molly McGrath: For some people, if you're highly [00:11:00] entrepreneurial, not very analytical and technician, it might be drafting documents and doing more of the paperwork. It'll tell you where your power is and where your unique ability and what things are. Typically people are in two camps. It's either about the paper or about the people.

Molly McGrath: And from there, if you keep it that simple and see where you really need help, if you keep it that simple, Do a lot of the personality assessments, a Colby assessment, strength finder. And if you don't know which one you gravitate more towards, maybe invest in taking some of those assessments out there.

Molly McGrath: And it'll tell you if you're more of a people in relationship person, or you're more analytical and more of a paper person, the misconception is that when people are entrepreneurs and they own a business, well, of course you have to, especially in the personal service industry. You're a people person, you very much, that's what you're selling.

Molly McGrath: It's relationships. I'm so amazed at how many attorneys are really are not, especially if they're doing more of the transactional work and they're not litigators in the [00:12:00] courtroom, et cetera. And sometimes it might be that you do need to hire a people person, somebody who's going to be your director, first impressions, your client service coordinator, dealing with the clients.

Molly McGrath: And then you can just be. Be the brain surgeon that walks in and do a lot of the issue spotting in the legal ease. Or it might be that you're just as outgoing, extrovert. You want to be with the people. You'd rather smash your head through a wall than work on documents and computers and paper. Then you know that you need to hire a paper pusher, a processor.

Molly McGrath: And it really does come down to that simple exercise in the beginning. And then you can get into the nitty gritty of job descriptions, etc.

Jan Roos: Yeah, so there's basically no answer, you know, blanket. It's kind of a situation where the best answer for you is the person who's hiring. So I wanted to ask you a question about something that comes up here and there, but the person that can't let go of the work.

Jan Roos: So a lot of, I mean, I don't want to make any sort of psychological [00:13:00] assessments of people, but there seems to be a certain type that's of the opinion that they're the best person to do a given job. I'm sure this comes up all the time for, for you, Molly. So what kind of thoughts do you have around that, that sort of thing?

Jan Roos: And maybe the I guess the mindset around potentially letting go of something that's critical to your business.

Molly McGrath: That's a phenomenal question because I'd like to say that every business owner, they're fearful to let go of control, which of course is the truth in the beginning until you could get proof of concept.

Molly McGrath: I hired this person and I see that they have their eye on the ball of their roles, their goals and all areas of the business that I've hired them to accomplish and now I really can let go. So I go, okay. Focus on generating revenue opportunities, etc. I always say regardless Everyone's in that position in the beginning, especially if it's your first hire if you're more than analytical paper pusher person I do tend to see that they white knuckle and hold on a little [00:14:00] bit longer because they're very Analytical and they want to see everything especially Especially in a law firm before it goes out the door.

Molly McGrath: My piece of advice and what we lobby really hard for in our team empowerment academy is to walk arms with your new employee. And if you have a structure where you are meeting with them every week and you're following some of the strategies that we have in our book too, in regards to outlining their roles and goals and making certain they're very successful.

Molly McGrath: Specific measurable and this is a part that people say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do that. But the part that they miss is circling back around and maybe having a daily huddle or a two or three time a week huddle where the employee can come back and they can present to you what they did and they can come with proposed solutions and or you can review and give them your input or two millimeter shifts or pivots that you see or where they may have missed something.

Molly McGrath: That's the biggest. [00:15:00] Piece of really having the confidence to let go control when your new hire can come to you and show you over and over and over again That they have understood what your standards and your goals are number one But number two that when they're coming to you and saying hey, why are we doing it this way?

Molly McGrath: Here's some suggestions for efficiency Or can I add some insight where I think that we can improve or enhance the system process? You Whatever it might be that we're doing when attorneys hear that and they start to hear terminology like our clients and start to hear this new employee or existing employee using terms like we, that's when the confidence starts to get there because they see that the employee has made the shift from employee mentality to an entrepreneur mentality where they see it as they're just as much as their business and no longer just look at it as a job.

Jan Roos: Yeah, well, I'll tell you this. [00:16:00] Just hearing that, Molly, I'm starting to think how much my life would be easier if I had a couple of those people in my business, but kind of folding back to one of the things you mentioned earlier about sort of hiring for fit, what do you think is the interaction between stuff that you're doing as a law firm for potentially setting these as norms or onboarding?

Jan Roos: Versus how much is that is what people are bringing to the table before even make that hiring offer. So say a little bit more about that. Do you think that that entrepreneur mindset is that something that you're kind of selecting for or is it something that you can more or less build in somebody that you're hiring?

Molly McGrath: Hmm, great question. So I think they're typically people have that they just don't know that they have that so when you go through that interviewing process and you use some really powerful interview techniques versus just interviewing from the resume that we talked about a little bit earlier, and you start to ask some powerful [00:17:00] questions and the way that they handle certain situations.

Molly McGrath: And you take different fact patterns, very much like you do in your case studies and your law firm and interview from that place and ask them situational things, how they would handle it, how they would go about it. You will see indicators. That a person really has an entrepreneur mindset that they are a leader and or a driver and they may be aware of it or not aware of it.

Molly McGrath: Nonetheless, if they have the DNA and the hard wiring of it, and then you have a culture of onboarding and training and a culture. coaching, then you can cultivate that and up level it for them. But I do see it is quite honestly, black and white of people that just want a paycheck and have employee mentality and somebody who does have that superstar entrepreneur mentality, but it all depends on you as the.

Molly McGrath: entrepreneur as an interviewer to have very powerful questions [00:18:00] and to have active listening and to know what you're looking for. Like I said, when you ask some questions about certain situations, whether it was problematic or troublesome or crisis situation, how they handled it, or if it was a situation that gave them a blank white spot.

Molly McGrath: Page to be able to bring their creativity and their ideas for creating systems process Whatever your needs are and your pain points be really aware of them You know, we have no processes. We have no intake process for we have no follow up process for pncs Whatever your pain points are Bring those situations to them and just ask them really powerful questions and pay attention to the wording that they use.

Molly McGrath: And it, like I said, it is black and white in regards to the difference of employees that will give you one words and they won't elaborate. They won't get excited about it. They won't be engaging about it versus an entrepreneur who will, even [00:19:00] their body language will shift. They'll sit up straight.

Molly McGrath: They'll start to get more expressive with their hands and they'll start to go on a soap box, if you will, about how proud they are of something they've done in their past or something they've been chomping at the bit that maybe wasn't available in their previous positions, that they're just desperate and really hungry for an environment to unleash them and to give them that freedom and opportunity and permission to be able to be part of the creation of something.

Jan Roos: Yeah, that's super powerful. And to kind of think about the, you know, these qualities of a superstar, it's funny because I think on some level, you'd probably be able to hire whoever you want. You know, there's just seven ish billion people in the world. You can probably find them. There's enough superstars to go around.

Jan Roos: But do the priorities change at all? Because I could imagine, you know, the more, I guess the less process, maybe the less mature businesses, probably the smaller, the more mature. You know, the smaller law firm is, it's probably more important to kind of have [00:20:00] that all rounder superstar type person. Does that priority ever change, especially as a law firm grows?

Jan Roos: Like, is there a point at which you no longer need superstars? Like you could technically have a SAP person, or is that just not something, you know, is that something that we're accepting that we don't have to accept at any time?

Molly McGrath: Oh, that's a great question. As you grow, as you evolve and build your business, not everyone needs to be a superstar.

Molly McGrath: And I do talk about this quite often. For example, you may have a bookkeeper or somebody who is more a silo. Their job is just to do bookkeeping, payroll, et cetera. Those positions, they're not typically superstars per se. They're very, And they're very, very knowledgeable and very good at what they do. But for definition purposes, a superstar of somebody who is able to be a jack of all trades, so to speak, and be able to pivot on a dime as you're growing a business and resources are.

Molly McGrath: And you might be the marketing coordinator one day and the client [00:21:00] service coordinator the next day. That's the essence of a superstar. But as you grow, not everyone needs to be a superstar. You're very, very clear on your role. That you need them to fulfill. So, so often when we debrief with attorneys after they do interviews, they'll say, you know she didn't really have a pizzazz.

Molly McGrath: She didn't feel like she was very good at multitasking. That's a word that people sling around so often, but then when we anchor them back to the job and what they need and what their revenue potential is available for this person, taking it off the entrepreneur's desk, what the KPIs are, and you start anchoring it to data and you start.

Molly McGrath: anchoring it to the job descriptions and what the key performance indicators are, make a decision from that place. And it's quite okay that they're not a quote unquote superstar. Typically this superstar is needed as in the infancy stage of the business when you're building it. So often we hear from people, I [00:22:00] was hired as X and a weekend.

Molly McGrath: And I now I am X, Y, and P, and that's when a superstar says it and they say, I love it. I feel honored that I'm able to be here at the ground floor building this thing and they don't resent it. So when you don't have a superstar, they say, I was hired to do. Blah, blah, blah. Or they say I wasn't hired to do that.

Molly McGrath: I'm out of here. And that's really the distinction. So as you grow and you start operating from organizational charge, you start having employee handbooks and start to really be standardized and systematized. Not everyone's going to be a superstar, but that's fantastic. Cause it means you have very clear job descriptions.

Molly McGrath: You have very clear needs and standards. And they can literally be plunked into their track and just stay in their own lane and focus there.

Jan Roos: Yeah, that's awesome. And there might be some non superstars out there. I don't know if they'd be listening to this podcast, but [00:23:00] there's a place for everyone in this world we live in.

Jan Roos: So I wanted to ask you about a couple, you know, somewhat emerging trends, and I'd probably consider these a little bit related and how they might affect to these different things we're talking about. about getting things done, building a culture, that sort of things. And that would be virtual and slash or remote work and potentially hiring people part time.

Jan Roos: How did these factor into some of the cultures that you might've been brought in with, or you've spoken to a different people that you're working with?

Molly McGrath: The virtual conversation is there's an absolute groundswell around that more and more as we move into the digital age. The virtual model works very well.

Molly McGrath: Again, if you are talking about the silo perspective that they're just going to be drafting documents or maybe doing bookkeeping or accounting where their job description is clear, concise, well communicated. And like I said, in a very straight lane, if you will, that model works very, very [00:24:00] well for, and many firms I'm seeing that they are gravitating towards that either as a permanent position.

Molly McGrath: So the example. Is bookkeeping in or drafting? And in addition as a backup plan should somebody go out on maternity leave they quit or Accidents happen what have you that model works very very well for transactional As well part time i'm not a fan of part time positions And I say this all the time to people if it's going to be part time then be very very clear That they are just again doing that silo model because what I find for the firms I've been talking to for 22 years when they talk about problematic employees never being able to Get consistency or get ahead The common denominator is part time employees.

Molly McGrath: And here's why I'm, because if say, for example, it's an eight hour work day and you're just want to bring someone in for four days or four [00:25:00] hours in a day, when they come in tomorrow, they're spending basically a good chunk, 50, if not 60 percent of their time trying to catch up on what occurred while they were gone yesterday.

Molly McGrath: So they're never in a place of being able to plan their work and work Their plan on a path of growth, they're a part-Time employee is always, always in the role of playing catch up, and they're just dealing with whatever the emergency or fire is in front of them. And from our perspective and from what we have seen in all the years of working with law firms, that's a common denominator of why people can't get ahead and cannot get traction in their firm.

Jan Roos: I'm kind of hearing some stuff that, that's actually reminding me of things that have happened in my business in the past. And it's a very, very good point. You know, you hear these things that all these studies about switching costs and whatnot, and I can definitely connect the dots on, on how that could, but, [00:26:00] you know, obviously getting the experience that you've had is that's a pretty validation, a big validation theory.

Jan Roos: So my, we're kind of coming towards the end of the time here. You've alluded to a couple different resources as we've been having this conversation. And I think if anyone's interested, could you kind of share maybe what the next steps would be for someone who might be looking to go on this journey?

Molly McGrath: Indeed. So a few resources that I'll just throw out there for tips and techniques is number one, we've been blogging since. 2008 on everything in regards to hiring, firing, team empowerment, leadership, communication. So I would highly recommend that you join our blog. It's free hiring and empowering solutions.

Molly McGrath: com. And if you go there, you can just join our blog and get it in your email box. Always about value creation in all things hiring and empowering and leadership amongst your team I would also recommend as you begin the [00:27:00] hiring process that I spoke about a few assessments and the two that are pretty easy and cheap To implement within your firm, especially if you have a bigger firm is number one the kolbe.Com and taking the a index and we can have that link in the bottom of the show notes as well That assessment's 50 bucks.

Molly McGrath: We've been using it for over 20 years. You can read all the different organizations and companies across the world that have been using that assessment and that is to Test how people problem solve and how they take action When it comes time for fight or flight and they're backed against the wall. So really will in a nutshell, tell you about if people are more highly analytical and more of a processor and paper type of candidate, and, or if they are more of the people candidate and they are more of a follow through and a quick start, phenomenal assessment, like I [00:28:00] said, 26, Questions 50 bucks.

Molly McGrath: You can't go wrong. You can have your existing employees and absolutely the entrepreneur will take that to be able to build a balanced team that compliments everyone on the team based on their roles and goals. A second one that I would recommend and these are the two assessments by and large that we use in all of our vetting and hiring process The second one is the gallop strength finder And that is strength gallop.

Molly McGrath: com and there's a couple assessments and books and things you could do there But you want to take this strength finder. It's 1999 It measures their top five strengths. There's some that are measured. They're 30 to 100. I think it's overkill You just basically want to get it And again, there's many resources to tell you if they're a good fit and I would have everyone in the firm take that as well.

Molly McGrath: I'd be happy to offer to anyone here [00:29:00] that's listening today. If they want to take those assessments and shoot me over their scores, I'd be happy to offer a complimentary call to go over them with them.

Jan Roos: Oh, that's super generous. And then what would be the best way for them to get in touch, Molly?

Molly McGrath: They could email me at [email protected]

Jan Roos: Law Firm Growth podcast.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Law Firm Growth podcast for show notes, free resources, and more head on over to casefuel. com slash podcast, looking forward to catching up on the next episode.