Career Talk

March 2007 Issue

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Effectively Managing Internal Teams

Just as project teams are assembled in law firms to handle complex or long-term legal matters, the team approach can also be used by legal administrators to coordinate the work of legal support staff around key operational projects. Directing a team is rarely as easy as it may sound, however, and it comes with its own set of challenges. It takes advanced managerial skills to balance the efforts of both individual members and the group as a whole so they are productive and efficient.

This dual-level supervision is perhaps the most demanding aspect of leading a team. Administrators must know the strengths of each staff member and understand how to leverage those abilities so that the team can function as a cohesive, successful whole. Here are some suggestions for building and managing capable legal support teams.

Structure the Team for Success

If you have decided assembling a team will best serve the interests of an administrative project, first look at the various support tasks involved and determine the skills and level of experience participants will need. You must also decide if the entire team will handle the project from start to finish, or if certain members will participate only at specific stages. For example, a new information systems implementation may require the full attention of an IT manager, and operational support personnel and interim IT project professionals may be brought in by the administrator only at certain times. Likewise, an important new case the firm takes on may require you to strategically redeploy secretaries to support attorneys most affected during the duration of the matter or clerks trained to assist paralegals with document production during the discovery phase.

Staff members’ skills and current workloads will be decisive factors in creating a team. Both short- and long-term needs should be reviewed and gaps identified between existing staff availability and skill level and project goals. If a shortfall is foreseen, it may be necessary to bring in legal project administrative professionals.

Lead without Micromanaging

Once the team is assembled, you must lay the groundwork for cooperation by explaining individual roles and the group’s overall purpose. Team leaders need to offer guidance to help the group decide how it will communicate and solve problems. As the project moves forward, however, your role will typically involve less day-to-day management, and team members should be encouraged to interact directly with each other with sufficient autonomy to make decisions on operational issues.

The challenge for any team leader is knowing when to step back and when to step in again when necessary. There will be occasions when you have to intervene and help smooth out interpersonal conflicts or procedural glitches. By monitoring the team’s activities throughout the project, you can ensure deadlines are met and also quickly deal with difficulties. In this capacity, you can let the team know when outside factors, such as a change in trial date, will impact the work.

Keep in mind that part of any leader’s role is motivational. By publicly recognizing individual contributions and acknowledging the team’s efforts—particularly during periods of intense activity —you can foster team cohesion and ensure that the group is working at its peak.

Keep the Team on Track

When a group of people work together in a high-pressure situation, there are bound to be a certain degree of miscommunication and other obstacles. Your job as team leader is to see to it that such events do not build to a crisis point. Rather than imposing solutions when there’s a setback, you should encourage the group to devise better processes for sharing information or resolving conflicts.

One way to help a struggling support team is to gather the members together and provide an opportunity in which everyone can listen and be heard. Once the issues are out in the open, you can lead the group in a brainstorming ways to work around differences or create better processes.

Managing legal support teams can be challenging. However, by defining the goals of a project, matching talent with tasks and providing steady leadership, you can tap the power of teams in service of your firm.

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