Parenting Your Baby Lawyers

In this episode, I’m going to be talking about parenting your baby lawyers. Yes, I know that the term "Baby Lawyers” can be considered controversial, even offensive to some new lawyers. And if you are offended by that term, please know that I use the term, not with any level of condescension.    A baby lawyer simply means the individual does not yet have the knowledge, skill, or context that a seasoned practitioner naturally acquires over years of practicing law. There's a lot that goes into lawyering! Part of the reason why I think the term baby lawyer is so accurate is that if you think about the lifespan of an infant, when you give birth or when you or your spouse gives birth to a child, a new infant comes into your household and that child is being developed, cultivated, it's soaking up everything that you have to give him or her so that they can become a member of society. In this episode we discuss: Having “baby lawyers” learn as quickly as possible. Training and developing an associate. How you are experiencing the perceived shortcomings of your young attorney. The challenge of teaching nuance to a young attorney. Risks associated with developing “baby lawyers” in your firm. Levels of guidance, structure, and responsibility that you will have to have toward a younger attorney. Allowing space for being themselves and how it will help their growth. Challenges faced when parenting a “baby lawyer”.   Allison Bio:   Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.    Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.  In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.   In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers.  She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money.  Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.  Contact Info:   Contact Law Firm Mentor: Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor     Snippets   00: 09: 02 (46 Seconds)  I'm not a big proponent of kind of drowning the baby on the first day or letting the baby sit in the corner sheltered in a bubble for years before you start giving them things to do. There needs to be a balance there. But what tends to happen is that the lawyer who owns the law firm, and has hired on the baby lawyer, starts to get triggered by the baby lawyer being, frankly, a baby. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that when we hire people for our businesses, there is often a significant fear that the person we hired is not going to be good enough, not going to do justice for our clients, not going to get good results, not going to make us look good.