Why Most Law Firm Hires Fail in the First 90 Days

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Are you a law firm owner looking to hire new talent? In this episode of Maximum Lawyer Live, host Tyson Mutrux explores the challenges law firms face when hiring and onboarding associate attorneys. Tyson discusses the need for documented standards, regular feedback, and patience, highlighting that onboarding is a long-term investment in future capacity—not instant output.

Hiring for law firms can be challenging, but it is important to understand onboarding and to have realistic expectations. This includes the concept of output versus capacity. When you hire new attorneys, you are not seeing instant capacity or input. You are buying future capacity. A new associate needs time to understand your core values and both learn and unlearn certain skills and tools. As a law firm owner, it is important to give someone the space to grow into a successful attorney.

Defining success is very important when hiring new attorneys, especially if you want to retain your talent. It is your responsibility to define what success looks like. Think about what it looks like at the 30, 60 and 180 day mark. If this is expressed to your new attorneys, you can work with them to ensure they meet that mark. It is also important to not move the goalpost at all. This can really lead to new hires losing confidence in their ability to do well, causing them to leave to find other opportunities. 

Take a listen!

1:19 Expectations of Onboarding
7:08 The First 30 Days in a New Role.
14:14 The “Why” Behind Firm Processes
18:55 Hiring Experienced Attorneys
22:04 The Importance of Defining Success 

Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Tyson Mutrux

Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

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Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

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Tyson Mutrux 00:00:01 Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer Live. I'm Tyson Matrix and today I'm talking about something that we're, most of us probably go through at some point in our careers. Unless you were just a true solo and you plan on staying a solo forever and that is hiring associates. it is something that I understand that it completely get. It is a very difficult process. for some of us, it, I think actually, I think for most of us, I think actually finding good talent, is really good, but that's actually not finding the talent's not what I'm talking about today. Today I actually want to talk about the, like, what reasonable expectations are when it comes to onboarding the attorneys. That is where I think there are a ton of failures. and it's it's really a failure expectations. That is, that is probably the biggest part of this, is that there is a massive failure of expectations. And I think and that's why I wanted to talk about this today because. I talked to a lot of attorneys, and the hire does not work out for one reason or another.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:19 And it usually happens very quickly. And that's usually because, or at least the seeds are planted very early because the expectations of the hiring attorney, are way too high for for what they should expect of the associate themselves. Okay. and if you just think if you think about, just generally not just in law firms, but actually 50 in all companies, 50% of employees leave within 18 months. Okay. So think about that. 50% of employees leave within 18 months. That's an insane number. That is an absolutely insane number. So the deck is already stacked against us. It really is. And so, our onboarding has to be on point. It really does. we also have to have the right expectations of of our of our people. And one of the fundamental fundamental misunderstandings comes down to output versus capacity. Okay. So what you're doing is you're actually buying future capacity. You're not buying instant capacity okay. You're not you're not buying instant output. Yeah. You're you're hiring for something in the future.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:48 That's a really important thing when you when you are hiring, you're not hiring for something. It's like you're hiring an answering service. And the answering service is going to be able to instantly get up and going and start answering the phone, right? that's not what you're doing. You're hiring an employee that has to learn about your core values, and it's got to learn about your systems, and they've got to learn about how you do certain things versus how they used to do certain things. So they have to unlearn some things. There is especially when it comes to attorneys, usually we're having them do a lot of a lot of things, okay. We're having them do. They're responsible for many things. just if you think about like one of our litigation attorneys, like they're they're having to, you know, if they don't have any experience where they're having to learn this for the first time or they're having to learn it the way we do things, okay. How do you how do you conduct depositions at our firm? we do ours a very specific way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:48 That's why we put them through a very specific deposition training. how do you deal with discovery like we do? I'll give you a prime example. The way we might deal with discovery versus another firm like we. There are some people that have joined our firm, and they had worked at a firm where you object to everything. We take a completely different approach. We say that is a waste of time. It's completely a waste of time. We object to the things that only we think are objectionable and otherwise we don't object to it. That's that's our approach. Okay. Other firms, other attorneys take a completely different approach. I don't believe in pointless flights. It's just it's just the reality of it. let the other firms waste their time doing those things. That's that's the whole thing for me. so. But. So they have to learn depositions. They have to learn written discovery, negotiation skills, pleadings. So actually, like, pleadings, practice writing, you know, responding motions for summary judgment, like, there's all these other, all these different things that they have to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:57 That were okay. And I just named a few. There's many, many more. And to fully expect them to step into a position because I it's funny, I talk to so many people and they're, they're asking, well, how long is your onboarding process. And the just like the basic stuff, it's too late. Like the just the very basic learning systems learning going through our our company manual, which is on Zo people like all of that. It's two weeks and I can tell you who who because we can see we can track progress on each one. Like who's gone through it and all that. we have like a whole onboarding, like, course, that we put people through. If you, if you, you if you've kind of skipped through it, I know you're not going to do well. Yeah. But the to me the I would say the longer the better, but the deeper into the two weeks that they go, the better. Usually so. But I talked to several attorneys where they are, you know, one day of onboarding and I just it's crazy to me that you would expect someone to, on day two, go straight into start doing the job.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:15 Like, how is that even that's not even possible. Like if you think about yourself like stepping into a completely brand new role, new people, you don't even know everyone's names, right? You don't know everyone's names. You don't know what their positions are or what they do. All of that. And then you're expected to do a job on files that you are just looking at. You're trying to get up to speed on. like imagine. So whether you do, you know, personal injury or estate planning, whatever it is. But imagine you're handed a file for the first time. Okay. You're handed a file. It's not not from the beginning. You're getting it in the middle of it. Like, how long is it going to take you to get up to speed on that file? Okay. And then multiply that by the number of files. And that's just learning the file. That's not even learning how to do the work. That's how it's learning how to do. Like actually what's on that that that matter.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:08 So if we kind of start with that basic fundamental understanding of output versus capacity. So when you when they first joined the firm, their output is going to be very little. Okay. So you're going to have they're going to have capacity later. But their output is going to be very very very low. Yeah. at least it should. So if you kind of think about okay, what is like what is reasonable in the first 30 days. Right. What is what is something we can actually reasonably expect them to to know. All right. So learning firm systems and then sort of the case flow. Right. Understanding how though. So whether it's case law or matter flow. Right. If you're if you're doing transactional stuff. So if it's if it's a matter like just understanding the flow is a really important part of it. So sitting them down and saying, hey, this is how we do things from start to finish, just and actually having the conversation. And you should really if you can mix in face to face and virtual and so all audio visual in person.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:23 so reading like all there's several studies on what helps people retain information and mixing in those different things is really, really important. but so, so learning for systems and case flow. understanding the decision making structure. All right. so and I, I encourage you to flatten the decision making processes, structure as much as you can, meaning letting as many people at the lower levels make decisions as possible really encourage that. But that's another topic for another day. But really understanding the decision making structure, that's part of what they should be figuring out in the first 30 days. And by the way, if you want to create some sort of template out of this where like, okay, you create your own like checklist, okay. Did they do this in the first 30 days? Feel free to go ahead and do that because I'm giving you what I think is reasonable. And you can sort of use this as a benchmark for for whether or not they're on track. also in the first 30 days, observing how, like what a, what quality, like how quality is defined, like what makes, what one for us, what makes a good case, but then also what what means like how do we know we're doing a good job on this file, right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:41 So how does that define. And they should be asking lots of questions. Okay. So if they're not asking lots of questions. You need to be prodding and encouraging them to ask lots of questions. sometimes people see what's coming at them and they kind of freeze. So it's not that they don't have questions and they don't want to ask questions is that they can't think of those questions at the time. So give them a notepad or tell them to write it on their computer and say, listen, I understand that you might have questions as you go. I want you to write all of these down so we can address these in between. Okay. And you don't have to be doing all the training, by the way. I think you know that by now, but, so someone else could be answering these questions, but, just make sure that they are writing these down because they're gonna have questions. And if they're not writing them down, they're not going to remember to ask them. So make sure that that's important.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:34 So a structured onboarding is really important. I can't stress that enough. Having a structured onboarding really, really important to success. Okay. So those are some of the things to to really understand the first 30 days. Okay. And I think if you are someone here's some unreasonable expectations in the first 30 days. having them make decisions on their own. Probably unreasonable. Okay. Unless it's a really basic decision. But having full, independent decision making in the first 30 days. Not reasonable. Okay. anticipating this is a big one. anticipating unwritten preferences. Okay. So anticipating that they're going to understand, what shouldn't be, should and shouldn't be done. Like the unwritten rules. You can't expect that. You just can't. and then here's the one you're going to hate to hear. I'm sorry, but it's true. Don't expect some sort of meaningful reduction in your work, in your workload. You are probably your expectation should be. You're going to have an increase in your workload at the beginning, and then it'll start to taper off over time in the 30 days.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:59 You should expect zero meaningful reduction in your workload. That's just how it is. Okay. And then what? So what should be happening in those first 30 to 90 days? And by the way, in the first reading, in the first 30 days, it's okay to hand them some projects and say, hey, work on these things and then you will supervise it. Completely reasonable to you because they're learning the job. As long as someone is looking over their shoulder and and actually say, no, we do things this way. or great job. Positivity is a really powerful tool, by the way. I use it on a regular basis. I also use it whenever I'm coaching and I'm talking about both coaching. You know, people in the guild, I guess in the, in the association, I almost looked up in the association. which given her we've renamed the guild the maximum Lawyer Association. The association? It's called the Association by Maximum Lawyer, actually. And, we'd love to have you, but, whether I'm coaching people in the association or if I am actually coaching one of our kids teams.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:12 Positivity. Very, very powerful tool. they use it in aviation to where they want to get. They get the confidence built up. That's what they want. Oh, you're doing a really good job there. Like, I love how you're keeping the plane level, right. There's, so you you highlight the, the positive things you're doing. So not the results. It's actually maybe looking at the product goals versus process goals. So you, you you complement the process and you highlight the process versus, you know, say oh you did a great job on that getting that settlement, you know. There's like what? The way you negotiated that awesome job. Excellent work. Like, so that's that's what I'm talking about. But back to back on track here. So what should be happening in those first, Or what when it comes to the first 30 to 90 days. that's where you're really getting into that supervised execution, where they're, they're doing these tasks and then you're supervising it. So they're they're starting to make some of these independent decisions.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:14 They're starting to do things, but it's still being supervised. Right. I think I think in the after about 30 days, you can start to see them draft some motions. You might even have them draft some very basic pleadings in the first 30 days. But like, especially if they've got years of experience, I think that that's reasonable. But still you're going to be supervising these. These are things you're going to be supervising discovery I think in the after about 3030 days. Of those 30 to 90 days starting to draft some discovery and everything, and then maybe sort of handle some narrow, pretty narrow, well-defined tasks. I think that that's reasonable. and this is where they're going to start to understand the why and not just the how. So here's why we do these things. And that way they can start to explain these things to other people as to why we're doing it this way, not that way. That is that's where they're really starting to get that deeper understanding. Okay. And that's where, that's where they're starting to see this is the this is the way we do things here.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:25 I think some still some unreasonable expectations in the first and 30 to 90 days is expecting them to do things fast. Things fast. expecting them to exercise perfect judgment on a file. and really taking over full ownership of files. That's not a reasonable expectation. they can take over a couple files, maybe, but really have to dip their toes into things. You're having them fully take over all the files. Not super reasonable at that point. Just not okay. And then I'd say, you know, after about around six months or so. So I think what you can start to expect then is competence within all the firm systems. Okay. you're still going to have some probably some errors, but you're going to have fewer rewrites, fewer corrections at that point. they're going to be able to routinely spot issues. So issue spotting really important. They're going to be able to identify those at around the six month mark. and then ownership of certain categories of work. So I can do this I can do written discovery, I can I can take that on I can take on depositions like, these are things I can do at this point.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:42 So you're taking on maybe not all of the role, but you're taking on certain categories of the role. So I don't think you're fully going to expect that they're going to be into all of those things at that point. don't at this point expect owner level judgment. Okay. I have one attorney who her parents own own. I own a big business. And so they she has a pretty good understanding, and she's had a pretty good understanding of that owner level judgment. But most people don't have that. Okay. It's just one of those things where, some never get it, but expecting them to have that same level of judgment that you have, it's not reasonable. Okay. It's just it's a it's a different view. I don't think you can really expect them to understand it. Six months that that risk management. You know what I mean? Where like on a personal injury case. All right. Maybe we shouldn't take on that case because, yeah, liability might be good, but our risk is really high on this.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:46 And here's why. so maybe not take that case or, you know what, risky case. But the upsides are really good on this. Liabilities. Tough. But you know what? It's worth taking it on just in case. I don't think you can expect them to have that those instincts at that point. So, and then another one is, you know, I don't think you should expect them to protect your margins. Okay. it's a little easier for them to spend that money. And so having them, by by six months, they're not going to learn. They're not going to know. Maybe we should spend money on this or not. many times people see the money coming in and not the money going out. So, they're not going to think to protect the margin, the margins. They're they're just not okay. All right. Let's talk a little bit about skill gaps versus expectation gaps. Okay. So this is a little bit different from what we're talking about. Because skill skill gaps can be different based on their experience when you hire them.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:55 Right. So this is this can be a little different. See what's interesting too is where I've struggled a little bit, if I'm being honest, is we hire people with experience and we expect the skill. So our expectation is high, but their skill isn't nearly as high as what we expect is what we were expecting. and I know I'm not alone in that, where, you know, if you've been out for four years, I fully expect that you have a lot. And you if you tell us we've had this on multiple occasions where they're in litigation roles, been doing it for four years. So my expectations are pretty high. But then the skill, there's a big skill gap. So we've seen that on several occasions. And so, that's, that could be a, that could be an issue and that's, that's more on us than it is on them, probably where we, we get to ask more questions. So, when some of the things you have to do is, you have to document your standards, okay.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:58 And then make sure where you model that for them and then you reinforce it. So you have all your standards documented, like, so, you use job scorecards and then you go into more detail when it comes to your, your office manuals and everything, and then you show them how to do it. Right. So you, you tell them what they're supposed to do, you show them how to do it, and then you watch them do it, and then you you correct any mistakes or you support any. You give them positive reinforcement whenever they do it. Right. So that's that's really how you should be handling those situations. Okay. That being said, so. One of the things I've kind of left out at this point is I, I had a I had a pause because I think kind of thing about Jason Self, what he talks about is, I think another one of the major errors that we, that we've talked about yet is that, the ability of the brain to build up, manage one thing at a time.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:00 And what we do is we throw all of these different things at the, at the person, and we fully expect them to just absorb it all. And and the more you can minimize how much you're throwing at them at one time, the better the more they're going to learn, the faster they're going to be learned. Okay. it makes me think about the Brene Brown quote for some reason, but the clear is kind, unclear is unkind. So, the clear, you can make it for them. The simpler you can make it for them. That's the kind way of doing things. The unkind way is you, you just you you have unclear messaging. You throw a bunch at them and, not the, not the best way of doing the thing. So, so if you have if you've noticed that you've had you're having associates leave, or if you're having to terminate associates. Okay. some of this may have to do with you're having moving targets. that creates a lot of anxiety and paralysis.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:04 Okay. It really does. If they've got they've got moving targets. The way the phrasing we use is you got to know where the goalposts are. Okay? So make sure they know where the goalposts are. Don't move the goalpost. That is a really, really important part of this. if you if there's role ambiguity, it is one of those leading, leading predictors of of early departure. It really is where if you if people don't know what they're supposed to do, okay. Or if they don't know what the targets are, they're probably going to leave. This is what's going to happen. Okay. So make sure you define all of that as much as possible. Okay. So make sure that you are taking the as you as the owner okay. Or whoever is in charge of the onboarding okay. They've got to take responsibility of defining what success looks like at the 30 day mark, the 90 day mark, the 180 80 day mark, and then thereafter. Okay. So you gotta have a training infrastructure.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:13 You're gonna have to have some sort of feedback cadence. So you have to have some sort of feedback loops built in. Okay. having those things is absolutely important. Okay. because I mean, failed onboarding and this is something you've got to take on as an owner. Failed Onboarding is a leadership failure. Plain and simple. Okay. If you don't have good onboarding, it's on you as the leader. Okay. So that's something that you need to take complete ownership on. Okay. All right. So if you think about it, if we're going to break down like the associate model okay. The mental model. Okay. So if you kind of think about, there's really kind of three stages. The associate sort of starts as, like as an observer. They're just in a room, that's why. So you really shouldn't expect them to do a lot out, but they're just kind of there. Okay. And then there's sort of like this assisted, operator where they're they're kind of helping out here and there, and then eventually they turn to the independent contributor.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:23 So there's really three stages. Each stage has different expectations. Each stage has different problems. but if you expect stage three behavior from someone that is in stage one that's on you, it's not on them, okay? That's on you. It's not on them. But so if you want instant relief of something, hire an independent contractor. And that's what that's what those types are for. But if you want some sort of long term leverage, you need to accept that short term friction, okay. You really have to understand that. And you have to have you have your expectations, right? onboarding and and really hiring is planting the tree. Okay. So you can have that later capacity. Okay. All right. that's all I have for you today. Hopefully you got something from this episode. Hopefully. I've shifted some of your expectations in a way where, you do a better job of onboarding and you do a better job of retaining your people. So that's my goal. But have a great week everybody.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:29 We will see you. Make sure you check out the Association of Maximum Audio. Com. Make sure you check out Becca's list to find out the best vendors and the worst vendors, and to find the best vendors for you. Go to Becca list. and hopefully some of you will join us out in Phoenix, where we've got the Phoenix mastermind. Make sure you go to Maxim lawyer Maxwell events.com. Sign up there. We would love to have you out there. It's going to be a great time. It's going to be, this is this may be the most, exciting one that we've done, at least for me personally. So, hopefully you made it out there and, so going back a little bit, stick out. But hey, week, everybody, we'll see you.