4 Easy Ways to Build a Team-First Culture — and How It Makes Your Business Better

On the finish of the day, a boutique regulation agency is a small enterprise, which implies that along with being an legal professional, a founding companion can be a small enterprise proprietor who should undertake a collective mindset. Our agency works as a result of we work collectively; in case you’re seeking to degree up your small enterprise, you ought to be able to put on a number of hats and depend on full-team collaboration. At Wigdor LLP, we prioritize collaboration each in and out of doors the courtroom. Listed here are 4 sensible methods we foster a team-first culture — and why doing so is essential for any founder seeking to run a regulation agency like a enterprise.

1. Host occasions outdoors the workplace

Breaking away from the workplace typically ends in breakthrough considering. Informal, off-site environments assist our workforce calm down, which yields extra artistic considering. It additionally fosters stronger relationships and seamless collaboration as soon as we’re again at our desks. When folks get to know one another past their roles at work, they’re far more practical collectively in high-stakes moments.

It was over a welcome lunch at a Mykonos-themed restaurant that one among our senior associates workshopped with the advertising workforce to craft an attention-grabbing quote concerning the implications of a brand new regulation that they have been then capable of pitch to a regulation journal — all springing from a dialogue recapping the newest actuality TV shenanigans. And we all the time combine up the groups at our annual summer season tennis competitors to stability talent ranges and have discovered that working collectively on the courtroom interprets to extra easy collaboration as soon as we’re again on the workplace.

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2. Make team-building occasions do double responsibility

We’re fast to acknowledge when one thing can serve a number of functions. Persevering with authorized training, often known as CLE, is a requirement in our subject, however I encourage our attorneys to take these periods in teams — and ensure to host at the very least 5 per 12 months to make group studying accessible. We all the time host the periods over lunch as a result of nobody ever appears to say no to a free sandwich.

We see the significance of maximizing return on effort, so we prefer to take the continuing education content material that our attorneys work so laborious on and repurpose it. A one-hour-long assembly might begin as a team-building occasion, nevertheless it lives on as a number of weblog posts on our personal website as thought management items that we will pitch to nationwide enterprise publications and as social media content material, all serving to us broaden our agency’s digital footprint and set up our staff as consultants.

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3. Guarantee every case is a workforce effort

At Wigdor, every case is assigned to at the very least one companion, one affiliate and one paralegal, permitting joint problem-solving and recent views. Whereas some attorneys like to take care of full management and resist working along with their workforce, our regulation agency is totally different. The extra minds deliberating solutions, the higher — whether or not it is a regulation agency or a small enterprise.

Paralegals and associates are within the trenches with companions, actively taking part within the case from starting to finish. We additional promote collaboration by internet hosting month-to-month standing conferences so attorneys have perception into what different groups are engaged on, igniting concepts to profit their very own litigation. We have now excessive expectations for everybody on the workforce and reward laborious work. We problem youthful authorized minds to take part extra, from oral arguments to authoring authorized information items. We couldn’t do the work we do with out the total workforce taking part.

Considered one of our latest affiliate hires joined Wigdor particularly searching for the alternative expertise of their earlier agency, which was totally distant, not collaborative and felt very isolating. The affiliate needed an atmosphere the place they may roll up their sleeves in particular person, engaged on large circumstances and studying from a extra synergetic workforce. Since becoming a member of, they’ve had a full case load and a number of alternatives to hitch precedent-setting issues, which is one thing that may maybe be reserved for companions at different companies. This mannequin of cross-level collaboration, the place variety of thought is valued, is a robust device for any small enterprise chief who desires to develop a assured, engaged workforce.

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4. Encourage younger leaders to find their strengths

Considered one of my favourite issues to do is to assist early leaders lean into their unique skills. The hot button is to get them speaking (taking them to a one-on-one lunch normally works) till you uncover their affinities after which nurture these abilities into experience. When a senior affiliate talked about their partiality for deposing witnesses, I acknowledged that their interrogative acumen and evaluative listening abilities would make them the perfect particular person to steer the paralegal interview and hiring course of — and we have constructed our strongest paralegal workforce to this point.

With regards to paralegals, we rent them for two-year engagements to make sure they get full publicity to the authorized course of and higher put together them for regulation faculty. As soon as on the agency, they all the time have a seat on the desk, actually. After we head to courtroom for a trial, a seat on the plaintiff’s desk is all the time reserved for the paralegal who has assisted on the case. They typically spend months researching the matter — generally even serving to to draft statements utilized in a briefing — and get to see their work utilized in motion at a listening to. Providing hands-on alternatives to junior members, whether or not it is a paralegal at a regulation agency or a first-time supervisor at a brick-and-mortar retailer, makes them really feel valued and permits them to see how their laborious work contributes to the workforce’s success.

It could be my title on the door, however my agency would by no means prosper if I attempted to do all of it by myself. Prioritizing workforce constructing is one of the best ways to enhance worker happiness and encourage collaboration, and collaboration is vital relating to small companies. Whether or not it is a scavenger hunt in Grand Central Terminal or structuring a cross-functional case workforce, growing these situations that foster collaboration will set your small enterprise up for progress.