Why is professional development so often limited just to the lawyer?  When you consider the critical skills needed to compete in today's workforce, law firms really can't afford to overlook the importance of developing key competencies for employees who touch their most valuable asset, the client.

This extends beyond the lawyer.  Case in point:  Today's legal secretary typically supports three attorneys who may each generate a half million dollars in revenue.  These are essentially three distinct, revenue-generating business enterprises that the secretary supports, and each represents considerable income to the firm.

The secretary is responsible for assisting the attorneys in managing their client relationships and, in this role, often represents the first line of communication with the client.  Effective communication requires verbal and listening skills, adaptability, the ability to solve problems, maintain confidentiality and deal appropriately with difficult people.  Developing relationships with clients and truly understanding their needs may begin with the lawyer, but it also involves the secretary who must work diligently to understand client concerns and help to develop creative, efficient and responsive solutions.

Legal secretaries play a significant role in delivering exceptional customer service, and it's crucial that they grasp the importance of developing an external focus on clients, a key performance indicator for law firms.  If you believe this intangible, unconscious process happens by osmosis, think twice.  To enhance the effectiveness of client service, professional development is essential, and it must be strategically aimed at those who are on the front line serving the needs of clients.

Driving Performance Improvement
When a law firm invests in professional development for employees, it demonstrates a sound commitment to strengthening its competitive advantage.  Professional development also serves as an important link to improving overall performance and enhancing client service, which is important to law firms in meeting their bottom line objectives.

What are the desired outcomes of professional development?  At a very basic level, professional development provides the training needed to broaden and cultivate a diverse set of skills required by professionals.  It drives performance improvement by building the skills that support the mission and goals of an organization.

When employees are informed about the firm, understand its mission and are empowered through training, they will achieve higher levels of skill and ultimately achieve improved levels of service.  At this level, professional development becomes strategic, representing an investment that can be tied to real business results.

Launching a Successful Program
Fostering client service to cultivate new business opportunities and improve revenue can provide concrete results.  By integrating a professional development program with these objectives into the overall education strategy of your firm, you can deliver education that has impact.  But to achieve these goals, law firms must direct this education to the attorney and secretary, both of whom are needed to build effective workgroups and team synergy, communicate effectively and successfully manage client relationships.

Untrained employees who lack the desired skills to be effective with clients will not succeed without a program designed to instill an understanding of the firm's business priorities and the importance of exceptional client service.  With such a program, these individuals have the opportunity to develop the critical skills necessary to meet client needs.  This is also a key strategy for engaging employees, creating loyalty, and keeping them satisfied with their work environment.

Developing the Professional Skills
Attorney development is prevalent in law firms, but similar programs targeted at secretarial staff generally don't exist.  This is odd, given the information at hand.  Below is a list of typical training topics for attorneys.  Many are directed toward "rainmaking" - an important area of development for attorneys that focuses on growing business by expanding existing client relationships and prospecting new ones:

Business development

Client development and relationship management

Working collaboratively to develop effective client service teams

Personal communication and listening skills

Effective negotiation

Professional conduct and ethics

Public speaking

To address the challenges secretaries face in their work environment, the following sample topics are uniquely targeted at this group's professional development needs:

Cultivating a professional image

Time management

Service excellence

Effective team work

Problem solving and implementing solutions

Business writing

Implementing a Staff Professional Development Program
To launch a professional development program for secretarial staff, you must first decide who will take responsibility for owning and implementing the initiative.  For most organizations, this is where Human Resources steps in.  Some law firms are forming coalitions between HR and IT to leverage both departments' resources and skills in delivering professional development training to the firm's secretaries more effectively.  Whatever direction you take, the goal is to develop a framework that provides training for improving client service, and it should deliver knowledge and increase skills sufficient to enable secretaries to perform effectively at high levels.

To deliver professional development for secretarial staff, a program development plan is needed to guide the process.  Addressing these six important components will help move your planning in the right direction:

Determine the optimal specific outcomes of the program.  Establish what business need you will address and tie this to your desired results.

Get management support for staff development.  Without it, your program will never get off the ground.

Decide what course offerings will enhance knowledge and skills in specific areas.  Include training that will target the interpersonal skills needed to support client service.  If you purchase the content, take the time to really understand what you are buying and what return on investment to anticipate.  Good training content doesn't have to be expensive.  Conversely, not everything with an inexpensive price-tag is a good value.

Be realistic about the amount of time you're asking employees to commit to training.  Limit courses to one- and two-hour modules, if possible, keeping in mind that training must adapt to the work environment of the secretary.  Also keep in mind that some learning can be accomplished in a single training session and other topics require extensive study.  Stage sessions so attendees don't burn out, and give them time to implement new skills in their daily lives.  Experiencing success, even in small doses, helps create and renew enthusiasm for additional training and learning.

Determine how much time you can commit to staff development by assessing your current talent pool for delivery of training.  One challenge will be to identify internal resources that are available and capable of delivering soft skill professional development training.  Until you have this in place, you may need to rely on outsourced training.

Start where your secretaries are today, and establish new expectations to ensure success.  How you market your program is important.  Your message must have clearly stated objectives, and it should be positive.

Taking the time to tackle each of these components before launching your staff development program is well worth the time and effort, and it will enable you to implement a highly successful program that delivers tangible outcomes.

Realizing the Benefits of Professional Staff Development
In addition to delivering important business results that impact the financial bottom line of the firm, there are other benefits to be realized by implementing a staff development program.  You will establish best practices (i.e., an approach that works) for improving the firm's organizational strategy and performance.  This model can be duplicated in other areas.  You will also have a viable program for developing the professional skills of your secretarial staff that will serve to attract and retain a loyal workforce, ultimately creating a strong sense of value, providing a more defined career path and serving to boost their general morale.

If the benefits of professional staff development are that far-reaching, then what are you waiting for?  If you agree that the legal secretary plays a vital role in representing a firm's values to its clients, the next time you think about the impact of professional development, consider the significance of extending this important education beyond the lawyer.  You won't regret it.

About our author . . .

Theresa Lundquist, President of Theresa Lundquist & Associates, Inc., designs customized skill assessments, education, and performance management strategies for law firms in the U.S. and abroad.  She also delivers professional staff development workshops on leadership, communication and time management, in addition to providing seminars on adult learning principles for trainers.  She can be reached at TM.Lundquist@GMail.com.