Does the firm apply settled criteria consistently in dealing with such issues as:

• engaging staff
• determining compensation packages
• selecting people for promotion
• dealing with underperformers?

Does the firm advocate for a performance culture? Does it do all that it can to allow team members to excel? How does the firm expect its lawyers to ‘buy in’ to a program promoting the meeting of financial targets.

Standards are hard to set and even harder to maintain within a professional services organisation. PTM assists law firms in establishing a sustainable culture of excellence.

Having established the criteria expected of its staff, how does a law firm best encourage its people to reach and indeed exceed expectations? Should each aspect of a team member’s overall performance requirements be incorporated into an incentive program? If not, then what is the basis for preferring some to others?

Is the firm’s incentive scheme sensibly weighted so as to balance the various behaviours it wants to encourage among its people? It’s one thing to promote the meeting of financial targets but to focus only on that measure will always result in cultural problems.

How does a law firm create a performance incentive scheme that doesn’t result in the corrosive effect of a silo mentality among teams and within teams?

Does the firm’s incentive scheme align with its publicly stated values and the values of its clients?

PTM provides insight derived from years of experience as to how a firm can best design incentive schemes.

A firm that hopes that development of its people will come as a by-product of an incentive plan scheme without the need for further investment will not succeed in the long-term. People need to know that the firm genuinely cares for their personal and professional development. For example, does the firm have effective strategies to encourage its junior lawyers to develop not just their technical skills but their ability to build the practice?

Do the firm’s lawyers understand what is expected of them in order to advance within the firm?

Do promising senior associates know what they have to do to achieve partnership?

It is of course one thing to know what is expected of them but does the firm have in place practices to assist their lawyers to achieve their goals?

Not all partners are necessarily equal in terms of their respective contributions. What does the law firm do to ensure that having achieved partnership status, a lawyer continues to develop and add more and more value to the firm?

Everyone knows that the most valuable aspect of any organisation is its people. PTM collaborates with law firms and with individual lawyers to develop strategies that promote personal and career development.