General Recruiting

November 1, 2022 by Amy Shanks Leave a Comment

Continuing Education Will Help You Secure Your Next Legal or IT Job

Continuing Legal Education is a chess move in your favor.

To remain at the top of your field as a paralegal or IT team member, you must keep your skills current. In addition to keeping up with any changes in statutes and case law, paralegals should stay on top of changes that will affect their ability to do their jobs efficiently. Both paralegals and IT employees should remain tech-savvy and current with document management improvements, trial techniques, and court rules.

As a paralegal or IT professional, taking continuing education courses is an excellent way to stay on top of changes in the law and advances in the legal field.

Here are the top 3 benefits of continued education:

Increased value to the firm. Increasing your knowledge, building additional skills, and strengthening your current skills will make you invaluable to your law firm. In the long run, staying on top of your game may also lead to a raise or promotion.
Better performance. As you gain confidence by learning how better to perform your job, you will be able to handle more tasks. Your new techniques and skills will make you more productive and efficient.
Advanced communication skills. Paralegals often are the “go-between” for all parties involved in a case (attorneys, clients, courts, experts, witnesses). IT personnel are usually solving multiple problems at once under highly stressful situations. Successful law firms are built on great communicators!

Paralegals and IT team members who regularly attend continuing education courses are more marketable and have more opportunities for career growth. Not only does learning more help you to be an asset to your law firm, but it will also open the door for your career growth. Remember to update your resumes annually with your completed continuing education credits.

Top IT Skills

In February of this year, Team BRYTER wrote that in-house legal technology budgets will grow 200% by 2025. As these departments become increasingly dependent on technology to keep up the pace, IT specialists and tech-savvy legal professionals will most likely skyrocket.

One specialty predicted to continue in high demand is e-discovery/litigation. As document formatting changes due to improvements in software, professionals who are well-acquainted with the latest in e-discovery and knowledgeable about file compatibility across different platforms will have a leg up against other candidates. A paralegal with a background in predictive coding and further analysis software might cut document review by hours and make for a highly valued prospect.

What Recruiters are Looking For

Workflow, in general, will continue to embrace both automation and digitization, and having tech-friendly skills at hand will only help your chances on the market. Updating your skill set in these areas will raise your chances of success in the face of future tech innovations and a changing work environment.

Recruiters look for candidates with experience using legal research products such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Potential employers may also expect proficiency in client software suites such as Google Workspace and Office 365. In addition, if you know law practice management software such as Clio and PracticePanther, you may gain an edge over your competition.

At Strategic Recruitment Solutions, we have matched top companies with top talent in the Gulf Region for over a decade. Our focus is on building long-term relationships with the companies we assist. Call us today at 888-366-6508. We can help you find the best candidate to join your legal or IT team or aid job seekers in finding the most appropriate position for their talents.

September 2, 2022 by Amy Shanks

POSITIVE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCES INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFIT

Strategic Recruitment Solutions - Employees — Employees who are engaged are happy employees!

Did you know that are not engaged or actively disengaged cost employers 7.8 trillion dollars in lost productivity last year? According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report, only 21 percent of the world’s employees were engaged at work. Employers who make engagement the controlling factor in day-to-day operations stand out from their competitors. Employee engagement translates to:

10% higher customer loyalty/engagement
23% higher profitability
18% higher productivity (sales)
14% higher productivity (production records and evaluations)
18% lower turnover for high-turnover organizations (those with more than 40% annualized turnover)
43% lower turnover for low-turnover organizations (those with 40% or lower annualized turnover)

Employee Productivity Equals Profit

Employees who associate positive feelings with the workplace are by far more productive. One reason is that workers who are enthusiastic and passionate about their work spend less time on distractions.

Studies show that employers who create a positive work experience are more likely to see a profit. Companies with a high employee engagement have 41 percent less absenteeism and 17 percent more productivity.

Specific to Law firms

COVID and the Great Resignation combined to create a scarcity of talent. As a result, many more law firms are finding it harder to hire and retain associates and paralegals in today’s highly competitive environment.

Law firms have been transitioning since 2018 when according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal sector reported a loss of 1,400 in January and February alone. Legal staff cited time demands and a toxic culture as the main reasons they left their jobs, while associates wanted more respect, collegiality, and kindness.

If your firm is experiencing a higher-than-average turnover rate, it may be time to consider the following five factors for employee retention.

Inclusion is Crucial

When an employer commits to diversity, this helps to improve the overall employee experience. However, an effective dedication to inclusion and diversity must be genuine.

Though employers may say they’re dedicated to inclusion, it’s easy to leave implicit biases unchecked that may be more obvious to the employee. After all, they are directly affected by decisions informed by possible bias. A genuine commitment to inclusion involves a philosophy in which all employees and their unique experiences inspire each other to go the extra mile for the firm. An employer must be willing to examine its cultural blind spots and address unconscious bias to implement these ideas.

Value Employees

Employees who feel valued are likely to go the extra mile. By showing interest in your employees and getting to know them, you will learn which projects they enjoy and their aspirations for their career growth. Another way to show you value an employee is to acknowledge their work publicly.

Provide paths to progression

According to the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education and its 2021 survey of 126 law firms, pre-COVID associate hiring decreased by nearly 50% between 2019 and 2020.

Engagement research outside the legal arena suggests that systems with clear paths for progression, measurable progress, benchmarks, etc., align with what people want right now. Lawyers are likelier to thrive when leaders set clear expectations and pathways to advance.

Build Trust With Your Employees

Trust builds over time. Employees want to work for people with integrity. Always maintain a professional and ethical environment and when you are wrong, admit it. Building trust allows you to have difficult conversations without damaging relationships.

Support Mental Health

Did you know that, during the pandemic, more than one-third of Americans exhibited clinical anxiety and depression? This statistic is alarming for the legal profession, whose numbers were already high. Anxiety, depression, stress, and substance abuse are no strangers to the legal profession. When you create a psychologically safe space for employees to speak up and be themselves, you create a healthy work environment. Your firm can also encourage a balanced lifestyle, respectful behavior towards others, and valuing diversity.

The world has changed. Today’s associates have different wants and needs. If you want to win the talent war, you’ll want to take the right steps to help your firm be the law firm of choice.

At Strategic Recruitment Solutions, your success is our success. Our reputation for client satisfaction results from our commitment to clients’ objectives and beyond. We are the legal and tech recruiting firm for top employers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Gulf Region. Our focus is on building long-term relationships with companies that employ the highest-quality professionals. Call us today at 888-366-6508. We can help you find the best fit to join a legal or IT team.

August 22, 2022 by Amy Shanks

FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR PARALEGAL WRITING AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Strategic Recruitment Solutions - Paralegal Job Skills — Land your dream job as a paralegal by learning these five ways to become a confident legal writer and communicator.

Mastering communication and writing skills are essential for paralegals. Part of a paralegal’s job is to communicate with clients, opposing counsel, and the courts. Paralegal work also includes doing legal research, writing and drafting legal documents (pleadings to be filed with the court), and drafting internal documents (legal memorandums).

Here are five ways to become a confident legal writer and communicator:

1. Practice

Good communication and writing for paralegals come only from practice – there’s no shortcut to becoming a great writer. Spend some time researching online resources to improve your legal writing, broaden your skills, and learn tips to improve your writing.

2. Seek Feedback

Asking for feedback is a good way to improve your writing. Seek feedback from a legal professional at your firm or someone outside your organization. Seeking feedback from co-workers can also help strengthen your workplace relationships.

3. Re-check your work

When it comes to legal documents, every word is critical. While mistakes happen, maintaining credibility is integral. Fact-checking your work is essential to ensure that you are communicating correctly.

4. Check Your Grammar

Grammatically correct writing is also critical in paralegal communication and writing. Following grammatical conventions helps you maintain credibility and will ensure your writing is clear and concise.

These reference books on grammar are an excellent place to start: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Lynn Truss) will help you understand and apply proper punctuation.

The Elements of Legal Style (Bryan A. Garner): This book is essential for helping you with word choice and grammar and gained praise as one of the best books for the legal profession. Remember, improving your reading and writing skills requires time, perfect practice, and repetition.

5. Keep Current

Schedule time each week reading legal news to stay current with court rulings. By concentrating on defining and researching any term or legal principle that you don’t understand, you will greatly enhance your learning process.

Thinking about how to move forward in your career? At Strategic Recruitment Solutions, your success is our success. Our reputation for superior client satisfaction results from a tireless commitment to exceeding our clients’ objectives. We are the recruiting firm for top employers inNew Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Gulf Region. Our recruiters will partner with you in searching for highly talented legal, management and technology hires. They will lend their industry knowledge, experience, tools, and technology to enhance your recruiting strategy. Furthermore, we have matched top companies with top talent in the Gulf Region for over a decade. Our focus is on building a long-term relationship with your company. Call us today at 888-366-6508. We can help you find the best candidate to join your legal or IT team.

July 3, 2022 by Amy Shanks

AVOIDING THE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TRAP

Steering recruits away from potential job misery is one way to avoid the employee engagement trap.

We’ve learned several lessons about healthy work culture due to the pandemic’s effects on the workplace. One of the issues that continue to worsen is employee engagement. Accordingly, a recent Gallup poll reports a pattern of declining engagement, with only 32% of full and part-time employees reporting themselves as “engaged.” 17% of those polled described themselves as “actively disengaged.”

The “engagement trap” is sprung over the first five years of employment, with research from Leadership IQ reporting that the percentage of highly engaged employees at an organization can drop from 37% to 22%. Also, the percentage of actively disengaged employees often doubles in that time.

Recruiters would prefer that their candidates retain their positive attitude when entering a new role. With these statistics in mind, here are a few suggestions for both recruiters and employers regarding the employee engagement trap.

Identify the Problem: Consider the “Three Factors for Job Misery”

Patrick M. Lencioni’s book, “The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery,” identifies three factors that cause job misery.

First is anonymity, where an employee feels invisible and underappreciated. Second is irrelevance, defined as “not seeing the connection between their work and the satisfaction of another person or group of people.” Finally, Lencioni names a factor he coined himself “immeasurement,” or lacking the ability to measure one’s progress.

Lencioni advises employers to start by taking a personal interest in their employees as people. For instance, most employees see a bump in self-fulfillment by feeling “known” to their employer. To illustrate, employees don’t feel anonymous when an employer recognizes birthdays, remembers news about their families, and validates their hobbies.

Additionally, reminders that employees are serving others and not only themselves present opportunities for workers to regain touch. When people see their work’s effects, they’re less likely to feel “irrelevant.” Moreover, every employee should be able to answer, “Who am I helping and how am I helping?” As an employer, you can offer them a foundation to arrive at that answer.

Revisit Past Recruits

The candidates you helped through the hiring process years ago are an invaluable resource for disarming the employee engagement trap for incoming candidates. For instance, ask them about their frustrations, what motivated and discouraged them, and ask them to describe what about their job didn’t live up to the expectations they had during recruitment. Afterward, when you have this research, apply it to realistically shaping incoming recruits’ expectations.

Furthermore, you might also want to look at your recruiting data. What’s the state of your referrals? If you find that referrals from employees are at an all-time low, this may be a sign that employees are feeling so underappreciated that they wouldn’t wish their job on anyone and refuse to refer someone.

Once you’ve located the problem areas with employee engagement, you can persuade management to participate in dedicated employee engagement initiatives. In a word, dissatisfied employees cost far more money and time than investing in a healthy, engaged workforce.

At Strategic Recruitment Solutions, your success is our success. Our reputation for client satisfaction results from our commitment to clients’ objectives and beyond. We are the legal and tech recruiting firm for top employers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Gulf Region. Our focus is on building a long-term relationship with companies that employ the highest-quality professionals. Call us today at 888-366-6508. We can help you find the best fit to join a legal or IT team.

June 25, 2022 by Amy Shanks

3 TECH TRENDS AFFECTING 2022 AND BEYOND

The legal profession leads the way in some of the first implementations of new technologies.

Our dependence on technology has made big changes in the legal industry. Whether an increase in automated tasks, the growing field of artificial intelligence, or the need for better cybersecurity, we expect these tech trends to affect legal firms’ workflow and reputation moving forward. For example, a shift toward higher “tech literacy” will send signals to your clients and potential clients about who can best serve their needs.

Stay current with technology by watching these tech trends:

Automated Tasks

Since lawyers will always be around, documents are here to stay. In fact, that’s how automation began to take over in the law business. Also, it’s created more jobs with eFiling, eDiscovery, and more. In 2017, researchers from the Mckinsey Global Institute stated that 23 percent of lawyers’ tasks could be automated.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that assists a user to send emails, automate logins, prepare documents, and copy data from document scans. Those that support RPA technology claim that firms can save somewhere between 30-40% of their time with automation. Because of the time saved, use of RPA in the legal sector is expected to rise in the coming years.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

More than half of all legal work done in-house is repetitive and easily repeated by a program. Allowing artificial intelligence to manage data and perform document analysis is the way of the future. It’s cost-effective in lowering the number of human mistakes and time dedicated to those tasks. As standard data storage increases, AI programs will index file volumes and streamline data management. Plan for an increase in your firm’s need for Tech-savvy employees who know how to work with AI to your advantage.

Cybersecurity

The amount of information that moves through an office network has reached critical mass. Since firms handle sensitive client and corporate data, there is always the risk of a network breach by profiteers. Attackers can pull off ransomware attacks with few resources. Due to this threat, it’s no surprise that network security, response plans, and crisis management have seen renewed attention.

By providing dedicated resources to privacy and data protection, the firm protects clients’ rights. Also, a firm that cherishes privacy boosts its reputation. Make sure to include IT professionals in your personnel plan that know how to keep your legal software up to date. Even if you hire out cybersecurity, you will still need employees able to communicate with your cybersecurity company to keep your firm running seamlessly.