Young lawyers are the future of the legal profession and the most important talent pool for law firms. Therefore, law firms should put the growth and training of young lawyers at the core and give full attention to it. However, the current status of the industry is that young lawyers are not closely connected with law firms, and law firms lack sufficient motivation to train young lawyers, making it difficult for young lawyers to grow.
Since its establishment, Jiali has always adhered to the corporate management model and actively explored a training model suitable for the growth and development of young lawyers. Jiali Law Firm combines the original intention of founding the firm with its future vision, insists on deepening the path of specialization, establishes a graphite training system, improves the training, assessment and promotion mechanism, and achieves a healthy situation in which the knowledge of the law firm flows freely and young lawyers grow rapidly. Now I will share the training experience of Jiali Law Firm with you, hoping to be helpful to everyone’s training of young lawyers.
1. Adhere to the corporate management model and establish an institutional environment that everyone is willing to share
Jiali Law Firm adheres to the corporate management model, draws on modern enterprise management concepts, and combines the experience of the lawyer industry Based on the actual situation, through the innovation of management forms, we can improve the organizational structure of the firm and establish an institutional environment that everyone is willing to share.
(1) Innovate management forms and create an atmosphere of cooperation and sharing
Jiali Law Firm adopts a new management model and divides the entire firm’s business into brand marketing, consultation and reception, and case negotiation and four major modules: management and technical products. In order to maximize their own value, managers need to work together with other departments, think in one place, and work hard in one place, so that the firm can develop rapidly.
Based on this upper-level design, Jiali Law Firm has carried the genes of "cooperation" and "sharing" since its birth, creating a good culture for the establishment of the firm's cooperation and sharing mechanism. Atmosphere.
(2) Improve the law firm’s organizational structure and establish a systematic knowledge sharing environment
Since 2016, Jiali Law Firm has gradually improved the law firm’s organizational structure and established a business department. It is the business department, the Marketing Department, Consulting Department, Brand Department, and Product Department are auxiliary departments, and the Finance Department and Comprehensive Service Department are the organizational system of the security department. organizational system.
Figure 1: Organizational structure of family law
Under such an organizational system, senior lawyers take the initiative to teach young lawyers and trainee lawyers, and encourage lawyers to establish mutual assistance training. The marketing department , consulting department, brand department, product department and other support departments provide young lawyers with marketing planning and execution, client liaison, brand promotion, client portraits, judge portraits, interpretation of classic cases, marriage and family law services, etc. The marketing department, consulting department, brand department, product department and other support departments provide young lawyers with resources and capability support such as marketing planning execution, client contact, brand promotion, client portraits, judge portraits, interpretation of classic cases, big data reports on marriage and family legal services, etc. , helping young lawyers grow rapidly and injecting continuous vitality into law firms.
2. Persist in working hard on the road of specialization and form a complete system of professional knowledge and skills
Most young lawyers rely on self-study. The training programs provided by the external market are not only expensive, but also often Focusing on a certain professional skill or difficult legal issue, it is difficult for young lawyers to form a complete system of professional knowledge and skills. The training programs provided by the external market are not only expensive, but also often only focus on a certain practice skill or a certain difficult legal issue, making it difficult for young lawyers to form a complete system of professional knowledge and skills.
The family law firm has always focused on marriage and family legal services, and its business areas include marriage and family non-litigation, litigation business and family wealth inheritance planning business. By the end of 2018, the family law firm had received more than 50,000 clients and handled more than 1,000 marriage and family cases. Practical training on a large number of professional cases not only allowed young lawyers to quickly master the handling skills of such cases, but also accumulated rich experience for the family law firm. Professional knowledge and skills have formed a complete and rich professional knowledge system, which has become an important material for the professional skills training of young lawyers.
Figure 2: Jiali training materials (part)
3. Improve the training-assessment-promotion mechanism to encourage young lawyers to grow rapidly
In the growth of young lawyers In terms of incentive mechanisms, there have been many discussions in the legal industry, but there are few practical samples. Based on the actual situation of the firm, Jiali Law Firm has gradually established and improved a training-assessment-promotion mechanism based on the different needs of young lawyers and young lawyers who have practiced law for less than three years.
Figure 3: Jiali’s talent promotion mechanism
Jiali pays more attention to the training and assessment stages of trainee lawyers.
Trainee lawyers implement an admission system. New interns need to undergo three months of systematic training and six aspects of image management ability, business knowledge ability, language expression ability, emergency response ability, comprehensive application ability, and self-driving ability. Only after passing the assessment of the high-ability model can one officially become a trainee lawyer.
Figure 4: Six Competency Models
Take Ren Zhengliang of Jiali Law Firm as an example. He is the first batch of practicing lawyers who grew up under the Jiali Law Firm. During the internship, in addition to assisting the instructor in handling cases, he also assisted 9 other practicing lawyers in handling cases, participated in more than 100 marriage and family cases, drafted more than 200,000 words of various documents, and appeared in court more than 120 times. In addition to professional knowledge training and practical case handling training, he also received special ability training in document writing, communication skills, and expression in front of the mirror.
For practicing lawyers, Jiali Law Firm has very strict admission standards. After successfully joining the firm, it pays more attention to the two stages of training and promotion. In addition to training on professional knowledge and skills, the firm also actively provides young lawyers with rich self-presentation platforms, such as recommending outstanding young lawyers to serve as editors in the "Police Law Online" column of Beijing News Broadcasting and the "Third Mediation Room" of Beijing TV Station. Guest speakers to help them increase their social influence.
In order to enable young lawyers to learn well and retain themselves, the law firm has improved the seven-level promotion mechanism, allowing each young lawyer to continuously upgrade through his own efforts until he becomes a partner of the law firm.
Figure 6: Promotion ceremony of the first batch of equity partners of Jiali
IV. Establishing a graphite training system to achieve the inheritance and update of the law firm’s professional knowledge
Process After more than three years of practical development, Jiali has established a graphite training system, through which the law firm's professional knowledge can be passed on and updated, helping young lawyers grow rapidly.
(1) Graphite training system
The graphite training system is named after the training system of Jiali Law Firm, which is like a graphite structure, with "mentors and apprentices" between lawyers at different levels. There is also a training system and a departmental mutual assistance training system between lawyers at the same level. Every lawyer is a member of the Jiali team. This training system is like a graphite structure. It has both a "teacher-apprentice" training system between lawyers at different levels and a departmental mutual assistance training system between lawyers at the same level. Each lawyer is the main body of external contact. Through Share training collectively, learn from others, and feed back to the whole institute.
Figure 7: Graphite training system
(2) Innovate the traditional master-apprentice system, allowing the master to drive the apprentice’s growth
Under the Graphite training system, the master and the apprentice The first is the relationship between equal colleagues, and then the relationship between master and apprentice. Masters and apprentices both belong to the family legal practice field. They do not need to compete for cases. They need more cooperation and joint efforts to deal with the increasing number of complex cases.
In our firm, the relationship between master and apprentice is not hierarchical. It is more like a relationship of mutual assistance and cooperation. There is no "like father, like son" between master and apprentice. In our firm, through two-way selection, trainee lawyers and young lawyers can voluntarily form a mentor-apprentice relationship with senior lawyers, and can also freely cooperate with other senior lawyers in handling cases.
(3) Establish departmental mutual aid associations to achieve self-help growth for people at the same level
Under the graphite training system, the departmental mutual aid training system can help lawyers at the same level grow on their own.
The departmental mutual aid training system of the case handling department organizes a two-hour training meeting every week, which is divided into two parts:
The first part is the sharing of difficult cases, with one person designated each time A senior lawyer shares a difficult case, focusing on self-help. The sharer explains in detail the controversial points of the case, the case handling process and the court's judgment ideas;
The second part is free discussion time, and practicing lawyers can throw out their opinions For some difficult problems that you encounter in handling cases, other lawyers can provide theoretical ideas for solving the problems, or you can provide your own practical experience in handling similar cases, and finally form a written plan to deal with such difficult problems through discussion.
(4) The law firm establishes a collective sharing system to integrate and update internal and external knowledge
Kali Law Firm will also support lawyers to participate in external training and learning, in addition to actively mobilizing internships In addition to lawyers and young lawyers participating in training seminars organized by the Lawyers Association, outstanding lawyers are also selected every year to attend lawyer training such as iCourt Law School and National Young Lawyers Charity Training. Lawyers who participate in special training on the Family Lawyer Training Platform will be provided with training funds, transportation, food and accommodation expenses by the law firm.
In order to encourage lawyers to improve their self-driven learning and realize the integration and update of knowledge inside and outside the firm, the family law firm established a collective sharing system as early as the beginning of 2017. The collective sharing meeting is held once a week, and all members of the firm can participate. , speakers can nominate themselves, but each speaker is required to speak and share at least once a year.
Conclusion
2019 is the 40th year of the restoration of China’s lawyer system. Although with the continuous development of the economy, the Chinese lawyer industry has gained unprecedented development opportunities, but the development of young lawyers Growth remains a problem plaguing the legal profession.
Young lawyers are the future of the legal profession and represent the future of law firms. In the process of growth and training of young lawyers, law firms have both unshirkable responsibilities and great benefits.
By adhering to the corporate management model, insisting on deepening the path of professionalism, and improving the training, assessment, and promotion mechanisms, Jiali Law Firm has cleared institutional obstacles for the growth and training of young lawyers, and at the same time established graphite training The system introduces living water from the source, allowing knowledge to flow freely inside and outside the firm, making the law firm a pool of eternally clear spring water.