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01 April 2020 / Lynne Squires
Categories: Features , Profession
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Training: Why it pays to grow your own

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Lynne Squires recommends investing in training to then reap the rewards
  • Skill gaps: training existing employees.
  • Increasing workforce diversity: paths to progression.
  • New technology and AI: looking for the opportunities.

Whether you are looking to attract and retain talented employees, want to increase the diversity of your workforce or to introduce new technology to improve productivity, ensuring you have a strong workforce development plan is key to the success of all law firms.

It’s common for firms to focus on recruitment when looking to fill skills gaps and in some cases you may want to bring in new people, but there are considerable benefits to looking at your entire workforce, non-lawyers included, and considering how you can train existing employees in the skills you need.

Offering training and opening up new career paths for paralegals and administrative staff is a great way to motivate employees and retain those who might otherwise be looking to move elsewhere.

High staff turnover can be costly, with huge recruitment fees

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
The Legal Action Group (LAG)—the UK charity dedicated to advancing access to justice—has unveiled its calendar of training courses, seminars and conferences designed to support lawyers, advisers and other legal professionals in tackling key areas of public interest law
Refusing ADR is risky—but not always fatal. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed and Sanjay Dave Singh of the University of Leicester analyse Assensus Ltd v Wirsol Energy Ltd: despite repeated invitations to mediate, the defendant stood firm, made a £100,000 Part 36 offer and was ultimately ‘wholly vindicated’ at trial
As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
Employment law is shifting at the margins. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ this week, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School examines a Court of Appeal ruling confirming that volunteers are not a special legal species and may qualify as ‘workers’
Criminal juries may be convicting—or acquitting—on a misunderstanding. Writing in NLJ this week Paul McKeown, Adrian Keane and Sally Stares of The City Law School and LSE report troubling survey findings on the meaning of ‘sure’
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