A Note from Shireen
I wrote this article to expose the gap between the work product law firms often train lawyers to produce and the advice clients actually need.
As settled law and basic regulatory analyses are easier to navigate, in-house counsel are increasingly frustrated by technically correct legal advice that isn’t useful in practice: it too long, costs too much, comes in the wrong format, or leaves the client to translate the answer into a business decision.
So how do you get your firm’s lawyers to understand what your clients need and rethink how they staff, deliver, or price the work? In the article, I focus on three overarching ways firms can get started:
- Understand what clients need: Your lawyers need to learn how to read the room, including understanding whether the client needs a quick call or a forwardable email, a deep analysis or a practical risk call, and a same-day answer or a fuller view next week.
- Match the work to the client and the matter: A bet-the-company issue, a routine contract review, and a quick regulatory question should not be staffed, scoped, priced, or delivered the same way. Lawyers need to learn how to adjust based on risk tolerance, budget, timing, client sophistication, and the form of advice the client can actually use.
- Make client judgment part of how the firm develops lawyers: This can’t live in one-off trainings. Partners need to explain their judgment in real time to the team, client feedback needs to be gathered and discussed, and the firm should reflect their expectations in onboarding, reviews, lateral hiring, and recognition.
Knowing the law is table stakes. Your real value is helping clients apply it inside businesses with limited budgets, competing pressures, internal politics, and decisions to make in real time.
We help law firm leaders build stronger client service, talent, and operating models, including how they train lawyers to deliver more practical, business-minded advice. If your firm is trying to improve client satisfaction (and profitability), I’m happy to be a sounding board. And if there are questions you’d like me to ask in-house counsel in future installments, I’d love to hear them. Meanwhile, the full Today’s Managing Partner article is below.
As Published in Today's Managing Partner
Law firms have traditionally focused their associate training programs on improving technical skills (e.g., deposition basics or drafting techniques), but technically correct legal advice can still miss the mark if it takes too long, costs too much, or doesn’t provide a practical path forward for your clients. Today’s in-house counsel work for fast-moving, budget-conscious companies. As a result, they are acutely aware of the key skills traditional law firms fail to teach.
In-house counsel cite several major issues with outside law firms: sending wordy memos instead of quick recommendations, staffing based on firm availability rather than project needs, and offering impractical advice that ignores the company’s risk tolerance, industry norms, or operational capabilities. Point being, legal advice can’t land in a vacuum; its usefulness depends on whether it fits the business reality around it.
For a long time, firms could rely on proximity to teach much of this judgment—e.g., partners would put client or opposing counsel calls on mute to explain to the associate in the room what the other person was signaling or why the partner answered a certain way. In-the-moment lessons helped junior lawyers understand how legal analysis, client dynamics, and practical judgment fit together. Some of that still happens, but firms can no longer count on it across offices, time zones, remote schedules, leaner teams, and busier professionals.
So, if firms want lawyers who deliver practical, business-minded advice, they need to put more structure around how those skills are taught. Below, I’ll explore the top pain points for in-house counsel, what those client needs mean for your firm, and how updating your training, coaching, and talent strategy can bridge the gap.
Where clients get frustrated
First, let’s dispel a common misconception: the gap between an outside counsel’s work product and usable advice is not limited to junior lawyers or smaller firms. In fact, one Fortune 50 in-house leader who has worked with several AmLaw100 firms says she can’t recall a single firm ever asking her team for feedback on whether the team was able to operationalize the firm’s advice and how they might improve. Given that reality, she explained, “We are leaning into hiring more in-house lawyers because giving us generic advice and making us apply it isn’t as helpful. We need lawyers to translate the law into day-to-day activity so we can continue to move in uncertain times.”
This means that while firms grumble that clients are “cost conscious,” how your clients perceive value hinges on whether your advice creates more work for the client. That frustration shows up in several ways:
- They take too long to get to the useful answer: As the general counsel of a software company put it, “In the age of AI, get to the point. If you’re giving me baseline advice, I also went to law school, worked in Big Law, have the same tools, and can get there. Start and end everything with TL;DR.”
- They don’t match the work to the matter: Clients are not saying every matter should be cheap and leanly staffed. The general counsel of a global retailer explained, “The value depends on what we are doing. Sometimes an associate is great because they’re turning a draft overnight at half the partner’s rate, but for an issue of first impression, only a partner is valuable.” Another general counsel put it well: “Every problem has a different value proposition. There is no universal fee answer.” A bet-the-company issue, routine contract review, and quick regulatory question should not all be staffed, scoped, or priced the same way. Clients notice when the firm’s approach seems driven more by capacity, default rate sheets, or habit than by the work itself.
- They give advice that doesn’t fit the client’s risk tolerance: As product counsel for a global financial institution put it, “Tailor your advice to our business’s level of risk. If you can’t help yourself, flag what you left unaddressed, but don’t charge me for edits I’ll never send and that will make my business question whether I understand how they work.”
- They retreat when the answer is uncertain: Most in-house counsel aren’t calling for help on settled law; they need assistance deciding what the business can reasonably do when the answer is unclear. As one chief compliance officer put it, “I don’t get value when outside counsel gives me oral advice that’s reasonable and practical, and then waters it down in writing. It’s infuriating and I will refuse to pay the bill for that time.”
- They deliver the advice in the wrong form: Even when the advice is right, delivery matters. Some clients want a quick call, while others want an email they can forward internally. As one in-house leader put it, “Ask me my love language. Don’t assume it’s the same as yours.” Individual preferences matter, and there’s also an art to reading the room and knowing when a phone call will land better than an email.
These are all teachable moments.
Training your junior lawyers
Firms need practical, bite-sized trainings built around real examples instead of two-hour, academic presentations that everyone forgets by the next day.
Concise 15-minute sessions during your usual “all hands” calls or monthly lunches are plenty if they are concrete. For example:
- Parse through an email on screen and explain how that email might change if it’s going to a general counsel versus a startup founder.
- Have a partner explain why one client question required deep analysis while another only needed a practical risk call, and how she knew which was the right call.
- Explain the value of learning the client’s business, not just the legal issue. Take a public company example and point out useful spots in their last earnings transcript. If the firm serves several clients in the same industry, talk about what is changing in that industry and how that might impact what they need and the advice they need.
Firms can also make this easier to absorb through simple reminders—for example, a weekly video campaign where you ask your partners to record one- or two-minute videos with practical tips (e.g., how to write a better client update, when to pick up the phone instead of email, etc.). These videos don’t need to be polished; in fact, they will land better if they are unscripted, casual, and natural.
Most outside lawyers barely understand the business of legal practice, let alone their clients’ businesses, so the goal is to show lawyers what “good” looks like in real moments and how work product should change based on the client. Lawyers hear words like “responsive,” “practical,” “commercial,” and “business-minded” all the time, but those words are more effective when they’re grounded in real examples.
Training senior lawyers on how to delegate and give feedback
There’s a reason they call it the “practice” of law; training will fall flat if it isn’t connected to real matters. That means giving junior lawyers structured opportunities to practice the parts of client service they should eventually own without turning them loose on client relationships before they are ready.
Start small and expand responsibility over time. For example, junior lawyers can prepare an invite and agenda for a client call, organize the materials, and think through what needs to be covered. From there, they can begin giving routine updates, walking through discrete issues, or owning the follow-up. In internal review meetings, ask them to present the strategy and explain what the client needs to decide, then give them feedback before they lead those conversations externally.
Your senior lawyers’ role is to coach in the moment and be specific. “Make this more practical” doesn’t offer much. Better feedback is specific—e.g., lead with the recommendation, cut the background in half, explain the budget impact, etc.
The harder part is getting partners to do this consistently. Most will not become better coaches because the firm announces another mentoring initiative. Firms need to make the expectation visible and keep reinforcing it through the work partners are already doing. Use a few minutes in partner meetings to discuss what good coaching looks like, share examples of training moments, and require originating partners to ask clients for post-matter feedback and bring those lessons back to the team (bonus: this improves your client service too).
Make it part of the firm’s operating system
For better client service to become part of your firm’s culture and DNA, it has to show up in how you hire and recognize senior lawyers and onboard junior ones too.
When it comes to lateral hiring, ask candidates for examples of how they typically train younger lawyers, handle client feedback, and adjust their approach when a client’s budget, timing, or risk tolerance changes. A book of business matters, but so does whether that partner will uphold your service standards and train the next generation.
You should also recognize the partners who do this well, and that starts with identifying them. As part of your usual associate and staff surveys, ask who gives useful feedback, explains the judgment behind their edits, and helps junior lawyers handle client interactions more effectively. Then recognize those partners publicly. If your firm says mentoring and client service matter, then your professionals need to see the people who rise to the occasion celebrated.
Finally, make those expectations visible from the moment junior lawyers join the firm. Onboarding should include examples of strong client-facing work product: useful updates, clear recommendations, and examples of what not to do. And reviews should go beyond checking the box on billable hours to assessing whether lawyers communicate clearly, manage work responsibly, and make sound judgment calls.
The bottom line
Knowing the law is table stakes, and it’s becoming increasingly commoditized with technology. Your value is in applying that knowledge to a business with competing pressures, limited budgets, internal politics, and decisions to make in real time. Instead of leaving the development of those skills to chance, put real programs behind your service promise and hold yourself accountable for producing lawyers who deliver unquestionable value consistently across your firm.
