How to Fire a Lawyer and Get your Money Back | 13 Pro Ways

A law firm’s and its clients’ relationship can be most rewarding and challenging. Lawyers within a law firm represent different practice areas, with varying experience and fees varying according to their services. Clients often interact with the law firm before hiring a specific lawyer for their case. Here are 13 tips on how to fire a lawyer and get your money back.

However, there can be times when things don’t run quite smoothly, whether due to poor client service or poor management practices that lower the value of your money. It might not always feel like it at first, but those challenges will make you stronger. 

This article discusses some important aspects that every law firm should keep in mind if they want to retain their best employees and prevent firing from becoming an epidemic in their office.

How to Fire a Lawyer and Get your Money Back

Here are 13 ways to fire a lawyer and get your money back

• Create a transparent culture
• Provide constructive feedback to your employees
• Hire for skills, not just resumes
• Communicate with your team and work together as a team
• Don’t re-hire an employee who has been fired before
• Think Before Hiring
• Create a Culture of Accountability
• Always Be Updating Your Skills
• Make the Switch Easy for Good Employees
• Establish Clear Objectives and Expectations
• Keep documentation of all communication
• Don’t be afraid to say no
• The hiring process should be streamlined and efficient

Create a transparent culture

Lawyers are often tasked with handling sensitive matters that could impact various people. A transparent culture will help ensure that your employees know what’s happening and that your clients are kept up to date. 

This can be done through regular team meetings, creating a culture of accountability in the office, and ensuring everyone is taking part in decision-making. There should be a clear path for managers to communicate with their teams and receive employee feedback. This can be done through a variety of means. 

If you have remote employees, ensure they can access the necessary tools to join the team meetings. If you have an in-office team meeting, you might consider making it accessible via remote attendance. This way, remote employees can still participate in the meeting even if they can’t be physically there in the same room with everyone else.

Provide constructive feedback to your employees

Employees in a Lean Culture are likely to be more transparent, accountable, and constructive regarding feedback. Managers providing feedback to their team will likely see a much higher standard of professionalism and constructive criticism when hiring new employees. 

It will also likely lead to a higher hiring standard when it comes to existing employees. Managers involved in hiring both top-down and bottom-up will be better equipped to spot the strengths and weaknesses of an employee and point those out. 

This will not only help your existing employees be better in their roles but also allow you to make better hiring decisions regarding new staff.

Hire for skills, not just resumes.

Lawyers are often tasked with handling complicated matters that are often sensitive. Hiring lawyers by looking only at their resumes can often lead to hiring people with a different skill set than you need. If you have a more generalized practice, you might be okay with hiring people with specific skills. 

However, hiring for skills over resumes can lead to better hiring decisions for those handling more complex matters. This is because it’s easy to overlook a resume with a skilled worker’s name. If you hire people based on what they can do, you’ll likely be much more likely to hire someone with the skills you need.

Communicate with your team and work together as a team

If you manage to hire great lawyers, the next step is to keep them happy and engaged. This can be done by frequently communicating with your team, both in-person and remote. The easiest way to do this is using a communication tool that allows you to create a document, send it to a team member’s email, and have them view it while they are working.

Another way to improve communication is by using open-designate communication that allows you to create a document and have all your team members view it but only mark it as read. This way, you can easily and quickly communicate with your team.

Don’t re-hire an employee who has been fired before

If you are going to re-hire an employee that was previously fired, make sure you do a thorough background check on them. This will help you to avoid hiring someone who has been fired in the past and will likely lead to intense conflict in the office. 

It will also help you to avoid re-hiring someone who was fired for poor performance or for causing conflict with others in the office. This will help to keep the office and team much more productive and focused on the work that needs to be done.

Think Before Hiring

Law firms are often tasked with handling complicated matters and sensitive topics. This can result in hiring lawyers with various skills, and hiring managers can often miss the fact that these lawyers have been fired in the past.

Therefore, hiring lawyers with a specific skill set can often lead to hiring managers overlooking an employee’s strengths. This can be avoided by hiring lawyers based on skills rather than on a specific resume.

Create a culture of accountability

To keep your best employees, you’ll need to establish a culture of accountability. This means you need to hold your employees accountable for their work and the quality of service they provide to clients. 

This can be done by creating clear and measurable goals for your team members and holding them accountable for hitting those goals. This can be done by creating a goals-based performance management tool or creating a clear, written performance management process for your team members to follow. 

In addition to holding your team member accountable for their work, you’ll also need to hold yourself accountable for the quality of service you provide to clients. This can be done by regularly asking you, “How is my service helping clients achieve their goals?” This will help you keep your team accountable for their service quality.

Establish clear objectives and expectations

As a law firm, you’ll need to clearly define expectations for your team members and hold them accountable for their work. This can be done by creating a clear, written performance management process for your team members to follow. 

You’ll need to clearly define expectations for the quality of the work that your team members produce and the amount of time it will take them to deliver their work. 

You’ll also want to clearly define how your best employees will be rewarded for their work. This can be done by creating a salary-based bonus scheme or creating a clear, written performance management process that rewards your best employees for their work.

Keep documentation of all communication.

It’s almost impossible to fire someone who’s documented everything about their time with the firm. When firing a lawyer, it’s very important to document all communications with your lawyer, especially negative ones. You’ll want to include emails, voicemails and texts. 

You might be surprised at how much you can learn from these documents. For example, if you’ve hired a lawyer who sent you many emails while working on your case but never followed up with you or your support people, you’ll know they don’t have your trust.

Don’t be afraid to say no.

A certain level of pushback is expected when someone handles a case for you. However, speak up if you constantly feel like you’re being pushed into things you don’t want to do.

Law firms have a responsibility to protect your rights to pursue your interests when handling a case, and if someone has done something that’s made you feel uncomfortable, it’s your right to say no. You might be surprised at how often you’re pushed into doing things you don’t want to do but think you should.

The hiring process should be streamlined and efficient

It’s one thing to hire a lawyer and another to fire them. When you’re firing a lawyer, you’ll want to make sure you document everything. You’ll also want to ensure you have a solid reason for doing so. If you have an inefficient lawyer, who wastes time, or who doesn’t have the skill set you need for your case, you might have to fire them. 

When hiring a lawyer, make sure the process is streamlined and efficient. You want to hire a lawyer with the skills and experience you need for your case. 

You’ll want to hire a lawyer with a solid track record who works efficiently and has a good reputation within the local legal community. This will ensure the quality of their work is up to par with your standards and help you identify and fire lawyers who aren’t up to snuff.

What makes you lose trust in your law firm?

You’ll want to keep documentation of all communications, don’t be afraid to say no, and hire a lawyer whose efficient and has a solid track record. If your lawyer doesn’t have the experience or skill set you need for your case, they might not be worth keeping on staff. When firing a lawyer, you’ll want to ensure you have a solid reason for doing so. 

Ensure you keep documentation of all communications, and don’t be afraid to say no. If your lawyer isn’t efficient or doesn’t have the experience you need for your case, it might be time to fire them.

Final Words

And finally, you’ve made it to the end of this article! We hope we’ve given you some insight on firing lawyers and tips to help you get through the process. We know firing lawyers can be a nerve-wracking experience, but if you don’t do it, you’ll just be in a situation where you don’t have the right lawyer on your side and might lose your case.

References

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vlcMVGCa6Mhttps://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/research/refunds-and-billing-disputes-when-changing-attorneys.html
• https://www.scbar.org/public/get-legal-help/common-legal-topics/i-fired-my-lawyer-and-now-the-lawyer-will-not-give-my-file-back-what-should-i-do/