For years, law students had no formal guidance on which practice area would be best for them. Once hired, young attorneys held onto their jobs regardless of whether they were a good fit, many times staying on longer than they preferred to pay down their student debt.
Inevitably, a cycle of employee unhappiness leading to attrition and costly recruitment and hiring ensued.
What's needed are tools, utilizing data and predictive analytics, that can help those entering the law profession accurately determine their potential fit and likelihood of success. These tools can also be used by law schools to better vet students before they enroll. Thanks to a 2015 trait study using similar analytics to those that help professional sports teams draft top talent. We now understand more about "fit" for the profession of law, individual practice areas and practice settings than any other individual or company in the world. Using data that links attorney traits and career satisfaction by practice area and setting can improve the odds for an attorney's successful career and more firms should be turning to this data and analytics to improve hiring practices at firms.
The legal industry is in serious trouble, as the costs of attorney recruiting and attrition are taking an ever-increasing toll on each firm's bottom line. The nation's largest law firms spend billions of dollars each year to recruit, train, and ultimately lose lawyers from their ranks.
It's
vital to reduce the high costs of turnover, both monetary and human, in the
legal industry, so that a new history of career satisfaction for attorneys can
be written.
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