- Quickdraw McLaw
- Job Tips
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It’s that time of year again when many of you will be given an opportunity to “self-evaluate” your performance over the last year. While the approach you take to doing these evaluations will largely depend on your specific situation, we imagine that most of you know better than to evaluate yourself as above average in all categories. Likewise, you know better than to score yourself low across the board. What tips or tricks do you have for successfully navigating the tricky waters of self-evaluations? What kind of impact do these types of reviews have on you? Do you have any horror stories or words of wisdom for those facing their first review?
Also, what advice do you have for another aspect of performance evaluations: doing them for other attorneys, paralegals, or secretaries who work under you? Is there ever a better opportunity to make friends? Or can you score more points by attacking them or building them up through constructive criticism?
Nothing in your performance evaluation of your secretary, paralegal, etc. should be a surprise to them, if you've been doing your job and providing feedback throughout the year.
Assuming your evaluation will go on your "permanent record," I always try to set the record straight. If there were projects I worked on that didn't create a lot of billables, but made the partner happy, I try and mention it. I also try to bring up my big successes from the year and hope that the partner will be reminded of the same.
I used to work at a small law firm a while ago where it was just me and the owner as the two attorneys in the office. However, the owner was only in the office about 50% of the time and expected me to run the office while he was gone and took extended vacations. This would be fine for me if he were paying me for administrative time. But I was just an associate and being paid as one.
At my one year review he told me that he just wished I would step up and do more to run the law firm while he was gone. He also wanted me to raise my billable hours. At that point I figured that instead of getting paid associate salary to run a law firm, I might as well go out and run my own. I've never looked back.
Great for you. I was in exactly the same situation and now "living the dream" of working the same amount, but keeping the proceeds. I wonder if my prior partner had not pushed me to do every single thing under the sun for him, if I would have had the courage to pioneer my own firm??? I am thankful he was lazy