Team Retention: Our Top Tips for Keeping Your Best Solicitors

Holding onto quality solicitors has become one of the toughest parts of running a law firm right now so there’s never been a better time to discuss team retention. Whether you’re a two-partner practice or a much bigger firm, everyone’s fishing in the same pond for experienced solicitors, eager trainees, and legal support staff who actually stick around. And salary, while it still matters, just isn’t the whole story anymore.

The employees of today are weighing up culture, ethics, flexibility and whether there’s a chance for career progression. But perhaps most of all, an employee wants to feel valued by their employer.

Here’s the thing: people rarely quit a job over one big blow-up. More often, they quietly check out over months (sometimes years) of feeling invisible, burnt out, or just disconnected from where the company or business is heading. And this is something that happens across many professions, not just the legal one.

If you’re managing a practice, this isn’t just an HR box to tick. It touches everything from your client relationships, your profitability, how smoothly the place runs, to your reputation.

The good news? You don’t need a total overhaul to fix your team retention levels. Small, consistent changes tend to move the needle far more than any big dramatic gesture. Here we provide some insight into how you can improve team retention in your law firm, ensuring you hang on tight to valuable solicitor colleagues.

Why Team Retention Matters in the legal profession

When a reliable solicitor walks out the door, it costs you more than just the recruitment fee. Years of knowledge walk out with them. And depending on the terms and conditions of their contract, they may take their clients with them.

So from the offset, there’s an immediate impact on your existing client base. But it’s not just your clients that may be affected by this change. The rest of your team ends up picking up the slack while you scramble to fill the gap, and productivity usually takes a hit in the meantime. For smaller and mid-sized firms, losing even one experienced person can throw everything off balance and it can take months to get things back on an even keel.

Word travels fast in the legal world, especially here in Ireland. If your firm has a reputation for high turnover of staff, people get cautious, which makes your next hire that bit harder too.

On the flip side, firms that hold onto their people tend to enjoy:

• Smoother, more consistent client relationships
• A team that actually works well together
• Knowledge that stays in-house instead of walking out the door
• A stronger, more genuine culture
• Better productivity across the board
• Much easier succession planning

In a nutshell, keeping good people is almost always worth the investment than replacing them again and again.

Here are some pointers on team retention in your legal practice

Build a workplace that your team enjoy coming to day in day out

Consider the statistic – the average solicitor in Ireland works 45-50 hours a week in private practice. That’s well above the standard 37 hour week and when we account for annual leave etc, it adds up to over 2000 hours a year! Nobody is going to want to spend that amount of time in an unhappy workplace.

In today’s modern world, we often hear about “workplace culture” but what does it mean, particularly in the context of the legal profession? Really it just comes down to the small stuff that happens every day. How do partners talk to junior solicitors when things get tense? Do people feel safe asking a “silly” question? Are wins ever actually celebrated? Can someone log off at 6pm without feeling like they’re letting the side down?

These little things add up more than most firms realise.

Standards are part and parcel of a legal practice – there will always be deadlines, tricky clients, and the occasional fire to put out. But the firms that keep their people tend to be the ones that balance those pressures with basic respect and honest communication.

A few practical ways to build that up:

• Keep the lines of communication open between partners and staff
• Run regular one-to-one check-ins — actual conversations, not box-ticking
• Recognise good work, both publicly and privately
• Ditch the culture of “last one in the office wins”
• Encourage people to collaborate rather than compete with each other
• Make space for the team to actually connect socially

Simple as it sounds, people stick around where they feel respected and part of the team.

Provide clear paths for progression

One of the biggest reasons solicitors leave? They don’t see a way forward for progressing in their career. This is a particular challenge for female solicitors as we discussed in our Women in the Legal Profession series. If there is no clear path for progression, it doesn’t take much for a competing offer to look appealing.

It’s worth remembering: progression doesn’t have to mean being made partner. This is one point that Career Psychologist, Sinead Brady highlighted at our SGN Women in Law Forum – success and career happiness can look different to everyone.

Here are some ideas of what growth can look like for solicitors:

• More autonomy in how they work
• A shot at higher-calibre cases
• Mentorship from someone more senior
• Carving out a niche specialism
• Some flexible leadership responsibility
• Getting stuck into business development
• A better balance between career growth and actually having a life

Regular, honest conversations about someone’s development go a long way here. When people feel like the firm is genuinely invested in them, they tend to invest right back.

A few practical steps:

• Support CPD and ongoing learning properly, not just in theory
• Give clear, constructive feedback
• Set up mentoring with senior solicitors
• Let junior staff sit in on client meetings or head to court
• Spot future leaders early and start grooming them

Even small investments here can pay off hugely for retention down the line.

Offer Flexibility where possible

Attitudes toward flexible working have shifted in the legal world over the last few years, amplified by the pandemic of 2020-2021. Solicitors are thinking more carefully about how work fits into their actual lives – especially those juggling childcare, caring responsibilities, long commutes, or just trying to protect their own wellbeing.

You don’t need to go fully remote to stay competitive. But if you’re flexible with your team, they are more likely to be flexible in return.

Flexibility might look like:

• Hybrid setups
• Flexible start and finish times
• Cutting down on unnecessary commuting
• Compressed working weeks
• Trusting people to manage their own time
• Real support during big life moments

One point worth mentioning: flexibility needs to feel fair across the board. If people sense that certain team members are being favoured, resentment builds fast. Essentially, you and your firm need to be willing to rethink old assumptions about how legal work “has to” be done and try some new strategies.

Don’t Let Technology hold your team back

Outdated technology can add stress to an already high-pressured job by making even the simplest of tasks tedious and long-winded. Over time this can become the straw that breaks the camel’s back for an over-worked solicitor.

Some straightforward upgrades that can genuinely ease the pressure:

• A proper case management system
• Document automation that actually works
• Better digital communication tools
• Easy remote access to files
• Smoother billing processes
• Less duplication of admin tasks
• Embracing AI tools

When solicitors aren’t fighting sluggish systems all day, they’ve got more energy left for the work that actually matters – the clients and their cases. And just from a morale perspective, younger solicitors want to be part of a progressive team, one where the most up-to-date digital tools are being embraced and utilised.

Workplace wellbeing should be more than just a buzzword when it comes to team retention

Practicing in law is an emotionally draining vocation. Solicitors carry client stress, pressure to meet deadlines, conflict with opposing sides, as well as maintaining compliance. And while ‘workplace wellbeing’ has become somewhat of a buzzword, some firms still find it hard to talk about it in any real, practical way.

Supporting wellbeing doesn’t mean fruit baskets and a yoga poster in the break room. The changes that actually help tend to be operational ones that encourage a positive working environment.

Think:

• Keeping workloads realistic
• Genuinely respecting annual leave
• Cutting back on out-of-hours pings and emails
• Backing people up during especially heavy periods
• Making it safe to actually talk about struggling
• Training managers to spot the early signs of burnout

People stay when they feel their wellbeing genuinely matters to the team as a whole. And it’s worth remembering this benefits clients too. An exhausted, overwhelmed solicitor is far more likely to make mistakes or disengage entirely by handing in their notice.

Good leadership means leading by example

In most firms, culture is really just a reflection of how leadership behaves. If partners always seem stressed, unreachable, or checked out, that energy spreads through the whole practice. But approachable, communicative leadership tends to steady the team, creating a calmer environment.

Good leadership in practice often looks like:

• Being upfront about where the firm is heading
• Communicating consistently, not just when there’s a problem
• Sharing out workload fairly
• Giving feedback that’s actually useful
• Leading with a bit of emotional intelligence
• Being visible and approachable, not locked away in an office

While every law firm will experience tumultuous times, team members are more likely to weather the storm if they trust the people captaining the ship.

The bottom line for team retention

Keeping your best people on your team isn’t about one simple solution – it’s the sum of lots of small decisions that shape what it actually feels like to work at your firm day to day.

Solicitors want to feel trusted, supported, treated fairly, and like they’ve got a real future where they are. Firms that take that seriously (and act on it) tend to end up with stronger teams, better client relationships, and a lot more staying power in a tough market.

When you investing properly in your people, you’re essentially investing in the future of the practice itself. And what better way to invest in your people than by ensuring they have all their CPD requirements sorted in one handy platform. With SGN membership, not only do you have access to all our webinars, live and on demand, but you can also avail of our complimentary Roadshow held in Dublin every year that covers the required 5 hours of In-Person CPD. And there’s more – you and your team can enjoy support and guidance from over 600 fellow solicitor colleagues in our exclusive Members Hub. Explore SGN membership options today.

*The aim of our blog is to share valuable information and resources with our colleagues. Follow us on social so you get notified of our latest blogs.

To become a contributor to the blog, please contact info@solicitorsgrowth.com.