Are you a junior partner developing your practice? If so, you might listen to a Delegating and Supervising Podcast you can download from iTunes on how I delegated and supervised a star associate who worked for me.

Wmentoring.jpghy is delegating and supervising so important? Put simply, without younger lawyers providing excellent work, no matter how great you are at bringing in business, you will be limited to what you can do yourself.

Even in this economy, the cost of losing a star associate is $200,000 to $500,000, and that doesn’t even account for the impact on the relationship with the client or the loss of morale in your firm.

Want some simple ideas? Okay, here are three.

  1. Treat your associates with the same respect that you treat your clients. Without them, you may not have your clients.
  2. LISTEN to the lawyers who work for you, get to know them and understand what motivates them. Then, each chance you get tap into what motivates them.
  3. Provide not just project-by-project feedback, but hands-on training and advice that helps your younger lawyers learn to become “masters.” If you help them work to become better lawyers, everyone wins.

Institutionalized “mentor-by-the-numbers” programs rarely work. True mentors take their associates under their wings, provide”shadowing” opportunities and help them to discover, step-by-step, case-by-case, deal-by-deal, how the real world of the law actually works.