CASE STUDY

Creating and Implementing An Associate Competency Framework

Driving recruiting and talent management processes with a structured framework

Our client, an Am Law 100 firm, was frustrated by a lack of clarity regarding expectations for associates in the context of their professional development. The firm had also identified the need for a more fully integrated approach to the hiring, development, retention, and advancement of its lawyers. It had decided that it wanted to implement a competency framework to help drive its recruiting and its talent management processes. Against this backdrop, the firm invited Volta to advise.

What we’re solving for

Interviewing and Hiring Experiences

Services

Our Process

Over the course of six months, we guided the firm through a detailed competency development process that included in-depth discussions with the talent team and key stakeholders regarding the purpose and intention of competencies. We shared design principles that would provide a North Star for the project. In collaboration with the talent team, we used different information-gathering techniques including:

  • A survey of partners and other lawyers designed to capture their input on the essential success factors at the firm

  • Focus groups with a cross-section of lawyers to identify and discuss essential competencies

  • Interviews with key individuals

We recognized how important it was to promote and socialize the firm’s new approach. Beyond the competencies themselves, we created resources to support the firm’s roll out of its new approach. This included presentations and a video. 

Result

The firm explained the benefits of a competency framework and effectively communicated its intention to bring additional focus to the professional development of its lawyers. We successfully delivered a three-level associate competency framework focused on the core competencies required of junior, mid-level, and senior associates at the firm. Our competency framework both set out a roadmap for associate development and supported the firm’s goals of promoting diversity and equity by underpinning its hiring, integration, development, and advancement processes with more transparent and objective expectations and measures of achievement.