A litigation firm lives by hearing dates. Advocates, juniors and clerks cover several courts a day, and one missed listing or badly kept file can cost a client dearly. Hours are set by the court, not the firm.
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Share your requirementsA litigation firm appears in trial courts, high courts, tribunals and sometimes the Supreme Court, for clients in civil, criminal, commercial and service disputes. Work runs on cause lists: a senior advocate or partner, juniors who draft and argue smaller matters, and clerks who file, track dates and carry papers. A day can mean three courts in different parts of the city. Juniors often start on a small stipend and learn by standing behind a senior. Files are many, paper-heavy and long-running, and a missed date or lost order creates real harm. The wider professional services hub covers firms in general, and the law firms hub compares the types.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Listings change the evening before, so staff are reassigned at short notice and personal plans do not hold.
Stipends are low and learning depends on how much time a senior has. Many juniors leave for better pay before they become useful.
A clerk who misreads a listing or a file that goes to the wrong court can harm a client and the firm's name.
They know registries, timings and shortcuts, and when one leaves, the firm loses routes it never wrote down.
Files move between courts, chambers and homes, and an advocate may not know where a particular bundle is.
Waiting in court, late drafting before a hearing and weekend preparation blur the working day for everyone.
Juniors guess how they are doing from a raised eyebrow, and the best ones leave to set up on their own.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a litigation firms business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
One daily list of hearings by court, advocate and clerk, updated the evening before and confirmed in the morning.
What this coversHideOne daily list of hearings by court, advocate and clerk, updated the evening before and confirmed in the morning. The attendance and leave process uses it.
Written steps from intern to junior to associate, with stipend ranges, review points and what skills each step expects.
What this coversHideWritten steps from intern to junior to associate, with stipend ranges, review points and what skills each step expects.
Registry timings, filing steps and court-wise tips recorded so a replacement can learn them.
What this coversHideRegistry timings, filing steps and court-wise tips recorded so a replacement can learn them. The documentation process helps.
A short note on what a clerk, junior, drafting assistant and diary keeper each do, so duties are not assumed.
What this coversHideA short note on what a clerk, junior, drafting assistant and diary keeper each do, so duties are not assumed. See role design.
A rule that a run of late nights or weekend work is followed by lighter days where the diary allows.
What this coversHideA rule that a run of late nights or weekend work is followed by lighter days where the diary allows.
A short monthly talk with their senior on drafting, arguing and conduct, so progress is spoken about.
What this coversHideA short monthly talk with their senior on drafting, arguing and conduct, so progress is spoken about.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Leave and cover planning built around the cause list and court vacations.
A route that turns juniors into reliable drafters and arguers.
Clear duties for clerks, juniors and diary staff so nothing falls between them.
A look at when juniors and clerks leave and what the firm can change.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
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Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
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How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Plan leave around the diary, keep a named cover for each court and ask for notice where possible. A shared list shows who is free on a given day.
Publish a scale, review it yearly and add skill-based steps. Some will still go, but a clear route with fair pay keeps those who value learning.
Write down their routines, introduce a second person to registries and share tracking duties. Dependence on one person is the real risk.
Yes, in short form. A ten-minute monthly talk, plus a note after a major hearing, shows juniors what to improve without taking much time.
Keep a simple movement register by file, person and date. A habit of signing files out and in is more reliable than memory.
We would ask how many hearings each person covers, what juniors earn and learn, and how a new clerk would pick up registry routines. A junior growth scale with a shared hearing list is a natural first piece, and scope is written down for your sign-off.
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