Deborah Glatter | Shift Performance Reviews From Painful to Transformational

The Lawyer's Edge

Deborah Glatter is a legal management and training consultant and certified culture coach helping law firms align their values and behaviors with their business objectives. After practicing law for a decade, she joined the Law Society of Ontario’s Department of Education, where she designed courses and licensing examinations for the Bar Admission Course. Deborah then joined a national law firm as a partner, where she was responsible for the professional development and management of its lawyers.

As an Accredited Provider of Professionalism Content, Deborah co-designed a graduate diploma for lawyers in Legal Services Management for Queen’s Law School. She is regularly invited to speak to bar and management associations, conferences, and firm retreats about topics, including legal workforces in transition, navigating new working arrangements, and best practices for virtual meetings.

With specialties in legal skills training and designing human capital management systems, Deborah focuses on competencies and skills inventories and performance management and development systems. Her expertise in these areas equips her to instruct firms on facilitating transformational performance reviews.

In this episode…

Traditional performance reviews were developed during World War I and II when the US military implemented a system to promote and dismiss soldiers. However, this review structure is ineffective for knowledge-based professionals like lawyers who rely on professional development opportunities to advance their careers. How can law firms create a functional infrastructure that nurtures progress and reduces the discomfort of critical reviews?

The next generation of attorneys are bright, ambitious, and motivated individuals, so culture coach and legal management consultant Deborah Glatter maintains that attracting and retaining them requires transitioning from an evaluative performance review system to a developmental coaching session. Rather than identifying lawyers’ shortcomings, Deborah advises setting three to five incremental goals and communicating skills expectations and partnership criteria. Yet sometimes performance reviews are necessary, so collaborating to identify problems and develop solutions is crucial.

Tune in to this episode of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast as Elise Holtzman hosts Deborah Glatter, a legal management consultant, to discuss how to transition from uncomfortable performance reviews to transformational development sessions. Deborah explains the importance of infrastructure for law firms, how lawyers should respond to criticism during performance reviews, and how to structure a high-performing law firm.