Paralegals are the only people in our firm who touch both of our most important stakeholders every single day — our clients and our attorneys. That makes the way we hire, train and lead that team one of the most consequential things we do.
Here’s what we’ve learned building a paralegal team that actually performs.
Hire for Curiosity, Not Experience
When we’re evaluating paralegal candidates, experience in family law is not the top priority. Our preference is actually someone who comes in without deeply ingrained habits from another firm.
What we look for instead is curiosity. Does this person want to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing? Someone who grasps the context behind the work picks things up faster and needs far less hand-holding down the road.
Give New Teammates a Real Foundation Before Throwing Them In
The first week is heavy. There’s a lot to absorb. We walk new paralegals through everything they’re likely to encounter, then move into daily huddles and a mentorship pairing with an experienced teammate in their region.
Client contact typically starts around the one-month mark. Full independent performance usually takes closer to three months. That timeline exists for a reason, so we don’t rush it.
Set Expectations Between Attorneys and Paralegals from Day One
Our paralegals typically support at least two attorneys at a time, each with different working styles and preferences. We address that early with a structured kickoff between the attorney and paralegal to establish who owns what and what the attorney needs most in that working relationship.
Skipping that step creates confusion that’s hard to unwind later.
Treat Offshore Teammates the Same as Everyone Else
We have paralegals and virtual legal assistants based in the Philippines working US hours. The management approach is identical to how we lead our domestic team — same one-on-ones, same coaching cadence, same access to attorneys and colleagues throughout the day.
The temptation with offshore teammates is to treat them as a back-office resource. That’s a mistake. Full integration into the culture is what produces results on both sides.
Trust Your Team to Do the Work
The instinct when leading a team for the first time is to over-supervise. We’ve found the opposite works better. Give people enough support to succeed, enough space to make mistakes and enough trust to correct course without someone standing over them.
The paralegals who grow fastest at Sterling are the ones whose managers believe in them early.
