Adam Smith Esq & Harnessing the power of internal networks

Readers who have read my post of a few days ago, will be interested to read that the excellent Bruce MacEwen has also picked up on the article (click on the link in the title).

Bruce and I go back as I've been speaking to him from time to time. I actually took the time to send him a copy of my masters thesis of 2005, which proposed as one of the comments that to help develop the mentoring relationship that a partner and a junior solicitor sit either on a side by side basis or a face to face basis.

This was aimed at the junior solicitor so that some of the partners "deep smarts" could be picked up. I'd noticed that one senior lawyer had done this in one of the firms that I was analysing and that the junior solicitors or trainee solicitors who had gone through this process had learnt a great deal more non book knowledge than they had with other mentoring lawyers.

Bruce's article however does not pick up though that the process is not all one way. As part of my research I discovered that the senior lawyer can benefit from the juniors new knowledge especially when they have just been on a course or just come out of law school. They too can bring new insights which helps a senior to lose redundant knowledge and replace it with more appropriate and up to date knowledge.

Both parties can benefit from this process and also as Bruce points out the cost in reducing your space requirements is quite handy.