The Ultimate Law Firm Employee Onboarding Checklist

Even when your agency is nicely established, it’s inevitable that you simply’ll must deliver new employees into the fold sooner or later. When this time comes, structured onboarding can go a great distance—particularly when guided by a regulation agency worker onboarding guidelines.

When requested about the advantages of being in-office, main regulation corporations nearly unanimously cited mentorship and new worker integration as a high workspace profit. With recruitment being a high HR problem for regulation corporations, it’s important that your onboarding course of be as clean and full as potential.

Curious what the very best practices for regulation agency onboarding are? Our regulation agency worker onboarding guidelines will enable you to streamline your onboarding, ship a greater expertise for brand spanking new hires, and in the end enhance your HR’s hiring efforts.

Understanding the significance of regulation agency worker onboarding

Good assist is tough to search out, and whenever you lastly discover it, the temptation to throw them straight into work is robust. However a high quality onboarding course of is vital for each your agency’s and the brand new staff’ well-being. Sadly, many regulation corporations miss the mark with onboarding.

In actual fact, solely 12% of staff are proud of their firm’s onboarding course of. 

Aside from bucking the development, why does regulation agency onboarding want a tailor-made strategy?

Basic advantages of efficient onboarding for regulation corporations

Efficient regulation agency worker onboarding comes with a number of advantages, a lot of which lengthen past offering a greater expertise to your new hires:

Quicker time to productiveness for brand spanking new hires: 51% of staff with nice onboarding felt they had been more adept of their position, quicker.
Reinforce your agency’s fame as a high quality employer: 78% of individuals with nice onboarding had extra optimistic emotions towards their firm.
Helps set expectations for brand spanking new staff from day one: Correct onboarding helps set up clear position expectations from the start, setting staff up for a greater, extra reasonable expertise.

Past the above basic advantages, efficient onboarding for regulation corporations has a ripple impact that impacts different aspects of your agency.

Impression on worker retention and satisfaction

Nice onboarding ends in higher emotions towards your agency, which suggests persons are extra prone to keep. This not solely helps new staff, but in addition helps your senior staff as they received’t must cope with constant turnover.

On high of this, those that are proud of the onboarding course of have 2.6x larger office satisfaction.

Once more, clear expectations assist maintain issues grounded and reasonable for each events. This may set your staff up for fulfillment, and assist make sure the position is the correct match early on.

Authorized compliance and threat administration throughout onboarding

Each authorized compliance and threat administration are important to the success of any regulation agency. Happily, onboarding helps right here too:

Thorough onboarding ensures obligatory employment documentation is accomplished on day one, and that nothing falls by way of the cracks.
Confidentiality and compliance points are pricey. Onboarding mitigates these pricey errors proper out of the gate.
There are quite a few federal, state, and native employment legal guidelines to adjust to. A radical onboarding course of will test these bins and guarantee compliance.

As an added perk, the above advantages will additional set up your agency’s fame as considered one of high quality and accountability.

Important steps within the regulation agency worker onboarding course of

What’s included in a regulation agency onboarding guidelines? Whereas each agency is totally different, there are nonetheless a number of classes that every regulation agency ought to deal with with their worker onboarding guidelines. 

When going by way of every of the next sections, take into account your purchasers and what makes your agency distinctive, and alter the gadgets accordingly.

1. “Preboarding” actions to arrange new regulation agency staff

Preboarding takes place earlier than onboarding and can assist you ship a smoother first day for brand spanking new hires and your agency:

Ship welcome electronic mail with first-day particulars: Embody particulars on what to anticipate upon arrival and what their schedule appears to be like like for the day.
Present entry to your worker handbook, advantages data, tech setup directions: Together with these particulars, embrace related contact info for every space in case the individual wants assist.
Put together workstation, system logins, and software program accounts: Ensure your staff has every thing arrange for the worker earlier than arrival, this fashion they aren’t ready round and may as a substitute give attention to assembly folks and getting acquainted. 
Assign a mentor or onboarding buddy: Pair the brand new rent with somebody extra skilled. This individual can assist them with any questions, take them out for espresso or lunch, and make them extra comfy.

Preboarding actions take extra of your time than they do the brand new rent’s, however it’s time nicely spent.

2. Key paperwork and types to supply

Delivering obligatory paperwork on day one ensures the aforementioned compliance and prevents the worker from losing any time ready:

Employment contract and job description: Embody the job description with the contract to make sure there’s alignment earlier than the rent is official.
Tax and payroll types: Embody your state’s related tax types, alongside along with your agency’s payroll types. Ensure they know who to contact if they’ve questions.
Agency’s insurance policies: Embody firm-specific insurance policies, equivalent to your ethics, DEI, or cybersecurity insurance policies. Be certain somebody is on the market to reply questions.
Confidentiality and non-compete agreements (if relevant): Your agency could have confidentiality and non-compete agreements, which you’ll wish to present together with the employment contract.

Relying in your agency, you’ll have extra types and paperwork to incorporate on day one.

3. Scheduling orientation and coaching classes

As soon as the worker is formally employed, you wish to give attention to getting them up to the mark. The next orientation and coaching gadgets will be sure you get staff began heading in the right direction:

Orientation: Host a brand new rent orientation, protecting agency construction, historical past, management, and values. You’ll want to go away time for questions, making new hires really feel welcome.
Coaching and check-ins: Put together a 30-60-90 day coaching plan that helps the brand new rent work towards reasonable targets. Additionally, embrace a check-in schedule between them and their supervisor and/or mentor.
Position-specific coaching: Past basic coaching, be sure you embrace role-specific coaching, equivalent to how one can use case administration techniques and billing instruments like Clio, authorized analysis platforms, telephone techniques, and so forth. As a bonus, schedule 1:1s with employees so the brand new rent can perceive their roles within the agency.
Compliance and safety coaching: Schedule preliminary compliance and safety coaching, together with any common, required coaching and compliance updates as wanted.

Compiling the above gadgets is a good time to consider your present employees. Everybody can use a refresher, and this can be a nice alternative to schedule any refresher coaching, up to date safety coaching, and so on.

4. Cultural integration and staff constructing

Whereas skillset is vital, it’s important new hires slot in nicely with the remainder of the agency. Ideally you may get a really feel for somebody throughout interviews, however there are nonetheless steps you’ll be able to take post-hire to assist on this space:

Reinforce expectations: Arrange coaching and conferences round professionalism, shopper service, and the way your agency communicates internally and externally. It’s a good suggestion to have refresher programs for the entire agency as nicely.
Encourage relationship-building: Your agency is a staff, and it’s vital they work as such. Past an preliminary mentorship, arrange espresso chats or staff lunches, and enjoyable team-building actions.
Encourage cross-functional collaboration: Encourage new hires to ask questions and collaborate with different departments. Relying on the scale of your agency, you’ll have totally different authorized specialties as nicely, which makes for an excellent knowledge-sharing alternative.

Whereas the above pointers are nice for brand spanking new hires, it’s by no means a foul concept to revisit these things throughout the board. It’s straightforward for folks to get right into a routine at a fast-paced agency, and team-building can fall to the wayside consequently.

Ongoing improvement and enchancment

It might probably take new employees months—if not years—to really feel comfy in a brand new position, so don’t assume work is completed after the primary week. It’s important to keep vigilant and ensure all of your staff are working towards long-term, developmental targets:

Conduct common check-ins: Have all staff usually test in with their supervisor, throughout which they’ll present suggestions to assist each new and ongoing worker improvement. This additionally offers your staff an opportunity to supply suggestions to their supervisor, voice considerations, and so forth.
Assist worker progress: Supply skilled improvement and networking alternatives the place it is smart, offering customized progress plans.

There’s no blanket answer to improvement and enchancment. All the time maintain the person in thoughts and tailor your strategy accordingly.

Constructing a powerful basis to your agency

A considerate onboarding course of just isn’t solely serving to your staff thrive, but in addition constructing a powerful basis on which your agency can develop and final for the lengthy haul.

Even when your agency is nicely established, it’s best to audit your present onboarding observe utilizing the guidelines factors above. Processes can and may change over time, insurance policies could be up to date, and nothing ought to ever be set in stone.

To really ship the very best onboarding course of, streamline your present duties and processes. Clio Handle can simplify on a regular basis duties in regulation corporations, from automating paperwork to enabling on-line shopper funds to streamlining doc administration.

We revealed this weblog publish in June 2025. Final up to date: June 3, 2025.

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