Accelerating skills development in busy legal teams – LexisNexis
Busy mid-sized law firms rarely have the luxury of time, yet the question keeps coming back: how do we improve customer service without overwhelming already stretched teams? The most effective answer is to treat skills development as a client experience strategy, not an optional training activity.
Link skills development directly to client experience
For many managing partners, the real concern behind “how do we improve customer service” is consistency: can every team, in every office, deliver the same quality and responsiveness to clients? Mid-sized firms are juggling recruitment challenges, rising costs and pressure to increase utilisation, so simply hiring more people is rarely the answer.
When you frame development around “how to improve your customer service experience” rather than abstract training, it becomes much easier to prioritise. Three practical shifts help:
- Define the behaviours that drive superior service in your firm: response times, clarity of advice, proactive risk spotting, stakeholder management and fee transparency.
- Map these behaviours to skills: time management, communication, matter leadership, commercial awareness and negotiation.
- Build these into role profiles, supervision conversations and appraisal criteria so that “how to improve client centricity” is woven into progression, not bolted on.
Recent LexisNexis Bellwether research emphasises that marginal gains in process, people and technology can unlock significant performance improvements for small and mid-sized firms. When leaders consciously align growth and client needs with targeted skills investment, they improve delivery without automatically defaulting to longer hours.
Make learning bite-sized and embedded in workflows
Most firms say they value development, but fee-earners experience it as a half-day training session that is first to be cancelled when work gets busy. Professional bodies increasingly highlight soft skills such as self-management, teamwork and communication as core to effective practice, not an extra. For busy teams, that means designing development in small, repeatable units that fit the rhythm of the working day. Practical tactics include:
- Ten-minute “learning huddles” at the start or end of team meetings to dissect a recent matter: what went well for the client, what confused them, what would we do differently next time?
- Monthly micro-sessions on soft skills such as difficult conversations, expectation setting and matter scoping, using real client emails and scenarios, especially where a matter risked becoming an example of how to improve poor customer service.
- Encouraging junior lawyers to own short “teach-back” slots on a recent case, statute change or procedural point.
Supporting this with the right tools matters. Simple legal time management software and better use of existing case management systems help lawyers visualise competing priorities and protect time for development, rather than squeezing it into evenings. Referencing proven time management techniques and planning tools within your workflows reinforces self-management as a professional skill.
To deepen day-to-day learning, give teams access to structured know-how they can use in the moment. Work faster and smarter with Lexis+® Practical Guidance. With practice notes, precedents, forms and current awareness, it supports on-the-job learning across practice areas while helping fee-earners keep matters moving for clients.
Use technology and data to unlock time for development
If chargeable hours are below potential capacity, the question is not just “how do we improve customer service” but how to redesign processes so lawyers spend more time on advisory work and less on low-value tasks. Recent research into mid-sized firms highlights that targeted technology investment and incremental process improvements are key levers for productivity and sustainable growth. For mid-sized firms, law firm growth through leadership often looks like:
- Clarifying which repetitive tasks can be automated or standardised (first-draft documents, basic research, bundling, matter opening) to improve delivery speed.
- Using data from your practice and time recording systems to pinpoint bottlenecks: slow conflict checks, delayed partner review, client rework due to unclear instructions.
- Introducing law firm adaptability techniques such as small pilot projects, A/B testing of new processes and short feedback cycles before scaling changes. AI can now support both skills development and client experience.
Create reflective, supportive teams
Skills do not develop in isolation; they grow fastest in teams that are willing to reflect together. Reflective practice pilots spearheaded within the profession have shown the value of confidential small-group sessions where lawyers analyse recent experiences to support wellbeing and continuous learning. Mid-sized firms can adapt this approach to creating a positive law firm culture that also improves client outcomes:
- Run short, cross-team debriefs after complex matters or challenging client interactions, focusing on what the client experienced as well as the legal strategy.
- Use simple ground rules (confidentiality, no blame, focus on learning) so people can safely discuss missteps that affected service.
- Rotate facilitation and include a mix of partners, associates and business services so the whole system that touches the client is represented.
Over time, these peer-support forums become powerful vehicles for sharing techniques on how to improve your customer service experience, from practical email etiquette to handling price-sensitive conversations. They also help normalise discussions about workload, resilience and boundaries, which are increasingly highlighted by professional bodies as essential to sustainable performance.
Measure impact and keep adapting
Firms that treat skills development as a strategic lever for client service will track outcomes as carefully as they do billable time. Practical metrics include:
- Client feedback scores and qualitative comments on responsiveness, clarity and commerciality.
- Matter cycle times and the number of touchpoints where clients seek clarification.
- Patterns in write-offs, complaints and scope creep, which often signal communication or expectation-setting gaps.
Leaders can then link these measures back to specific interventions: soft-skills micro-sessions, reflective practice groups, better templates or use of guidance and AI tools. This creates a feedback loop where “how do we improve customer service” becomes an evidence-based conversation, not a generic aspiration. For mid-sized firms, the ones that will stand out are those that join the dots: aligning growth and client needs with targeted, ongoing skills development, supported by the right technology and culture. Creating space to learn, reflect and use modern tools is central to delivering the consistent, high-quality client experience that underpins long-term relationships and sustainable growth.
