I am a sixth-year associate overseeing a second year. They are an exceptionally good associate. I am honestly shocked at the work product I receive and the way they go above and beyond. The issue I have is that they sometimes take awhile to turn things around. For example, I ask for a draft response to the client, and they take three-four days. I know they’re busy, but I would like to address this in a positive way. Any suggestions?

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Give them a deadline

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A3, you and I are the same!

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If they’re as good as you say they are then other mid levels are probably using them. They could just be swamped.

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Came here to say exactly that

I would ask what their schedule looks like and give them a deadline (“I would like this by EOD Wednesday, but let me know how your schedule is looking this week and if that sounds do-able) or you can hint at how long it should take them when you give them the assignment “this shouldn’t take more than a few hours, but let me know if you run into trouble”

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Telling someone how long it should take does not signal by when it should be done. Yeah, it might take two hours - but from Junior's POV, they have 50 hours of work that needs done and they frequently don't have enough experience to know how/what to prioritize. So unless you're giving them an actual deadline and then helping them prioritize with respect to the rest of the work they have on their list, you should accept what you get when you get it.

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I’m a second year, I want to be like that associate, can you explain how they “go above and beyond?”

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great question! They always anticipate what we need next, and every week, they send an email with a status update and action items for the next week. I know they were a paralegal before law school, so I think that helps a lot. They also make sure that the drafts they send me are in “ready to file form” meaning caption is on it, exhibits are in the email, etc. It’s the little things that go a long way!

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Agreed with giving specific deadlines will help. I think also a bigger picture discussion will help them continue to succeed, e.g., “in general, if the client sends us a specific question, we want to respond to that the same day, and you should move that ahead in your prioritization as versus longer assignments like drafting documents”. And even if you’re not giving specific deadlines, tell them the suggested prioritization of tasks within your deal, especially if they’ve got several tasks on your deal you’ve asked them to handle. Hopefully they’ll pick it up over time where it’ll be more intuitive, but they’re only a second year, being more explicit with how to prioritize may go a long way.

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If you see how good they are, likely others do too and keep picking to work with that associate so they have twice or triple the workload of the other associates because people pick them so much. Knowing that, I’d stop asking them for more menial tasks. Otherwise, you may lose them, and they’ll go elsewhere. Poaching is real. I’m still getting constant emails to my work email at my mid sized firm asking if I’d like to lateral into big law. I’m sure a big law associate is getting 10X the number of emails I’m getting. My point is, they have options. It’s likely best to stop asking them to do every little thing and just pick them for the more important tasks or set a deadline. Train another associate

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This is good advice. It was so frustrating to me as a junior when I was busy writing briefs/letters for some seniors and another was just asking me to pull a document or data entry for them

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Junior here. Agree that you should specify a deadline and ask about their availability to clarify expectations. I’ve also found it helpful when people tell me to check in after I’ve spent x hours/days on something and to ping them if I haven’t been able to get to it by a certain point in the day/week. This helps me communicate more freely about why things might be taking longer to turn around

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