My assistant is a nice person who has worked worth me for about 1.5 years. I have a solo family law practice, and she excels at dealing with clients, which is great. Unfortunately, her attention to detail sucks and it is making me crazy. For example, I told her to find the order entered that required OV to comply with discovery within x number of days. She comes in my office and tells me no such order was entered. It takes me about 3 minutes to find the order, which was about 2 orders (cont)

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Stop being “a nice guy” and fire her.

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Thank you for your input.

Maybe just be straight forward about it with her and see if things change? If things don’t change, let her go.

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Thank you.

Continued: back in the docket. Another example: we get a box of documents from prior counsel. It is her job to scan them all in and create an electronic file. She says she did it. I tell her it is really important that each and every document is in there, as I was outsourcing some work on this file, and please take time to double check. A few days later she confirms everything is in the digital file. I look for the discovery requests that prior counsel issued in the digital file. They are nowhere to be found. I ask her where they are, and she says she will check. She comes back and tells me we never got them. I check in the original box of documents we received and locate them in a few minutes. I have had similar issues with her telling me we never received certain documents from clients, and then I search emails and find emails (that have her copied) where we received the documents. I truly do not know how to teach someone to look/read carefully. I’m wondering if there is some method to teach someone this type of skill, or if she is a lost cause for me here. I appreciate any help anyone can offer.

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I was this legal assistant for a while, and while it looked like I lacked attention to detail, it was really just inexperience — I didn’t know what the documents looked like or what I was looking for. Is she adequately trained on the substance?

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This is a fair question. Yes, for all of these examples she knows what the documents, or the clause in the order, look like. For the discovery requests, she has responded to/issued discovery, so she has seen discovery requests. For the order regarding responding to discovery, I think so. It was the first enumerated paragraph in the order that stated “both parties shall comply with discovery by x date.” When I found it and showed it to her, her response was “I must have missed that order.”

This is affecting your practice.

You need to sit her down, explain expectations. Tell her that you should not hear "I can't findvit" unless she checked the source material three times slowly. Say you're available for questions.

See how she does while beginning to search for her replacement.

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Thank you.

Ask her to do a checklist in Word, with a column for what is in the box and a check mark in another column for when she has scanned it. She will need to enter each document’s title first and that will help not miss one.

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It could be a reading disorder, even if never diagnosed, though it sounds like she functions well otherwise, and I don't know whether or how that is fixable. In case she is being passive-aggressive, see if you can get her to open up about any issues she has with you or the job. It is frustrating to be asked to find something that my boss could find in 3 minutes, which feels like less time than it took her to ask me to find it and is way less time than it would take me to find it. You may be able to identify areas in which you can improve as a leader, either for her or her replacement.

Thank you. I do not get the vibe she is being passive aggressive. It seems like she is eager to do a good job, but there is something just lacking in ability/skills. I get being frustrated at asking her to find something that I can find in 3 minutes, but the point is she should also be able to find these things in 3 minutes. They are hidden away, if that makes sense.

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