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Competencies: Today, being a great lawyer and succeeding in a global, diverse firm requires more than simply possessing excellent legal knowledge and skills. It also requires being a well-rounded business professional who works effectively as part of a team, interacts well with clients and colleagues, is a good firm citizen, can lead a team through a case or deal, and develops and manages ongoing client relationships. Reed Smith's clients demand this, our business requires it, and the firm's competency model (depicted above) shows how these capabilities apply at each stage of one’s career.
"I am a big fan of our 'competencies.' They articulate in a qualitative way what it takes to be a successful lawyer at Reed Smith, no matter in which office you might sit. Not only are they good for us, but they are also good for our clients, ensuring a uniform approach to service delivery, to relationship management and to lawyer development across the Reed Smith network."
Partner, London
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Development Options: To help associates progress against the competencies, CareeRS provides a wide variety of development opportunities, from training programs mapped to the nine core competencies, to on-the-job development, pro bono opportunities, client and intra-firm secondments, online resources, and more. The competency-based core curriculum offers programming tailored to the unique requirements at each level, including each level’s own “Academy” or “Core Programmes.” Notably, while the core curriculum includes all-important substantive and legal-skills training, it also encompasses training on the firm's Citizenship, Business Skills and Client competencies, which are designed to help our lawyers be savvy, business-minded lawyers who understand our clients and the industries in which they operate, and can help those clients achieve their legal and business objectives. All of the programs are offered through Reed Smith University and are taught by both in-house faculty (lawyers and senior staff) and outside experts.
"Law schools do a nice job of teaching us to think like lawyers but they don’t always teach us the specific skills that we need to service our clients or manage our careers. This great program does both."
Partner, Philadelphia
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Performance Reviews: The Performance Review Process is designed to assess an associate’s annual performance against the nine competencies. This alignment with the competencies, coupled with substantial partner, management and human resources involvement, results in comprehensive, descriptive and developmentally oriented reviews for all associates – reviews that help associates not only look back to reflect on past performance, but also face forward to set goals for the coming year and beyond.
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CareeRS Advisors: To support associates as they develop into experienced lawyers, each associate is assigned a “CareeRS Advisor”— a senior lawyer who is ready, willing and able to advise the associate on navigating his or her way at the firm and making best use of the many development opportunities available to them. While the firm strongly encourages and supports informal mentoring relationships, the CareeRS Advisor program guarantees that every associate has someone he or she can turn to for career development advice.
"It is so important to have CareeRS to provide guidance on what it means to be a lawyer, moving up through the ranks, and what your ultimate goal is. . . . . [T]he CareeRS program helps answer questions like 'Do I want to be a partner?' and, 'If so, what paths can I take to achieve that goal?'"
Associate, New York
