As the owner of a law firm, have you ever hired someone who interviewed like a rock star, only to realize 90 days later that you made a mistake?
Their references checked out. They seemed trustworthy. They had the right personality. They said the right things. Maybe they even passed a personality test.
And yet, once they were inside your firm, something did not work.
They could not do the job the way it needed to be done. They could not follow the process. They could not perform under real conditions. Or they simply were not willing to do the work required for the role.
Now, as a member of E.A. (Entrepreneurial Attorney) Nation, you are smarter than the average bear… because you are here, as opposed to those who are out “there”.
But if that has happened to you, you are not alone.
Most law firm owners have made this mistake. I have made this mistake. Almost every entrepreneur I know has made this mistake.
But here is the important part: You did not necessarily hire a bad person. You had a broken hiring system.
The Problem With Traditional Interviews
Most law firm owners hire using some version of the same process.
- They run an ad.
- They review resumes.
- They schedule interviews.
- They talk to the candidates who actually show up.
- They ask questions.
- They check references.
- They trust their gut.
- Then they make an offer.
The problem is that this process often rewards the wrong thing.
It rewards charisma.
It rewards the person who interviews well, speaks confidently, and knows how to make you feel comfortable. It rewards the person who seems energetic, enthusiastic, and trustworthy in a short conversation.
But none of that proves they can actually do the job.
References do not solve the problem either. Most candidates are not going to list someone who will give them a poor reference. And even when you call references, you are still relying on someone else’s opinion.
So what are you really left with? Hope.
You hope they can do the work. You hope they can follow your process. You hope they can handle your clients. You hope they can use your systems. You hope they can perform after they are hired.
But hope and luck are not great recruiting strategies.
The Missing Step: Evidence
If you want to increase the likelihood of making a strong hire, you need to stop relying only on interviews and start looking for evidence.
Evidence means the candidate has demonstrated, before you hire them, that they can do the actual work required for the role.
That is where the skills test comes in.
A skills test is not a personality test. It is not another interview. It is not a generic assessment.
A skills test is a real-world task designed to show whether the candidate can perform the work your firm needs them to perform.
This is the step missing in almost every law firm hiring process.
Most firms go from screening calls to background checks to final interviews without ever stopping to ask the most important question:
Can this person actually do the job?
Inside a strong recruiting process, the skills test should happen before the final decision.
The basic recruiting structure looks like this:
- Application filter
- Screening call
- Skills test
- Background and personality checks
- Final interview, decision, and offer
The skills test belongs before the final interview because it gives you evidence before you become emotionally or mentally invested in the candidate.
Once you like someone, it becomes harder to stay objective.
You start making excuses. You start seeing potential instead of performance. You start telling yourself you can train the gaps away.
That is how hiring mistakes happen.
The skills test gives you a score before your gut gets too involved.
Start With the Job Itself
Before you can build a skills test, you have to understand what the job actually requires.
Ask yourself: What does this person need to do every day?
Is the job presentation-based? Is it process-based? Or is it both?
A presentation-based role might require the person to speak with prospects, handle consultations, explain documents, or present information clearly to clients.
A process-based role might require the person to complete forms, update the CRM, draft documents, manage files, send emails, or follow a workflow.
Many law firm roles require both.
For example, an intake team member may need to speak with potential clients using a script and structure. That is presentation-based.
But they may also need to enter notes into the CRM, send follow-up messages, trigger workflows, and document the conversation correctly. That is process-based.
Once you understand the real daily work, you can build a meaningful test.
The Five Parts of a Strong Skills Test
Every skills test needs five basic components.
- A Real Task
Do not test theory. Test the actual work.
If the role requires someone to speak with clients, have them demonstrate how they speak with clients.
If the role requires someone to use documents, forms, or software, have them complete a task using those tools.
If the role requires writing, have them write.
The task should mirror the job.
- A Time Limit
The test needs a deadline.
For an intake role, that might mean giving the candidate four days to memorize a script and structure.
For a paralegal or administrative role, it might mean completing a technical task within 24 hours.
The deadline matters because work inside a law firm does not happen in unlimited time. You need to see how the candidate performs within reasonable constraints.
- Clear Instructions
Do not be vague.
Tell the candidate exactly what they need to do, how they need to do it, when it is due, and how it will be submitted.
If they are memorizing a script, tell them what to memorize.
If they are completing a document task, tell them what the finished product should look like.
If they need to record their screen while completing the assignment, say that.
Clarity protects both sides. It gives the candidate a fair chance and gives you a cleaner way to evaluate their performance.
- Submission Requirements
You need a consistent way to review the work.
For some roles, that may be a live role play.
For others, it may be a completed document, a video, a screen recording, or a written explanation of how they approached the task.
For technical roles, having the candidate record their screen while completing the work can be especially useful. You do not just see the final result. You see how they think, how they navigate the task, and how they solve problems.
- A Scorecard
This is the most important part.
You must create the scorecard before the candidate completes the test.
Because without a scorecard, you are right back to using your gut.
A scorecard gives you an objective way to measure the candidate’s performance. It prevents you from being won over by personality. It forces you to look at ability.
The goal is not to find someone you like.
The goal is to find someone who can do the job.
Why Owners Skip This Step
Most law firm owners do not use skills tests for two reasons.
First, they have never thought about hiring this way.
Second, it takes work.
It takes time to design the test. It takes time to create the instructions. It takes time to build the scorecard. It takes time to review the results.
But the time you spend before the hire can save you months or years after the hire.
I learned this the hard way.
Years ago, I hired someone because they were charismatic, enthusiastic, and easy to like. I believed in who they were as a person. But I never tested whether they could actually do the work.
Once they were on the team, it became clear that they were not capable of performing in the role the way we needed them to perform.
But instead of making the hard decision quickly, I moved them.
Then I moved them again.
Then I moved them again.
Five years went by before I finally terminated that team member.
A simple skills test on the front end could have saved years of frustration.
The Real Cost of a Bad Hire
Most law firm owners underestimate the cost of a bad hire.
The obvious cost is payroll. But the deeper cost is operational drag.
A bad hire slows down your team.
They create rework. They frustrate clients. They weaken morale. They pull your attention back into the weeds. They make you hesitate to delegate. They create the exact bottleneck you were trying to remove.
And many times, you keep them longer than you should because replacing them feels exhausting.
You already spent the time hiring them.
You already trained them.
You are busy.
You do not want to start over.
So you tolerate average performance. And that tolerance is expensive.
Build a Team With Evidence
If you want to build a stronger law firm team, stop relying on hope and luck.
Keep the interview process. Keep the references. Keep the background checks. Keep the personality assessments if you use them.
But do not stop there.
Add evidence.
Before you hire someone, ask them to demonstrate that they can do the work.
Give them a real task, with a deadline, with clear instructions. Require a useful submission. Score them objectively.
This one step can dramatically improve your hiring process.
It will not make hiring perfect. Nothing will.
But it will increase the probability that your next hire succeeds and decrease the probability that you spend the next 90 days wondering what went wrong.
Hope is not a hiring strategy. Evidence is.
