In a recent Platforum9 session, business consultant Dan Warburton shared valuable insights on how delegation can transform legal careers and dramatically increase profitability in law firms. Drawing on his experience working with law firm owners and partners, Warburton highlighted the critical importance of delegation as a skill that is rarely taught but essential for success in the legal profession.
The Delegation Gap in Legal Education
After years of providing management and leadership training, Warburton discovered a significant gap in the legal sector. “There is no leadership, management or delegation training in the legal sector,” he observed. This absence of formal training creates a structural problem, as lawyers are incentivised to become “the go-to expert” rather than effective team leaders.
The issue stems from how legal careers develop. Lawyers spend years cultivating expertise to solve clients’ problems, establishing themselves as specialists in their field. While this path leads to partnership or ownership positions, it creates a bottleneck where “everybody within the team and all the clients [rely] on that one individual for their knowledge and expertise.” This dependency severely limits growth, both for the firm and for individual career progression.
The Economics of Effective Delegation
Warton presented a compelling economic case for delegation. Using straightforward mathematics, he compared two scenarios:
When a partner bills one hour at £500, they earn £500 for the firm but are unavailable for any other work during that period—no business development, marketing, team support, or compliance activities.
Alternatively, if the same partner delegates that work to a team of 10 people who each bill at half the rate (£250), the firm generates £2,500 in revenue. Even after accounting for salaries and expenses, this approach yields approximately £2,000 in profit—a 400% increase.
Beyond the immediate financial benefits, delegation creates a virtuous cycle. The partner regains time for higher-value activities and strategic thinking, while team members receive development opportunities that enhance their skills and career prospects, ultimately reducing staff turnover.
Overcoming Barriers to Delegation
Despite the clear benefits, delegation remains challenging for many lawyers. Warburton identified several common barriers:
The efficiency trap: “Why the hell am I sitting here trying to show somebody else to do this when I can just do this myself so much quicker?” This short-term thinking overlooks the long-term benefits of developing team capabilities.
Loss of control: Many lawyers fear that delegating means losing control over work quality or client relationships.
Credit concerns: Some worry that delegating means they won’t receive recognition for the work or that team members might leave and take clients with them.
Warburton emphasised that these concerns can be addressed through proper leadership and management fundamentals, particularly through establishing regular one-on-one meetings with team members.
The One-on-One Meeting Framework
The cornerstone of Warburton’s delegation approach is the structured one-on-one meeting. “Delegating isn’t something that happens when you’re running down a corridor. Say, ‘Hey John, could you take that on? Thanks a lot. Cheer. Bye.’ You know, it just doesn’t work like that,” he explained.
Instead, he recommends the following process:
- Schedule regular, non-negotiable one-on-one sessions with key team members, particularly those who could become department heads.
- Begin by understanding personal motivations: “Ask them, ‘You’ve been at this firm now for 2, 3, 5 years, and I’ve never stopped to ask you what would you love to succeed at? What matters to you?'”
- Create collaborative targets aligned with both the individual’s goals and the firm’s objectives.
- Use weekly meetings to gradually delegate tasks from your workload, providing training and support to ensure success.
- Establish clear accountability with agreed deadlines and expectations.
- Maintain client relationships through regular check-ins even when work is delegated.
This systematic approach transforms delegation from a haphazard, anxiety-inducing process into a structured development programme that benefits everyone involved.
Leadership vs. Advising
Warburton highlighted the distinction between advising and leading, using a powerful analogy: “Imagine you’ve got a young person out at sea and they can’t swim, and you’ve got a life vest and your mission is to have them learn to swim.”
Throwing the life vest directly at them (advising) prevents them from learning to swim. Conversely, throwing it too far away leads to drowning. The optimal approach is to throw it nearby, requiring effort but ensuring success. Applied to delegation, this means using questions rather than directives to develop problem-solving capabilities:
“If somebody says, ‘Oh, how do I do this?’ You say, ‘Thanks for bringing this to me. What have you done in the past? What could you do next time? Not bad. What else could you try?'”
This coaching-oriented approach helps team members develop their own solutions while still providing necessary guidance. As Warburton explains, “When people work things out for themselves, they retain the solution and the answer so much better and faster. They don’t go and repeat that same mistake again.”
Setting Boundaries and Creating Space
Effective delegation requires establishing clear boundaries. Warton advises partners to tell their teams: “Unless necessary, do not contact me outside of these one-on-one sessions.” This creates protected time for strategic work while empowering team members to handle day-to-day matters independently.
He recommends combining verbal and written communication—but in a specific order. Rather than sending written instructions and following up verbally, have the conversation first, then document what was agreed: “Have a conversation. What is it you want them to do? How do you want them to do it? Do they get an idea? Do they see the pitfalls? Have they got a good bird’s eye view? Great. Let me email this over with the steps to take.”
As for team size, Warton suggests seven direct reports as ideal, with an absolute maximum of ten. Meeting duration should vary based on seniority and development needs—from as little as 15 minutes for experienced senior staff to as much as 90 minutes for those in intensive training phases.
Junior Lawyers: Taking Initiative
For junior lawyers frustrated by poor delegation practices, Warton offered direct advice: “Take 100% responsibility for your career’s progression. The cavalry is not coming.”
He recommends:
- Understand what matters to firm leadership and align your goals with their priorities.
- Demonstrate the value you can bring: “If you set me clear targets and I meet these targets, we’re going to be able to serve this many more clients. That’s going to equal an extra £250,000 a year I can make you.”
- Request specific support: “I need one-on-one time from either you or one of the other senior members to make sure I’m being delegated the right work and that I’m doing this work well.”
This approach requires courage—the willingness to admit what you don’t know and to sometimes “annoy people to get the attention that you need.” As Warton puts it, “You can’t just sit on the sidelines and hope that somebody’s going to give you what you need on a plate. You’ve really got to bully your way in, but with compassion at the same time.”
The Future of Delegation in an AI World
As artificial intelligence transforms legal practice, Warton sees delegation expanding beyond human relationships: “For years you could only delegate to another human being. Now you can start delegating to a robot.”
This evolution will intensify competition between firms, potentially expanding access to legal services: “Currently only about the top 20 to 25% of your average human being can afford law and law solutions. But what will happen is we’ll start to break down and that will become 50, 60, 70% eventually of the population.”
Those who master both human delegation and technology delegation will be positioned to capitalise on these changes: “It’s not AI that’s going to replace your jobs. It’s going to be another lawyer that knows how to use AI that’s going to replace your job.”
Conclusion: A Skill Worth Mastering
Delegation emerges as perhaps the most fundamental skill for legal career advancement—a prerequisite for developing other critical abilities like business development and recruitment. “The greatest skill of all to learn before business development, before marketing, before recruiting and everything else really is the skill of delegating,” Warton emphasised.
While mastering delegation requires investment and initially feels “bloody painful and really annoying,” the payoff is transformative. When done consistently over a period of three to six months, delegation creates a virtuous cycle where team members rise to challenges, stress levels decrease, and partners discover they are no longer “having to do everything around here.”
The result is a more sustainable, profitable, and fulfilling practice that accelerates everyone’s career development while delivering better service to a broader range of clients.
