In today’s episode I’m talking about law firm PTSD - which can be defined as that very tricky, undiagnosed mental health disorder that is seen when we are dealing with a new employee who's come into our company and is still suffering the effects of their residuals from their previous employer. 

 

Now I know a lot of you have had experiences where you bring in a new employee and you're really excited to work with them as soon as they come in. But pretty soon in the process, you start to see some pretty unnerving behaviors, right? You start to see that the person is really jumpy or highly defensive, or the person seems to be terrified of doing anything without asking 15 different ways if they're doing the right thing. 

 

I want you to consider that there are a lot of things that can cause that level of distress in a person. We're going to talk about what some of those are. But for the most part, I want you to just give yourselves the gift of saying that how these people move in the world, what their experience is when they first come into your business is something that you can respond to in a way that gives them a better experience and increases the likelihood that they will stay with you as an employee.

 

In this episode we discuss:

• Strategies to deal with a new employee who's come into your company still suffering the effects of their residuals from a previous employer.
• Shifting some of those feelings of PTSD.
• Giving your new employee time to adapt and heal.
• The importance of not taking anything personally.
• How having a positive mindset will help you work with any PTSD law firm employee.

 

Allison Bio:

 

Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. 

 

Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.  In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University.

 

In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers.  She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money.  Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms. 

Contact Info:

Book The Four Agreements- Don Miguel Ruiz

Contact Law Firm Mentor:

Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor  

 

Snippets

 

00: 15: 30 (38 Seconds) 

Well, the one thing you would never want to do is to break that person's spirit, if you will, by becoming Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? You don't want to be one person all day, every day, and then as soon as that one person is tired of it and frustrated with whatever the employee did, you snap and you become someone else. Because that lack of consistency is going to say to them that the problem is much worse than they believed it to be, that whatever they have going on, they're now at greater risk.