Opening yourself up to criticism can be challenging but is also a brave step for anyone to take. You might be put in a spot where you're uncomfortable to hear criticism or have your skills addressed. To ensure that reviews play in your favor, you may be complacent to your duties where the effect is reflected in young attorneys' performance that you mentor. 

But how are your skills affecting those that you're mentoring? 

Are your feedback and suggestions for improvement helping the firm's performance? 

Are you able to develop the talent of promising attorneys when they're under your wing? 

Do you know if your feedback has helped an attorney or not? 

When you dig deeper into these questions, you might agree that upward reviews are beneficial to you as well as the firm. In the legal industry, talent development has been recognized as a pivotal reinforcement to business goals. They no longer look objectively at employee performance and talent development but consider it their ultimate goal to achieve preeminence in competing firms' legal industry. 

The legal practice in today's time focuses on delivering quality services efficiently and cost-effectively. They believe that talent can be developed under the supervision of Leaders who profoundly impact a firm's success by producing high-quality work. Strong supervisory skills play a huge role in client service, satisfaction, and retention. 

Legal firms are looking at expansion and managing growth by creating a culture that fosters a safe space for attorneys to advance their careers while producing the highest levels of efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability, and client service. This is achieved when you have a leader - a partner, senior associate, or counsel who mentor attorneys and can help them achieve individual and organizational goals. In a legal firm, junior attorneys work with many partners in just under a year. The system that works here is that learning happens with every interaction an attorney makes in the firm. So, how do you gauge if the talent is being fostered and developed to meet the firm's standards? Are your junior attorneys getting the direction they need? Are they able to easily approach any partner for mentoring? Do your supervising lawyers communicate effectively with junior attorneys? Are they taking a keen interest in developing talent within the firm? These questions can be answered through a review system called Upward Reviews, where junior attorneys are invited to give feedback anonymously about their supervisors and address issues that concern them. Upward review as a system has gained quite the appreciation for its method across organizations. It has helped give associates and young attorneys a voice while also supervising lawyers' clarity on young attorney needs and improving communication and management. While upward feedback has been the norm for a long in organizations, upward reviews are now being adopted to help understand higher-up management's strengths, weaknesses, and developmental needs. 

Leaders are usually promoted because of skills they have that have helped the company progress, rather than managing others' abilities. So, once they become leaders, they are unaware of managing talent and spend less time interacting with junior associates. This can cause a significant gap between employees and management. But how do we fix this? How does a junior attorney talk openly and honestly about their problems with top executives? 

We usually assume that top executives or superiors in a firm understand and know how they're perceived, but unfortunately, that's not the case. Managers, Superiors, and Top Executives lack genuine feedback that can help them utilize their skills most effectively and, in turn, help manage their mentees. People are also more inclined to give positive feedback as a form of flattery and avoid any repercussions in their career advancement. The solution to this problem is the Upward Review system. It opens a platform for honest communication without either the executives or junior employees being affected because of the feedback's anonymity. 

Upward reviews balance out the imbalance in law firms and pave a path where everybody is climbing the growth ladder, and there is continuous space to be better and do better. 

What are some of the benefits of Upward Reviews? 

• Raises awareness across the organization on areas that require development
• Creates a safe space for individual expression for junior attorneys
• Promotes action planning at a team level 
• Increases familiarity across the firm 
• Enables growth, learning and development focused training 
• Bridges communication gaps and improves team objectives 
• Creates space to take ownership for self-development
• Provides management support and brings organizational change 

Firms that foster a work culture that enables learning and development is viable for long term success and motivates its employees to be efficient teams. Utilize data from Upward reviews to revolutionize the way your workspace functions and ensure that your firm is a competitor providing quality service not only to your clients but also to the people that run your organization's success.

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