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Every managing lawyer I know has one story about a performance talk that went sideways. Voices rose, someone cried, someone quit on the spot, and nothing actually changed. So when a colleague who runs a busy six-lawyer firm offered to walk me through how she does it now, after years of getting it wrong, I said yes and turned on the recorder. What follows is that conversation, lightly edited for length. She asked that I not name the firm.
How Do You Prepare So You Do Not Ramble?
The rambling is where most of these go wrong, so I asked about that first.
I write one sentence. That is the whole prep, and it is the hardest part. If I cannot say the problem in one plain sentence, I am not ready to have the conversation, because it means I am still annoyed rather than clear. "The last three affidavits went out with the wrong exhibit tabs" is a sentence. "I feel like you are not really committed lately" is not a sentence, it is a mood, and you cannot fix a mood.
She keeps a running note during the weeks before, so she is not reaching for examples from memory. Dates, files, what happened. Not a dossier, just enough that she is standing on facts and not impressions.
Tip. Before you book the meeting, write the problem as one factual sentence a neutral third party could verify. If you cannot, you have more observing to do, not a conversation to schedule.
She also decides in advance what a good outcome looks like. Not "they admit it," but the actual behaviour change she needs by a specific date. That target is what keeps the talk from drifting into every small grievance she has been storing up. If you want a broader frame for how these fit into the regular rhythm of managing people, she pointed me to the ideas in useful one on ones, because the dreaded talk is far easier when it is not the first honest thing you have ever said to the person.
What Are the First Sixty Seconds Supposed to Sound Like?
Direct and warm at the same time, which sounds impossible but is not. I do not open with weather. I do not do the compliment sandwich, because everyone in a law firm has learned that a nice opener means bad news is coming, and now they are just waiting for the "but." I say why we are here in the first breath. "I want to talk about the exhibit errors on the last three files, because it is affecting the work and I want to sort it out with you." Then I stop talking.
That last part, the stopping, is the move most people skip. She says the silence after the opening line is the most useful ten seconds in the whole meeting. It signals that this is a conversation, not a verdict, and it gives the other person room to respond before they feel cornered.
The compliment sandwich does not soften the blow. It just teaches people to distrust your compliments. Managing lawyer, six-lawyer firm
How Do You Stay Calm When They Get Defensive?
This is the part everyone fears, so I pressed on it.
Defensiveness is not the enemy. It is information. When someone gets defensive, they are usually telling you one of two things: either they did not know this was a problem, which is a failure on my end, or they feel the situation is unfair, which I need to hear. So I do not argue with the emotion. I get curious about it. "Help me understand what happened on the Riel file" gets me somewhere. "That is not an excuse" gets me a war.
She has one rule for herself when the temperature rises: she slows down instead of speeding up. Shorter sentences, longer pauses, lower voice. If the other person escalates and she cannot get it back, she says so plainly and reschedules. "Let us take twenty minutes" is not a defeat. It is a manager who refuses to say something they will regret in front of someone they still have to work with on Monday.
- Name the behaviour, never the character. "This report was late" lands. "You are unreliable" starts a fight you cannot win.
- Ask, then wait. Genuine questions cool the room faster than any reassurance.
- Separate the emotion from the facts. You can validate that they are upset without conceding the point.
- Keep one exit in your pocket: the graceful pause and reschedule.
Note. If a conversation touches health, disability, family status, or any other protected ground, or if the person raises harassment or a safety concern, stop and get proper advice before you go further. Human rights and employment obligations vary by province, so confirm your footing with counsel or your law society resources.
What Do You Put in Writing Afterward?
A short email, same day, while it is fresh and before either of us has rewritten it in our heads. Not a lecture. Three things: what we discussed, what we agreed to, and when we will check in. Five sentences. I copy no one. It is not a threat, it is a shared memory, and it protects both of us. Six weeks later, neither of us is arguing about what was actually said.
She was firm that this is not the same as building a disciplinary file. Tone matters. The follow-up email should read the way the meeting felt if the meeting went well: respectful, specific, forward-looking. She keeps a simple record of the date and the agreed next step, nothing more. Some firms track these touchpoints alongside the rest of their people notes in whatever system runs the practice, and a tool like A1 CMS can hold that history so it is not scattered across inboxes, but she was clear the format matters less than the discipline of actually writing something down every time.
| Include | Leave out |
|---|---|
| What you discussed, in plain terms | Adjectives about their attitude |
| The specific change and the deadline | Old grievances not raised in the meeting |
| The check-in date | Anyone copied who was not in the room |
| An offer of support or resources | Legal-sounding threats you do not mean |
If you want to see how this same instinct plays out in ordinary weeks rather than hard ones, her approach to feedback that helps is really the same muscle used earlier and more gently.
When Does a Conversation Become a Documented Process?
When the same conversation happens twice with no change, I stop treating it as a chat and start treating it as a process, and I tell the person that plainly. Not as a punishment, as a fairness thing. Nobody should be surprised they are on a formal footing. The kindest thing you can do is be honest that the stakes just went up, so they have a real chance to turn it around before anything drastic.
At that stage she brings in employment advice, because termination law in Canada is not intuitive and the cost of getting it wrong is high. Notice, cause, the wording of any performance improvement plan: these are not things to improvise. She noted that this is also where good early hiring pays off, and pointed to her own thinking on writing a job description that filters and building a real ninety day onboarding plan, since a lot of performance problems trace back to unclear expectations that were never resolved at the start.
Warn. Do not let a conversation quietly become a paper trail without telling the person. If you are documenting toward possible dismissal, they are entitled to know they are on notice and to have a fair chance to improve. Get province-specific employment advice before that point.
What stayed with me from the whole conversation was how straightforward her method is. One clear sentence. A direct opening. Curiosity instead of argument. A five-line email. A check-in on the calendar. None of it is complicated, and that is exactly why it works, because the dreaded talk goes badly when we treat it as a performance and goes fine when we simply have it. If you manage anyone, this is the skill worth practising on the small stuff so it is there when the stakes are real. For more from the same section, browse the rest of the people and hiring writing, and if you want my other pieces you can find them on my author page.
