5 Competencies For Hiring Your Next Lawyer
Core Competencies and Practical Questions to Ask Your Next Candidate
Executive Summary
The legal profession is changing rapidly, and so should the criteria you use when hiring lawyers. As automation, analytics, and digital transformation reshape legal work, technical competence and business alignment are becoming as critical as legal reasoning and drafting.
This white paper outlines five key competencies to prioritize when hiring your next legal professional, particularly for teams aiming to lead in technology adoption, process optimization, and strategic value creation. These skills are increasingly sought after by forward-thinking general counsel and law firm leaders who want to build agile, scalable, and future-proof legal teams.
1. Process Thinking
Definition: The ability to break down legal workflows into repeatable, improvable steps and identify inefficiencies or automation opportunities.
Why It Matters: Legal teams increasingly act as service organizations. Lawyers with process thinking don’t just “do the work”—they improve how it gets done.
What Good Looks Like:
Comfortable mapping current-state and future-state workflows
Uses tools like Lucidchart or Miro to visualize processes
Advocates for consistency and standardization, where appropriate
Use Case: A lawyer redesigns the contract intake and approval process using standardized templates and routing logic, resulting in a 30% reduction in cycle time.
According to Deloitte (2023), legal teams that adopt process mapping save 25–40% of time on administrative tasks
2. Digital Fluency
Definition: The ability to understand, use, and critically assess legal technology tools, including CLM, eBilling, document automation, and GenAI systems.
Why It Matters: You don’t need every lawyer to be a technologist, but every new hire should be able to operate in a tech-augmented legal environment.
What Good Looks Like:
Familiar with platforms like Ironclad, DocuSign, or CoCounsel
Can adapt to new systems quickly and support less tech-savvy peers
Understands the limitations and governance needs of GenAI
Use Case: A lawyer working in-house learns to generate first-draft memos using GPT-4 and then utilizes CoCounsel to cross-check case references, while adhering to firm guidelines.
70% of legal departments say digital capability is now a core hiring criterion (EY Legal Ops Survey, 2023)
3. Data Awareness
Definition: The ability to understand how legal data (e.g., matter volumes, contract clauses, outside counsel spend) can be used to drive decisions and improve outcomes.
Why It Matters: Legal teams that operate without data can’t measure risk, demonstrate value, or justify resources. Data-literate lawyers turn insight into action.
What Good Looks Like:
Understands basic metrics and dashboards (e.g., cycle time, risk scorecards)
Can tag and structure work to support analytics
Uses data to prioritize or escalate matters
Use Case: A senior associate analyzes historical SLA performance and recommends workflow redesigns for high-friction business units.
“Lawyers must stop treating data as someone else’s job.” (McKinsey Legal Tech Report, 2022)
4. Change Agility
Definition: The mindset and behavior of adapting quickly to new tools, ways of working, and client expectations.
Why It Matters: Legal work is no longer static. Teams need lawyers who embrace change, not resist it—especially during tech rollouts, restructures, or service redesigns.
What Good Looks Like:
Learns new systems without resistance
Advocates for improvement, even if uncomfortable
Helps others navigate change with empathy and clarity
Use Case: A lawyer leads the rollout of a new DMS, delivering internal training and gathering feedback for IT.
Bain (2023) reports that high-change-agility teams are 33% more innovative and 24% more engaged.
5. Client-Centered Communication
Definition: The ability to deliver legal advice in a clear, actionable, and business-aligned format, primarily through digital channels.
Why It Matters: As more legal advice is delivered via Slack, email, dashboards, or AI interfaces, clarity and tone are critical.
What Good Looks Like:
Writes in plain English, tailored to the audience
Aligns legal advice to business context and goals
Delivers “next steps” not just “legal risks”
Use Case: A junior lawyer turns a 5-page memo into a 1-slide summary for the CFO, supported by an AI-generated risk dashboard.
“Clarity is a force multiplier in legal communication.” (HBR Legal Leadership Review, 2023)
Hiring Tips for GCs & Partners
Interview Questions:
“Walk me through a process you helped improve.”
“How do you keep up with new legal technologies?”
“Tell me about a time you used data to make a legal decision.”
“Describe a time you led or adapted to a major change.”
Technical Tests:
Give a sample prompt and ask for a GenAI output review
Ask for a process map of a contract review workflow
Present a dashboard and ask what insights they see
Conclusion
Hiring for the future means hiring for more than legal knowledge. The best legal teams will be built on a foundation of process, technology, data, adaptability, and communication.
Everingham Legal works with law departments and law firms to build hiring playbooks, define future-fit roles, and upskill teams in digital legal competencies.
Bonus: Future-Fit Legal Hiring Rubric & Interview Checklist
Overview
This rubric is designed to help GCs and law firm leaders evaluate candidates for legal roles with a focus on technology fluency, process mindset, adaptability, and client alignment.
Core Competency Rubric
Score each candidate from 1 (Not Evident) to 5 (Exemplary).
Competency 1 3 5
Process Thinking
Unable to describe workflow steps or efficiency improvements
Describes ad hoc improvements to legal work
Demonstrates structured process mapping and redesign with measurable results
Digital Fluency
No exposure to legal tech tools
Has used standard tools (CLM, DMS, e-signature) as an end-user
Actively evaluates or configures legal tech tools; helps others adopt tech
Data Awareness
Relies entirely on intuition or precedent
Understands basic metrics (cycle time, matter volumes)
Uses data to inform legal prioritization, risk, or resource allocation
Change Agility
Resistant to change; skeptical of new ways
Accepts change but passively
Proactively leads change, builds momentum, and trains peers
Client-Centered Communication
Overly legalistic, abstract, or cautious
Provides clear advice but lacks business framing
Tailors communications to stakeholder type; gives actionable, business-aligned advice
Sample Interview Questions
Use these to probe real examples and evidence:
1. Process Thinking
“Describe a time you improved a legal workflow or routine task.”
“How do you ensure consistency or efficiency in your legal work?”
2. Digital Fluency
“What legal tech tools have you used, and how did they help?”
“How would you explain document automation to a colleague?”
3. Data Awareness
“Have you worked with dashboards or legal reports? What insights did you draw?”
“What metrics would you track for a contract review workflow?”
4. Change Agility
“Tell me about a time your team implemented a new system. What role did you play?”
“How do you adapt when priorities or tools change quickly?”
5. Client-Centered Communication
“How do you adjust your communication when speaking with the CFO vs. a junior client?”
“Describe a situation where your advice influenced a business decision.”
Candidate Summary Template
Name:
Role:
Date of Interview:
Competency Score (0 - 25)
Notes
Process Thinking
Digital Fluency
Data Awareness
Change Agility
Client-Centered Communication
Overall Recommendation: [Strong Hire / Hire / Mixed / No Hire]
Hiring Manager Notes:
Hiring Best Practices
Consider structured interviews to reduce bias
Don’t just ask “Can they do this?”—ask “Have they done it?”
Prioritize a growth mindset over a legacy pedigree
Use the rubric to compare candidates consistently across interviewers
Want help designing your next legal job description or capability framework? Everingham Legal can help.
