Leadership In Law Podcast

S03E107 HR is More Than Hiring & Firing with Kelly Murphy

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 3 • Episode 107

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What if the biggest profit leaks in your firm aren’t in pricing or pipeline, but in people? We sit down with HR consultant Kelly Murphy, who brings 18+ years of experience, including at a multi-state law firm, to unpack how systems, connection, and smart leadership turn culture into a measurable competitive edge.

Kelly explains why “appreciation” isn’t enough and how real connection, leaders noticing changes, asking early questions, and responding with clarity, prevents burnout before it becomes rework, errors, or exits. She shares practical red flags to watch for across billable and non-billable hours, how HR partners with supervising attorneys to rebalance loads, and why associates often break under the invisible weight of non-billable tasks. Then we go deep on the eye-opening math: one mid-level associate’s burnout-led departure cost a firm close to $1M once you tally client communications, backlog rewrites, and a lengthy replacement search. Seeing turnover like the loss of a key client changes priorities fast.

From there, we map out a succession planning approach firms actually follow: start with one role, one client, one quarter. Document, cross-train, and keep the plan alive with regular check-ins rather than chasing a perfect binder that gathers dust. Kelly also outlines leadership training that meets today’s needs, coaching soft skills, feedback habits, workload triage, and smarter use of AI, so partners gain leverage without overwhelming teams. Her throughline is simple and potent: HR is profit infrastructure. If you have staff, you need structure—compliant policies, clear performance systems, and early-warning signals that let you intervene before a resignation email hits your inbox.

Reach Kelly here:
https://leaninhr.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmurphy12/

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Leadership in the Law Podcast. We host Maryland Interesting. In each episode, we dive deepened topics that matter most to you from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies in hard one with the whether you're a seasonal leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner. The Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkin. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Kelly Murphy, to the show today. Kelly is an experienced HR consultant who helps small businesses build strong, compliant workplaces without the cost of a full-time HR department. With 18 plus years of HR experience, including serving as an HR manager for a multi-state law firm, she understands the unique people challenges facing legal practices and brings big company experience to smaller firms looking to grow. I'm excited to have you here. Kelly, welcome.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. So tell us a bit about your leadership journey.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it's a long and winding road, but full of adventure. Um, as you had mentioned, I've been in HR for about 18 years now. It's not accurate to say I've seen it all because I still get surprised very regularly, but I do have extensive experience working with staff sizes of all kinds, as smart, small as 10 employees all the way up to 3,600. So the whole gamut here, at the end of the day, people are people. So really my focus and what I've picked up, if I had to just have a nugget from my experience, is systems work. Systems protect people, the systems are sustainable. And so that is my approach with my consultancy is hey, let's build a foundation that can grow with you and go with you wherever your business goes.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. I love that. And so do you help with we're in HR? Are we talking everything from burnout, succession planning, employee manuals? Give us a kind of uh some guardrails of where what do you help with?

SPEAKER_01:

Really the full scope HR. Everything from recruiting, I usually do that as a special project. Employee performance is my sweet spot, and I will also help with employee separations to make sure that those are handled legally. And so there's not any, excuse me, any post-separation issues from the employee side or any anything that may result in a lawsuit or cause risk to the company. So yeah, the middle part is the gray part, and that's really where I focus. So that is succession planning and really, excuse me, pardon me, setting up systems again to ensure that your the staff that you do have actually want to stay. They have a reason to stay and grow with you.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, okay. So in your so as part of the plan is to see, we like to ask our team members, what are your goals? Where what are your intentions? Not without saying you have to stay with us, but those are the things. So you want to have the communication open to see that you're building a team that'll stay with you for the long term.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. It's a huge difference, and especially for the younger generations, like telling them, hey, you just need to put in your time, that's really not landing anymore where it did for previous generations. Because there's not there's not really a light at the end of the tunnel that they can see. They also want that light to come much sooner. Where we're seeing the market go now is employees want to feel valued. They want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. And if they are not seeing it, or if they are not kind of feeling like that is authentic to the company, then when they get the opportunity, they are probably going to go somewhere else and find a company where they can resonate in that way with.

SPEAKER_02:

And with that type of finding what resonates with them, one of the things that we're hearing and seeing a lot more is being appreciated is a lot more important with this new generation that job satisfaction used to be the thing everybody looked for, but everybody feels that a little bit differently. Do you are you finding that as well?

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I'm actually really glad that you brought that up because I think you it can be easily viewed as a dismissive thing. Employees expect their bosses to pat them on the back and say, you did a great job today. But it's not about that at all. It is about showing up human to human, being vulnerable. I'm not talking about falling on the sword, but being vulnerable and actually attempting to make a connection with that individual and say, let me meet you where you're at. If you are 28 years old and you just had a really rough day because you're 28 and whatever happened, then it's important to for bosses, for supervisors, for leaders to say, okay, I hear you. How could I support you in this moment, even if it's nothing more than just letting them get it out and moving on with the day? So I think this is about connection. You said appreciation, which definitely, but in the end, it's really about connection. That's going to be a huge business driver going forward.

SPEAKER_02:

And don't you find, and this is gonna totally date me, don't you find that exhausting when it comes throughout the day? When I got first worked, your expectations was dive in and go. And if you got noticed, great. But if you don't do your job, you're fired. It's not, it's completely it has.

SPEAKER_01:

And I grew up with that as well of you just suck it up and you keep going. And that's just how it was. So initially, I'll admit I did find it irritating and exhausting, but I changed my mindset around it because I was like, this clearly isn't working, it didn't work for me. And I just started changing the way that I thought about it and it made it easier. It's not, and again, we attach these somewhat dismissive terms like coddling. We're not coddling people, like connection is not coddling, and I think that's an important distinction to make of you are building relationships here with other adults. Are the expectations of getting your job done still there? Yes. Are the billable hour expectations? Yes, the business needs to be profitable. That part hasn't changed. The mind shift for me was how can I be more myself with these individuals? And I train teach and coach founders and owners who tend to just barrel through on hey, it's important to stop for just a second. It your business is not going to collapse if you take five minutes to genuinely connect with someone. You don't have to share all your secrets, but it's really just about showing up in an authentic way. You don't, this is something we do naturally as humans. It's not like a skill we have to learn. It's a skill we have to practice, but not learn.

SPEAKER_02:

And let's be clear that when we say a connection, we're not sitting down and gossiping or talking about the game on last night. It could be just how's your day going and really listening to the answer.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. It could be as simple as, hey, so and so, I noticed you were quiet in the meeting today. Everything okay? You don't have to pry into their business, but it's more about noticing of hey, something was a little bit different today and just checking in. And if they don't want to talk, fine, don't push it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. When we talk about the different ways of working with people, that also comes at I want to talk about burnout, burnout. And because I know that is huge, and each generation, now that we're talking generations, handles that differently. How do you in the HR department work with burnout? And I know that you've said that it's not just a wellness issue.

SPEAKER_01:

It is not a wellness issue. They're just a wellness issue, even though it is very much still in terms of burnout. This is this is really multifaceted. So I'm stepping around to this question a little bit because I'm figuring out where I want to start with this. So it ties in directly with what we were just talking about of that connection of leaders slowing down enough to pay attention to their people. So if somebody is working a ton of hours, like we're seeing these spikes in like these red flags spikes. We're seeing a ton of time in billable hours or non-billable hours, especially for the associates. Maybe an uptick in calling off, things like that. Those are all red flags that leaders should be looking for of hey, something's going off the rails here. Let me figure out what it is. Another easy way is just looking at mistakes. If you've got an employee who is suddenly making mistakes that you really haven't seen out of them before, just simple easy mistakes, something is going off the rails. And so it's just about paying attention enough to notice these signs and then have a conversation with that person, that employee to say, hey, we seem a little to be a little bit off track here. That's when you do the check-ins of how is your workload? How is how are things going work-wise? Do we need to rebalance here? So that will go a long way in reducing the burnout. It doesn't mean that work goes away, but it may, that may be an opportunity to have it recalibrated in a way that is working better for that individual.

SPEAKER_02:

And so you also call that a profit leak. So if you're noticing when it comes to the billable hours, absolutely, but the burnout can affect a company in so many different ways. And so, yes, definitely a profit leak. How do you in HR help with systems to find these early warning signs?

SPEAKER_01:

From the HR perspective, like HR, we typically don't have visibility into billable hours and definitely not into non-billable hours, but we do have visibility into PTO usage, sick time usage, like time off requests. And we can even see the timing of that. Okay, is this a planned vacation that was booked two months ago? Or is this person calling off the day of or 24 hours before? So this is a partnership with either the senior attorney or whomever that person's supervisor is to say, hey, let's look for the signs. I'm seeing some patterns on the HR side. Are you seeing any patterns over here? Especially with the non-billable hours. Like my experience, especially with associates, it wasn't the billable hours that ran them into the ground. It was because they were learning all of the non-billable stuff, all of the effort, looking working on the weekends, trying to, they made a mistake that they didn't catch because they were tired, then they had to go and rewrite the report. That's the that was the break for them. Okay. So this is a partnership, and it does need to be a very tight partnership between whomever the supervisor is, or so if there's a senior attorney working with a junior attorney, we're gonna be looking for those signs. But try to keep it very simple of like I told you, here's a couple of red flags. Are they quiet? Do they seem a little bit off? Some days you just are off. It may be nothing, but the point is ask the question.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Just ask the question. And if it's nothing, great, but it might be something that you definitely want to be aware of before that leads to some major crisis.

SPEAKER_02:

And are you finding that in the companies you work with that younger lawyers, say under 35 or having more have a burnout issue?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. This is you know what I was saying before about just telling them to pay their dues. Yeah, I think everyone gets that to a point. The especially the younger generations, they just don't have the tolerance for that anymore. So you can say, put put in the time you are gonna have to put in the reps, if you will, but they need to know that there is a point to it and that there is this end goal. If there's no plan for them, then why would they continue to sprint on this hamster wheel with no end insight? I don't know anybody that would do that long term. No, there has to be something there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we're not the greatest generation that was the one right after World War II where you just go to work. We don't we are looking to have something. And I know that future wise, a lot of the Gen Z and are feeling like they'll never own home, they'll never retire. And that hopefully that will change. But yeah, I can imagine that some seems like that they really want a goal. I want to know that there's something here for me. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. I heard the greatest statement a day or two ago, and it was the most of the advice that we get is very well-intentioned, but terrible advice. So I'm thinking of advice that I got from my parents when I was growing up. Grow up. You get good grades, you go to college, so you can get a good job. By the time I got to college, that wasn't the reality anymore. I was like, oh, my parents were wrong. They were right. They were giving me advice that worked for them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That didn't work for me. And so we need to be careful about that. And also with the mindsets with the younger generations, it's actually a very arrogant thing to say it worked for me. It should work for you too. That's just not gonna land and it's not gonna fly anymore. Now we need to be saying to associates, especially the younger associates, how can I meet you where you're at? And let's figure out a way to move forward.

SPEAKER_02:

Could be difficult with a very strong main partner, but yeah, I see what you're saying. You have to bend with the times if you want to grow your firm and continue to be relevant. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

I can see some older generations and more established firms kind of bristling at this. But this really is if you're talking about long-term, sustainable business and taking, really building on that legacy, you could have some flexibility. Yeah. Which I know was there in the beginning. You just roll with the punches and bend with the wind. And then over time you get less and less flexible. Now we need to get back to that. I'm not saying let anything, anything goes. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking more about just paying attention and recognizing, recognizing how to make your business sustainable and it ties to the people. You don't have to adopt a totally new belief system. It's more about, okay, this is something I need to do. This is a skill that I need to develop with the long-range goal of, hey, I want this law firm to be around in 80 years or outlast me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. You have to look at the big picture. And the big picture has younger people in it. So when you're talking to those older law firm leaders about burnout, what's the one stat or story that really makes them sit up and listen to what you're paying, what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01:

We had a mid-level associate that resigned, just said, I've had it. I'm done. I'm out of here. And the resulting activities of, okay, we need to find, we need to shuffle the work, then we need to communicate with the clients, and then we need to figure out where he was on his cases, all of those hours, and that's just on the attorney side. I had my own hours where my team, we were trying to backfill, okay, can, you know, who was going to absorb the work? Do we need to replace this individual? And all of the logistical things of was our compensation, our perks and our benefits, were we in line with that? Is it the system or is it that person? So, all in all, we were calculating it up because it took a while to find the replacement. That's where the job market was at the time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Took a while to find the replacement. All in all, including all of the time commuting with communicating with the clients, trying to get up to speed, trying to get caught up because that attorney's work was not caught up. He was burnt out, and so he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing. So all of those briefs had to be rewritten. All in all, it was about it was about a million dollars.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01:

And I would say like that figure was eye popping.

SPEAKER_02:

Insane.

SPEAKER_01:

And so after after that, it was like we need to look at every single departure, employee departure, like the departure of a client. And take it that seriously because it does impact the bottom line. Now, yes, that was an extreme example. We're in an interesting market right now where the job market's not so great, but employees are staying in roles that they aren't happy with. The pendulum will swing. And the moment it does, the moment it starts to, we are going to see it's not going to be like the great resignation. I'm not trying to be dramatic like that, but we are going to see people sprinting towards the exit at their first opportunity. Once things relax a little bit, where they're like, okay, I can start looking for a job now. Finally, because I hate my current job, I'm going to find another. So that's the point where businesses, the clients that I'm working with, we are looking at, okay, how do we keep these people? How do we keep them from running out the door? Let's do it now when things are fine.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And employers have the upper hand. Now is the time to be looking at this and saying, are we setting ourselves up for success in the future? Because this million dollar example that I mentioned, it was an anomaly, but not so much. You know, what if you're what if a firm lost two or three and they tend to go like one like in any firm that's been around for a while, like these things come in multiples. It's not we had one and now no one else is going to quit for nine months. It's not how it works.

SPEAKER_02:

There is a pattern there. That is incredible. A million dollars just for one burnout attorney. That was crazy. Then you, I'm sure that helped you create some other systems in that process as well.

SPEAKER_01:

The systems are pretty much there. It was, however, very helpful in taking those numbers to the managing partner to say, hey, look, this is a big deal. We need to really change how we're talking to our attorneys. This the senior leadership and the senior attorneys like these are some huge numbers.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it was more about changing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So that was helpful in just saying, oh, with that perspective, that changes everything. It's not some kid who just couldn't hack it and left. It was so much.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. No, I think you're right. Being treating losing an employee like losing a client, we know the cost of a client. But unless you've actually gone to those numbers to see what does it take to cover for and replace, that's absolutely interesting. So let's go from burnout to succession planning. And what are the common mistakes firms use? Because some people love having the lifestyle business and then they'll retire later. But like you said, there's always the firms that want to be here in 80 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Succession planning is interesting. And again, it's it is like a mindset thing. And so I find this all the time in HR, where there's just this idea that, oh, this is common sense. Of course, we should be planning for our future. But it doesn't happen. This is an acute issue specifically for law firms. Yes, it's the market overall, but law firms seem to be experiencing this the most, where they're just not doing it. So here's the thing: one of the things I say about HR all the time is HR is not just common sense something you can win. It is complex and it is nuanced because people are complex and nuanced. If you think, have you ever met somebody who is not complex or nuanced?

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

Or even you yourself, like we are all. So why I don't get why that doesn't translate into HR. So tying this to succession planning, same this is the same mentality of yes, of course, we need to do this. It's a common sense thing. Yeah, of course that we do it, we'll do it. But when firms actually get into the execution of it, they realize, oh, this is more than we bargain for. We don't have time, we don't have resources, and they set it aside. And this is pattern repeat. Yeah. So my my suggestion for ferns is take this in small bites. Just start with one associate, one attorney, one client at a time, and really look at it and say, if this person or client was no longer here, what would we do? Just start there and then build. Do a quarterly chicken. Are we on track or off track? The succession plan in this is not gonna be something that you can sit down and just get done in four hours. Well, some firms probably can, but generally not. This is gonna be a long-term exercise that doesn't need to be this big huge debacle every time you talk about it. So let's just look at one and figure that piece out and then move on to the next piece and the next and just keep going. This is going to be a forever thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Because there's always going to be turnover, and you'll always have to figure that out. Yeah. That's very interesting. How do you help with leadership training as well? So we're we're looking at obviously you lead different people differently. Do you help partnered with leadership training?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Obviously, that's custom built based on whatever their needs are, but I can certainly talk to pretty much any anything at leadership-wise, from soft skills to learning technology, learning how to use AI, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Sounds like learning how to use AI better.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

It's uh everyone can do a simple prompt, and that's just not helping anyone.

SPEAKER_02:

That's very interesting. It sounds like basically HR is the beginning of profitability, it seems having your people in place and and getting your sales is one thing, but having the people is what's gonna keep you profitable.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's building building the systems that the rest of the business can function on. Because what good if you're bringing in new business, what good is it if those clients or employees are falling off the back of the wagon?

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Now thinking about if I'm trying to decide when should I call someone to help with HR Sooner rather than later is always my recommendation. The reality is many businesses do wait until they've either had a close call with they got some sort of complaint, or they are they are concerned that they mishandled an employee situation and might have exposed themselves to risk. So HR should be one of the first steps. If you're looking to grow, or if you really don't have any sort of HR structure in place, now is the time to get that in. Think of it like a foundation that every like the house is built on.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So it should be it's not the last piece.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. That makes sense. Even if you're an individual attorney with your paralegal and your intake person, it might be important to have a look and say, okay, what should we have in place here, even before you bring in like a partner or an associate?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, critical. Yeah. If you have staff, you should have an HR structure, period.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. All right. And how would someone I know my listeners are probably gonna want to connect with you because this is a very big subject, and we've only unpacked a few little pieces of it, but I think enough to prove how important it is. If my listeners, I know they're gonna want to reach out to you to ask you questions, where's the best place for them to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01:

LinkedIn is the best place. I build a ton of relationships. I actually do a ton of business on LinkedIn. So you can connect with me, DM me. I'm very active and responsive on LinkedIn. That's gonna be the best place to start. I'm every day, I usually will just help people. They'll send a question, and I'm not interested in nickel and diming people to death. That's just not who I am as a person. If you need help, I will help you.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. Okay, great. We'll include your link to your LinkedIn link as well as your website and your email in the show notes so people can reach out to you. This has been, I I have a dozen more questions, but I want to be respectful for your time. It's been a great subject. And I appreciate you being here with us, Kelly. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was a joy. Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to Lawmarketingzone.com to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law Podcast, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingstone.com. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources, and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep waiting with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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