The Nagamoto Retainer: Team Performance

• MANAGING CLIENT PERCEPTION
• ASSESSING STAFF PERFORMANCE
• OPTIMISING TIME (TIME IS EVERYTHING IN LEGAL PRACTICE)

Bar. Grace is proud of her team, though only 7 in number, they have helped her build a strong and formidable law firm. Hamza is a corporate lawyer to the bones, he has only been to court twice in his 15-year career as a lawyer, he has an MBA and is a subject matter expert in Investment and Capital Market Law. Chioma is on a short road to SANship, she is a seasoned and dogged litigator with 12 years experience and she is also a trained mediator with Alternative Dispute Resolution skills. Each of them is supported by a junior lawyer to assist with research and to learn from their experience.

Bar. Grace set her hourly rate at $750 as the Managing Partner of Grace & Co, Bar. Hamza’s hourly rate is $500 so is Chioma’s hourly rate. The Senior associates both have $450 as their hourly rates whilst the new wig who joined some days ago is designated as a Junior Associate and his hourly rate is $300.

Jonathan, the paralegal also has an hourly rate of $300 and finally Andrea who is the Firms accountant and also doubles as the practice manager does not have an hourly rate since she is working at the back end (she is also the Administrator of the LawPavilion Case Manager for the firm).The firm has been able to effectively leverage on the combined experience and collective intelligence of the lawyers in practice, covering several practice areas and evidence of this is how the database is full of knowledge created over the years.

They have also been able to work as a team through some of the toughest briefs because they understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Bar. Grace is proud of her team, on the Nagamoto brief, the team worked from their homes throughout the night and converged in the office to quickly make final reviews before sending the finalised opinions to Miko in record time.

Grace’s vision is to be the top 10% of law firms in Nigeria, with this team, she believes she can achieve it.

ACTIONS

HOW STRONG IS YOUR TEAM? HOW DO THEY LEVERAGE EACH OTHERS STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES?

Miko was impressed by Bar. Grace, she received 3 emails before 9 am the next day, the first from Bar. Grace acknowledging acceptance of the brief, later she got 2 more emails from a Bar. Hamza with a legal opinion covering her first request on Nigeria and cross border African trade and from Bar Chioma on the steps to filing a civil suit in the Federal High Court as the matter was for Trademark infringement and outside Edo state jurisdiction.

She also furnished several Court of Appeal and Supreme Court decisions to support the litigation strategy the opinion was capped off by steps to take to register “Red Star” as a trademark in Nigeria and Africa via Treaty Registration bodies.

She liked the fact that Grace & Co was not a one-man firm like that of Bar. Nathan who by the time he sent his email and attachments it was full of errors and even had the name of another law firm on the Hourly Rate sheet. She didn’t even remember Bar. Jimoh.

 

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