The findings come from a survey of 106 US and Canadian law firms by the NALP Foundation
A new survey of US and Canadian law firms found that while most participating firms have not been using artificial intelligence tools to evaluate associate lawyers’ performances, many are exploring how to utilize AI in the future for tasks such as long-term performance tracking.
Sixty-nine percent of the 106 law firms surveyed by the NALP Foundation this summer reported that they had not yet integrated AI into their performance evaluation processes, according to a report released by the organization on Monday. Among those firms that utilized AI for associate performance evaluations, most employed it to generate performance summaries or analyze written feedback.
However, the adoption rate will likely change soon. “While there is this relatively low current adoption rate of 31 percent, a lot of [the surveyed firms] are actively exploring how they can use AI as part of the performance evaluation process,” Fiona Trevelyan, president and CEO of the NALP Foundation, told Canadian Lawyer on Tuesday.
“I think there’s a broad recognition that it could be a very valuable tool for this particular task, but [firms are] still exploring how and when they would want to deploy it,” Trevelyan adds.
Jennifer Mandery, vice president for research at the foundation, says many of the surveyed firms identified performance evaluations as only one of several tasks they planned to use AI for in the near future. In addition to long-term performance tracking, firms reported that they were looking to utilize AI tools for training and guidance during discussions.
Conducted in July and August, the NALP Foundation’s survey looks at the practices that participating law firms use when evaluating associate lawyers’ performances. The respondents include 12 Canadian law firms.
The survey found that respondents were overwhelmingly aligned in their primary goals during performance evaluations. These included associate advancement within the firm (100 percent), professional development (97 percent), and identifying and setting future performance goals (94 percent).
Respondents also largely included the same components in their evaluations, like qualitative comments by supervising lawyers (100 percent), quantitative metrics (96 percent), associate self-evaluations (93 percent), and firm citizenship (93 percent).
However, only 48 percent of respondents shared qualitative feedback with associates that was credited to specific individuals, while 39 percent said they provided anonymous feedback. The remaining 14 percent of firms said their approach varied depending on the situation.
Respondents also varied in the amount of time they allocated to the evaluation process. While 63 percent of participating firms gave evaluators two to four weeks to complete performance evaluations, 18 percent provided more than 4 weeks. Another 13 percent provided only between one and two weeks.
Once evaluations were completed, 44 percent of firms said it took more than four weeks to deliver feedback to associates. Twenty-nine percent of the respondents reported giving feedback to associates within two to four weeks, and another 14 percent stated that their feedback would reach associates within one to two weeks.
Trevelyan says these results align with the concern expressed by many respondents that a protracted timeline for delivering feedback can make the feedback “somewhat stale by the time it actually reaches the associates.”
Overall, the survey reflects the fact that law firms “spend an enormous amount of time and effort on associate performance evaluations,” Trevelyan says. “There is a real appetite for and interest in learning how these can be more effectively used for both associate development and talent management purposes.”
