A meritorious approach to merit (part 2)

These days, “merit-based” is being hurled around by some as the purported antidote to their caricature of “DEI.” Behind the food fight is an important question – how do we actually go about being merit-based in deciding who belongs?

As discussed last time, if we’re committed to find actual merit, we must first get clear about the talents, competencies, and attributes we’ve determined will lead to success, and we should also make sure to broaden our candidate pool. Now it’s time to find out which candidates have what it takes to be successful.

Use effective techniques to identify actual merit

Let’s face it – we lawyers are often not the best at interviewing lawyer candidates. It’s not for lack of intelligence or judgment. I think instead that our problem might be hubris. We consider ourselves too busy and too important to devote the effort needed for developing effective interviewing skills – the skills that allow us to determine reliably whether the candidate indeed has the talents, competencies, and other aptitudes for which we’re looking.

We seldom find what we’re not looking for. If I approach a candidate interview as merely a chance to get a “sense” of the person interviewed, or whether they will “fit” at my law firm, all I’m doing is measuring how comfortable I am with them, which opens the door to my biases. And if I’m simply checking off proxies (high law school ranking, high class rank, and so forth), I’m learning nothing beyond their resume, and may also be using unreliable predictors of success. Either way, I’m wasting time, or as Stephen R. Covey would say, I’m lost in the thick of thin things.

My time is better spent honing in on whether the candidate actually has the talents, competencies, and aptitudes I seek. So how do I do that effectively?