The Most Common Hiring Mistake Law Firms Make During Growth Spurts
Growth creates pressure.
More matters.
More emails.
More deadlines.
More strain on the team.
So firms reach for the fastest relief available:
“We need to hire someone — now.”
That instinct is understandable.
But it’s also where many law firms make their most expensive hiring mistakes.
Reactive Hiring Feels Responsible — Until It Isn’t
During growth spurts, hiring decisions are often driven by:
backlog
complaints about workload
partners feeling stretched
fear of dropped balls
urgency to “fix the pain”
The role gets scoped quickly.
The job description is broad.
The goal is relief.
And the hire does help — at first.
Then new problems emerge.
The Mistake: Hiring for Pain Instead of Capacity
The most common hiring mistake law firms make is hiring for immediate pain instead of long-term capacity.
Pain-focused hiring asks:
What’s overwhelming us right now?
Who can help immediately?
How fast can we fill the gap?
Capacity-focused hiring asks:
What work is actually increasing?
Which roles should be doing that work?
What will demand look like in 6–12 months?
Where does leverage break down?
What decisions or handoffs are failing?
When firms skip those questions, the role becomes a catch-all.
And catch-all roles rarely scale.
How This Shows Up Six Months Later
Firms often realize the problem after the hire is in place.
Common symptoms:
the role keeps expanding
priorities conflict
performance feels uneven
accountability is unclear
the person is busy but impact is fuzzy
leadership still feels stretched
The hire didn’t fail.
The role design did.
Strong people can’t fix structural ambiguity.
Growth Makes Bad Role Design More Expensive
In slow periods, vague roles limp along.
In growth periods, they break.
Because growth:
multiplies volume
compresses timelines
increases coordination needs
exposes unclear ownership
magnifies inefficiency
So the cost of a mis-hire isn’t just salary.
It shows up in:
rework
delays
partner time
morale
margin erosion
Growth doesn’t forgive weak structure.
Why Firms Keep Repeating the Pattern
Many firms repeat reactive hiring because:
it worked once (temporarily)
urgency overrides planning
partners are too busy to step back
no one owns capacity modeling
leadership assumes “we’ll adjust later”
But later rarely comes.
And the firm quietly accumulates operational debt.
When partners are the capacity buffer, hiring becomes reactive by default.
What Capacity-Driven Hiring Looks Like Instead
Better hiring decisions start upstream.
Before opening a role, firms should answer:
Which workflows are under strain?
Which roles are overloaded?
What work should shift down or out?
What decisions are clogging execution?
What does “success” look like in 90 days?
This turns hiring from a rescue mission into a strategy.
The Difference Between “Help” and “Leverage”
Not all hires create leverage.
Some just absorb chaos.
Leverage hires:
take ownership of outcomes
reduce decision load on partners
stabilize workflows
create repeatability
free leadership time
Relief hires:
add another set of hands
require constant direction
expand scope without clarity
increase coordination needs
The difference is design — not talent.
How COOs Prevent Costly Growth Hires
This is where an operational leader earns their keep.
model demand and capacity before hiring
design roles around outcomes, not tasks
align authority with responsibility
define success metrics upfront
time hires intentionally instead of reactively
Hiring becomes a tool for scaling — not a reaction to stress.
When Growth Feels Like It Requires Constant Hiring
If your firm feels like it’s always “one hire away” from stability, that’s a signal.
It usually means:
roles aren’t absorbing volume properly
leverage is missing
systems aren’t scaling
leadership bandwidth is stretched
Hiring alone won’t fix that.
Structure will.
If your firm keeps hiring during growth spurts but still feels stretched, the issue may not be headcount — it may be role design and capacity planning.
I help law firms hire intentionally, align roles with growth, and avoid the costly cycle of reactive hiring.