You are producing careful, accurate work. You know the standard you hold, and so does your team. And the attorney you support still wants it faster. If you have been in legal support for any amount of time, you have either lived this or watched a colleague live it.
This exact question came up at a recent Paralegal Growth Hour. A litigation paralegal in a personal injury defense practice asked what to do about an attorney whose pace is faster than what she can hit, and who does not want to hear that.
Then she added the detail that changes the diagnosis: the same expectations land on every team member who works with this attorney, not just on her.
Ann Pearson’s answer is not the one most people expect. It is not a pep talk about working harder, and it is not a nudge toward updating your resume. It is a clear look at what is actually inside your control, and how to use it well.
Below is the full breakdown: how to tell an attorney work-style mismatch from a normal learning curve, the two response options you have, and the one conversation most paralegals skip.
Start by Separating Compatibility From Capability
Before you decide what to do, get honest about what you are dealing with. Ann’s first question is whether this is a compatibility issue, meaning the pace expectation simply does not match the work the way it is done at a professional standard, or whether you are still building speed because this practice area or this attorney is new to you.
Those two situations look identical from the inside, and they call for completely different responses. If you are newer to the work, speed comes with reps, and the discomfort is temporary. That is not a shortcoming; it is the ordinary arc of getting fluent in a new type of matter. If, on the other hand, every experienced person on the team is running into the same wall, you have your answer. That is a work style, not a skill gap.
One more piece of information matters here, and Ann asks about it directly: who actually manages the support team? A firm with an HR department gives you different avenues than a firm where attorneys manage staff directly, or where the office manager has no legal background. The answer tells you whether there is a formal path to raise this, or whether the conversation happens attorney-to-paralegal.
You Cannot Change an Attorney's Work Style, and That Is Useful
Here is Ann’s core teaching point, and she has been saying it for years. You cannot change them. You cannot change their personality, and you cannot change their work style. You can influence at the edges, but you plan around the reality rather than waiting for it to shift.
That sounds like bad news for about three seconds. Then it becomes the most useful sentence in the conversation, because it puts your attention back where it belongs. You can only change your response. That is the variable that is genuinely yours.
The first version of that is what Ann calls the checked-out theory. You keep working at your pace and your quality standard. You let the commentary about speed pass in one ear and out the other. You stay anchored in what you and your teammates know to be true, which is that the work leaving your desk is good work.
Some people pair this with a short reset practice: a breath, a walk to refill the water bottle, a mantra they repeat before they answer. That is not resignation. It is protecting your focus so the quality stays where you want it.
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The Quality Conversation, and Why You Put It in Writing
The second version of changing your response is more direct, and it is the one most paralegals never try.
You name the tradeoff out loud. It sounds something like this: I am used to working at this pace, and it is the pace our whole team holds for this level of quality. If I move to the pace you are asking for, there are going to be more mistakes in my work. Are you comfortable with that?
Two things can happen, and both of them are wins. Sometimes hearing the ask reframed as a tradeoff is enough to change the ask, because no attorney actually wants errors in a file. And sometimes the answer is yes, go faster; I will accept it.
If that is the answer, Ann is specific about the next step: confirm it in writing. Send a short follow-up email that captures what was agreed.
That email is not a gotcha, and it should not read like one. Two or three plain sentences summarizing the conversation is plenty. It protects the file, it protects the client, it protects you, and it means the expectation now lives somewhere other than your memory.
Documenting agreements is standard practice everywhere else on a matter, so there is no reason your own work expectations should be the exception.
Then Turn the Question Back on Your Own Workflow
Once you have handled the interpersonal piece, Ann circles back to something worth doing regardless of who you work for. Look honestly at your own workflow and ask whether there are things you could do to work quicker while keeping the same level of quality.
Her first stop is AI. That is exactly what these tools are for, getting more work done in less time. Summarizing a long medical record set, drafting a routine correspondence, organizing a chronology, building a first pass at deposition prep.
The concern people raise is accuracy, and the answer is not to avoid the tools. It is to use them the way they are meant to be used, with your review as the final step and your judgment as the quality control.
Ann teaches paralegals and other legal professionals how to use AI in the AI Boot Camp for Legal Professionals. In it, she shows you why AI gets things wrong and how to avoid that.
If your firm has not approved AI tools yet, the question becomes what software exists that would help, and whether the firm would purchase it. That is a reasonable ask to bring to a managing attorney or an administrator, especially when it is framed around firm output rather than personal preference.
And if the fit truly is not there after all of that, looking for a more compatible attorney to support is a legitimate option, not a failure.
Ann makes one point about that path that is worth carrying forward: work style is something she wishes surfaced far more often during the interview process. Ask about pace, communication style, and how the attorney likes work delivered before you accept the seat.
Firm leaders reading this can use the same insight from the other direction, because pairing people for compatibility is a retention strategy, not a nicety.
Quick Wins You Can Use This Week
- Write down, in one sentence, whether you are facing a compatibility issue or a learning curve. Be specific about the evidence for your answer.
- Find out who formally manages support staff at your firm, whether that is HR, an administrator, or the attorneys themselves, so you know what paths exist.
- Draft your version of the quality tradeoff sentence and say it out loud a few times so it sounds like you when it counts.
- If you get agreement to move faster, send the confirming email the same day, in two or three plain sentences.
- Pick one recurring task and find a single place where AI or software your firm already owns can save you time at the same level of accuracy.
Bringing It Together
An attorney whose pace runs faster than yours is not a verdict on your ability. Very often it is a work style meeting a different work style, and that is information you can use rather than a problem you have to absorb quietly. You separate compatibility from capability, you decide how you are going to respond, and you get any change in expectations on the record.
The freeing part is how much of this sits with you. You do not need the attorney to change for your situation to improve. You need a clear read on what is happening, language you feel good using, and a workflow that keeps getting sharper. That combination travels with you into every seat you ever hold, at this firm or the next one.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Bring your own version of this question to the next Paralegal Growth Hour, our free monthly live coaching call for paralegals.
Save your seat at Paralegal-BootCamp.com/grow.
If the speed piece is where you want to make real progress, the AI Boot Camp for Legal Professionals walks you through using AI on legal work in a way that holds your accuracy standard steady.
AI Boot Camp for Legal Professionals
Master the essential AI skills you need to thrive in today’s legal industry in just 4 weeks – without getting lost in technical jargon! Don’t let another week go by feeling uncertain about AI’s impact on your career. Take the lead and become the firm’s “go-to” AI person.
Meet the Author
Ann Pearson is the Founder of the Paralegal Boot Camp and host of the Paralegal Coach Podcast Show. Ann is passionate about promoting the paralegal profession.
Ann spent 20 years working as a paralegal manager and a litigation paralegal before opening the Paralegal Boot Camp in 2010.
Ann’s training programs focus on adding immediate value to a paralegal’s career and bridging the gap between what a paralegal learns in school and what they actually do on the job.
Visit the About Us Page to learn more about why Ann started the Paralegal Boot Camp.
