The managing partner’s voice was tired. “Jeremy just lost another senior associate,” said Laurie. “That’s three in eight months. He’s crucial to our construction and OSHA practice. But associates he works with keep leaving, and now Jeremy’s working 70-hour weeks because he won’t delegate anything.”
Laurie continued: “Jeremy’s a wonderful man – smart, competent, knows the nuances of his practice inside and out. The problem is that his strengths are also his weaknesses. He cares too deeply, worries about every detail.”
Then she added something that showed how much she cared: “He spends Christmases with my family. Nobody wants this to succeed more than I do.”
That’s when I realized we weren’t just dealing with poor delegation skills. We were dealing with a brilliant lawyer whose brain made leadership feel challenging, almost impossible.
The Expert’s Brain Trap
Here’s what neuroscience tells us about expertise: when you become truly skilled at something, your brain creates what researchers call “chunked knowledge” – the process of breaking down large amounts of information into smaller, more manageable pieces or “chunks” to improve understanding, memory, and learning. Moreover, “automatic chunking,” which is unconscious and implicit, often occurs with experts as they gain familiarity with a domain. In other words, the more experienced you are, the more you process complex information automatically, without conscious thought. A seasoned litigator can spot weaknesses in an argument within seconds. A corporate partner can identify deal risks that would take others hours to find.
This is cognitive efficiency at its finest. But here’s the hidden cost: experts lose conscious access to their own thinking process. They can’t easily explain how they know what they know because the knowledge has become intuitive.
When that expert partner reviews an associate’s work, their brain immediately flags dozens of improvements, but they can’t articulate why most of them matter. So they mark everything up, leaving the associate feeling incompetent rather than educated.
The Threat Detection System
There’s another neurological factor at play. Legal training literally rewires your brain for threat detection. You’re trained to spot every possible risk, every potential problem, every way things could go wrong. This hypervigilance makes you an excellent lawyer.
But when managing others, this same system treats every imperfection in their work as a potential threat. Your brain’s alarm system fires constantly: “This isn’t right. This could cause problems. This needs to be fixed.”
The associate experiences this as harsh criticism. You experience it as necessary quality control. Neither of you realizes you’re both responding to your brain’s evolved threat detection system.
The Cognitive Load Problem
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Neuroscience research shows that when we’re under cognitive load (like the constant pressure of deadlines and billable hours), our brains default to familiar patterns. We literally lose access to higher-order thinking skills like patience, teaching, and strategic delegation.
One partner I worked with had an “aha” moment when she realized this. “No wonder I can’t delegate effectively at 4pm on a busy day,” she said. “My brain is in survival mode!“
Working With Your Brain, Not Against It
After coaching hundreds of lawyers, here is the secret of the most successful lawyer-managers: they have learned to work with these neurological realities rather than fight them. And so can you. Here is how:
Create “Teaching Brain” Time. Your brain needs space to shift from expert mode to teaching mode. One partner schedules all associate development conversations for Tuesday mornings when his cognitive load is lowest. The difference in his patience and clarity is remarkable.
Use the “Beginner’s Mind” Technique. Before reviewing someone’s work, spend two minutes remembering what it was like when you first learned this skill. This primes your brain to see learning opportunities rather than just problems.
Then apply progressive delegation instead of the all-or-nothing approach most partners use.
- Start with Level 1: the associate drafts while you heavily edit.
- Move to Level 2: they draft while you review and provide feedback.
- At Level 3, they handle work independently while you spot-check.
- Finally, Level 4: they manage the entire matter and update you periodically.
Most partners jump straight from Level 1 to Level 4 and wonder why it fails. Your brain needs time to trust, and their brain needs time to develop the pattern recognition that comes naturally to you.
Pressure-test Your Expectations. Ask yourself three critical questions about every expectation you set:
- Is this a preference? Something you’d like done your way because it feels right or familiar, but other approaches could work just as well. Your preference for how a brief is structured might reflect your personal style, not a necessity.
- Is this a tradition? Something you’ve always done or seen done. The way you’ve always handled discovery requests might be outdated for this type of case or this particular client’s needs.
- Is this a requirement? Something genuinely necessary for client service, legal compliance, or strategic success. Court rules, ethical obligations, and client-specific protocols fall here.
Here’s what’s fascinating: neuroscience research shows that our brains categorize all three the same way – as “must-dos.” When you’re under stress, your threat detection system treats your personal preference for paragraph structure with the same urgency as a filing deadline.
This is why associates often feel overwhelmed by feedback that seems arbitrary. They can’t distinguish between “Julia prefers it this way” and “the client requires it this way” because your brain presents both with equal intensity.
This simple strategy, which I learned from a leadership and diversity expert Katina Cousar Wilson, PHR, SHRM-CP, CEP, MHFA, will help you and your team understand what’s negotiable and what isn’t, reducing their cognitive load and building their judgment rather than their dependence.
Where to Start
- Pick one task you handled this week that someone else could learn to do. But instead of just showing them what needs to be done, explain your thinking process. What do you look for first? What patterns signal problems? What questions do you ask yourself? Even better, have them shadow you while you do your analysis out loud. Let them watch you think in real time!
- Schedule this conversation for a time when your cognitive load is low – probably not at the end of a long day.
The question isn’t whether you can afford to invest time in developing others.
It’s whether you can afford not to.
