A few years ago my husband asked me, “What is one thing I can do right now with my team that I can actually remember and have time to do?” I still think about that question, because it’s the one most of the partners I work with are asking too.
That’s the idea behind Bright Lines. Each issue I pick one peer-reviewed study, explain what it found, and translate it into something you can use at your firm. This first issue covers a new review of what works when you’re trying to get people to change how they behave. I’ve also included two examples I see all the time, one about a single partner and one about a firm rolling out AI.
Warmly, Tara
The Research
Katy Milkman and Angela Duckworth run Penn’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative. Together with Jan Voelkel at Cornell, they reviewed decades of research on behavior change and organized it into one framework. They focused on randomized field trials that measured what people did, rather than what they said they would do.
The authors argue that behavior change happens in three phases: (1) motivation, when people decide the change is worth it and believe they can do it; (2) follow-through, when they turn that intention into action; and (3) habit, when the behavior is repeated enough to become automatic. Each phase breaks down for different reasons, so the fix has to fit the phase. Another round of information won’t help people who already agree but keep forgetting, and a reminder won’t do much for someone who doesn’t think the change is worth making.
In one large meta-analysis the authors cite, interventions that moved people’s intentions by 0.66 standard deviations moved their behavior by only 0.36. In other words, getting people to agree with you gets you roughly halfway.
What This Means for You
When a change effort stalls at a firm, the usual response is more communication, usually another email, a CLE or a town hall. Those are motivation tools. In my experience most firm initiatives stall at follow-through. People agree with the change, but they haven’t planned when and where they’ll do it, and the old way is still easier.
Think about studying for the bar exam. Nobody passed because they believed the bar mattered. We all believed that. We passed because we had a reason we cared about, a schedule with a place to study and a set of practice questions every day, and enough weeks of repetition that it became routine. That’s motivation, follow-through and habit. Most firm initiatives give people the first one and skip the other two.
So before you choose a fix, figure out where people are getting stuck.
The Three Phases
People have to believe the change is worth it and that they can pull it off.
What works: social norms, endorsement from people they trust, role models who share something with them, breaking a big goal into small ones, fresh starts, and reflecting on their own values. When a fintech app invited new users to save $5 a day instead of $150 a month, four times as many signed up.
People mean to do it, but they forget, it’s a hassle, or the payoff feels too far away.
What works: well-timed reminders, specific goals, if-then plans, checklists built into the workflow, feedback on the task, better defaults, and making the right option the convenient one. Switching retirement plans from opt-in to opt-out raised enrollment by 10 to 30 percent.
The behavior has to be repeated enough to stick and flexible enough to survive a bad week.
What works: rewarding repetition for several weeks, practicing at varied times, and building in grace days so one miss doesn’t turn into quitting. In two gym studies, a single holiday break wiped out habits people had started to build.
How to Apply It
Figure out where it’s stuck
Ask whether people don’t want to, keep forgetting to, or can’t keep it up. Each answer points to a different tool.
Write the if-then plan
For example, “If a matter closes, I send the associate one specific piece of feedback that day.” Across 301 experiments, if-then planning reliably improved follow-through.
Make the right thing the default
Put the step in the checklist, the template or the calendar so it happens unless someone opts out. Defaults work best when people trust whoever set them.
Pick a date that feels like a new start
Mid-January, a promotion or the arrival of a new associate class can give people a clean slate. The research suggests the date has to mean something to people. A random Tuesday won’t do much.
Plan for the miss
Trials and closings will interrupt anything new, and one miss is expected. Build in grace days so a bad week doesn’t turn into giving up on the change.
Strategies to Practice
The Phase Check
Pick one change you’ve been pushing. Write one sentence on whether it’s stuck at motivation, follow-through or habit, and choose one tool from that phase.
WOOP
Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. Picture the result you want, name the main thing about you that gets in the way, and write an if-then plan for it. Research shows that doing both steps, picturing the goal and then planning around the obstacle, works better than either one alone.
The Friction Audit
Find one extra step, login or approval that stands between people and the behavior you want, and see if you can get rid of it this month.
The One Thing
Back to my husband’s question. If you take one thing from this issue, pick the change you care about most, figure out which phase it’s stuck in, and write one if-then plan for it.
Law Firm Scenario: One Partner
A senior litigation partner is one of the firm’s top rainmakers and does excellent work. He also cares about his associates and spends real time mentoring them. But for the second year in a row his upward reviews are low, two associates have named him in exit interviews, and the staffing coordinator says people keep asking to be kept off his matters. The complaints are about his feedback. Every markup and every conversation is about what needs to change. He rarely says what’s working, and he never explains why he’s pushing so hard. The practice group leader decides to raise it at his year-end review.
The most important part of his feedback is the part he never says. He pushes because he thinks these associates can be great lawyers, and he’s busy, so he spends his limited time on what they need to fix to get there. His associates hear something else: that nothing they do is good enough. He also has no time for long conversations, so any fix has to be quick. There’s a business case and a human case here. The business case is that the associates who avoid his matters are associates the firm may lose. The human case is that he believes in these people, and right now they can’t tell.
- Motivation. Start with what he already values, developing people and keeping a strong team. Frame this as a way to get more out of the feedback he’s already giving, with his standards right where they are. Keep it to one change: say out loud what he’s already thinking.
- Follow-through. Give him a script that takes less than a minute. At the start of each matter he tells the associate, “My comments are going to be blunt and mostly about what to fix. That’s because I think you can be a great lawyer, and I’m short on time.” Then every markup opens with two lines, one on what’s working and one on what he’s pushing toward, like “The structure is strong. These edits are about getting your briefs to the point where I’d file them without changes.” This fits the research on feedback in the review, which works better when it’s about the task and comes with a clear standard. His if-then plan is simple: “If I’m sending a markup, I write the two lines first.” Saving those two lines as a template at the top of his markup email makes them the default.
- Habit. Talent runs a short anonymous pulse with his team at about 60 and 120 days. When he slips during a trial, he and his coach talk about what happened that week and get back to the plan.
By the next upward review cycle his scores are up and the staffing coordinator can fill his team again. His feedback is as direct as ever, but his associates now know why he’s giving it, and a few have started asking to work with him.
Law Firm Scenario: A Firm Adopting AI
The firm is moving fast on AI. Licenses have gone out to a pilot group, the innovation team sends regular updates, practice leaders tell people to “use it more,” and there’s a steady run of webinars. There’s very little change management behind any of it. Lawyers and staff feel pushed in every direction without clear guidance on how AI fits their specific role.
This effort is stuck in all three phases. On motivation, nobody has said what the goal is for any one person’s job. Associates worry that faster first drafts mean fewer billable hours, and some partners ask how first-years will learn to write if a tool does the first draft. Underneath that is a question of identity, and many people also aren’t confident they’ll be good at it. On follow-through, people aren’t sure which tool is approved for which client’s data, some outside counsel guidelines restrict AI use, and the old way is still faster. When a partner redoes an AI-assisted draft by hand, associates take that as the real signal. On habit, early experiments fade after the first trial or closing.
- Motivation. Replace “use it more” with one or two clear goals for each practice group. Talk about the identity questions out loud. Be honest about what AI can draft, be specific about the judgment calls it can’t make, and explain how juniors will still learn. Name peer champions in each group, ask partners to use it where their teams can see, and when usage is going up in a group, tell people.
- Follow-through. Give each role a short checklist of two or three approved uses, such as a chronology from a document production, a first-pass privilege log or a deposition summary, along with the client guidelines that apply. End every training by having people name the matter, the task and the day they’ll try it. Where the document management system allows it, put an AI draft in the matter file by default.
- Habit. Plan for adoption to take most of a year, with at least one restart. Share usage by group each month, without ranking people by name, and give non-billable credit for time spent learning the tools. When someone falls off, the champion asks what got in the way and uses the answer to fix the checklist. Relaunch the next phase in mid-January.
By spring, most people in the pilot use AI for two or three specific tasks without being told to. Some still push back, but now they can say what isn’t working, and that’s something leaders can fix.
If you’d like to talk through a change effort at your firm, I’d love to hear about it. Book a 30 minute call.
Voelkel, J. G., Milkman, K. L., & Duckworth, A. L. (2027). Behavior Change. Annual Review of Psychology, 78. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-031626-111545
A note on the numbers. Every figure above comes from studies reviewed in this article. The authors note that published effect sizes tend to run high and depend on context, so treat them as rough benchmarks. The scenarios are composites.
