re: What do you value more in employees?

Competence is number one with me period, everything else I can work with but we can and do pay people well.

My secretary has been with me for 25 years and makes $86k a year and worth every penny. The shortest tenure of any paralegal I have is 8 years and I hired her to replace one that retired. The paralegals at my firm average grossing $115k-120k. Pay seems to bring competency and loyalty.

Attorneys are simple to keep, I can only think of one associate that has left voluntarily in the last 10 years and the Op tempo/grind just wasn't for him. We pay Craveth scale -10% and given the cost of living in the area they can't make more money anywhere else. Pay a new attorney $220k a year (with bonus) and you can ride them pretty hard because they know they will be making over $400k in the 5th year and their whole focus is to make partner.

It is clear you have to make money to pay well but in my industry money seems to be everything to employees.