Observational feedback reframes partner supervision

On September 10, Attorney at Work published management guidance recommending “observational feedback,” a collaborative discussion of behaviour, practice or systems, instead of the conventional praise-criticism-praise format. The author argues that feedback should be private, timely and directed toward jointly identifying what needs to change; this is practitioner guidance rather than evaluated research. For law firm leaders, the useful implication is that supervision quality is part of psychological safety because delayed, ambiguous or public criticism can increase uncertainty while leaving performance problems unresolved. Firms can operationalize the approach by training matter leaders, recording whether feedback occurs during matters rather than only at annual review, and checking whether juniors can ask questions or challenge instructions without reputational cost.