Performance reviews in law firms are an exercise in reading between the lines. 'Good work ethic' means you bill a lot. 'Could improve on communication' means someone complained but they won't tell you who. 'Shows potential for leadership' means they want you to bring in clients but haven't said it directly.

The trick isn't to dismiss the feedback. It's to decode it. Every piece of vague praise or gentle criticism maps to something concrete that someone observed. Your job is to figure out what that something was, and whether it matters for where you're trying to go.

The Monday morning test

Good feedback, no matter how it's delivered, passes one test: can you do something different on Monday morning because of it? If the answer is no, the feedback was either too vague to be useful or too political to be honest. Either way, you need a follow-up conversation.