If a lawyer can’t manage others, if a paralegal never gets the hang of litigation document review, if a secretary proofreads horribly, they may be blissfully ignorant, but they leave carnage all around. Incompetents don’t see how poor their own performance is and they can’t recognize or learn from the accomplished performances of others.
According to a summary in the Harvard Bus. Review, Vol. 83, Dec 2005, at 19 of 1999 research “incompetent people don’t perform up to speed, don’t recognize their lack of competence, and don’t recognize the competence of others.”
Worse, ineptness in a law department employee can harm others, including “if incompetent people have people reporting to them, their poor judgment may damage careers besides their own.”