Legal
Your Challenges / Our Solutions
Did you know...
CCL research on managing partners has identified 11 competencies needed to effectively lead into the future.
Your Challenges
At its most fundamental level, leadership is about producing change that in turn improves organizational results. In these complex times, the legal industry is facing an unprecedented combination of challenges--the traditional practice model is under pressure, competition to attract and retain clients is more fierce than ever, mergers and consolidations can cause short-term pain that sometimes does not translate into long-term gain, and all of this is taking place within the context of one of the worst economic meltdowns in memory. As if these problems weren't enough to contend with, most firms face the added challenge of talent sustainability-- attracting, developing, and retaining people with the superior capabilities and commitment needed to assure organizational success now and for years to come.
Our most recent research included more than 150 partner-leaders from firms with operations around the world. Here are the five most pressing problems identified by these lawyer-leaders:
- Building Strategic Leadership Skills
- Managing and Sustaining Talent
- Setting Strategic Direction
- Retaining Clients/Promoting Client Satisfaction
- Managing Growth/Developing New and Existing Markets and Practice Areas
Strong lawyer-leaders are able to create a vision for the future; design a competitive strategy; attract, retain, and develop a top-flight, committed talent pool; and create an agile, flexible, and inclusive culture. Sound like a daunting challenge? It is. However both our research and more importantly, our hands-on work with law firms demonstrate clearly that it can be done and we believe, in today's competitive legal environment, must be done for law firms to flourish.
Our Solutions
Did you know...
The current economic turmoil is creating a greater need for leaders to behave authentically.
CCL understands that many lawyer-leaders are and must continue to be, among their firm's top revenue generators. This means they can't waste a minute of time engaged in non-essential activities. Consequently, we have focused our training on those critical leadership skills that every lawyer-leader must have, in order to shape the long-term success of the firm. We have boiled down the leadership challenges that these lawyers face, into three key categories: Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading the Firm/Practice. We have developed specialized solutions for each of these three developmental areas. Our solutions are designed not only to teach essential leadership skills, but also to give lawyer-leaders actionable ways to sustain those skills long after their training is completed.
Young Lawyers Leadership Academy
The Young Lawyers Academy is a dynamic, six-day, interactive leadership program designed and customized for lawyers who are in their first 10 years of practice and want to enhance their individual effectiveness and assume strategic leadership roles in their firms, organizations or communities. Through partnership with local bar associations, firms or organizations, CCL senior faculty will bring leadership training to early career, high potential lawyers. Sessions times and length can be adjusted to meet the needs of busy early career lawyers and their organizations. To download a flyer, please click here.
Participants in the Academy will:
- Receive individual feedback on key leadership traits and how they are perceived as leaders
- Increase self-awareness about leadership styles, skills and challenges
- Gain knowledge about authentic leadership, values and influencing
- Examine personal and organizational values at work and in their lives
- Build and sustain productive relationships
- Hone communication, feedback and newly acquired leadership skills
- Develop personal growth plans
- Design and present a community project around a personal interest or passion
Leadership Development for Lawyer-Leaders
Do you know yourself? Perhaps a better question is: Have you thought about the way you come across to others as a leader? And are you aware of the impact your leadership style has on your own success and that of the firm as a whole? The Leadership Development for Lawyer-Leaders course uses norm-based self-awareness tools, activities, and debriefs to sharpen your leadership capabilities.
Participants learn how to:
- Use their leadership strengths more effectively and close the gaps in their areas of development
- Build and sustain productive relationships
- Give and receive feedback more effectively
- Provide real-time coaching to direct reports and colleagues
- Set clear and actionable individual leadership goals
- Lead successful change in their areas of oversight
- Identify and develop the firm's top talent prospects
Coaching Services for Lawyers &
Coaching Services for Legal Teams
Our individual attorney and team leadership coaching solutions can make a difference at all levels of your firm, from associates to managing partners. Post-program coaching can play a key role in helping participants fully develop and sustain the new behaviors they learned during a program.
Our coaching services are grounded in CCL's unique developmental model of Assessment, Challenge and Support (ACS), and offer you:
- High quality, norm-based assessments
- Rigorously-trained and monitored executive-level coaches who understand the challenges faced by lawyers
- A confidential, safe environment in which to learn specific skills and techniques for becoming a more proficient lawyer-leader
- Flexibility regarding when, where, and how the coaching sessions take place
Leading Lawyer Teams for Impact
This offering focuses on teaching participants how to lead a team toward a common goal. Figuring out the right combination of leadership and structure to lead a successful team is among the biggest challenges in any business today. To work effectively, teams must have three elements in place: collaboration, trust, and accountability. It takes specific skills to meld these three behaviors, especially when team members are pulled in different directions, have different job functions, work in different time zones, and come from different cultural backgrounds.
Leading Lawyer Teams for Impact teaches participants how to:
- Understand how their behavior contributes to, or detracts from, team performance
- Influence others within the organization so that the team can achieve greater results
- Deploy a research-based framework to assess the needs, characteristics, and dynamics of a team
- Share responsibility for effective group dynamics and conflict resolution
- Demonstrate commitment to team success by delivering results in the midst of external pressure and work responsibilities
- Learn about the critical roles that collaboration, trust, and accountability play in effective teams
Baseline & Discovery Services
CCL's discovery process helps identify the leadership strengths, challenges, and opportunities that exist within your firm. The discovery process provides you with vital information from associates, partners, and other key stakeholders regarding their perspectives on your firm's leadership capabilities and areas in need of improvement. Our approach is based on our Changing Nature of Leadership in Law Firms (CNL.LF) research, and can be customized to the unique features of your firm. The CNL.LF approach helps you identify:
- The complex challenges facing your firm
- A gap analysis of your organizational needs and leadership capabilities
- The leadership skill set necessary for your firm's sustained success
