The Complete Lawyer

In today’s competitive professional services world, an important benchmark for performance is ROI—return on investment. We usually think of ROI in terms of a financial investment in a tangible asset like a computer or copying machine whereby the return desired is a function of efficiencies achieved, productivity enhanced and value added when compared to the investment resources required. By that standard, a sound investment that any lawyer can make is to engage the services of a professional coach. Coaching is a true investment—in yourself. You should engage a coach when you decide you want to be successful because a coach can help achieve that success more quickly than you would on your own.

As a coach to legal professionals, I constantly see the direct and tangible benefits that lawyers derive from coaching. Often they increase their revenue by five or six figures because they have an independent, objective ally who can listen to the challenges the lawyer faces and provide advice on what works best. The effective coach provides the kind of honest feedback and support that helps people do great things.

Coaching Is Different From Mentoring And Consulting

Coaching is most commonly identified with athletic achievement. Many of us treasure the memory of a supportive coach who encouraged our efforts in sports. But for professional athletes, for whom excelling at sports is their passion and their livelihood, the role of a coach is far tougher and more dynamic. The best athletes engage coaches throughout their careers to reach the pinnacles of success, and continually reinvent themselves through coaching to stay there. Don’t confuse coaching with consulting, which is an episodic engagement. To engage a coach, in contrast, is to commit yourself to developing a career-long team approach to identifying challenges and overcoming them.

The same holds true for lawyers. A coach is not a mentor—he or she is not the senior lawyer who, while cruising at 35,000 feet, offers firm-focused career advice to a junior attorney. Rather, a good coach operates at ground level to provide practice-enhancing guidance while discussing and exploring roadblocks and working to remove them. A coach provides both accountability and support. The right coach brings certain advantages: experience as a lawyer in practice management issues that lawyers face, the independence to hold the lawyer accountable for addressing these issues, the time to focus on solutions, and a willingness to be candid.

Success Coaching Requires Active Engagement

The best coaching experience is an active process as the coach learns what the coaching client “really wants” and works in partnership with the coaching client to achieve it. While maintaining objective detachment, a coach gives lawyers perhaps their only conscious opportunity to think, dream and plan. The typical coaching engagement starts with the client articulating his or her primary concerns and objectives; then, coaches help clients access their own wisdom and unique abilities. Coaches provide feedback and offer support so that the lawyer follows through with action and changes. They can also assign homework that gets discussed at each subsequent session.

Overcome Your Objections To Being Coached

One of the biggest barriers to successful coaching experience is a lawyer’s expectation that the coach has all the answers. This reflects the lawyer’s training that finding the right authority or citation is the key to arguing a case successfully. An almost equally counterproductive belief is that a coach should be a friend who does nothing but compliment and encourage rather than a leader who pushes and challenges. Passively waiting for answers or a pat on the back is not making proper use of a coach. The best way to work with a coach is to be active and engaged—by asking questions and applying challenging answers—in the same the way that professional athletes use their coaches.

If coaching helps, why don’t lawyers take more advantage of it? Here are the objections lawyers often raise, and the responses that a professional coach would offer.

“If I seek coaching, it means I’m personally inadequate.” Actually, engaging a coach means you’ve decided to succeed because you’ll improve more quickly than you would alone.

“Engaging a coach is too expensive.” Because coaching is an investment in yourself, the increase in your earnings or decrease in your stress level typically outweighs the cost. The return on investment is a multiple of the investment.

“I can’t commit to the time that a coach demands”. Actually, no commitment, no success. The price is the time required to do what’s necessary to improve. Coaching is actually very convenient: it can take place by phone, obviating the need for time-consuming office visits. After the first session, most last no more than 30 minutes, and take place weekly or as required.

“Coaches too often try to intimidate people.” Actually, a good coach is neither a buddy, a mentor nor an assistant. A coach offers leadership that compels you to be better.

“I can’t take direction from someone I don’t know personally.” A personal, face-to-face relationship is often unnecessary: coaching, as noted above, can unfold through phone calls and emails.

If you’re not sure if you’re ready for coaching, ask yourself, “Am I committed to my own success?” Be sure you define success in terms of concrete, achievable, measurable achievements. Expressing “success” in relative terms such as “more revenue” or “better marketing” sets a subjective standard that is difficult to discuss, let alone satisfy. The truly successful person wants and needs a target at which to aim. If you are willing to do what is required to reach the level of success you envision and will accept that success, it will come—by committing yourself as an active participant in the coaching process to achieve it.