Professional leadership development is a harder sell in the law than in business, psychology, engineering, teaching and education, and many other fields.
However, our profession is slowly recognizing that we need better leadership development and that this will be best accomplished through continuing legal education programs, which are readily available in the classroom, over the web, by video or phone. The Colorado Bar Association, for example, has been successful with the leadership development programs they have offered. CLE credit was given and the classes were three hours long.
Lawyers are recognizing the need for this training for several reasons. As a profession, the law is becoming more competitive. With over one million lawyers practicing in the United States alone, and over 120,000 law students, lawyers are looking for something that will give them a competitive advantage over their adversaries. Some are turning to leadership development training. One law firm recently announced that it was going to send all of its lawyers to get MBAs.
Other lawyers seek the training believing that becoming a better leader may open up avenues of satisfaction that are currently not on their radar screen. Finally, leadership programs have the potential to address the serious problem of lack of civility within the profession, which many are calling for.
Leadership training doesn’t change people and law firm cultures instantly. Law firms that are experiencing high turnover of lawyers or clients, revenue shortfalls, client complaints, malpractice suits, or a falling reputation are not going to be significantly better off the morning after a day or a week or more of leadership development training. These programs cost a significant amount of money and getting the funds into a law firm budget for a leadership development program is often harder than getting a hard-core felon a light sentence. However, there is a growing body of evidence that improving the quality of leadership in the firm will yield increases in law firm profits and improved lawyer satisfaction.
How And When Should The Training Take Place?
To make the most of leadership training, several factors need to be taken into account. Bringing in a leadership development consultant to speak to a firm or some members of a firm can pay dividends, but there are also obstacles: rarely are lawyers truly prepared to understand the potential value of leadership development training when they first show up to hear the expert; in addition, these sessions are hard to schedule because of everyone’s time constraints.
In terms of the best setting in which to introduce training, law retreats (if firms hold them; many don’t) may be appropriate, but they only happen once a year usually and often the topic of leadership development does not fit well with the rest of the agenda. Staff meetings can also work, but in general, the best person to introduce the need for professional training is a fellow lawyer rather than a member of the administrative staff. Perhaps a lawyer could speak on the subject during a regularly-scheduled brown bag lunch at the firm.
The question of timing also arises. It seems most sensible to promote leadership development to a lawyer or a firm that is facing challenges, but this training may be perceived as bitter medicine by someone who is already feeling vulnerable. Yet promoting the idea when times are good can be an even harder sell.
Possibly the best opportunity to promote leadership development in a law firm or in-house counsel’s office is when the law firm is considering developing a long-term plan (in our profession, a long-term plan is anything over 12 months). Bringing in a leadership development consultant to help develop the plan can make lawyers more receptive to a more extensive leadership training program.
Similarly, using a leadership development expert to help facilitate retreats, partnership meetings, or executive committee meetings and to meet one-on-one with key leaders in the law firm for executive coaching, are also good ways to promote leadership development among lawyers, law firms, court systems, in-house counsel offices, and in other areas of the legal profession.
Leadership Needs To Become Part Of The Job
For leadership programs to really work, legal administrators need to get leadership-oriented performance indicators written into job descriptions and personal growth plans for lawyers in the firm. However, most law firms do not yet have personal growth plans for their employees. Right now, billable and pro bono hours are the only job performance variables for many lawyers.
Training also needs to become part of the routine. Lawyers like schedules. They do not take courses like leadership development spontaneously. Therefore, leadership development training must be inserted into the law firm plan and law firm budget well in advance of the actual training. There is often a three- to six- month lag between the time a lawyer, law firm or in-house counsel’s office decides to pursue leadership development training and implementing it.
The best leadership development programs take days and weeks of preparation, study, the deployment and analysis of leadership assessment tools, and research on the part of the leadership development trainer to find out what aspects of leadership should be emphasized during the training. Planners need to conduct extensive research and interview members of the firm to learn the firm’s issues, beliefs, hierarchy, how decisions are made, its tensions and shortcomings. This way, the development program can be tailored to the firm’s specific needs.
Just as lawyers often counsel their clients who just happen to be defendants to tread easy in the courtroom, legal administrators should be counseled to tread easy when it comes to suggesting that lawyers in the firm or in-house counsel’s office could benefit from leadership development training.
Legal administrators are hired to set up systems and to solve challenges. How we characterize a challenge or problem often points us to a potential solution. Legal administrators can begin to characterize some of the challenges that a law firm, in-house counsel office or an individual lawyer or group of lawyers face as a “leadership challenge,” which in turn may make some more receptive to the training.
The good news is that the legal profession will not oppose leadership training development forever. Our profession held out against using the telephone, typewriter and computer, but eventually we came around.
As a few lawyers and law firms start to take leadership development seriously, the floodgates will open and many in our profession will certainly follow quickly and begin to take leadership development courses.
If you’re in the vanguard of this movement, think of yourself as a farmer planting seeds of a crop that may not grow immediately, but only after several years. When lawyers become better-trained leaders, it will be to the benefit of our clients, our law firms, our legal administrators, our judges, and most importantly, to our honorable profession.
Herb Rubenstein is the author of Leadership for Lawyers, 2nd.ed., American Bar Association, 2008. He has practiced law for 26 years and is a member of the DC, MD and VA Bars. He works with attorneys, and their law firms as well as in-house counsel, public interest and government lawyers, and court systems throughout the United States on improving their leadership capabilities. The website is www.leadershipforattorneys.org and he can be reached at 303.910.7961 or via email at herb@sbizgroup.com
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