The Complete Lawyer

This is the first of a two-part article on coaching and mentoring.

“What you do with your billable time is revenue. What you do with your non-billable time is your future.”
- David Maister

In The Odyssey, when Odysseus left for his journeys he entrusted the care, education, and guidance of his son Telemachus to Mentor, a loyal advisor and teacher. Today, mentoring in the legal profession allows more experienced attorneys to help less experienced attorneys grow in their profession.

Coaching has become a necessary leadership competency for lawyers. Mentoring is equally important. Having one or more mentors can dramatically improve your career path in the law firm environment. In our busy world, lawyers seeking coaching or mentoring need to be proactive and self-managing. It is best to develop relationships with multiple advisors who can help you grow in your chosen profession.

Coaching and mentoring offer a tremendous opportunity to leverage leadership talent and resources; both can steer a law firm toward sustainable success. These essential leadership development practices can help law firms retain legal talent and fill their leadership pipeline. Unfortunately, the dynamic of relentlessly focusing on billable hours creates a conflict between a lawyer’s generous impulse to mentor and the increased pressure he feels to add revenue to the bottom line.

As Steve Joiner, managing partner of the Rose Law Firm comments, “Our Mentoring Program takes a lot of effort but it has been very worthwhile. I can only think of one associate that was arguably ‘turned around’ by the program but the program undoubtedly has resulted in identifying and forcing us to deal with problem areas much earlier than we did before implementing this program.”

How do you develop lawyers as leaders who both mentor and coach? How can you optimize their talents and potential? Which best practice coaching competencies produce lasting results that drive business performance?

Practice “In the Moment” Coaching And Mentoring

“In the moment” coaching and mentoring might relieve some of the time pressure lawyers experience and tap into their deeper purpose and values. Meaningful coaching or mentoring conversations can occur in a “just-in-time” minute or two providing tremendous value to both parties.

Because many lawyers tend to have an authoritative and directive leadership style, a great deal of mentoring at law firms might take this expert approach. However, lawyers can learn a more relaxed coaching approach, which is more non-directive and benevolent. Whether used for coaching or mentoring, this style is based on inquiry: the coach or mentor asks powerful questions, which allow the other person to discover his or her own answers. Coaching focuses on developing an authentic trusting relationship which is mutually beneficial and highly supportive. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, this style leverages strengths.

The lawyers I have coached in this approach discover that mentoring or coaching other lawyers makes them feel happy and personally fulfilled. They become fully engaged in their work and life, and experience a deep sense of purpose and joy.

Take The Coaching Approach To Mentoring

In the high-pressure world of today’s law practice, the need for mentoring is more important than ever. Law firms can facilitate the mentoring process by creating a culture in which all lawyers are expected to teach and to learn from one another. Unfortunately, many experienced attorneys feel so much pressure to be rainmakers that this becomes a higher priority than the mentoring role. To compensate for this, attorneys can become inventive and use some of the social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Second Life and Twitter) to alleviate some of the time pressure that has compromised the success of many mentor programs.

The most successful mentors are also coaches. Coaching requires different competencies from the analytical and directive ones expected from a lawyer. Using the Socratic Method, mentors ask powerful questions that help a mentee discover answers and resources that were previously buried. These skills often don’t come naturally to lawyers, but they can be learned. And many lawyers are glad to learn them, enjoying the change of pace.

Being able to empathize is a foundational skill for a coach. Empathy can be defined as the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view and to read other people. It starts with self-awareness: understanding your own emotions is essential to understanding the feelings of others. It is also crucial for effective communication and leadership.

Mentors who take the coaching approach ask questions and actively listen to the answers, sometimes asking deeper questions to help the mentee discover her own answers.

The Legal World Embraces Coaching, A New Paradigm

Coaching is no longer reserved for difficult leaders and lawyers. It is more frequently sought by top performers whose firms value their business and legal growth potential. Today’s managing partners recognize the importance of enabling leaders to achieve critical business objectives in the shortest possible time, and are hiring coaches to accelerate development.

Before a coach begins to work with law firm leaders, they must first correctly identify the client as the company or law firm. Next, ground rules have to be clarified, especially in these areas:

1. Confidentiality, expectations and commitment: The coach must be clear about what will be shared with the leader’s boss and what will be kept confidential. Aligning coaching with the strategic goals of the firm is crucial, as coaching isn’t merely an exercise in personal improvement.

2. Reporting relationships: There must be clarity among the three key participants—the firm’s contact (boss or HR representative), the coach and the leader being coached.

3. Methods of information gathering: Key stakeholders, team members, direct reports and others involved will be contacted by both the coach and the leader being coached.

4. Making judgments, setting objectives and monitoring progress: The coach helps the leader and key stakeholders maintain objectivity. Coaches must focus on one or two behaviors, without judgment, and facilitate honest sharing about progress.

5. How, why and when the coaching will end: Coaching parameters must be set at the beginning of the engagement, with milestones for assessing progress and a completion date (usually 12 to 18 months).

Once the ground rules have been established, they cannot be bent along the way. The coaching relationship requires discipline and boundaries for progress to occur.

In my next article, I’ll discuss how to measure sustainable success.