Why It Is Important, What It Looks Like,and Why Law Firms Should Invest in It
alBy KC Bradley
p Knowing others is intelligence; rknowing yourself is true wisdom.eMastering others is strength; emastering yourself is true power.
r— Tao Te Ching
aLawyers are far behind their corporate clients,cand even professionals in other professional serv-ice firms, in recognizing and appreciating theimportance of taking control over their careers.The reason for this may lie in the fact that histori-cally the career path of a lawyer was clear – go to agood law school and get good grades, join a majorfirm to get practical training, “sink or swim”through the process, and make partner. This tradi-tional path has not, however, been available to mostlawyers for many years. Yet, the mindset that stilldominates in most law firms has not moved on sub-stantially, and it continues to impact most severelythe careers of women and minorities. So, given thismindset, what can individual lawyers do to developtheir careers?
The most obvious answer is for each lawyer todefine, for herself, her individual career objectivesand become her own ardent advocate. Obvious,yes; but difficult to implement in practice — par-ticularly for hard-charging, high-performinglawyers who do not take the time to consciouslyand clearly articulate their goals and are not alwaysskilled in the fine art of advocating for themselves.Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, individuallawyers can take charge of their careers if theymake the time and space in their lives to stop andpay attention to where they are going. This iswhere professional coaching, as so clearly illustrat-ed by the other authors in his Journal,can be ofgreat assistance.
For most of us in the legal profession, howev-er, stopping and paying attention to our own livesruns contrary to our natures (that is a topic foranother article!). Therefore, unless we ourselvestake the initiative (and incur the expense) to hire apersonal coach to support us in connection withour career goals, it just does not happen. Yet, byfailing to do so, we end up proceeding through ourcareers in a reactive mode, without a clear idea ofwhat we need to do, and who we need to be, inorder to have a satisfying and fulfilling career. Thisimpacts not only our quality of life, but also thequality of our work and the environment in which
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we do that work.
It is because, as lawyers, we do not tend toinvest in clearly formulating our career (or, for thatmatter, our life) objectives and because our failureto do so negatively impacts our work environmentsthat this article suggests and advocates that profes-sional coaching should be incorporated as an inte-gral part of a law firm’s professional developmentand diversity efforts. It articulates the benefits tolaw firms of having a focused career developmentprogram for their lawyers, and it makes the busi-ness case for investing in this effort. It concludesthat dedicating a professional with executivecoaching skill to support firm lawyers in one of themost important aspects of their lives — theircareers — not only makes good sense, it also gen-erates a return on the investment far in excess of thecost. The return on investment comes in the formof better recruiting results, higher retention rights,shorter learning curves, improved performance andcapability, more well-rounded lawyers, increasedclient satisfaction, enhanced reputation, and higherprofits.
Why Career Planning Is Important to Lawyersand Firms
Law firms generally invest heavily in therecruitment of star talent. In addition, they providegood support for the development of their lawyers’substantive skills. Most do not, however, providetheir lawyers with the individual support they needin order to help them identify their unique talents,round out their skills and abilities, and align theirtalents with the firm’s overall strategy. In addition,the inconsistency of development opportunitieswithin the firm, office or practice group — for rea-sons ranging from partner work-styles, to ineffi-cient or inequitable work assignment systems, tounconscious motivations relating to preferences,diversity and the like — often leads to the dissatis-faction of those who perceive that the firm is pro-viding better opportunities to some than to others.
By supplementing existing professional devel-opment efforts with a program that provideslawyers with the opportunity to develop, and becoached in relation to, customized, individualcareer development plans, and by dedicating an in-house professional to facilitate the process ofensuring that lawyers get the opportunities theyneed to develop targeted skills, firms can fill in
these gaps and enhance their professional develop-ment efforts overall.
Developing a personal career plan is particu-larly important for associates and partners workingin large firms. From the moment a young lawyerbegins to work at a large firm, he submits to clientneeds and the shadow of the billable hour. In manycases, absent an institutionalized program to sup-port his development, he does not stop to thinkabout the direction his career, or for that matter hispersonal life, is taking until he wakes up one day,perhaps several years later, suddenly conscious ofthe fact that he is feeling overwhelmed, disillu-sioned and dissatisfied. This is often the result ofpoor professional development and career manage-ment planning. Had the lawyer developed a senseof purpose by defining a clear direction at the out-set of his career, he would feel more confidentabout his career path, more empowered to make thedecisions necessary to keep his career on track, andmore resilient when subject to the set-backs that hewill inevitably experience along the way.
Similarly, when a lawyer suddenly finds her-self in the partnership ranks, she generally findsthat numerous additional demands are suddenlyplaced upon her, such as marketing, client develop-ment, practice leadership, training and mentoring,committee membership, budgeting, bill collecting,and the like — and all this in addition to maintain-ing her billable hours. A lawyer who has a clearsense of her self, her strengths and weaknesses, andher values and interests can more easily negotiatethis change by identifying the types of responsibil-ities that she can take on and by advocating for her-self in relation to the coaching and training she mayneed to help her to fulfill these duties.
By institutionalizing a program that supportsthe development of lawyers’career paths, firms notonly encourage their lawyers to work purposefullytoward their goals, they also engender increasedloyalty, satisfaction and performance, whichinevitably lead to increased profitability.What a Comprehensive Career PlanningProgram Looks Like
The essence of career planning has beenunderstood by mankind for millennia. It can per-haps best be summarized by the motto thatSocrates learned from the Oracle at Delphi in the5thCentury, B.C.: “Know Thyself.” It is only byknowing who we are — our strengths and weak-nesses, our values, our passions, and our purpose— that we have a chance to achieve true success,happiness and personal fulfillment. Yet, as poetsand philosophers have known throughout the ages,knowing oneself is one of life’s most difficult andchallenging tasks.
The other articles in this Journal give you anidea of what one-on-one career planning for
lawyers can look like. This article describes howan internal coach (referred to here as a CareerDevelopment Officer), working as an integralmember of a firm’s professional development anddiversity teams, can assist a lawyer to develop hercareer plan. The steps that can be taken include:•identifying the lawyer’s strengths, weak-nesses, values and personal interests throughher own self-assessment, through 360°feed-back, and/or with the use of various assess-ments administered by the coach;
•assisting the lawyer to articulate her own
career (and life) goals over the next 1 year, 3years, 5 years, etc., and counseling the lawyeron the practicality of those goals;
•determining how the lawyer’s strengths
and interests can be leveraged for her benefitand for the strategic benefit of the firm, andcareer planninghow weaknesses can be overcome or devel-oped;
•developing a plan that includes manageable
and measurable stretch goals to be achieved bythe lawyer within defined time periods (e.g.,substantive and executive skills to be devel-oped, work assignments needed, exposure topartners and clients to be obtained, gaps to be•filled, etc.);
periodically monitoring and assessing the
lawyer’s progress in relation to her goals; and•coaching her with regard to essential exec-utive leadership skills she will need in order tosucceed.
Although the lawyer will receive the supportof the coach in terms of the continuous monitoringof her performance and adherence to her plan, shewill be required herself to take ownership of theplan and responsibility for her own career develop-ment.
In addition to supporting the development ofcareer plans, a Career Development Officer canalso support the firm by working with seniorlawyers to provide coaching at the critical, andhighly stressful, point of partnership considerationand subsequent integration, and to provide coach-ing and consulting with regard to executive skillssuch as management and supervision, client rela-tionship and development, marketing, communica-tion, leadership, and mentoring.
Why Law Firms Should Invest in CareerPlanning
Set out below are the reasons why firmsshould invest in implementing a career develop-ment program as part of their professional develop-ment efforts. The business case ranges fromenhancing recruiting and retention efforts toimproving the bottom line. Here’s how:
Enhance Recruiting. Today’s law school grad-uates are not well prepared for the practice of law
WOMEN LAWYERS JOURNAL— SUMMER2005 • 23
gand they know it. In choosing a firm, they arenlooking for an environment in which whey willireceive top-notch training and thereby developnmarketable skills. By providing individualizedattention to associates and partners, a law firm withna clearly defined career development program hasaan edge over its competitors who do not provideprograms of this type, and therefore becomes alp“firm of choice.”
Strengthen Existing Professional Development rEfforts. Training and development programs areeextremely useful development tools, but they onlygo so far. A Career Development Officer, acting asea coach, can supplement these efforts by workingrwith individual lawyers to implement the learningathey acquire in these programs and to assist them incthe development of executive skills.
Shorter Learning Curve. The reality oftoday’s marketplace is that there is no time to wastetrying to “sink or swim” in the murky waters of thelegal profession, trying to acquire skills in an adhoc fashion. What’s more, learning in such a man-ner is inefficient, stressful, costly and likely to irri-tate clients. Lawyers get up to speed much morequickly when they know where they are headed.By focusing attention and defining direction, indi-vidual lawyers can much more efficiently go aboutthe task of acquiring the skills that they need to getthere, and avoid being subject to the burden andstress of acquiring them haphazardly along theway.
Improved Attorney Performance andCapability. Focused attention on one’s careergoals, knowledge of one’s strengths and weakness-es, and a clear sense of one’s professional identitylead to increased performance, capability and con-fidence. When a lawyer is empowered with thisawareness, both lawyer and firm can better alignthemselves to achieve the firm’s strategic objec-tives.
Satisfaction and Retention. Law firms makelarge investments in the recruitment and training oftheir lawyers. When a young associate leaves herfirm before the break-even point in her second orthird year due to lack of professional developmentopportunities (which is the most frequent reasoncited for a departure), her firm suffers a real finan-cial loss (i.e., loss of initial investment and replace-ment and outplacement costs). By having a CareerDevelopment Officer to support associate profes-sional development, firms can substantiallyimprove the level of associate satisfaction andthereby recoup the cost of investing in this effort.
Diversity. Underlying much of the dissatisfac-tion expressed by associates is the issue of diversi-ty. Notwithstanding that most firms now under-stand the business case for diversity, for a variety ofreasons, certain associates are consistently givenbetter development opportunities than others. In
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my experience, many of these reasons are not theresult of intentional discrimination, but rather arisefrom unconscious biases that we all carry. It’s pret-ty simple. We naturally gravitate towards peoplewho are like us (e.g., white men gravitate towardsother white men). In order to effectively addressthe inequities that arise from these unconsciousbiases, law firms need someone to regulate andmonitor the work given to individual associates,and these biases need to be surfaced in a safe wayso that the impact that they have on the develop-ment of minorities and women can be overcome.Professional coaches are generally skilled at sur-facing these biases, when working one-on-one withtheir clients.
Loyalty, Morale and Culture. In exchange fortheir hard work and long hours, associates expecttop-notch training; it is part of the implicit contractthat they make with their firm. The higher thequality of the training and development program,the more positively the associates view their firm’scommitment to them. Lawyers who receive thebenefit of customized development plans get themessage more clearly than others that the firm isinvesting in them because they are valued assets.This perception engenders a sense of loyalty andsatisfaction in the associates, which has a directimpact on the culture of the firm and morale gen-erally.
Alumni. Law firms are coming to appreciatethe importance of their alumni. Not only are theyimportant sources of ongoing business, they alsocan have a direct impact on a firm’s reputation inthe marketplace. Law firms that ensure that theirlawyers have a positive experience overall while atthe firm enjoy better reputations in the marketplaceand are more likely to receive referral businessfrom lawyers that leave. Even lawyers who departfrom a firm at the firm’s request can leave with asense of loyalty if they understand and appreciatethe efforts that the firm made in connection withtheir development and they receive meaningfuloutplacement counseling prior to their departurefrom the firm’s Career Development Officer.
Emotional Intelligence. Most firms do greatjobs at developing their lawyers’substantive skills,but little to assist them in developing the executiveleadership skills that they need to be good lawyers.We have all heard a story of the brilliant LawReview editor who had such poor interpersonalskills that neither partners nor clients wanted towork with him. The good news is that these skills,now referred to as EQ or emotional intelligence,can be developed with the sincere and concertedeffort of the individual. Corporations have longrecognized that the difference between executiveswho are mediocre and those who progress to seniorleadership positions are primarily attributable toemotional intelligence factors rather than cognitive
abilities (i.e., nearly 90% of the difference in theprofiles of the executives who rise to the top andthose who remain in middle management is attrib-utable to EQ, not IQ). The lesson here: intelligenceis important so by all means go after the best andbrightest; but intelligence only goes so far; at thesenior (partner) level EQ is equally, if not more,important. Assisting individuals to develop EQ isthe primary province of the executive coach.
Business and Management Skills. Most lawfirms do not teach their lawyers good business andmanagement skills. However, in today’s market,more and more clients are demanding that theirlawyers have these skills. By identifying the skillset required by lawyers, and developing a compre-hensive career development plan that includes thedevelopment of these skills, clients are betterserved, work overall becomes more efficient, andgood business practices become the norm of thefirm.
Increased Client Satisfaction and Loyalty.Again, it’s simple. Better trained and more well-rounded lawyers translate into increased client sat-isfaction and loyalty, which in turn translates intoincreased profitability.
The investment that lawyers make in theircareers is one of the biggest investments that theywill make in their lifetimes. In addition to makingan investment of time and money in acquiring theireducation and progressing through their careers,they also seek to define their professional identi-ties. In exchange for the hard work and gruelinghours that lawyers invest, they should be entitled totheir firm’s support in helping them to shape thisidentity and achieve their goals. By helpinglawyers to take charge of their careers, shape theirprofessional identities, maximize their potential,and align their careers with their firm’s strategy,firms are also enhancing their own performance bybecoming more efficient and therefore more prof-itable.
In conclusion, every lawyer should takecharge of her career by dedicating the time andeffort necessary to develop an individual careerplan that aligns with her own unique set ofstrengths, weaknesses, values and interests. In sodoing, the lawyer not only puts herself on a pathtowards a successful and fulfilling career; her firmalso gains substantial benefits by having a highperforming fee-earner aligned with their overallstrategic objectives. Rather than leave it to lawyersto develop their career plans on an ad hocbasis,firms should support them in this effort. One of theways that they can do this is to make meaningfulcareer planning an integral part of their profession-al development and diversity efforts.
It just makes sense.
© Kathleen Bradley Chouai, June 2005
KC Bradley
was a practicingattorney for 18 yearsand has a broad rangeof international,legal, consulting andcoaching experience.
She has worked with several of the largest lawfirms in the world: Clifford Chance in London,Bahrain, Moscow and Washington, D.C., andWhite & Case in the Middle East. She thereforehas an intimate knowledge of the legal profes-sion, together with a solid management and busi-career planningness background acquired through her represen-tation of international corporations, financialinstitutions, multi-lateral agencies and govern-ments.
After having spent much of her career abroad,KC returned to the U.S. in 2002 to “follow herbliss,” which is to work with lawyers and firmsin the area of career and professional develop-ment. In 2003 she formed KC BradleyAssociates, a company which offers coachingand consulting services to lawyers and law firmsin the areas of leadership, career and profession-al development, strategic alignment, diversity,cross-cultural communication, recruitment andretention. In addition, she assists her Arabclients from time to time in connection with theirtransactions in the U.S.
KC is certified as a leadership coach byGeorgetown University’s prestigious LeadershipCoaching Program and will obtain an ExecutiveMasters in Leadership at Georgetown’sMcDonough School of Business in 2006. Inaddition, she is qualified to administer a numberof assessments, including the Myers-Briggs TypeIndicator, the Strong Interest Inventory and theLeadership Spectrum Profile, which she uses toenhance her work with her clients.
KC can be reached at kcbradley@cox.net, tel: 202.857.0047.
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