Peter Connor
Legal Team Coach
Thought Leader
Change Agent
Human Transformation
The approach most corporate lawyers and legal departments are taking to address the so-called 'more with less' challenge is to focus primarily on using technology to either do less of their current 'legal' work or to do it more efficiently. This is often said to be so that lawyers can do 'higher value' 'more strategic' work but this is rarely detailed in theory or indeed realised in practice. The end result is a de facto survival strategy. If there is any transformation involved it is a Digital or Process Transformation. Focusing primarily on technology and process may benefit the department but typically the benefits to the business are minimal and incidental. Plus it is not preparing legal professionals for the future of work where the work they do will be very different.
My approach is different and totally unique. My mantra is to ‘Do Less to Do More’.
Doing Less of much of your current work involves technology but not just to do it more efficiently but rather as much as possible to provide 'clients' with the outcomes they need with minimal to no involvement from Legal. There are various other ways to Do Less through a process that I call Work Rationalisation™.
Doing More involves spelling out the meaning of 'higher value', 'more strategic' work and how to achieve it- something few can do. It involves shifting the emphasis from efficiency to effectiveness, from 'legal' work to 'business' work and from projects to changing the way you work on a daily basis so that you continually add more value from the perspective of the client, not just the department.
To achieve that I focus primarily on people, not technology. I help you significantly change the work that you do and your capabilities to do new and different work. I call that Human Transformation which offers more immediate and noticeable returns far exceeding any Digital Transformation at far less cost and risk. By doing that, I help both individuals and legal and compliance teams to not only survive, but to thrive now and into the future.
Cope with ever-increasing demands from the business with limited resources
Continually add more value to the business, not just demonstrate existing value
Move beyond a “survival strategy” of cost-efficient delivery of legal services
Understand how technology should be used for clients, not just for internal use
Attract, retain, and develop top talent by offering unique professional development
Innovate for the company, not just the legal department
Enhance the performance of your team and take them to the next level
Prepare your team for a future where work will be very different to what it is today.
If you are trying to…
Services
T-Shaped Team Bootcamp™
A workshop to challenge your current thinking and approach, and take your team through a comprehensive, holistic, step-by-step program to transform, at both an individual and team level, the work and capabilities of the department.
For:
Leadership teams of large legal and/or compliance departments
Entire teams of legal, compliance, legal operations and other professionals
Consulting
Consulting on a wide range of topics, such as:
Strategic Planning with a difference
Doing Less with Work Rationalisation™
Effective business engagement and alignment
Structuring professional development and training programs based on the T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™.
For:
Legal teams, firms and legal service providers
Training
Training for lawyers and other legal and compliance professionals on how to develop and use a range of non-legal skills, competencies, qualities, knowledge and mindsets as outlined in my T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™. Can be organised by a group of lawyers from different companies /firms or within the same company or firm.
Speaking
Keynote speaking at legal conferences around the world on topics such as innovation, transformation, the Future Lawyer, new skills, effective engagement with clients and my T-Shaped Lawyer vision and Frameworks.
My Philosophy
The T-Shaped Lawyer
My view, based on 25+ years global experience as a corporate lawyer and almost a decade as a legal team coach, is that all corporate lawyers should be T-Shaped Lawyers or Legal Experts Business Generalists.
I was the first in the world, in 2014, to apply the t-shaped professional concept to in-house lawyers in my workshops and later in my article, The T-Shaped Lawyer, published in Association of Corporate Counsel’s Docket magazine and elsewhere. The graphic from that article, depicting a range of non-legal skills, is still understood and quoted, by many to represent the idea a T-Shaped Lawyer.
However, that initial idea is now outdated - the focus now is on what you do in your work, not just on what you are capable of doing. Since then I have worked exclusively on refining, developing and testing my ideas with thousands of lawyers all over the world in my work. The result is a Vision for a T-Shaped Lawyer, as shown above, and a T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™ of specific non-legal skills, competencies, qualities, mindsets and knowledge, as shown below, that can and should be developed and used in traditional legal work and in business work.
One of the many attractions of the Vision and the Framework is that it can be adapted and applied at an individual level to compliance, legal operations and other professionals and it can, and should, also be applied at a department or firm level as outlined in my T-Shaped Team and T-Shaped Firm Frameworks™.
All my work incorporates this philosophy and provides truly unique and game- changing perspectives for my clients at a time when ‘the game’ really is changing. Some of the key ideas are published in my two books both available on Amazon and Apple Books.
My first book details what a T-Shaped Lawyer is, namely;
A businessperson, not just a lawyer…
Who provides business input and advice, not just legal advice…
And does business work, not just legal work…
For the benefit of the organisation, not just the legal department,
and why it is so crucial for every corporate lawyer to become one.
The second book explains how to become a T-Shaped Lawyer by developing and using - in both legal and business work - a specific range of non-legal skills, competencies, qualities, mindsets and knowledge as outlined in my T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™.
The T-Shaped Team
A legal department can become a T-Shaped Team™ by incorporating the T-Shaped Lawyer idea into its Vision and Mission and by doing so it offers the potential to change every aspect of the department as shown above in the T-Shaped Team Framework™. Becoming a T-Shaped Team will be of interest to those who are open to having their current views, and approach to change, challenged and to those who are looking for unique ideas on how to truly reimagine or transform the department beyond doing the same work more efficiently. The case for becoming a T-Shaped Team is compelling both from the perspective of the business and from your perspective as a legal leader. If you are convinced to explore the T-Shaped Team alternative, feel free to use the business case to obtain funding for a T-Shaped Team Bootcamp that will walk you and your team through how to become one.