How I can help you

You probably have extensive legal and management experience and you may be thinking ‘what could I tell you that you and your team don’ t already know?’

The key difference between you and me is that, most likely, you spend almost all your time doing work for your organisation and managing your team. I understand that because I did that for about 25 years but now I don’t spend any time doing that. Instead, since 2015, I spend all of my time:

  • Following the latest business and legal industry ideas and trends

  • Thinking about and evaluating which ideas are viable and which are not

  • Developing my own unique ideas, concepts, theories, tools and Frameworks

  • Presenting these ideas globally at conferences and webinars

  • Synthesising all these ideas into two books and my Bootcamp programs

  • Applying/testing/refining the ideas globally in my consulting work and in my workshops with thousands of lawyers and other professionals from an extensive range of brand name companies and legal service providers.

That means that, as a Legal Team Coach, I can challenge the standard traditional approaches to change, provide unique strategic and tactical perspectives and help to effect meaningful and enduring adaptive change for your team to address your individual and team challenges, priorities and the three fundamental legal team design flaws outlined below.

Like everyone else, I help with Technology and Process. Indeed I will show you how you can, and should, use both beyond just for internal purposes within the team!

But, unlike everyone else, my primary focus is on something else. Your People. Specifically, I help legal teams not just do the same work more efficiently, but inspire and influence significant change in their work and their capabilities to do this work. I call this Human Transformation to Do Less of some work and Do More of other, more important and impactful, work from the perspective of your clients.

What is a legal team coach?

A Legal Team Coach is like a sporting coach. Even the very best sports teams, with the best players and captains, have a coach. A coach helps to take even the very best performing teams, with no apparent issues, to a higher level.

A team coach helps to identify, assess and resolve any issues with the team or with individual players and can unify, inspire and motivate the team.

Providing holistic strategies, not just tactical tips, a coach should be able to enhance team performance in a way that is noticeable to clients while at the same time developing the team members and their capabilities. To do that, a coach should be able to align individual and team goals and performance in a way that is effective no only now but also into the future.

Team coaches are different from executive or personal coaches. A legal team coach should be able to contribute unique perspectives at a team level in areas such as Vision, Mission, Strategy and all aspects of a team ( see T-Shaped Team Framework™). At the same time, a legal team coach should be able to inspire individuals to change and provide training on a range of non-legal skills, competencies, qualities, knowledge and mindsets (see T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™).

A team coach is engaged by a leader, often the GC, and will typically work with the entire team, not just the leader or individual team members. The duration of an engagement can be a one-time intervention, typically at an all-hands or offsite meeting, or it could be a longer-term engagement with multiple interventions over time. The engagement is highly customisable to suit individual situations and needs.

Why me?

  • Unique broad global experience living and working in numerous countries

  • Extensive law firm and in-house experience in various general counsel roles

  • Experience leading and managing compliance, government affairs, legal operations and other functions

  • Extensive coaching experience with top global teams, such as Google, HSBC, Pfizer, Allianz, Nestle and Coca Cola

  • Up to date with the latest corporate legal industry and business thinking and ideas

  • Deep technology understanding from working as lawyer in technology industry and in a technology business role

  • Unique new insights and ideas about how to practice in-house effectively - based on real world experience not just surveys or academic research

  • Possess the gravitas and credibility to inspire, influence and help you lead all the other players in your team

  • Independent of any organisation trying to sell you other services or products that might otherwise bias views and guidance

You would benefit from a team coach if you are a legal leader who…

  • Is open to new ideas and to having your way of thinking and approach challenged

  • Wants to host an all-hands meeting or strategy planning session with a difference

  • Has a high performing team but wants to take them to the next level and is looking for new ideas and ways to do that

  • Needs some help addressing any of the 3 fundamental design flaws:

  1. The overwork problem - regularly and consistently finding ways to spend less time on less important work

  2. The value problem - not just documenting and marketing the existing value but changing what the work the team does to do more things that add substantially more new value

  3. The future of work problem - not preparing the team sufficiently for a future where work will be very different to what it is today

  • Is a great lawyer, and even a great people manager, but needs help in leading their team in a new direction

  • Has a dysfunctional team or has some performance issues with some players on the team

  • Is leading a new team and wants to put their own unique stamp on the new team.