Potentia seeks to empower lawyers to realize their full potential during their legal careers and in retirement. With the latin maxim in mind, scientia est potentia, knowledge is power, below are some helpful resources for lawyers seeking to make positive change.
News and Resources
News, Articles, Books
Business Development+
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Lateral Integration+
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Parental Leave Planning+
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Retirement Planning+
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Get on Board! – Want to be a Director in Retirement?Read More...
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Recommended Reading– Retirement PlanningRead More...
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Retirement Financial Worries? – Top Tips to Conquer Your FearsRead More...
Succession Planning+
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May 2015 Law Firms in Transition Altman Weil SurveyRead More...
Potentia Est Scientia Blog
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Second Best – What Every Law Firm Should Strive For (Part 2)
Secondments are valuable for law firms and corporations alike. (For more about this see my first blog on secondment, here). That said, like everything else, the more you put into a secondment, the more you will get out of it. Welcome to my second blog on how to maximize the value of secondments.
Secondments can be expensive propositions for all parties. They can be expensive in money terms for firms – most secondments result in lost revenue at least in the short term. This happens in a number of different ways. Typically, the law firm subsidizes the secondment lawyer’s salary in part (and sometimes entirely) or charges a discounted or flat rate for the seconded lawyer’s time. Often of greater concern, for firms that run lean and mean, secondments place stress on already stretched resources.
Secondments can create challenges for the seconded lawyer as well; often they will not have access to the same level of support or resources (eg administrative or IT) on secondment. More importantly, while away, the seconded lawyer often feels disconnected from the firm. They can be concerned, legitimately, about falling behind in the race to partnership and can have difficulty successfully re-integrating into the firm on their return.
Secondments can be taxing for clients too. They have the challenge of on-boarding, training and integrating secondees and finding them the right opportunities.
Because secondments are a significant investment of time, money and effort, at a time when all three are in short supply, it is important to make secondments as successful as possible for firms, clients and the individual seconded lawyer. Here are some tips for success.
Second Best – How to Do It
As with all projects, those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Successful secondments require thoughtful up-front planning and execution of the plan. There are a number of elements to a successful secondment plan.
- Choosing the Right Candidate – Key to success is finding the right lawyer for the secondment opportunity. The best secondments are those where the lawyer skillset and personality meet the client’s needs and the lawyer is interested in developing a stronger relationship with the client. Also, to be successful, the secondee has to have the right mindset (flexible, enthusiastic, proactive, desirous of learning, taking on new challenges and maximizing the experience, while there and on return).
- Firm Investment – The firm has to take an active role in ensuring that the secondment and the return is a success. Prior to a secondment, the firm should have a clear understanding (and better still set out in writing) the reasons for/benefits of the secondment and what is expected from on all parties (firm members, the seconded lawyer and the client) to make it a success.
- Support for Secondee – To ensure success, it is important to provide the seconded lawyer with the right support before, during and after the secondment. Internal or external mentoring or coaching is invaluable. The support should ensure that there are clear goals for the secondment (eg. to build client loyalty, promote cross-selling of services, gain useful intel about client and business, successful reintegration on return), a plan to achieve those goals and ongoing support through the secondment, and afterwards to ensure that the goals are achieved (or to modify the plan, if they are not).
If you would like to learn more about how to make secondments successful, please contact us at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca.
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Second Best – What Every Law Firm Should Strive For
Secondments are valuable for law firms and corporations alike. But they represent a significant investment of time, money and effort, at a time when all three are in short supply. So it is important to make secondments as successful as possible for firms, clients and the individual seconded lawyer. Welcome to the first of two blogs on how to maximize the value of secondments.
First Things First, Why Second?
For Clients
Secondments are useful for clients for a variety of reasons. In these days of corporate cost-cutting and expectations that more will be done with less, secondments are a good way for clients to:
- manage temporary leaves of absence (parental leaves);
- get access to a specialist skillset in-house, without having to make a permanent hire;
- obtain extra resources needed to complete a special project (eg. assistance on a large transaction);
For Law Firms
Secondments are also very valuable for law firms. They present a unique opportunity to learn more about a client (eg. its business, priorities, culture) and to build deeper relationships with the legal group and other business leaders. Secondments also:
- build client loyalty (which is at a premium these days)
- allow the firm to learn more about the client’s key legal challenges and thereby gain insight into how the firm might expand the scope of legal services it provides; and
- Distinguish the firm from others in terms of its experience and expertise (which is valuable for pitches and RFPs).
For Seconded Lawyer
The individual lawyer can also reap significant benefits from a secondment. It can be a terrific learning experience because:
- you get to see the lawyer/client relationship from the client’s perspective – you develop a strong understanding about the challenges in-house counsel face and what they want from external counsel;
- you can hone a different set of legal skills. Typically, secondees get more experience than associates do on the front line advising clients. Because of the proximity to the client, you are more likely to learn the importance of providing business-friendly legal advice (ie advice that is practical, solution-oriented, clear and concise). Also, because the questions you face tend to be more broad, you become better able to deal with questions that are outside your expertise;
- you gain an appreciation that legal issues are just one small part of larger business problems;
- after the secondment, with the benefit of your experience and relationships, you are an obvious choice for external counsel. You know the business, the key stakeholders, the client’s risk tolerance and will have earned the client’s confidence;
- you get to experience an alternative to a law firm career and may even receive an offer to join the corporation. Even if you do not want or get a job offer, your experience will help you attract an in-house opportunity, if you want it, in the future.
Stay tuned for my next blog on the challenges of secondments and tips on how to make them a success.
If you’d like more information about maximizing the value of secondments, please contact us at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca.
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Mentoring – What’s Old is New Again (and Even More Important)
Why write about the value of mentoring in law firms? Isn’t this old news? Everyone knows that people are a law firm’s most important asset and that mentoring is critical to the maximization of that asset.
Unfortunately, while we all know its importance, mentoring is languishing at many law firms. This is hardly surprising. As a former law firm partner and practice group leader, I know how challenging it is to find the time and energy to be a good mentor, in the face of ever-increasing billable hour and client pressures. What’s more, mentoring seems much less valued than hours and billings (and is certainly not as well compensated).
Mentoring and Your People
While the barriers to being a good mentor have never been bigger, the need for mentoring by younger lawyers has never been greater. In my experience as a lawyer coach, this is so for at least three reasons:
- first, it is a generational phenomenon. Millennials are accustomed to, and crave, feedback and mentoring.
- second, rising billable rates mean that associates tend to junior on large files only and are removed from client and file management. They have less practical experience and so need mentoring to fill that gap.
- practising law is more competitive and stressful than it has ever been before. This impacts both mentees and mentors – mentees are anxious and looking for support from mentors, who are already stretched and so less willing and/or able to provide that support.
Mentoring and Your Firm
It is not just junior lawyers, though, who benefit from strong mentoring. Mentoring is crucial for firm success in today’s competitive legal market for a number of reasons:
- mentoring is key to client satisfaction. Clients now expect that work will be done at the lowest possible level and rate. Junior lawyers need mentoring to be able to provide the standard of service clients are demanding.
- success today requires that every lawyer is firing on all cylinders. In my experience, the lack of mentoring and support is actually impeding performance. Stress and anxiety distract lawyers from doing their best work (not to mention sleep, mood and other stress-related issues). They can become paralyzed by the thought of making a mistake (which results in all kinds of unhelpful behaviour, like overworking files and inability to make decisions).
- last and, in my view, most importantly, mentoring is key to strong relationships in the firm and to building the practice long term. It is critical to retaining your best people. I am amazed by the number of lawyers I coach, who are described by their firms as “superstars”, who do not really feel valued by the firm. Mentoring is also key to ensuring that the lawyers, who inevitably leave the firm, depart loyal and keen to send the firm work.
Bottom line, mentoring is mission critical to maximize the value of your people and to maintain and build the business of the firm in these tougher times.
This is not to understate the challenges of being an effective mentor. For some tips on how to be a good mentor, check out my next blog or contact me at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca.
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Business Development Coaching for Lawyers – Why It Works
Business development has always been important to the successful law firm and lawyer. However, nowadays, when the market for legal services is shrinking and thus so much more competitive, business development has become mission critical.
The Business Development Challenge
Business development can be challenging for the law firm and the individual lawyer. According to an October 2015 LexisNexis survey of more than 400 law firm marketers and business development professionals (the “2015 Survey”), there are a number of barriers to business development for law firms. Challenges noted by the 2015 Survey included:
- Difficulty getting lawyers involved in business development and marketing;
- A lack of a long term strategy, and a lack of focus, for business development efforts; and
- No accountability.
The challenge of getting lawyers to engage in business development is well-known. Lawyers are sometimes reluctant to engage in business development, because of:
- A fear of rejection;
- A negative reaction to being seen as, or behaving like, a “salesperson”;
- A lack of knowledge about how to develop business or a lack of confidence in their ability to develop business.
Transcending the Challenges Through Coaching
Business development coaching works because it gives the lawyer the opportunity to talk freely about, and the structure to work through, business development challenges. Through coaching, the lawyer becomes a more successful business developer by:
- gaining insight into his/her business development strengths and challenges; and
- getting the benefit of the coach’s perspective, experience, know-how, support and guidance to capitalize on those strengths and address those challenges.
Coaching also helps to make lawyers more successful business developers as it imposes a discipline on the lawyer’s business development activities. As part of the coaching process, the lawyer develops clear business development goals and a detailed plan as to how to accomplish them. As part of each coaching session, the lawyer reports on, and is held accountable for, progress against goals and the plan. The 2015 Survey concluded that the legal market now is much more competitive and that the law firm strategies and activities required to win new business has changed considerably. Clearly now is the time for firms and individual lawyers to up their business development game and to consider different strategies, like coaching, to do so.
Hilary Clarke is the Founder and Lead Coach at Potentia Coaching. Prior to founding Potentia, Hilary was a senior partner in a large Toronto law firm and experienced first hand, business development successes and challenges. If you would like to explore whether business development coaching is right for you, please contact us at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca for a complimentary half hour coaching session.
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All’s Well that Ends Well- Solving the Succession/Retirement Planning Riddle
Please check out my article “All’s Well that Ends Well – Solving the Succession/Retirement Planning Riddle” in the November 2016 edition of the PD Quarterly here.
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Successful Brand Building – Start with the Right Foundation
Welcome to the final in my series of blogs on personal branding for lawyers (earlier blogs here). This last blog deals with building your brand. Building your brand is a huge topic and is the subject of countless articles and books. My focus in this blog is on three fundamentals, which are the necessary foundation for successfully building your brand:
- Developing the right attitude
- Having a plan
- Asking for help
A is for Attitude
It is said that “For success, attitude is equally important as ability”. This is certainly true for building your brand. To successfully promote your brand, you need to commit significant time and energy to it on an ongoing basis (ie not just when the pace of work slows). This time and energy is required not just at the outset, but throughout, your career. As you advance in your career, it is easy to become complacent about the need to promote your brand. Nowadays, however, when there is a surplus of lawyers and faltering demand for legal services, maintaining one’s brand is a strategic imperative for all lawyers.
Successful brand promotion requires not merely a high level of commitment, it also requires grit/stickatiness as well. Promoting a brand takes time – you cannot expect, or get discouraged if you don’t get, instant brand recognition.
Have a Plan
As important as attitude is developing a plan to build your brand. The most successful brand-building plan, like a brand itself, fits you as an individual and aligns with your strengths and interests. There is no one size fits all plan. That said, when thinking about your individualized plan, you might consider:
- Developing a succinct and powerful way to describe what you do and how you provide value (sometimes referred to as a personal branding statement or an elevator speech);
- Identifying and pursuing opportunities to showcase your brand (eg. writing or speaking);
- Planning the networking you will do to build your brand (what associations you will join, what conferences you will attend, what prospects you will contact);
- Specifying what further learning/skills development (eg. on alternate fee arrangements, presentation skills) would help you better promote your brand;
- Selecting roles/tasks that you will either delegate or pass on because they are outside your brand; and
- Deciding how you will use social media to foster your brand.
Without belabouring the obvious, developing the plan is only the first step. A plan is only as good as its execution (again, you cannot let the pressure of work get in your way).
Ask for Help
If I could offer one piece of advice to lawyers, it would be to ask for help when you need it. That includes getting help to build your brand. When asking for help, remember that general requests for help are difficult to respond to. You are more likely to get the help you want if you are very specific about what you want and why you need it. For obvious reasons, it is also a good idea, when asking for help, to think how you might help the person whose assistance you are seeking.
What kind of help might you seek?
- Ideas on how to promote your brand, or how to promote your brand more effectively, from mentors, colleagues or a coach;
- Advice from someone who has successfully built a brand, that you admire or want to emulate, as to the secret to their success;
- Feedback from clients or prospective clients as to how effectively you are promoting your brand and how you might be more effective (do they find your monthly newsletter helpful?); and
- Asking a third party to promote you (eg. through word of mouth, references, testimonials), which is much more powerful than you promoting yourself.
The right attitude, planning and getting support are the keys to successfully building your brand. If you would like to learn more about building your brand, please contact me at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca
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“Hitting Your Mark” – 3 Steps to Identifying a Lawyer’s Personal Brand
Welcome to the second in my series of blogs on personal branding for lawyers. The first, here, deals with the fundamental question – why a personal brand is important for lawyers.
This blog deals with the critical first task in building your personal brand – determining what your brand is. For some lawyers, particularly those who have been practising longer, this may be easy. For others, it is more difficult.
That said, identifying a new brand is not a challenge unique to junior lawyers. Senior lawyers may also face the need to rebrand (which happens more now with the changing market) if their existing brand stops attracting work or no longer attracts work that supports their billing rate.
Here are 3 key steps to identifying your brand (or rebrand).
1. MORE THAN EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE
What is your personal brand? Your brand is what makes you unique and valuable to your clients and your firm and what you aspire to be as a lawyer.
When we think about a brand, we tend to focus on experience and expertise. Experience and expertise are important but the most successful brands encompass more. They also incorporate personal attributes as well as goals. The strongest brand reflects your personality, your interests and your aspirations and thereby best engages your energy and enthusiasm.
It is easy to envisage the issues that arise if your brand does not suit your personality or interests. If you struggle with managing emotional clients, you may not be happy as a family lawyer. Similarly, you may be knowledgeable about construction liens, but if construction doesn’t interest you, why build a brand as a construction lien expert?
2. GO TO THE SOURCE (YOU) TO IDENTIFY YOUR BRAND
Self-reflection is the critical first step in identifying your brand.
It may be helpful to ask yourself questions, like the ones below, to determine your current brand and whether it is the right brand for you.
Your Current Brand
- What do clients (internal and external) come to you for?
- What expertise are you recognized for?
- What words do people use when they introduce you to others?
Identifying/Honing Your Brand
- What are your most significant accomplishments/skills?
- What roles, responsibilities do you enjoy/excel at?
- What are the personal attributes/characteristics that distinguish you as a lawyer? For example, some lawyers are very careful and detail-oriented; the strength of others lie in seeing the big picture.
- What brand would your target market/network be most interested in?
- What would you like to be known for?
Answering questions like the ones above, particularly in writing, can be of invaluable assistance in ascertaining your personal brand.
3. ASK OTHERS
In order to identify your brand, it is also helpful to ask others about your strengths and what is unique about you.
There are a number of ways to solicit input on your brand:
- look for patterns in your performance assessments and in reviews and kudos received from clients and peers; and
- speak to your broader network to identify your brand in the marketplace.
Tapping into your network is useful in identifying your current brand but also in testing out a new brand or rebrand.
As you move forward to identify your personal brand (or rebrand), it is wise to get help from others. That said, determining your brand is something only you can do. A brand will only be effective if it is authentic and reflects who you are and want to be.
If you would like to learn more about identifying your personal brand, please contact me at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca
Stay tuned for my next blog on how to build your personal brand!
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The Mother of All Challenges – Successfully Managing a Law Firm Mat Leave
There are few things as challenging as successfully managing a law firm mat leave. In today’s increasingly competitive market, practising law itself is difficult. Women taking mat leaves face the added challenges of managing their departure and their eventual return and re-integration at work, as well as juggling their new family responsibilities.
While successfully managing a mat leave is challenging, it can be done, particularly with proper guidance and support. Here are a few suggestions for successfully managing a maternity leave.
Treat Leave as a Unique Personal and Professional Opportunity
Mat leave presents a one of a kind personal and professional opportunity. From a personal perspective, it provides a unique and invaluable opportunity to bond with your new baby and to enjoy the experience of being able to devote the majority of your time and energy to being a mother.
Mat leave can also provide the opportunity to think about and plan for the next stage in your personal and professional life. Because of the pressures of work, lawyers seldom get or take the time to think about what is important to them in life and work and to plan how they might accomplish their goals.
Mat leave can give you the opportunity to be more thoughtful about your home and work life and to develop a strategy to achieve your long term personal and professional goals. Maternity leave is a good time to think about what you want from your life and from your career (eg. partnership track, an alternative work arrangement, an in-house position, a career outside of law) and to develop a plan to get there.
Whatever path you decide on, life as a working mother is very different from life without children. It is therefore wise to take time, before and during your maternity leave, to think about how you will balance work and the new demands at home. It is an opportune time (and some say, a necessity) to become more focused and organized at work, to learn how better to multi-task and to delegate.
Have a Plan
With more to do on the home front, having a more focused and strategic career plan makes sense. So does being more organized at home. This includes things like:
- arranging for everyday child care that you are comfortable with and for reliable emergency child care in case your regular provider is not available when the need arises
- thinking what household jobs it makes sense for you to outsource (grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking) and what jobs you and your partner will split
- developing aids that will help organize and keep track of home and work activities (like a family calendar)
- establishing a home office that allows you to work seamlessly with the office
Home-related stress can be much more challenging than work stress. So, getting organized on the home front early (and well before your return to work) is key.
Get Help
Studies show that lawyers value autonomy and being self-sufficient. Generally, these attributes serve lawyers well. However they can be an impediment when they translate into a hesitation to ask for help. There is no shame in asking for support – indeed it can be really beneficial to lawyers before, during and after maternity leaves.
Support can take many forms – for example, help:
- planning for your departure
- re-establishing the flow of work or rebuilding a practice post leave
- improving time management and delegation skills
- thinking through and setting up alternative work arrangements post leave
- with work life balance
- learning the tricks of the trade of a working mother
There is also a wide variety of sources of help: formal or informal mentors at law firms, roles models who have successfully navigated a mat leave, mothers or neighbourhood groups, or internal or external coaches.
The process of taking a maternity leave and returning to work can feel chaotic at times and can be isolating – get the support you need to ensure that your leave is happy and successful.
Interested in learning more about mat leave coaching? Take advantage of a complimentary half hour coaching session from Potentia. Please contact me at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca.
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If You Build It, They (Clients) Will Come – A Lawyer’s Personal Brand
By Hilary Clarke, Founder, Potentia Coaching
Welcome to the first of a series of blogs on personal branding for lawyers. This blog deals with the all-important question, why is a personal brand important? At first blush, it might seem odd to talk about personal branding for lawyers. Arguably, brands are more suited to companies and products and are too “salesy” for lawyers. In fact, given the current fierce competition in the legal market, building one’s brand is critical for a lawyer’s success today.
WHAT IS A PERSONAL BRAND
Before delving into why building a brand is so important, let’s start with what a personal brand is. A brand is simply each lawyer’s unique combination of professional and personal strengths and aspirations. Some of these we all think of as being included in personal brand, including experience, expertise and directory rankings. However, personal brand is much more than this. It includes such things as:
- working/communication style;
- network;
- value proposition;
- personal qualities like integrity, confidence, tenacity, creativity, and EQ; and
- your ideal file/client.
WHY IS A PERSONAL BRAND IMPORTANT FOR CLIENTS
There are a number of reasons why having a strong personal brand is important for clients. First, a strong brand builds credibility and trust, which clients look for in a lawyer above everything. In addition, with a clear brand, clients know the type and quality of services you provide which will:
- attract clients to you;
- enable clients to differentiate you from your competitors;
- put clients at ease in hiring you;
- justify the client’s decision to hire you, if ever challenged.
A strong brand not merely attracts clients, it also means that you will be able to charge more for your services – clients are prepared to pay more for what is recognizable and trusted.
WHY IS A PERSONAL BRAND IMPORTANT FOR LAWYERS
Building an effective personal brand, that reflects your strengths and aspirations, will attract clients and help build your practice and your firm. It also has three significant advantages for you personally:
- having a brand enables you to be more focused and strategic in the work, marketing and professional development that you do;
- by being more focused and strategic, you are more effective and efficient in the work, marketing and professional development that you do;
- with a clear brand, you are better able to market your services;
- more importantly, your firm, your clients and your entire network will be better able to market your services by being able to easily articulate the value you provide, and the types of situation you are uniquely qualified to deal with; and
- your brand will attract the roles, responsibilities and opportunities that you really want and excel at, which will make you a more confident, more successful and ultimately happier lawyer.
If you would like to learn more about the importance of personal branding for lawyers, please contact me at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca
Stay tuned for my next blog on how to identify your personal brand!
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Unlocking the Mystery of a Happy Retirement – Planning is the Key
By Hilary Clarke, Founder, Potentia Coaching
Want a happy retirement? Research shows you need to have a plan.
Many people focus on financial planning to get ready for retirement. Making sure you are financially ready for retirement is important, but planning how you will spend your time in retirement is just as important.
How to Plan for Retirement
Planning what you will do in retirement isn’t easy; it’s sometimes even hard to know how to begin. Here are 5 tips on how to approach the planning process to help get you started:
- Take time (lots of it) to REFLECT on what you want to do in retirement.
- WRITE your thoughts down – this will help you clarify, develop and keep track of your ideas.
- DISCUSS your thoughts and plans with those close to you (like your spouse). For obvious reasons, you want to make sure that you and your spouse share a similar vision for retirement. Speaking to other family and close friends is important too – they can provide a helpful perspective on what you might enjoy in retirement.
- EXPERIMENT with things you might like to do before you retire. That way you won’t get stuck with a year’s worth of art materials – only to discover that you don’t regain your teenage love of painting.
- Get HELP with making your plan. There are many resources to help you. For a list, click here.
What will your Retirement Plan look like?
Given how different we all are, there is no one size fits all retirement plan. That’s fortunate. We each have the opportunity to arrive at our own personalized plan that takes into account what we want and what matters to us.
When you start to build your retirement plan, you may not have all the answers. A good way to begin, however, is to start asking yourself the right questions. For example, think about:
- What is your vision for retirement?
- Are there things that you have always wanted to do but never had time for?
- What are your interests or hobbies? What would you like to learn more about?
- Do you have causes that you are passionate about? Will you volunteer some of your time to them?
- How will you build fun into your retirement? As George Bernard Shaw said, “We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing”.
- How will you maintain your social network? Relationships can be situational (eg. centred on work) so it is worth thinking about how you will keep connected after you retire.
- Will you work in retirement? Many people really enjoy working in retirement, in part for the income, but mostly for interest.
- How will you look after your health? As we age, it becomes more and more important to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise.
- Are you mentally ready for retirement? Mixed feelings about retirement are not uncommon. This is hardly surprising; retirement is among life’s top ten stresses, along with divorce and death. How will you manage the stress of getting ready to retire?
Ready, Set, Plan!
Retirement planning can be challenging, but it is critical to retirement satisfaction.
If you need help, please contact us at hilary.clarke@potentiacoaching.ca.
Remember, “Retire happy, that’s the plan!”
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Making the Most of a Lateral Move – The Value of Coaching Lawyer Laterals
Hiring laterals is a key part of most law firms’ growth strategy, yet both firms and laterals struggle to make such hires successful. Only one third of firms report that lateral hiring has been an effective strategy for their firm. Laterals too have not been happy; a surprising number of laterals (almost half) leave their new firms within five years. Underperforming laterals or laterals that leave take a heavy toll on the firm and the lateral. Time and money are wasted, not to mention the potential adverse impact on clients, morale and reputation. Providing the lateral with coaching has been proven to make such hires more successful.
Integrating the lateral quickly and effectively is key to making a lateral hire successful for the firm. Integration is also the single best predictor of lateral satisfaction.
Issues often arise because not enough time and energy is devoted by the firm or the lateral to integration. Typically, a lateral is welcomed with great fanfare into a new firm. Thereafter, however, the pressure of the business of the firm, understandably, draws attention away from the lateral. Soon the lateral is left to fend for themselves. The lateral is often unable to fully integrate, leading to isolation and underperformance.
How Can Coaching Help?
Coaching can help facilitate a smooth and successful transition and integration. It does this by assisting the lateral and the firm in understanding the opportunities and challenges of integration.
There is more to a successful integration than understanding a new computer and accounting system, though that can be difficult too! To increase the success of the integration, the lateral needs to quickly learn about the firm. He/she must become familiar with the firm’s:
- clients and platform
- expertise and reputation
- personnel
- resources
- practices and culture
Armed with that knowledge, the lateral is better able to take advantage of all the firm has to offer. As importantly, that knowledge will enable the lateral to properly promote the new firm to his/her clients. Gone are the days when clients automatically either moved with a lawyer, who changed firms, or chose to stay with an existing firm. Now, before making a decision about where to take their business, clients expect to be advised why the change was made and why the change makes sense for them.
One of the benefits of moving to a new firm is a fresh start. It allows laterals to refine their practice, focus more on what they would like to do and understand better how they add value. It also gives the lateral an opportunity to take a new tack to addressing issues and challenges that they experienced in their old firm. To be successful, the lateral needs to invest significant effort to: promoting themselves inside and outside of the new firm and building and solidifying their practice and relationships with clients and with the new firm More than ever an effective business plan is required – one that fits the aptitudes and interests of the lateral and looks to take advantage of opportunities and synergies with the new firm.
Along with working with firm management, a lateral may find it helpful to work with a coach to:
- help identify integration and business development goals
- decide what strategies would work best to achieve those goals
- develop and execute a plan incorporating those strategies
The lawyer coach can assist with ideas and advice on how to develop and perfect an effective integration and business development plan and to provide support by way of encouragement, suggestions and discipline in the execution of the plan.Interested in learning more about coaching? Take advantage of a complimentary half hour coaching session from Potentia. Please contact us at info@potentiacoaching.ca.
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Making the Best Lawyers Even Better- The ROI of Hiring a Coach
As my first blog as a coach for lawyers, it seems only fitting to consider the question: why hire a coach?
If you raise the topic of coaching with lawyers, you often get quizzical, not to say dubious, looks. This reaction makes perfect sense. Lawyers are skeptical by nature – it is an occupational requirement, after all- and they place tremendous value on their own autonomy. As such, many doubt that a coach would be helpful. Even if they thought a coach might be useful for others, they are reluctant to consider outside help for themselves.
Their reaction may also be fueled by the misconception that coaching is remedial and only for low performers. That may have been true in the past. Now, coaching is recognized as something to make high achievers even better at work and in life. GE Capital’s Jack Welch, Google’s Eric Schmidt and Barack Obama have all seen the wisdom of hiring a coach.
Why Coaching Works
Coaching is very effective for lawyers because it:
- Helps lawyers plan for change
- Holds lawyers accountable to make change
- Supports lawyers through change
Coaching Helps Lawyers Plan for Change
Great lawyers can achieve even greater things through coaching. While skilled in many areas, lawyers often have difficulty making change. This is part of the lawyer personality but it is also a function of how busy their lives are. Coaching requires lawyers to make time to plan for their practices and their lives. It makes them take the opportunity to think about what they could do differently or stop doing to make their practices and lives better. It makes them consider, for example, how they can better manage their practice or build their business or how they can be better prepared for the next stage, be it retirement or a second career.
Once they are required to take that time, lawyers quickly grasp what change they need to make and how they will bring it about. If they are stuck, discussing the issue with a coach often brings the clarity necessary to move forward.
Coaching Holds Lawyer Accountable to Make Change
Insight into what change to make and how to make it is only the first step. Any plan is only as good as its execution. Having a coach hold them accountable is tremendously helpful for lawyers as they respond much better to deadlines imposed by others (again, an occupational requirement!).
As part of my coaching, I assign steps in the plan as homework to be completed between coaching sessions. Assigning homework brings about change first because lawyers are loathe to report that they have not done their homework. More importantly, when they put their plan into action through the homework, lawyers see the benefits and that reinforces their commitment to continue with the plan.
Coaching Supports Lawyer Through Change
Last, coaching provides support for the lawyer through change. We are all more effective in making change, if we have help. However, lawyers benefit in particular. This is so because lawyers often lack resilience – the ability to bounce back from setbacks. As such, they can get discouraged by the inevitable bumps in the process. Lawyers also have a strong sense of urgency and so get impatient and unhappy if the change takes longer than they think it should. A coach instills confidence in the lawyer’s ability to bring about change and provides important perspective on progress.
Lawyers also flourish with support because they don’t get a lot of it. Practising law tends to be more of an individual sport.
ROI of Coaching
Are you a lawyer looking to make a positive change in your professional or personal life? Consider a coach and make it happen.
If you are thinking about coaching, give it a try with a complimentary half hour session from Potentia. Please contact us at info@potentiacoaching.ca.
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The Secret to Business Development for Lawyers
What is the secret to successful business development for lawyers? Plan for success.
Creating the Plan
The first and most important step in creating a successful business development plan is spending time thinking about your interests, strengths and values and what you want for your career and your practice. This is not an easy task for lawyers. They are more likely to see value in spending time thinking about their clients’ needs and wants. However, this kind of self-reflection is invaluable -if you are able to align your career with your interests, strengths and values, you are much more likely to be happy and successful.
Outlining a SMART Plan
Once you have thought through the goals for your career and practice, the next step is developing a business development strategy and plan setting out SMART steps to get you there. SMART is an acronym for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-based
Specific
Your plan should be very specific about what you will do to accomplish your goals. Being specific will allow you to focus your business development efforts in a laser-like way and to spend your time (which is always in short supply) as efficiently as possible. If part of your plan involves building your profile in an area, be very specific as to how you will do it (eg. list specific publishing or speaking opportunities that you will pursue.)
Measurable
Having specific measures as to when the plan has been successful is important so that you see progress and are motivated to continue. This is particularly important for lawyers who tend not to recognize what they have accomplished. When lawyers achieve a particular goal, they just see what more can be done and move the goalposts further away.
Achievable and Relevant
Obviously, you set yourself up for disappointment if your plan contains things that are not achievable or, if achieved, won’t move you closer to your goals.
Time-based
It is essential to set out in your plan what you will do when. Lawyers respond well to deadlines (it is an occupational requirement, after all) but will let drift things that are not time-sensitive. Set out specific goals for a quarter, a year and two years and the specific steps that you will take in those time periods (eg. send key clients email updates on relevant legal developments every quarter).
Don’t Go it Alone
Lawyers excel at assessing when a client would benefit from outside help. While being good at getting the right help for others, lawyers tend not to seek help for themselves.
Having support as you develop your business development plan is very beneficial. That help can take many forms. Speaking to colleagues and clients can help you identify your strengths to build on in the plan. Discussing your business development plan (and your need for resources) with firm/group management will help you assess whether your plan is achievable. Using an internal or external business development coach is valuable too. They can assist with ideas and advice on how to develop and perfect a business development plan and to provide support by way of encouragement, suggestions and discipline in the plan’s execution.
Interested in learning more about coaching? Take advantage of a complimentary half hour coaching session from Potentia. Please contact us at info@potentiacoaching.ca.
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Law Firm Succession Planning – The Sina Qua Non of Law Firm Success
Why Succession Plan?
Strong succession planning has always been important to law firm success; but today it is mission critical. This is so because:
- Effective succession planning ensures client retention following lawyer departure/retirement. Client retention has always been a priority for law firms – it has always been more difficult and more expensive to get new clients than to keep existing ones. Nowadays, however, when, depending on who you speak to, the market for legal services is either stagnant or shrinking, holding on to existing clients is even more important;
- Lawyers, like the rest of the world, are aging. Statistics say that 40% of lawyers practising law in North America are either winding down their practices or thinking about doing so. Succession planning is required to be ready for the retirement of more and more senior lawyers;
- Succession planning generates opportunities for the next tier of lawyers, who are finding it much harder to build practices and are looking more to their firms for assistance; and
- Succession planning gives clients, who are now much more savvy consumers of legal services, the comfort of continuity and predictability and lower cost alternatives, as their counsel of choice ages.
What is Succession Planning?
In the past succession planning involved ensuring that the firm found good homes for ongoing files when a lawyer retired. Today, good succession planning involves much more – a plan to make sure that, after a lawyer retires, the firm retains not merely the lawyer’s files but also client relationships, referral sources, experience, expertise and reputation.
How to Succession Plan – Top Succession Planning Tips
Effective succession is not easy; it takes time and effort. The rule of thumb is that it takes about three years to properly transition a practice. It can take longer depending on a number of factors – for example, on how the client reacts to the proposed succession plan, and whether the proposed successor would benefit from developing expertise or experience before the transition.
To be successful, succession plans require agreement and commitment from four parties: the firm, the departing lawyer, the successor, and the client. If all four of these parties are not aligned on the proposed succession plan, the transition will not work.
To get the alignment required, the firm needs to recognize in words and in compensation (which speaks louder than words) the importance of succession and the time and effort involved and reward results. Traditional modes of compensation for client billings and hours do not facilitate transition – indeed they discourage it. If departing lawyers are only paid for their book of business or the hours they work, there is no incentive to transfer clients or business. Instead firms should consider rewarding successful transitions, for example, compensating the departing lawyer when clients bring new matters to the successor.
Support for Transitioning Lawyer
Any succession plan is only as good as its execution. There are many obstacles to the execution of a succession plan. In a lawyer’s busy life, everything (and particularly unpleasant tasks, which transition can be) takes a distant second place to practising law. For that reason, it is helpful to include in any succession plan a way to provide discipline around and monitor progress of the execution of the plan.
The biggest obstacle to succession planning according to Altman Weil, the law firm consultants, is that senior lawyers do not want to retire. As such, an important element to effective succession planning is dealing with the senior lawyer’s attitude to retirement. There are a number of ways to do this.
First, firms need to be more sensitive to how difficult it is for lawyers to contemplate retirement. There are many reasons why lawyers don’t want to retire. Many fear a loss of power, status, identity and even purpose. Many lawyers have deep relationships with their clients and colleagues that they have spent many years building; it is difficult to walk away from them. Helping senior lawyers address their reluctance, and in some cases downright fear, of retirement and helping them look forward to the next stage is very important to successful succession planning.
How Can Coaching for Lawyers Help?
A coach can provide invaluable assistance in the succession planning process. He/she can work with the senior lawyer to get them prepared for, and looking forward to, retirement. A coach can also impose the discipline that is required to ensure that the succession plan gets executed.
A coach is more effective at achieving these results because of his/her succession planning and retirement expertise and experience, strategies, tools and techniques. As important, though, is the fact that a coaching relationship gives the departing lawyer the opportunity to confidentially discuss and work through succession planning and retirement issues, which are often deeply personal and difficult, with a coach.
Interested in learning more about coaching? Take advantage of a complimentary half hour coaching session from Potentia. Please contact us at info@potentiacoaching.ca.
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No More Docketing! And Other Joys of Retirement for Lawyers
When I decided that I wanted to coach lawyers around retirement, I started as any good lawyer would, with research. From my own experience, I knew that many lawyers had reservations about retirement (and in some cases, downright dread). When I announced that I was retiring after practising law for almost 30 years, I vividly recall being told by some what a “brave” decision it was and being peppered by others with anxious questions about what I would do all day.
So I decided that the first order of business had to be researching what makes for a happy retirement for lawyers. To find that out, I interviewed about 20 happily retired lawyers from 7 of the large Bay Street law firms about the joys (and challenges) of retirement. Some of what I learned during those interviews follows.
Retirement has its Challenges
The retirees I interviewed all acknowledged that retirement could be challenging for lawyers. Some found the lack of a regular pay cheque disconcerting, particularly since a number had worked since they were teenagers. Others commented that it was tough to adjust to the change in pace; as one said, to go from “100 miles an hour to zero”. Some also commented on not feeling needed in the same way– as an interviewee said, “you go from your phone always ringing… to no-one returning your calls.”
Not knowing how to spend your day when you are used to practising law 24/7 can be challenging too. As was so colourfully put to me by one retired lawyer – retiring lawyers are like workhorses who have ploughed the same field every day for over 35 years. On retirement, they are told by the farmer that it is time for them to frolic in the meadow. To which the workhorse/lawyer responds in dismay “Where is the meadow….and what is frolicking?”
Joys of Retirement
Despite the challenges of retirement, every retired lawyer I interviewed commented that the joys of retirement far outweighed its challenges. When asked what was the best thing about retirement, the majority answered with a big smile, “No more docketing!”
Everyone I spoke to commented on the pleasure of having more time to do what they wanted to do: to travel; to spend time with family and friends; to focus on their health and be more physically fit. They relished in the new-found opportunity to read and learn new things. The range of learning was remarkable: from becoming familiar with a new business; to doctorate level university study; to learning how to play piano. The retirees also commented they were able to return to favourite hobbies and pastimes that they didn’t have time for before. A number developed entirely new interests in retirement: new leisure activities; new artistic pursuits and new friends that they enjoy tremendously.
Many of the lawyers I interviewed did not retire to do nothing; rather they took up new “work” in retirement. What they did varied tremendously; from practising law on a reduced schedule in a smaller or their own firm, becoming mediators/arbitrators, continuing their work on boards, starting their own small business or becoming executives in existing businesses (often with former clients or in fields relating to their area of practice), to providing their grandchildren with much needed child care. Many commented on the thrill of doing something new, and how wonderful it was to get up in the morning and to do something you really wanted to do.
The Key to Happiness – Advanced Planning
The answer that I got time and again as to what makes for a happy and successful retirement was advanced planning. A key element is financial planning, figuring out what you will spend in retirement and how you will earn the money you require. But as important, was planning how you would spend your time in retirement.
So the solution to happiness in retirement is simple, just “plan” to be happy!
Hilary Clarke is the founder and lead coach with Potentia, which provides retirement planning coaching and consulting to lawyers and law firms. Interested in learning more about coaching? Take advantage of a complimentary half hour coaching session from Potentia. Please contact us at info@potentiacoaching.ca.