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LET’S COACH ALL THE LAWYERS

An Essential Primer for Professionals Developing Legal Talent

by Jessica R. Natkin and Jessica L. Hernandez

Lawyers are among the most well-educated and analytical minds in our society today, known for their excellent research, writing, and persuasion skills. They employ their intellect and intuition daily to effectively solve problems for their clients on exceptionally tight timelines. As a result, the environments in which they typically work — law firms and legal departments — pose unique and sophisticated challenges.

Lawyers in these settings often seek guidance from those with knowledge of their profession, practice, and workplace, such as senior attorneys, human resources departments, and talent management professionals to survive, thrive, and advance in their careers. Such guidance often draws upon the advisor’s own knowledge and experiences in developing legal talent — in other words, they advise based on their personal experiences or observations of what has worked for other lawyers in similar situations.

This approach certainly does succeed in many cases. However, as coaches, we have found a hybrid model that draws on supervising, mentoring, advising, and coaching skills to be exceptionally effective. We wrote this book to offer creative application of skills from the world of coaching to those charged with supervising and developing attorneys. Augmenting their existing skill sets with these strategies can lead to deeper, lasting solutions to common issues that arise in the legal workplace.