Training for lawyers can be a lot like buying legal services – a distress purchase made at the point of no return, says Deborah Walker, business development manager at Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) School of Law.

But, she says, strategic leadership and management skills are increasingly vital to survive the aftermath of deep recession. For the first time in their history, many firms are having to deal with the consequences of redundancies, redeployment and reduced hours, while facing up to the prospect of new, sophisticated, consumer-savvy entrants lining up to join the legal market.

So how important is it for lawyers to seek some form of business and management training? And when is the optimum time to learn the ‘business of business’?

Tony Williams, founder of management consultancy Jomati and former Clifford Chance managing partner, says: ‘Firms have inevitably scaled back on their training budgets, although internal training has by and large been kept up – it is the outside courses and use of outside organisers that have been cut.

‘However, firms have still been encouraging their lawyers to do MBAs or other forms of training to increase their business knowledge. We have also seen individual lawyers who have had generous payoffs taking the opportunity to deepen their skill set.’

He is seeing signs that firms are starting to hire again, though ‘very cautiously’. He says: ‘What this downturn has shown is that the key skill is adaptability. You may need to reinvent yourself two or three times during your career.’

When it comes to building up business skills, rather than legal expertise, courses are being targeted at every level from managing partners to trainees.

MMU is preparing to launch a post-graduate certificate in legal practice management this summer – an employer-led course taught at MBA level 7. It includes modules on strategic planning, leadership and managing change, managing clients and developing teams, and financial analysis for profit. Fees are being kept at £500 for the first year with support from the government’s higher-level pathfinder fund.

‘Law firms haven’t always been good at looking at strategic growth and development,’ says Walker. ‘This course is designed to attract solicitors of seven years PQE and up, and to be of real benefit to managing partners or those aspiring to partnership. It includes a practice portfolio so you apply what you learn to your business.

‘One firm wants to take two places as part of its succession planning. It has four competing for the two places and it will then use the course to assess their performance as prospective managing partner.’

Nottingham Law School (NLS) runs an MBA in legal practice, as well as a new partners programme, a knowledge management masterclass and bespoke legal practice management programmes.

Head of NLS’s strategy and business development unit, Denise Crawford, says: ‘The MBA attracts a wide variety of people at different stages in their career, from managing partners to associates, law firm CEOs, finance directors, other professional managers in law firms, in-house counsel and those pursuing a career in legal practice consulting.’

She says the focus on work-based assignments particularly appeals to managing partners, senior partners and professional managers who are able to apply the theory to practice throughout the programme. The age profile of those taking the course has reduced slightly over time and she says that, ‘arguably, some of the younger students do see the MBA as a potential platform for enhancing their career options’.

At the College of Law, firms can put their three-to-six-year qualified associates through a management diploma course. Business development director Colin Davy says: ‘The diploma comes at a formative stage in their career and helps determine its future shape – for instance whether they should go for partnership.’

The college has also done a major revamp of the compulsory management course stage 1 to bring it closer to the real issues facing firms, such as fixed fees. Davey says: ‘People were unsure what the management course stage 2 signified, which is why we went for the structured diploma approach, but we are looking at a number of ideas for the stage 2 course.’

For City firm Simmons & Simmons, developing business and client awareness needs to start as soon as possible, so it offered its 2009 intake of trainees the opportunity to do an MBA before they started their training contract, with 27 out of 52 taking up the option.

Nigel Spencer, head of learning and development at the firm, says: ‘We brought forward our plans for business training partly in response to the market situation but also because BPP, which provides our LPC education, was opening a business school. And because we had this strategy, we didn’t need to look at deferring any trainees.

Costly business

A new MSc in law and finance at Oxford University has attracted 350 applications from all over the world for just 30 places.

The 10-month full-time course starting in October is for those with a first degree in law, or a legal professional qualification, and will cost £18,500, plus estimated living costs of £12,000.

Professor John Armour, Lovells professor of law and finance at Oxford University’s law faculty, is academic director of the new programme, which is a joint venture between the law faculty and the Saïd Business School. The degree is aimed at those seeking to advance their career in corporate law, corporate finance or regulation.

He says most students are expected to be self-financing and points out that the fees compare favourably with the US, where fees alone at a top law school would be $40,000. ‘We are working hard to generate scholarship support but, given the state of the market, it is a difficult time to get professional sponsorship,’ he adds.

‘However, for someone ambitious, it will be a very useful opportunity to gain knowledge that would take several years to acquire on the job. Students will take a commercial view whether it is worth their while doing it – it is about what they can expect to make subsequently.’

‘There is a legal ‘twist’ to the MBA so it includes case studies in our different industry sectors. The second part is about the legal sector and the future of legal services, while the third part will see the students do a real business project working with one of our clients so they hit the ground running when they start their training contract in September.’

Simmons & Simmons has offered the same opportunity to the next batch of trainees, with 25 out of 46 starting the MBA in September. The firm pays their fees and gives them a maintenance grant.

‘We have put it on the graduate recruitment section on our website as an alternative option to the traditional route,’ explains Spencer, who adds that depending on how the initiative pans out, the firm may consider making it mandatory.

‘We see this as the right time to do an MBA. You tend to see people doing MBAs later in their careers in Europe but, in the US, it is almost the norm to do an MBA as a tag on to your first degree and get that knowledge upfront.’

City firm SJ Berwin is also fast-tracking its junior lawyers’ understanding of the business world. Some 20 of the 31 trainees who started in September are at BPP working on a masters in law with business, alongside their training contract.

The firm’s head of learning and development Ann Collier says the programme includes a research module which will enable each trainee to study one of their core client industry sectors. ‘Ultimately, we expect these trainees to develop into commercial advisers who are better able to anticipate their clients’ needs and provide creative solutions to their problems than would generally be expected of lawyers at this early stage in their careers.’

For Chris Brady, dean of BPP Business School, there is no better time to do an MBA: ‘Some people prefer to do it at the beginning of their career so that they can use what they have learnt and bring it into the workplace; others prefer to gain experience, then consolidate this with postgraduate study. It is a very individual thing, and one of the great successes about an MBA programme is the mix of people from a cross-section of age groups, educational backgrounds and different careers.’

However, for aspiring lawyers struggling to get a training contract, paying to do a masters or other business course to make themselves stand out can be problematic, points out Junior Lawyers Division chair Heidi Sandy. ‘The law is quite a rigid structure,’ she says. ‘What tends to set students apart is the pro bono or other work experience they have done.’

In the in-house sector, meanwhile, Lee Ramsay, joint chair of the Commerce & Industry Group’s training committee, says funding for MBAs has ‘dried up’. While some companies will provide part sponsorship, there is no ‘preferential treatment for lawyers to go on courses’.

The C&I Group surveyed its members last year about training and found four out of 10 organisations had cut training budgets as a result of the recession.

Ramsay, professional support lawyer at Transport for London, says: ‘Once the survey was out in the open, a lot of people admitted that their own training budgets had also been cut. The real problem was where training budgets were combined with the practising certificate renewal budget. The increase in the fee for 2009/10 had a significant impact on what was available for training, and people have now tried to split it up for this financial year.’

She says there has also been a change in demand for courses, with firms having no money in the budget for travel. This prompted the C&I Group, which hasn’t increased its prices for training courses, to provide webinars at £75 for one and a half CPD hours. ‘Webinars are flexible and save time and money,’ says Ramsay. ‘However, you lose the networking so they won’t replace our face-to-face courses. Our core courses are still going ahead, with things looking more positive this year – we have record numbers for our in-house lawyers update.’

Ramsay says the training market appears to be picking up: ‘All kinds of providers are offering courses on how to communicate effectively and build up networking skills. We wouldn’t be allowed to sign off on our budget for those sorts of courses because we do it internally, but people must think the market is there. I have also spoken to some in-house counsel in companies that are struggling who are paying for courses themselves to make sure they are well placed if they lose their job.’

The need to boost non-legal skills is reflected in programmes being run by the Law Society. Rita Oscar, membership development executive for careers at Chancery Lane, says: ‘It is no longer good enough just to have the right academic background. Firms want you to have networking skills and the ability to bring in business. Our initial soft-skills programme is aimed at junior lawyers who are up to five years qualified.’

However, a lot of those affected by the recession have eight years’ PQE plus, says Oscar. The Society has run two career crossroads workshops, one in London and one in Birmingham, in partnership with the specialist search firm Sapphire Partners. The workshops have mainly attracted those in their 50s. ‘Many haven’t had to think about CVs or job applications for years,’ says Oscar. ‘The workshop is aimed at helping people market themselves and identify their transferable skills.’

The workshops have also identified a need for one-to-one coaching and assistance, she says: ‘We haven’t the resources to provide that ourselves, so we are considering setting up a referral service.’

In the meantime, the Society is referring solicitors who have lost their jobs to GR Law. Manager John Bruce explains: ‘We are working on a contract with the Department for Work and Pensions to supply professional advice and support to what they class as "professional and executive job seekers" within London. This is open to all professionals, not just lawyers, but because GR Law is a legal agency, and because the legal profession has been so drastically affected by the economic climate, we felt there was merit in making unemployed lawyers who may not have already been into their local job centres aware of what was on offer.’

GR Law has seen about 4,000 people so far and Bruce estimates around 10% have been lawyers or people who want to be lawyers. ‘We focus on how they can better market themselves and their current skill-set,’ he says. ‘Most aren’t being rejected because of out-of-date skills or lack of training. Most are struggling because their CVs don’t "sell" them very well, or they’re relying on agencies to find them work – in this market that is a highly flawed strategy."

MMU’s Walker says: ‘We expect so much of fee-earners in practice today, to the point where skills which never used to be taught at traditional law schools are now highly prized. The ability to win and retain work, and the need to appear as a living advertisement for your firm, are making presentation skills and profile vitally important.’

When it comes to managing partners and board members, they may be exemplary lawyers, she says, ‘but how can we expect them to perform minor miracles in business without some form of bespoke management training?’

Study stories

Business management know-how is an important string to add to your bow – whether you are an experienced solicitor, practice manager or trainee.

Nick O’Neill has been with the medium-sized national personal injury practice the Specter Partnership for 12 years. He was an associate when he started the MBA in legal practice at Nottingham Law School in 2007.

‘I realised that it was no longer enough just be a solicitor,’ he says. ‘You need to make yourself marketable.’

The course was a ‘shock to the system’, he says: ‘I hadn’t grasped the volume of work involved while working full time. But, without a shadow of a doubt, it gave me confidence in my ability to study and operate at a different level. It also gave me the confidence to go to the senior partner during the course and say I think I am ready to be a partner – which he agreed to very quickly.’

Caroline Calverley has been practice manager of north-west business and private client firm Chafes for the past five years. She was the only non-legally qualified member of the discussion groups involved in the development of the MMU course and will be one of the first cohort when it starts this summer.

An alumna of MMU, where she did a masters in HR management, she was keen to be involved in a course that enhances professional practice management. ‘I think it is something the Law Society has acknowledged but not addressed – you can’t learn management in two one-day courses.’

Simmons & Simmons trainee Fraser Cocking started the MBA at BPP in September: ‘I jumped at the chance when I was offered it. It is a great opportunity to get some business experience before I start as I haven’t had a job before.’

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist