Well-targeted training will give solicitors the skills to succeed

Marketing skills, languages, project management, business development, customer relationship management – the job spec for lawyers is changing radically, whether private practice, in-house or public sector.

Leaders of the biggest UK law firms warn there are too many lawyers and too many law firms. Businesses are looking to slash legal costs and local authorities are seeking to share, and even sell, legal services. In this environment well-targeted training is going to be crucial to ensure practitioners have the right skills for their role.

In private practice, Linklaters’ head of strategy and business transformation Rupert Egerton-Smith told the recent Global Managing Partners Summit that tomorrow’s law firms need to be ‘porous, virtual, multi-sourced, adaptable and agile’. So how do you train lawyers to fit that model?

Their skill-sets will need to include people skills, coaching, mentoring, leadership, delegation, project management, sound financial acumen, time management – to name but a few, says Jason Maley, director of professional development programmes at BPP Law School: ‘They will also need the ability to think strategically and laterally to take advantage of new regulatory flexibilities and opportunities offered by technology.’

This will mean a radical rethink in the way the profession develops talent, says Tony Williams, principal at Jomati Consultants.

‘I think we will see a range of different career tracks develop, with people looking at their careers in three-, five- or 10-year chunks,’ he says. ‘That raises questions for firms: do you recruit all trainees on the basis that they have the potential to be partner? Or should you have a fast track for those clearly marked out for partnership, while others are viewed as good corporate citizens for the three to five years you have them?’

If that means more career associates, says Williams, how do you manage them when they face poorer job prospects while having to work harder? Will equity partnerships be limited to those who will seriously grow the business and, if so, how will salaried partners earn their keep?

The key will be well-focused training, he says, so lawyers can perform at the appropriate level and be rewarded for broader achievements than rainmaking and seniority. Firms such as Stephenson Harwood are already moving associates off salaries linked to PQE, to a system based more closely on merit.

For those who feel their prospects are poor, training in business development and marketing skills is essential, says Professor Penny Cooper, associate dean of the City Law School: ‘The more clients you win and keep, the better your prospects, while knowing how to market yourself will ensure your prospects remain good.’

Other critical areas are strategy, people management and managing risk, says Colin Davey, director of business development at the College of Law: ‘They are potentially a passport to work elsewhere. Those who have had good incomes during better economic times may need to dig into their own pockets for worthwhile training.’

The focus on soft skills aligns with the need for law firms to gear up to compete with new entrants when alternative business structures (ABSs) are permitted from October next year.

Legal service providers and their management teams seem to be ‘holding their breath’ about the full implications of the changes, says Maley: ‘Solicitors are often said to suffer from two problems when it comes to effective business management – they are not good managers, but they think they are.

‘Increasingly, management skills training has become an essential part of a lawyer’s upbringing. However, the formal requirements of the SRA – 12 hours’ management training in a lifetime, and a compulsory six-hour Management Course Stage 1 – could be seen as inadequate in the face of the commercial onslaught to come.’

However, time and resources for training are tight, particularly for smaller firms seeking greater commercial acumen.

Winmark, which runs three legal sector networks for general counsel, managing partners and marketing directors, offers one-day MBA courses to equip practitioners with the tools and language of business.

Other trends include firms doing more in-house, so they can still develop staff despite a cut in training budgets, says Heidi Sandy, chair of the Junior Lawyers Division.

JLD members are also looking to local groups to provide networking and training opportunities, rather than just social events. ‘Solicitors need to be able to sell themselves and the skills they have to clients,’ says Sandy. ‘Simply "knowing" the law is not enough in this market, especially if solicitors want to progress with their firms.’

The recession has left some practice areas especially vulnerable, so the JLD has initiated retraining courses with the College of Law. The success of the private client law and practice course has led to plans for equivalent courses on commercial law, employment law, commercial property and litigation/dispute resolution (see box, below).

Alongside networking, MBAs, diplomas and less formal CPD courses, practitioners have been looking for creative ideas to help develop leadership and team spirit.

Encouraged by its general counsel network, Winmark devised a creativity workshop, which it runs at venues such as the Almeida Theatre in Islington, London.

Winmark’s head of development Janet Baker says participants tend to be in-house teams. While initially nervous, they learn how a creative approach can help them manage relationships with demanding colleagues, reinvigorate teams who have been together a long time, and deal with the expectations of managing stakeholders.

‘We have found that, although lawyers can initially be reluctant to step onto the theatre stage, once there they can often be quite difficult to get off,’ she says. Winmark also runs three 90-minute creative workshops for law firms, which explore innovative techniques for solving problems and implementing change.

For those working in commerce and industry, the pressure on training budgets has eased since 2009, but it is not back to pre-recession levels, according to Bill Graydon, operations director of the C&I Group. He says the call for soft skills was ‘heavy in 2009 but, as budgets tightened, people turned back to black letter law’.

The group offered some training packages in 2009 but takeup was insufficient for them to be repeated this year. Graydon adds: ‘We have also introduced webinars, but the takeup has been disappointing, which seems to indicate that out-of-office training is still the preferred option.’

In local government the training market also remains tough. Dudley Lewis is director of training for LGG, a legal training provider for local authorities. It trains about 4,000-5,000 people a year but numbers have dropped and LGG is researching how and where best to offer training, including online and in-house, bespoke courses.

‘Local authorities are going to have to obtain training as cheaply and locally as possible – I just hope they don’t abandon it,’ he says. ‘Even discounting the economic problems, there have been many reorganisations with local authorities banding together and sharing services. This requires a huge re-skilling because you are reducing staff while leaving the same functions to be done by those remaining.’

He says there is demand for training in different ways of delivering services and how to deal with ABSs: ‘I have been openly critical about the lack of interest in management training in the past, but now they have to learn how to manage themselves, their time and their people if they are going to achieve the service level they ought to be providing.’

Jean Evans, head of law at Staffordshire County Council, says it now looks for ‘holistic’ lawyers who think about their team, about delivering on deadline, and about how they tie into the council for the benefit of the citizen. ‘Sometimes you have to manage risk with clients, for instance, and that is very different to giving pure technical advice,’ she says.

Her 90-strong legal department is big enough to have dedicated specialists: ‘But we are trying to be more multiskilled. We have created a new layer of team leaders who learn about optimising team performance, and how to deal with discipline and grievances – all the things that help you be a manager.’

As well as providing training in house, Staffordshire buys in ‘reasonably priced’ training from the EM Law Share consortium. It also ‘fishes around’ for courses to fill gaps identified in personal performance reviews and use more of the free training offered by private practices.

Staffordshire has recently taken on three lawyers from private practice ‘and that brought home sharply how different the two cultures are’, says Evans. ‘Externals have tons to offer in terms of speed, negotiating skills and time recording.’

The council is having to learn how to share and even sell its legal services. ‘We have always had to be money-conscious, but we have not been profit-driven so we have had to sharpen our business skills,’ she says. ‘I am now doing marketing plans and following up customer relationships.’

Staffordshire is picking up customers from police, fire, universities and health authorities who have traditionally used private practice. ‘But this is all public money,’ says Evans. ‘If I can steam in and offer services for £60/£80 an hour, I don’t see how we can be beaten on price.’

Concerns over recruitment and retention have prompted the council to create a partnership with Staffordshire University to raise the profile of local government with law students, offering them one of their three training contracts as well as up to 10 work experience places. It is also working on an elective on child care law.

‘There has to be change,’ she says, ‘and training is the key. I have just written a note on selling services to others in the council saying "don’t underestimate the needs of your existing workforce or how you bring them up to speed".’

So the message is that skimping on training at any level is a false economy. ‘You may have people on a lower career track and therefore on less money,’ says Williams, ‘but you will still have to spend significant amounts to make sure they are trained and able to perform at the right level.

‘The key to meeting demands for reduced costs will be to push work down to the cheapest, competent person. But to do that you need to make sure the person is skilled up as quickly as possible, so they are coming up as you are pushing the work down.’

‘I saw the course as an opportunity to develop a new practice area,’ she says. ‘I have branched out into lasting powers of attorney and I have done my first "living will". I don’t want to transfer completely from litigation, where work is picking up again, but I now feel confident in selling the private client services we offer.’

The course, devised by the JLD and the College of Law, was first run last year. It proved so successful, with 100 signing up and 80 on the waiting list, it was repeated twice. A further two-day course is being held in London on November 12/13.

The course provides an introduction to probate, wills and estate planning and was initially aimed at giving junior lawyers facing possible redundancy from one specialism, such as property, the chance to gain a ‘feel’ for a new practice area. However, the course has also proved attractive to experienced lawyers wanting to build a private client capability.

‘I have never done any probate or wills during my career,’ explains Granger, ‘and everything has changed since I did my finals. The course was very good and went at a fast pace. But if I was thinking of changing completely to private client work, I would want a five-day intensive course.’

Teresa Patrício, who has her own two-partner firm in Lisbon, Portugal, took the course to broaden her skills to help her private clients. ‘Corporate law is pretty much alike in most countries,’ she says, ‘but the differences relating to wills and probate are enormous’.

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist