Building an Outstanding Legal Team: Battle-Tested Strategies from a General Counsel

Bjarne P Tellmann

£48, Globe Law & Business

The book is very easy to read and has a good range of illustrations, checklists and analogies. It was, though, disconcerting to see a very accurate parallel drawn between pruning a Bonsai tree and one of the most challenging bits of change management that I was involved in.

I am a reasonably informed reviewer, as I have been in legal leadership in six organisations. I have always had roles building or restructuring all or parts of legal teams, and have been involved in trade group and conference work on the role of the in-house legal function since 2004. I have no hesitation in recommending this book as an essential read for senior in-house lawyers, for aspirants to that role, and for legal services suppliers who want to better understand their clients. If this book had been published 19 years ago, my career would have been a lot easier!

Bruce Macmillan is founder director of the Centre for Legal Leadership (which is supported by the Law Firm RPC)