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This webinar is free.

This time last year we were still talking about the challenges of ‘Leading Lawyers through Turbulent Times’. Now it seems that  business activity in many mature markets is beginning to recover, and firms and their clients are positioning themselves to take advantage of this as well as to explore new markets.This online discussion forum complements the one held in early September on the strategic opportunities in times of growth. This time, we will address the practical challenges for leaders of encouraging lawyers; especially the impact of the different environment on the attitudes and behaviour of lawyers in the firm or in-house department, and how leaders can best respond to this.We are delighted to welcome a distinguished panel of contributors who between them have nearly 100 years of leading lawyers (or advising with those who do) in leading law firms and in-house departments:

Tony Reiss is a Founding Principal of Sherwood PSF Consulting. He was previously a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting. He consults with professional firms the world over and is author of The Business Development Handbook for Lawyers. He also has an active blog site at http://tonyreiss.comDick Tyler is former managing partner and, until recently, senior partner of CMS Cameron McKenna; he also spent a  period as  Executive Partner (based in Frankfurt) of the CMS European business. Dick is now an Executive Coach and Business Consultant. (www.dicktyler.com).Richard Tapp is the Company Secretary and Director of Legal Services at Carillion plc. He also has responsibility for a number of other business teams, and for Carillion Advice Services which provides a range of new managed legal services offerings and resources. Richard has been recognised as a leading innovator within legal services.

Moderators

Sally Woodward is co-director of the LMP and a Founding Principal of Sherwood PSF Consulting; she has 30 years’ experience in the legal sector, now acting as executive coach and consultant to lawyers in many leading international firms. Sally has an Executive MBA from London Business School, and was co-designer of and Professor on, the world’s first specialist MBA program for lawyers at Nottingham Law School.Moray McLaren is the LMP Co-Program Director, an Associate Professor at IE Business School and their representative within Law Without Walls, a global collaboration among the world’s leading law and business schools.  He is a Director at Redstone Consultants and has been advising leading law firms and in-house legal teams since 1995 - gaining experience across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA.

Indicative themes for discussion:

Some say that different times need different leaders? So should current leaders all resign and hand over to someone else? How does/should a leader’s job and priorities change as the business climate changes? Do the nature and degree of challenges of leadership change and if so, how? Has the job become easier or harder?Will it be easier or harder to get buy-in to change eg to significant strategic investments (or divestments); Will leaders need to ‘change the way they lead’ and get decisions made, and if so how?Some say that clients (Internal and external) will continue to demand ‘more for less’.  If so, what will leaders need to do to maintain the momentum for efficiency and for continuous improvement? Or the drive for innovation?Will the upturn reduce the pressure for lawyers to change their behaviour – ie increase resistance to change?  If so – how can leaders respond to that?Are we facing another ‘war for talent’? How will the upturn affect the expectations and behaviours of ‘Generation Y’? If they have more choice of employer– how can/should firms and in-house departments respond to the challenge and opportunity Gen Y represents?How well equipped do leaders feel to tackle these and other challenges? Where can they turn to for help and advice? Tony Reiss will summarise some key findings from a recent survey of leaders on this question.

Participants in the session will also have the opportunity to put their own questions to the panel.