Course · Interpersonal Skills
Leading a Legal Team
Set direction, share decisions, build a team that works, lead change, shape culture and grow as a leader.
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Lawyers are promoted for being good lawyers and then expected to lead, usually with no training in how. The skills that make an excellent advocate or drafter (independence, scepticism, attention to detail, a habit of finding the flaw) are not the skills of leading a team, and can work against them. This is the fourth course of the Legal Management series. It asks what leadership is and is not, and looks at the main models and their uses. It then takes the practical skills in turn: setting direction with a purpose, strategic choices and a few measurable objectives; making decisions and being clear who decides what, with a working Decision Rights Builder; building a team in which it is safe to speak up and meetings decide things; leading change, including technology change, and responding to resistance; shaping culture, setting standards, handling mistakes and ethical pressure; and leading yourself, with feedback, time, influence, coaching and succession. It ends with a capstone in which you plan your first hundred days as head of an inherited team.
The Curriculum
What leadership is in a legal setting: management, models and the lawyer as leader→
Management and leadership, why lawyers are rarely trained to lead, five leadership models, the challenges of leading lawyers and a self-check. Practice: Leader or Manager? and Choose the Style.
Setting direction: purpose, strategy, objectives and saying no→
Purpose, the three questions of strategy, an honest assessment, a few objectives, choices and trade-offs, communicating the plan and reviewing it. Practice: Strategy or Wish List? and Write Three Objectives.
Decisions and decision rights: who decides what, and how well→
Reversible and irreversible decisions, four ways to decide, the RACI chart, partner governance, biases, pre-mortems and decision logs. Practice: Who Decides? and the Decision Rights Builder.
Building a team that works: safety, roles, meetings, conflict and inclusion→
What high-performing teams share, psychological safety, roles and norms, meetings that work, conflict, inclusion and hybrid working. Practice: Safe or Unsafe? and Run the Meeting.
Leading change: why it fails, how to make it stick and how to bring lawyers with you→
Why change fails, a practical sequence, resistance and how to respond, technology change, communication and making change stick. Practice: Resistance or Wisdom? and Order the Steps.
Culture, ethics and standards: what the leader makes normal→
What culture is, how leaders make it, setting standards, speaking up, mistakes and near misses, ethical pressure, misconduct and wellbeing. Practice: What Does This Teach? and Handle the Pressure.
Leading yourself and growing as a leader: awareness, feedback, time, influence and succession→
Self-awareness, feedback, time and energy, influence without authority, coaching, stepping up, succession and a development plan. Practice: Blind Spot or Strength? and Make Your Plan.
Capstone: Capstone: your first hundred days as head of an inherited team→
Diagnose an inherited team, set direction, clarify decision rights, plan change and culture, handle an ethical concern and write a one-page first-hundred-days plan.
What It Covers
“You will learn to lead as well as you practise: with direction, clear decisions, a team that trusts you and standards that you live by.”
- Seven modules and a capstone that follow the work of a new leader: understanding the role, direction, decisions, team, change, culture and self.
- Written for lawyers: it names the habits that help and hinder (the flaw-finding eye, independence, risk aversion, status) and how to lead experts who resist being led.
- A working tool you keep using: the Decision Rights Builder checks a RACI chart for missing or double accountability, too many consulted and overloaded people.
- Connected to the rest of the series: it uses the people skills of Hiring and Keeping People, the numbers of The Firm’s Money and the process methods of the Legal Engineer Program.
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Or give this as a giftOther Scrolls in This Chamber
Across the Table$15 →Interests, walk-away numbers, offers, trades, pressure tactics and professional limits, with practice rooms and calculators.
Cooling the Room$15 →How conflict escalates, mapping a dispute, de-escalation, hard conversations, choosing a process, mediation, power, culture and ethics, with practice mediations.
The Client Conversation$15 →Trust, the first meeting, fees and scope, updates in plain words, advice and decisions, bad news, boundaries and ethics, with practice meetings.Module 1 is free to try. Sign in, pass each module quiz and the course average, and your Certificate of Completion is emailed to you automatically. This course teaches method and technique with invented people and figures; it is general education, not legal advice, and professional rules differ from country to country.
Common questions
- Is it only for partners?
- No. It is for anyone who leads or is about to lead: heads of team, senior associates who supervise, in-house team leaders and partners.
- Does it teach one leadership theory?
- No. It presents several widely taught models as lenses, not laws, and stresses that the evidence for each is mixed. The aim is judgement, not allegiance.
- Is it for in-house lawyers too?
- Yes. Most of it applies to any legal team. Working in a Large Organisation, a later course in the series, addresses the in-house setting more directly.
- Is it HR or legal advice?
- No. It is general education using invented people. Take advice on employment and professional-conduct matters where they arise.
- How does the Decision Rights Builder work?
- You mark, for each task or decision, who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. The tool checks for the common faults. It is for discussion: it cannot tell you whether the right people hold the roles.
- How do I get the Certificate of Completion?
- Sign in, pass each module quiz and keep a course average of at least 75. The certificate is then issued and emailed to you automatically.
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Free to use in class. The free parts open for everyone, no account needed.