Individual Coaching

Challenges in the Legal Profession

In today’s downsized and changing legal industry, attorneys are faced with many challenges.  Job security cannot be taken for granted.  Many young attorneys want career-advancing opportunities while they are concerned about paying down law school debt.  Some wonder whether they made the right career choice.

Young attorneys in firms face new evaluation criteria with uneven opportunities for training and mentoring in the competencies on which they will be judged.  There is as much emphasis as ever on developing technical proficiency but increasing pressure to demonstrate the “soft” skills required to manage people, projects and client expectations.  Furthermore, law school curricula do not prepare lawyers for the task that will most determine their success in the private sector:  business development.

All lawyers want “lives” and finding ways to protect the quality of non-work life is increasingly difficult in the face of ever-growing work demands.

Women lawyers continue to face unique challenges:  in some cases, the lack of a presumption of competence; the need for self-advocacy without triggering negative reactions for violating gender-role expectations; exclusion from informed networks that make business connections and leadership positions accessible; biological clock realities conflicting with performance demands for career advancement; and the continued absence of women in leadership to act as models and advocates.

Never before has it been so crucial for individual attorneys to take personal responsibility for their professional development and career advancement and satisfaction.  No employer will care more about your success than you.

The Role of Coaching

Individual coaching is designed to help you achieve your most important career and life goals.  The coaching relationship is collaborative, action-oriented, supportive and its focus is on you -- what you want in the professional and personal aspects of your life and how you can attain it.

Individual coaching provides ongoing support, structure, encouragement and non-judgmental accountability.  Your relationship with your coach is unique and confidential.

Our Individual Coaching Services

Lawyers Life Coach was created to address the lives of lawyers.  There is a mistaken distinction between personal and professional coaching.  We believe that the personal and professional cannot be separated.  People function at their best when their life roles are successfully integrated.  In fact, many attorneys seek coaching because they experience conflict between their career and personal goals.

Our highly trained, experienced and credentialed coaches work with lawyers and HR and professional development specialists in the legal industry at all levels of seniority, serve all stages of career development and working in a wide variety of settings.

We work one-on-one, via a combination of in-person and telephonic sessions, to:  identify your most important aspirations; define specific, realistic outcomes to accomplish within a mutually agreed-upon timeframe; design systematic and specific action steps to be implemented incrementally with ongoing support, including a strategic plan for accomplishing your goals; and break-down complex plans into manageable action steps.

Meetings are scheduled at the mutual convenience of client and coach.  The frequency and pace of sessions are tailored to meet your needs and scheduling demands.

The coaching relationship is entirely focused on getting the results your want.  You set the agenda; your coach’s job is to “hold the agenda”  -- to make sure that it doesn’t get lost in the busy-ness of a lawyer’s life.

In all cases, attorneys identify specific goals to be accomplished within a realistic time period.  Many firms appreciate the cost-effectiveness of our group coaching programs in which several women attorneys from the firm are coached together in a group on a specific theme, such as business development.

All coaching programs combine in-person and telephone sessions.  Appropriate assessments are administered and interpreted as needed and we are available for between sessions for individual contact.

Executive Job Search Counseling Services

Three (3) 40-minute coaching sessions as follows:

• Session 1: Intake, job-search goals formulation, target identification
• Session 2: Resume and cover letter review
• Session 3: Job-search launch, resources, outreach and networking strategies

New Graduate Job Search Services

Three (3) 40-minute coaching sessions as follows:

• Session 1: Intake, job-search goals formulation, target identification
• Session 2: Resume and cover letter review
• Session 3: Job-search launch, resources, outreach and networking strategies

Of course, we maintain the confidentiality of all client communications.