Successful talent management approaches in law firms focus on creating the conditions for lawyers to thrive and succeed rather than on “managing talent" in the traditional sense. This book reveals the various strategies that law firms of all sizes can take to foster and maintain their lawyers’ naturally high level of motivation and search for excellence so that they can deploy their full potential, collaborate and be fit to constantly adapt to change.

Following trends seen in other knowledge intensive industries, a number of leading law firms have, in the last few years, started to shift their perspective and initiated interesting changes, particularly in the way they manage performance or consider career progressions.

The second edition of this book coordinated by Rebecca Normand-Hochman explores the various elements of what law firms can do to "manage talent" in the most effective ways as well as to overcome the challenges that firms often encounter in their efforts. Topics covered include setting the foundations of a successful talent management strategy, new approaches to managing performance, leading lawyers through change, effective teamwork and collaboration, cultural intelligence and how to develop innovative mindsets for future challenges.

Chapters provide practical guidance from experts internationally to help law firm leaders and partners create the conditions for their teams and themselves to develop to the highest levels of success. This book will also be of interest to learning and development specialists and to emerging leaders seeking to understand what will be required of them to inspire others to thrive.

The second edition of Managing Talent for Success is full of best practices and ideas to implement in law firms in order to maintain high levels of motivation and to adapt to change. A must read.
Caura Barszcz
Caura Barszcz Consulting

Looked at from the outside, lawyers may appear to be individual experts. Alone, or close to it. Self-sufficient and self-reliant. The expert to be called upon for a particular task or project. A student attending a law faculty is not likely to be disabused of this perception. For many lawyers in private practice around the world, this is indeed the reality. But if you are reading this, you know that the success of your particular practice and your firm hinges on more than the mere accumulation of lawyers, each working away on their own client matters in isolation from the rest.

In the second edition of Managing Talent for Success: Talent Development in Law Firms, contributing editor Rebecca Normand-Hochman has brought together an outstanding group of lawyers and advisors with deep expertise and experience in the many facets of talent management in law firms. Through their collective efforts Globe Law and Business (www.globelawandbusiness.com) has produced in this one volume both expansive overviews of the various facets of talent management as well as detailed roadmaps through processes that can lead to greater individual and firm success at every stage of a legal career.

Normand-Hochman sets the stage by observing that the legal industry is dealing with rapid change driven by digitalisation, artificial intelligence, globalisation, significantly higher levels of competition and Covid-19. Take a moment to unpack that short list, and think about the impact of new entrants into the world of lawyers, in the form of non-lawyer service providers and data-driven services that reduce or displace the need for lawyers. Add to that the arrival of lawyers and firms from other jurisdictions and, at the same time, the increasing willingness of clients to obtain advice from lawyers who are not within walking or driving distance of their office. And alongside all this, of course, there is the impact of the wide-spread adoption of in-house legal teams on traditional client relationships and workflows.

Put it all together, and Normand-Hochman concludes, quite rightly, that ‘managing and leading the human side of organisations has never been so important’. Fortunately, this new edition comes at just the right time.

One of the strong recurring themes that runs through many of the contributions is the integration of talent management with strategy. Marc Bartel and Caroline Vanovermeire make this point very bluntly: ‘Talent is vital for the successful implementation of any strategy’. Normand-Hochman discusses the ‘absolute imperative to align talent with strategy’. Each of the authors in this volume in their own way tackles a part of the talent/strategy imperative.

A number of authors discuss aspects of talent development within the law firm context. Jay Connolly explores the importance of diversity and inclusion – with the emphasis on inclusion – and lays out a comprehensive analysis of training goals, techniques, tools and performance measurement, setting the stage for a deep dive into performance management by Laure Carapezzi and Jean-Baptiste Lebelle. Moving along the career continuum, Tony King provides detailed insights into the partnership promotion process, perhaps the most important milestone in a lawyer's career apart from getting that first job. Normand-Hochman then follows with the next question: developing partners as managers and leaders.

Alongside these discussions of the steps through the legal talent arc, Jonathan Middleburgh and Simon Pizzey provide an excellent guide to coaching for lawyers, and Stuart Barnett does the same for mentoring, both increasingly recognised as key talent management tools in the legal profession.

Heidi Gardner provides research-based insights into the benefits of a well-oiled legal team, and she means ‘team’ and not ‘group’. Her analysis of the distinction between smart collaboration and cross-selling, and the professional and financial benefits of fostering true collaboration, is compelling and indeed inspiring. Her research has demonstrated that the benefits of multiple partners collaborating together to solve client challenges far outstrip the benefits of Partner A merely sending a client down the hall to Partner B to receive additional separate unintegrated advice. Beyond the data, she lays out the key steps for improving collaboration within a firm and building a collaborative culture.

Larry Richard offers insights into the common personality traits of lawyers, and sets the table for Robert Sharpe's discussion of techniques for leading lawyers through change, which most readers already know is a unique challenge in the typical law firm, with its mostly sceptical highly-autonomous partners. It will not come as a surprise to read that the attitudes and behaviours that lawyers bring to the profession, and reinforce along the way, tend to make them distinctly resistant to change.

Shifting from looking inside the firm to looking outside, Sarah Martin discusses the importance of emotional intelligence, Peter Alfandary discusses the more recent concept of cultural intelligence and Kevin Doolan and Moray McLaren provide detailed practical advice on how to build sustainable client relationships without engaging in that activity which most lawyers find to be both terrifying and abhorrent: selling.

Normand-Hochman returns with Tom Spence to provide a detailed discussion of lateral partner onboarding and integration. How often have we seen that go badly? Well – spoiler alert – a serious focus on lateral partner integration will result in far better recruitment outcomes than have often been seen in the past.

The last word goes to Shelley Dunstone. Being the last word in this volume, it is not surprising that Dunstone looks to the future. Mindful of the observations concerning our current VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) as summarised by Normand-Hochman at the outset, Dunstone offers advice and techniques to prepare our firms, and ourselves, for the challenges. It comes down to adopting an innovative mindset throughout the firm. And that starts with the leader.

Whether you are a professional development manager, practice group leader, an office managing partner, a mentor, firm board member, a firm CEO or just a lawyer who want to up your game, this book offers a wealth of insights, techniques and advice on managing talent for success.

This article first appeared on the website of the Law Firm Management Committee of the Legal Practice Division of the International Bar Association, and is reproduced by kind permission of the International Bar Association, London, UK. © International Bar Association.
Stephen Bowman
Law Firm Management Committee of the Legal Practice Division of the International Bar Association

Peter Alfandary
Founder, PRA CrossCultural & Development
[email protected]

Peter Alfandary spent over 30 years as an international law firm partner and now advises large professional firms and corporations on the importance of cross-cultural issues in building successful business relationships. He runs workshops on this topic and is a regular keynote speaker at conferences and corporate retreats. His TEDx talk on culture has been viewed over 360k times.
Peter holds dual French and UK nationality, was educated at the French Lycée in London, and received his LLB from the University of Kent and his LLM from the LSE. As senior VP of the French Chamber of Commerce, Peter is highly active in the Franco- British business community.
Peter is an MBA guest lecturer on cultural intelligence at EDHEC business school. In recognition of his services to Franco- British relations, Peter was made Chevalier and also Officier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Republic.

Stuart J Barnett
Thought partner & executive coach
[email protected]

Stuart Barnett is an executive coach, mentor, writer and keynote speaker. He specialises in working with senior lawyers, with a focus on personal strategy and leadership development. He has worked with many of the world’s leading law firms, including Clifford Chance, Baker McKenzie, Herbert Smith Freehills, Ashurst, King Wood Mallesons, Dentons, Pinsent Masons and Clyde & Co. His articles have appeared in Lawyers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Marc Bartel
Senior client partner, Board & CEO Services France, Korn Ferry
[email protected]

Marc Bartel leads Korn Ferry’s CEO and board practice in France and advises senior leaderships and boards of corporates and law firms on governance and talent issues. Prior to joining Korn Ferry, Marc had led the Paris office of another executive search firm. He has lived for ten years in London, holding various senior management positions (ranging from COO to Asia regional managing partner to deputy CEO) with leading international law firms such as Lovells and Linklaters. Marc began his earlier career as a practising lawyer, initially in Boston and then Paris. He also leads the legal, tax and compliance practice and has performed executive searches across all sectors within the legal/tax and compliance functions. Marc obtained a business law degree and a master’s in comparative law from Lyon University and a master’s in comparative jurisprudence from New York University, and is a member of the New York Bar. He also obtained an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Laure Carapezzi
HR business adviser, Allen & Overy Paris
[email protected]

Laure Carapezzi works in the HR department of the Paris office of Allen & Overy. After several years as a lawyer in competition and business law, Laure joined Allen & Overy in 2017 for her first HR experience.
With her law background and having dealt with many legal sector issues, she quickly immersed herself in the various challenges by bringing an additional perspective to the HR function.
She is particularly interested in diversity and inclusion issues in law firms. She was admitted to the Paris Bar in 2014 and holds a master’s degree in law from Nantes University.

Jay Connolly
Global chief talent officer, Dentons
[email protected]

As part of the Dentons leadership team (global management committee and global board) Jay Connolly is focused on ensuring an exceptional people experience and delivering the firm strategy. Building a world-leading HR and talent function is one core element. Jay joined Dentons in 2011, bringing extensive experience in talent management and human resources leadership and expertise from a variety of sectors, including professional services and large global corporates. Prior to joining Dentons, he worked in the US and UK offices of Clifford Chance LLP as a senior member of the global HR leadership team. His career has also included senior HR roles at LEGO Company and Unilever. Jay has lived in the US, UK and Europe and built extensive experience working across the Middle East and Asia.

Kevin Doolan
Partner, Møller Institute
[email protected]

Kevin Doolan is a partner in the professional service firms group at the Møller Institute based at Churchill College, University of Cambridge and is visiting professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches on their executive education programme. He has a particular interest in the pricing of professional services; business development skills for professionals; and in cross-generational working practices.
In 2013 he developed the Harvard Law School case study on pricing services (HLS 13- 17) with Professor George Triantis of Stanford Law School, and teaches pricing in the Harvard accelerated leadership programme. In 2015 he created the Harvard Law School case study on business development (HLS 15-12) with Dr Lisa Rohrer of Harvard and Cambridge associate Alexis Caught.
He divides his time between teaching on university programmes and consulting into many of the world’s leading law firms.

Shelley Dunstone
Principal, Legal Circles
[email protected]

Shelley Dunstone is the principal of Legal Circles, a consultancy practice which helps lawyers to achieve their business and career aspirations. She is an Australian lawyer and has been a partner of a mid-sized Australian commercial law firm. In addition to Law, she also holds qualifications in management and applied finance. She is a life member of the Australasian Legal Practice Management Association. Shelley presents at conferences around Australia and internationally.

Heidi K Gardner
Distinguished fellow, Harvard Law School
[email protected]

Dr Heidi Gardner is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and faculty chair in the school’s executive programmes. Previously she was a professor at Harvard Business School. Heidi’s book Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos became a Washington Post bestseller. Named by Thinkers50 as a Next Generation Business Guru, she co-founded the research and advisory firm Gardner & Co.
Heidi has authored more than seventy books, chapters, case studies and articles. Her books include Smart Collaboration for In-House Legal Teams (2020), Leadership for Lawyers (2nd edition, 2019) and Smart Collaboration for Lateral Hiring (2018).
Heidi has lived and worked on four continents, including as a Fulbright fellow, and for McKinsey & Co and Procter & Gamble. She earned her BA in Japanese from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from London Business School.

Tony King
Director, AGK PSF Training Ltd
[email protected]

Tony King is a consultant to law firms globally on people management issues. After qualifying as a solicitor, he lectured at the College of Law (now the University of Law) and then joined Clifford-Turner & Co (Clifford Chance LLP from 1987) as a tax lawyer in 1984. He was involved in all aspects of education, training & professional development at Clifford Chance from 1988 to 2014. After he retired from the firm and in addition to his consultancy, he was a member of the Queen’s Counsel Selection Panel (2014–2018) and is currently treasurer of the City of London Law Society and the senior warden of the City of London Solicitors’ Company. He is chair of trustees of the charity IPSEA.

Jean-Baptiste Lebelle
Head of HR, Allen & Overy Paris
[email protected]

Jean-Baptiste Lebelle is head of HR for the Paris office of Allen & Overy. He has almost 20 years’ experience on HR matters in the legal business sector and worked for major law firms in Paris as a headhunter before starting a career as an HR professional. Before joining Allen & Overy, Jean-Baptiste was head of HR of PwC tax & legal services in Paris.
Jean-Baptiste has been particularly involved in recruitment and retention issues for many years, and has worked on implementation of the new approach to performance management.
He graduated from Sciences Po Paris and holds a master’s in law from Pantheon University. He is also visiting lecturer on HR issues for institutions including Sorbonne University and HEC.

Sarah Martin
Co-founder, Martin & Levin; associate fellow, University of Oxford, Saïd Business School; faculty member, Meyler Campbell
[email protected]

Sarah Martin is a founder of the leadership development and executive coaching consultancy, Martin & Levin. She is coach to professionals and executives in international business and works with senior leaders to design and direct development programmes. Her focus is on leadership and women in leadership. Her clients include professional services firms, private equity houses and C-suites.
Sarah originally trained as a lawyer, working in M&A with Allen & Overy and as senior counsel in the chairman’s office of BP. She has 25 years’ experience of business, legal and governance work at board level. Sarah holds an MSc in leadership as a Sloan fellow at London Business School. She is a graduate and faculty member of Meyler Campbell, training leadership coaches, and is an associate fellow at University of Oxford, Saïd Business School.

Moray McLaren
Founder and partner, Lexington Consultants
[email protected]

Moray McLaren has been advising law firms for over 25 years. A lawyer by training, he completed an MBA in legal services before assisting the world s largest law firm on its global expansion. A partner and co-founder at Lexington, today he advises top independent law firms as they review their practice focus, governance, remuneration and ownership models. Moray was the inaugural chair of the strategy working group of the IBA’s Law Firm Management Committee. He is an associate professor at IE Business School in Madrid and a member of the Møller Institute at the University of Cambridge. He recently became a fellow of the Harvard-affiliated Institute of Coaching.

Jonathan Middleburgh
Consultant, principal, Edge Consulting
[email protected]

Jonathan Middleburgh is a consultant to law firms, in-house legal departments and other professional services firms. By background a lawyer, Jonathan graduated with first class honours in law from Oxford University and taught law at the universities of Oxford, Chicago and King’s College London, before embarking on a career at the bar.
After leaving the bar, Jonathan trained as an occupational psychologist and has a wealth of experience nurturing leadership talent in both law firms and legal departments. For several years he was a senior director at Huron Consulting Group, specialising in legal management consulting, and is now a principal of Edge Consulting, an international consultancy focused on the legal sector and professional service firms.
Jonathan has coached numerous lawyers in a wide range of international and domestic (UK) law firms, legal departments and Fortune 500 companies. His coaching focuses primarily on issues around behavioural change. He also has a niche specialisation in resolving entrenched conflict among senior lawyers.

Rebecca Normand-Hochman
Founder and director, Institute of Legal Talent & Leadership
[email protected]

Rebecca Normand-Hochman is a leadership consultant and coach who brings researchbased people management strategies to the legal sector.
Since 2010 she has been working with leaders and partners of international law firms in Europe to help them improve the way in which they select, integrate, develop, engage and retain talent. She also supports partners who are under pressure to develop their teams’ entrepreneurship capabilities and helps them find the right leadership style.
As a former international finance lawyer, Rebecca knows the complex challenges that lawyers face. She has also experienced the specific ‘herding cats’ management and leadership challenges of everyday legal practice.
Combining broad legal and human capital backgrounds and practical experience, she offers consulting and coaching to law firm leaders, leadership teams and partners looking to develop working cultures in which lawyers realise their full potential.
In parallel with her client work, Rebecca is the founder and a director of the Institute of Legal Talent & Leadership, which carries out research and publishes thought leadership on the human and organisational aspects of the practice of law.

Simon Pizzey
Business coach
[email protected]

Simon Pizzey is a business coach who has worked with clients in the legal sector. The focus of his coaching work has been on leadership, personal development and performance.
Simon is a solicitor who began his career specialising in dispute resolution. He then became managing partner of two law firms, providing strategic leadership, managing the businesses and developing lawyers and staff. Simon brings a deep-seated empathetic approach to the coaching relationship and can offer valuable insights. He holds an MBA in legal practice from Nottingham Law School and is a graduate of the Meyler Campbell business coach programme.

Larry Richard
Founder and principal consultant, LawyerBrain LLC
[email protected]

Dr Larry Richard is the founder and CEO of LawyerBrain LLC, a consulting firm that serves premier law firms and corporate legal departments in the areas of leadership, change management, teams and collaboration, talent selection and development, feedback, motivation and lawyer resilience and wellbeing.
Larry is recognised as the leading expert on the psychology of lawyer behaviour. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he was a litigator for ten years before earning his PhD in psychology from Temple University. Since then, he has gathered and analysed personality data on thousands of lawyers and consulted with hundreds of legal providers on a wide range of complex behavioural issues.
Prior to founding LawyerBrain, Larry chaired the leadership and organisation improvement practice at legal specialty consultancy Hildebrandt International for seven years. Before that he was a partner at Altman Weil, another prominent legal consultancy.
Known for his ability to distil cutting-edge scientific principles into actionable recommendations for improving lawyer performance, Larry is a frequent presenter at professional conferences and a sought-after keynote speaker, as well as a highly soughtafter consultant to leaders of law firms and corporate legal departments.

Robert Sharpe
Consultant psychologist
[email protected]

Dr Robert Sharpe manages his own consultancy practice, providing both clinical and coaching services to individual, team and corporate clients in the oil, retail, banking and legal sectors. His 25-year consultancy to Allen & Overy, working with 16 of its global offices in that period, included coaching over 40 senior associates, mostly non-UK nationals, into partnership.
In other sectors, he has worked with Citibank, Marks & Spencer, Unilever, Esso, Mobil and other A-list companies for periods of five to 25 years. He enjoys such long associations, accumulating a depth of knowledge as to how various sectors operate. He has authored four books and numerous chapters and professional papers and is a gifted mathematician, having matriculated in pure mathematics before switching to the mathematics of human thought and behaviour. He says he is lucky to have spent his career doing exactly what he would do if he had to do it all over again.

Tom Spence
Co-founder, Donoma Advisors
[email protected]

Tom Spence is a co-founder of Donoma Advisors, a specialised consultancy firm for the legal sector based in London. He has advised law firms internationally through both management consultancy and talent advisory services for over 10 years, working with clients across four continents. Prior to establishing Donoma Advisors, Tom co-founded another legal sector-focused talent advisory business.
His advisory work centres on helping law firms deliver better results from their talent acquisition and growth strategies, leveraging his consultancy experience in actively assessing how firms can improve their future lateral hiring and integration.
Tom is a chartered management consultant and a member of the Chartered Management Institute, and sits on the London & South East Committee of the Institute of Consulting.

Caroline Vanovermeire
Director, Effra Consult Ltd; Global talent director, Dentsu International
[email protected]

Caroline Vanovermeire has a strong track record in strategic and operational talent management. She has built a reputation for coming up with creative and future-proofed solutions to address complex business challenges whilst remaining pragmatic, efficient and commercial.
Caroline attended the strategic talent management programme at Harvard Business School on the invitation of Professor Boris Groysberg. She is an accredited ICF coach at PCC level and obtained a master’s in psychology from the Catholic University of Leuven and a master’s in HR management from Antwerp University.
She is the founder of Effra Consult, a consortium of best-in-class business, digital, HR, change, innovation and leadership professionals who partner with professionals to achieve the outcomes they need. She is also global talent director at Dentsu International.