People feel comfortable with others who are like them. So, when you are being interviewed by potential clients or employers, you should try to fit in as much as possible–not only by using appropriate acronyms, jargon and technical lingo, but also by matching the other person’s pace and inflection.
If you are not a native speaker of the language in which you are being interviewed, polish your language skills ahead of time. Listening to sophisticated television broadcasters during news shows is a good way to get a feel for the parlance. The vocabulary will also be more professional and the news topics more familiar than with non-news shows.
In an effort to sound more American and fit in, some expatriates in the US are going so far as to get professional “accent reduction” according to last week’s International Herald Tribune. Believe it or not, those with particularly heavy accents are even flying to Michigan to attend the Accent Reduction Institute. This blogger can think of some native Americans who would benefit from some of that training!
A few weeks ago Barry Barnett, a Susman Godfrey partner, invited me to train the firm’s Dallas-based lawyers about Rainmaking Basics in a Global Economy. I’ve known Barry for almost two decades. Besides being incredibly bright, he’s also quite funny.
Barry uses this humor to great advantage in his Barnett’s Notes on Commercial Litigation (winner of the 2006 Advocatus Diaboli Grand Prize) and his Blawgletter: Business Trial Law with a Sense of Humor. His often iconoclastic humor lets him address touchy subjects–like the firing of Don Imus (who he aptly renamed Don Slimus) and the troubles of Alberto Gonzales–without risk of offending…too much.
An advantage of this approach? Readers (including potential clients and referral sources) enjoy–and actually read–his blog and newsletter. His posts have even captured the attention of the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog.
The witty Blawgletter and Barnett’s Notes also help to “brand” Barry as a likable person and a very clever thinker–just the kind of guy you would want representing you in a lawsuit. They also strengthen Susman Godfrey’s brand as a firm that hires original thinkers and encourages autonomy. Not every law firm would allow one of its lawyers to make a name for himself in such a non-traditional way.
Because Barry peppers his posts with links to his firm’s website, he also improves the site’s ever-important search engine optimization. (For more lawyer blogger success stories, check out Kevin O’Keefe’s regular blog category on this topic: http://kevin.lexblog.com/lawyer-blog-success-stories/)
Ending on a personal note, this blogger was happy to read that Barry and his colleagues “raved” about the Rainmaking Basics in a Global Economy training. Thanks Barry!
Why do lawyers hire coach? Often, lawyers work with a coach to exceed their prior performance; in other words, they want to develop strategies for bringing in more clients, making partner or getting promoted, becoming a leader within their law firm or field and the like. Sometimes lawyers hire a coach to help them figure out a career change within or outside the law.
Regardless of the reason for hiring a coach, lawyers rely on their coaches to be an objective, third party sounding board. In other words, coaches become “truth speakers,” as Harvard Business School professor Thomas DeLong says.
Paul Michelman quotes Professor DeLong in his article titled What an Executive Coach Can Do for You. The article explores some of the reasons why professionals turn to executive coaches. Many professionals seek coaching to get one-on-one focused attention from an unbiased sounding board/mentor/guide/cheerleader–especially in times of great change or stress. Often, the professional can’t get such unbiased feedback within the professional’s own organization or from family or friends.
And, as Michelman notes, underperforming professionals are not necessarily the ones seeking executive coaching; in fact, top performing professionals are increasingly seeking coaches to help them reach the next career level. What an Executive Coach Can Do for You is available free of charge through the Harvard Business School Archive.
As reported in today’s TheLawyer.com, the London-based associates at Freshfields have published a wish list of topics they want to learn more about during an upcoming associate conference: “work-life balance, reward packages, appraisals, career path, training, knowledge management and business development.”
And the partners are listening. Partner High Crisp was quoted as saying that the firm wants “a happy, motivated group of lawyers”. According to Crisp,the firm is mindful about reducing attrition (which is supposedly already quite low at Freshfields), but recognizes that good partner-associate communication is “also about how the place feels.”
As the associates’ wish list shows, lawyers of all levels are hungering for the same things including: more training on business development and other “soft skills”–and work-life balance. It’s not just true in the US, but also across the Pond.
So says British Lawyers.com in a recent article called Train and Gain. The article explains that offering lawyer training–especially in the soft skills–helps in-house legal departments attract and retain top talent. It cites a recent British Law Society study showing that in-house lawyers are clamoring for soft skills training to advance careers, especially on topics like client communication, managing external law firms to get the best value, and handling company cost-cutting. Given that competition is fierce for good in-house legal talent, employers wanting to stay competitive should supply it.
