Leadership
Will Diversity Tech (Finally) Transform the Future Workplace?
July 31, 2017
By Michelle Silverthorn — (Originally published on June 6, 2017 on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism’s 2Civility website.) Last week I wrote about starting a new diversity and inclusion initiative from scratch. I briefly mentioned the buzziest new term in diversity and inclusion: diversity tech. Diversity tech is what happens when some of the smartest start-up minds
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How Can We End the “Pinkwashing” of Biglaw?
July 16, 2017
By Gemma L. Descoteaux — A quick perusal of the websites for the Am Law 200 law firms shows that big firms are dedicated to the advancement of women. They sponsor women’s events, host gender equality initiatives, and hold large women’s conferences. Yet, when you look behind the website fluff—what I call the “pinkwashing” of
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THE MANSFIELD RULE: Making Leadership More Than a Man’s Field
May 31, 2017
By Patricia K. Gillette — “What if we consider that it is not the women, but the system that needs to be fixed?” Whatever we are doing in law firms to increase gender diversity in positions of economic and institutional power is not working. How do we know that? Simply look at the statistics. The number of
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Confident, Powerful, Effective Networking: An Interview with Kelly Hoey
May 3, 2017
By Stacey Schwartz, Esq., Executive & Career Coach — Raise your hand if you love to network. So how many hands do you see? Anyone? Bueller? Now raise your hand if you like to help people. Raise your hand if you like to share what you know. Raise your hand if you like to support your friends
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Thinking Like a Lawyer Isn’t Enough
February 21, 2015
By Valerie Fontaine – Law school teaches you to think like a lawyer but, to succeed in today’s legal marketplace, you also must think like a businessperson. As the legal profession becomes increasingly business-oriented, successful lawyers need to know more than just law. Business and management skills are essential to advancement, whether you practice in a
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Your Old Guard is Leaving. Are Your New Leaders Ready to Take Over?
October 13, 2014
By Ida Abbott – How is your firm preparing its new leaders? The need to do it is becoming urgent. A NALP study of law firm demographics reports that in 2013 there were 22,861 law firm partners.[1] According to The American Lawyer, about 16% of partners in the 200 top-grossing law firms are 60 years old or
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Lateral Partner ROI
August 24, 2014
By Sang Lee – At the request of a particular law firm’s managing partner, I recently interviewed several partners who had joined his firm laterally within the last 12 months. The interview goals included, among others, the identification of strengths and weaknesses (oops, insert “areas for development” here) in the firm’s “thoughtfully conceived” and freshly launched
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Why More of Your Women Lawyers Aren’t Leaders
August 18, 2014
By Ellen Ostrow – People in law firms and legal departments keep telling me that they wish they had more women lawyers in leadership but they can’t find enough interested women. When I ask them what they are doing to develop the talent of their women, they tout their training programs: “We have four sessions of
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Developing Effective Leaders
July 31, 2014
By David Freeman – If there’s one thing I’ve learned having trained and coached thousands of lawyers for over two decades, it’s that implementing new initiatives requires engaged and proactive leadership. This begs the question – how do we get leaders to act in a more engaged and proactive fashion? The following describes three key
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