The Transition Nobody Trains You For
The skills that make someone an excellent lawyer aren’t the same skills required to lead a team, develop talent, or shape a practice group’s strategy. That transition is real, and most lawyers navigate it without support.
It isn’t a lack of ability. Firms reward billable production while expecting leadership capacity, and the second thing rarely gets protected time.
The hardest version of it is leading peers: people who did not choose you, and some of whom wanted the role. Coaching creates protected time to work on that, every two to three weeks, with someone who practiced at Arnold & Porter first.
This is a wonderful program that provides beneficial tools which enhance you both professionally and personally. I came away with a completely new way to think about and perceive challenging situations.
Cheryl Murray, Partner, Katten
What We Focus On
Most of the work lands in these five areas.
Strategic Clarity
- Thinking past the matter in front of you
- Deciding what your practice is actually for, and what to stop doing
- Making decisions with incomplete information
Communication That Lands
- Feedback people can act on rather than absorb and resent
- The difficult conversations that keep getting postponed
- Presence and credibility in partner meetings and client pitches
Trust and Delegation
- Delegating effectively, including work you could do faster yourself
- Building enough trust that people flag problems early
- Holding people accountable without damaging the relationship
Client Relationships
- Client relationships that hold up over years and outlast a single matter
- Becoming the person a client calls before there is a problem
- Trust across a team, so work can be handed off without the client noticing
Relationship and trust work, not sales training. Pitch coaching and pipeline mechanics are a different specialty.
Sustaining High Performance
- What the research says about how high performers sustain it
- Recovery and attention as performance inputs, not perks
- Building a practice that still works in ten years
How the Engagement Runs
Goals are set at the start, in your words, and reviewed at the midpoint and the end. Where the firm is paying, the reporting boundaries are agreed in writing first.
This tends to work well when
- You are a partner, counsel, or practice group leader, or a senior associate deciding whether you want partnership and on what terms
- There is something specific you want to change, even loosely defined
- You are willing to practice between sessions, not just discuss
- You want candid feedback rather than reassurance
Probably not the right fit if
- You are looking for a consultant to tell you what to do
- You want job search support, or sales and pitch training
- Someone else decided you need coaching and you disagree
- What you need is clinical support, which is a different discipline
Client relationships and stepping into firm leadership are a particular focus for the women lawyers Tara coaches.
Coaching for women lawyers →Why a Former Lawyer
Tara practiced in the tax group at Arnold & Porter, then went back to school for a masters in applied psychology at Penn and trained in leadership and performance coaching at Brown. She is an ICF-accredited coach.
Practically, it means the context doesn’t need explaining. Origination credit, partnership economics, how work actually gets assigned. The engagement starts from the problem rather than the background.
It also means the work is not rehabilitative. Tara coaches high performers who want to change something specific that is holding them back. The starting assumption is that you are good at the job.
Common Questions
Can I hire you myself, or does it have to go through my firm?
You can engage directly. Plenty of lawyers do, either paying themselves or using a firm coaching benefit they already have. If your firm has a benefit, it is worth asking your talent or professional development contact what it covers. It is often more than partners assume, and it frequently goes unused.
If the firm is paying, we will agree up front what gets reported back. Normally that is limited to whether sessions happened and whether the goals set at the start were met. The content of the sessions is not reported.
How long does this take, and how often do we meet?
Six to twelve months, usually every two or three weeks, sometimes more often at the start. A shorter engagement rarely gives a new habit time to survive a genuinely busy stretch, which is the only real test of whether it held.
I bill a lot of hours. Realistically, how much time is this?
About an hour every two to three weeks, plus whatever you choose to do between sessions. Sessions are virtual and scheduled around your calendar. When a trial or a closing takes over a month, we move things. That is expected and planned for.
What actually happens in a session?
We work on something live: a difficult conversation, a team that isn’t performing, a pitch that keeps getting postponed, a decision about your practice. You leave with something specific to try, and the next session starts with what happened when you tried it.
It is not therapy and it is not instruction. The research is there when it is useful.
Is this confidential?
Yes. Coaching conversations are confidential, and where a firm is paying, the reporting boundaries get set in writing before we start so there is no ambiguity later.
How do I know whether it worked?
We set two or three specific development goals at the start, in your words, and agree then how we will know whether they moved, so there is a measure rather than an impression. Both get checked at the midpoint and the end. If it isn’t working, we say so and change course.
What if we are not a good fit?
That is part of what the first call is for. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you, and point you to someone who is. That includes the case where what you actually want is sales or pitch coaching, which is not what this is.
Start With a Conversation
Book a 30-minute call. Tara would like to hear what you’re working on.
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