The following article originally appeared in the L.A. Daily Journal on Feb. 4, 2000.

Lawyers Find Success in Hiring Coach

By Ashby Jones

SEATTLE--Many lawyers would readily acknowledge that being a successful attorney often amounts to an ability to sail smoothly through a never-ending stream of professional and personal conflicts.

Such problems and disputes can be numerous and relentless: with opposing counsel, clients, judges, mediators, peers and superiors.  Even with family members who resent that many weekends are spent in the office.

How to prevail in such situations--and become well liked by peers, gain respect among judges, develop a steady source of clients and balance work and family--are lessons not taught in law school or at the firm.  Many would doubt if such intangible skills are teachable at all.

But an increasing number of lawyers would disagree.  They have hired high-end professional coaches to help them navigate the profession's trickiest waters: increasing community visibility, expanding practice areas, improving on-the-job efficiency, even helping solve personal problems.

These coaches may be fellow lawyers or come from other fields, such as psychiatry or market consulting.  Their advice doesn't come cheap.  Some receive fees of up to $450 an hour.  But in the opinion of some Seattle lawyers, their kind of coaching works and will only become more common in the years to come.

"I wouldn't be half as far along as I am without my coach," said a partner in a medium-size Seattle firm, who hired a coach to help her expand a fledgling practice area.

"I've landed a long list of clients simply because I hired a coach," said the partner, who declined to be quoted by name.

"My coach has saved my life," added an associate in another midium-size Seattle firm.  "I tell everyone I know to run out and get one.  There's no doubt in my mind that coaching for lawyers is here to stay."

It's a bold prediction for a profession that is notoriously slow to jump on popular bandwagons, including those that have already gained solid toeholds in the corporate world or other professional communities.

Nevertheless, the demand for professionals who can act as part business consultant, part therapist, part friend and part downright nag to an attorney looking to overcome any of a number of professional issues is definitely on an upswing.

"Business is very good," said Mary Jane Pioli, a Seattle-based marketing consultant who serves as coach to several lawyers.  "A lot of attorneys are looking for that little boost in their practice that someone from the outside can help bring along."

"The legal world has definitely become more open to this in recent years," added Daneen Skube, an Issaquah-based coach and licensed psychotherapist.

Skube explained that is has become more acceptable for successful attorneys to admit ignorance, weakness or even a resistance to change.  "A lot of attorneys have to choose between, on the one hand, retaining their pride and failing and, on the other, confessing they don't know everything and beginning a learning process."

Most coach-attorney relationships begin like this: An attorney identifies a job-related issue that either might seem too large for that attorney to tackle alone--switching practice groups, making an early push to develop clients, changing firms--or a delicate personal issue whose handling calls for discretion and confidentiality--for example, dealing with a difficult partner, overcoming a fear of public speaking, or hurdling some other psychological barrier inhibiting professional growth.

For the most part, coaches are willing to tackle any problem an attorney views as a hindrance to his or her practice.

"It can be a bit tricky because you don't want to become thought of as their therapist," says Maryel Duzan, another Seattle-based legal consultant and coach.  "At the same time, developing a certain level of intimacy is unavoidable in some circumstances."

For instance, Duzan once delved into a client's romantic life.

"It wasn't really something I expected to do," she said.  "But it was a partner who had become a widower about a year before and was really upset over the fact that he really didn't know how to meet or talk to other women.  It was affecting his practice.  So it was something we worked on."

While literally anything from the bizarre to the sublime is liable to come up, lawyers generally ask for coaching on interpersonal skills during one of three stages, according to Skube.

The first typically occurs after a couple years of practice when an attorney realizes that managing interpersonal relationships is as vital to a practice as hard work and clear, logical thinking.  "If young lawyers don't start managing relationships in the beginning, they'll go nowhere," she said.

The second, according to Skube, occurs a few years later when attorneys succumb to the "pressure to focus on short-term competitive gains," and thereby "completely lose sight of the long-term consequences of interpersonal decisions."  It is in this stage of Skube's paradigm that lawyers can become overloaded with work and develop low levels of hostility which only serve to "make enemies" and "distance everyone they interact with."

The third stage happens when senior practitioners "get stuck in jealousy and envy of their colleagues who have done better or more."  These lawyers, according to Skube, begin to feel "trapped" by their own interpersonal shortcomings.  Skube's prescription lies in "realizing instead that envy or jealousy are simply signposts for what someone can have," and "speak directly to what someone is capable of having."

The relationships that Skube and others enter into generally begin with either a phone call from an attorney or a referral from someone else at the firm.  A one-on-one session is then set up in which the problem is discussed and a concrete plan is developed.  This initial session is followed up with periodic phone checkups and less frequent face-to-face meetings.

"The phone calls and meetings help keep the lawyers accountable to the plans they established," Piolli said.  "If goals aren't reached, we talk about why they weren't and what they need to do to reach them."

The attorneys generally view the checkups as necessary doses of medicine.  "She gently nags me," the associate at the mid-size firm said.  "She makes sure I'm spending time every week working on client development.  It may sound like regimen, but it's not--it's definitely gotten me much closer to where I set out to go."

"My coach is definitely a kind of enforcer," added the partner.  "But it's the type of attention I've needed to push things along.  It's been wonderful."

Coaches rarely put time frames on their relationships; some last a few weeks while other endure for several months.  Most say the duration of the engagement is dictated by the client--by how closely the plan is being followed, how complicated the issue is and how much time the client is willing to spend working on the goal.

"Inevitably there are breakdowns and breakthroughs," Pioli said.  "But the breakdowns are sometimes helpful in redirecting the focus of the plan or in instructing why something isn't working.  Of course, the goal is always to have more breakthroughs than breakdowns and ultimately to get to the other side."

While most were in favor of the notion of coaching, some detractors are put off by the cost.  Face-to-face hour-long sessions routinely run in the $200 range but can run as high as $450.

"At first, some lawyers find the fee fairly steep," Duzan confessed.  "But, like many other professional services, the returns can be enormous.  If a coach can help you land a handful of clients, it's a snap to recoup your investment.

But will the idea stick?  While some view it as nothing more than a passing fad, others believe that law firm culture has reached a point where it can embrace trends that 10 years ago it might have dismissed as being for the weak, stupid or undisciplined.

"I think law firm culture is beginning to realize that emotional intelligence is more important than book smarts or a simply ability to put one's nose to the grindstone," Skube said.  "No matter how competent you are retaining clients, projecting confidence to a jury, or developing cooperative relationships with your co-workers, you've got to have solid support networks and highly developed interpersonal skills."

"Those who don't develop an interpersonal edge are much less likely to succed than those who do."

Copyright 2000 Daily Journal Corp.  Posted with permission.  This file cannot be downloaded from this page.