Conduct, confidence and communication - training for law firm trainees
Objective
To help you develop the knowledge, confidence and skills you need to conduct yourself in the most appropriate, professional and effective way at work.
Approach
An interactive half-day workshop for graduates. Practical activities, role-plays, group discussion and technical instruction. You will develop strategies designed to help you enhance your personal reputation and to interact successfully with colleagues at all levels of seniority in the firm.
Content – what the training will cover
Welcome, objectives and agenda for the day. Agreeing how we will work together.
The good news. Clear statement of what each participant has achieved by becoming part of your firm.
Reality check. Making the transition from academia to the world of work. The firm hierarchy. Nature of the environment you are working in – highly interdependent, fast-moving, goal and task orientated, pressured. The culture of the firm and of the profession. The implications of the commitment the firm makes to excellence.
Expectations. Achieving clarity on what is – and is not – expected from you as a trainee. The myth of infallibility. Being pro-active. Taking the initiative. Making choices and forming your own view.
Embarking on the journey. The analogy with exploring uncharted territory. Planning for the expedition. ‘Here be dragons’ – myths and legends about life in professional services. Ensuring that you are fully equipped and well prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.
The three circle model – qualities, skills and conduct. Overview of how the model works. Detailed exploration of each of the three circles. Agreeing how we can work ‘from the inside out’ – on our personal qualities; and ‘from the outside in’ – on our conduct and skills.
Qualities. The starting point. Group discussion of the personal qualities needed to thrive as a professional in an international firm. Courage, tenacity, stamina, resilience, determination. Your relationship with yourself. The importance of self awareness, knowledge, belief, reliance and confidence. How to use the qualities you have at work.
Skills. Looking beyond technical and professional skills. Communication and interpersonal skills. Handling pressure. Dealing with other people’s behaviour. Assertiveness. Managing conflict.
Conduct. The unavoidable visibility of behaviour. The people around us can always see the way we conduct ourselves. Taking charge of the way we behave. Going beyond the reactive and taking charge of our own choices.
Practical activities. Using the model in practice. We now explore a number of scenarios at work. To achieve the best result in each scenario we will need to call on different qualities, to use different skills and to conduct ourselves in different ways. We will research the scenarios with you. They could include:
- Being told by a senior consultant at 6.00pm to photocopy six boxes of documents in preparation for a breakfast meeting the next day
- Feeling that you are not being given a fair allocation of the work in your team – or that you are not being given tasks that enable you to increase your knowledge or improve your skills
- Delegating work to secretaries and to other trainees
- Being confronted with very challenging behaviour – a senior consultant being aggressive or stressed, talking a call from a client who is unhappy with some aspect of the firm’s work
- Coping with feedback – both positive and negative. Asking for more when you feel you have not had sufficient feedback
- Having difficult conversations – about issues of behaviour or workload
- Responding to unreasonable demands or deadlines that cannot be met
- Interacting with clients – on conference calls, at meetings etc.
We run each role-play and look in detail at the three dimensions of the model – qualities, skills and conduct. In each scenario we explore how to respond in the most appropriate, professional and appropriate way.
Action planning. Practical advice on transferring the learning to the workplace.