When I coached lawyers in a firm, I told the managing partners that it is incredibly important to select the right lawyers for the coaching program. I said:

I can’t motivate the unmotivated.

I also said:

The lawyers in your firm who will get the most out of coaching are those lawyers who you believe don’t need coaching

I knew that from my own personal experience. In one well-known firm I coached the first group of lawyers and they did incredibly well. The second group of lawyers also did very well For the third group the firm reached out to practice group leaders and office managing partners  to identify the lawyers they believed most “needed” coaching. It was by far the worst experience I had coaching, and was the last group of lawyers I coached with that firm.

I would not recommend coaching these young lawyers in your firm:

  • Lawyers who believe they just have to do good work to attract clients
  • Lawyers who think they are too young, too inexperienced or any other too…to attract clients
  • Lawyers who have no interest in developing their own book of business
  • Lawyers who are content with their client development success
  • Lawyers who believe client development is a God given talent and cannot be learned and developed
  • Lawyers who claim to be too busy to do client development
  • Lawyers who just want to work on a senior’s lawyer’s clients
  • Lawyers who are not open to new ideas
  • Lawyers who believe you have to be an extravert or go to networking events to attract clients
  • Lawyers who believe the only way to attract clients is to do it the way his or her senior lawyer did it
  • Lawyers who say “My problem is…,” “I can’t…,” “Yes, but…”