Lawyers as Coaches and Consultants
Lawyers have a long tradition of being “counselors at law” and some of the emerging models focus on counseling or coaching.
Some integrative lawyers have found that the skills of a professional coach make them more effective, not less, as lawyers. The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking, creative process that inspires them to maximize their own potential — honoring the client as the expert in their own life, trusting that every client is creative, resourceful, and whole. A lawyer-coach’s job, in that model, is to discover and clarify what the client wants, encourage self-discovery, draw out client-generated solutions, and hold the client accountable — rather than simply handing down advice from on high.
Coaching runs in more than one direction. Many lawyers first meet it from the client’s chair, working with a coach to sort out what they want from their practice, how to handle stress and conflict, or how to lead a team. Being coached is often what opens the door: once a lawyer has felt what it is like to be listened to deeply and asked a question that changes how they see a problem, they start bringing those skills back to their own clients. Some go further and train as coaches themselves. A few leave practice to coach full time, but many stay in the law and weave coaching into the work they already do.
California attorney Philip Daunt calls his version of this the Coach Approach to the Practice of Law: working collaboratively with clients to help them transform legal problems into opportunities for personal growth. Daunt’s toolbox of distinctions includes the difference between perception and reality, between affixing blame and accepting responsibility, and between a domination paradigm and a partnership paradigm — helping clients recognize which of their own beliefs are disempowering them, and which choices are within their control. Learning to distinguish blame from responsibility, Daunt has found, frees clients to explore creative solutions and focus their energy on what can be changed.
Lawyers as Coaches and Consultants
I came to the conclusion that lawyers had the potential to be conflict healers.
Lawyers as Coaches and Consultants and Videos
Dennis Coyne is a lawyer and coach in Minneapolis.
Conflict coaching is a related but distinct discipline: a one-on-one process, developed by practitioners like Cinnie Noble of Cinergy Coaching, that helps individuals build their own skills for navigating interpersonal conflict — whether as preparation before a mediation or collaborative-law meeting, or as a way to process what comes after one. Both models reflect the same underlying shift: from the lawyer as the sole expert who delivers an answer, to the lawyer as a trained guide who helps a client find clarity and grow through the experience of solving a legal problem.
Conflict Coaching may be used instead of, or in tandem with, mediation and other ADR processes. In addition to helping individuals improve their conflict management skills in any context, some other applications of conflict coaching include:
- as a pre-mediation or pre-other ADR process to help individuals anticipate and prepare for any challenges and to effectively participate in the process;
- to prepare clients to actively and effectively participate in collaborative law meetings;
- as a post-mediation or post-other ADR process to help individuals with the aftermath of any unresolved matters and ways to manage ongoing interactions;
- to help managers, supervisors and others focus on aspects of their conflict conduct requiring improvement;
- to help people enhance their negotiation skills;
- as an integral part of conflict management training, to provide individualized ongoing assistance with participants’ specific challenges; and,
- to facilitate self-reflective practice of conflict management professionals and others who work in any capacity with people in conflict.
Conflict coaching has gained attention and respect in workplace settings. For example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, initiated the development of an Integrated Conflict Management System in 2003, A Conflict Management Coaching Program was an integral component of the system.