While describing an assessment I often use to a lawyer-client, I mentioned that it provides feedback about one’s natural tendencies and those tendences as adapted to work, explaining that almost everyone wears a “mask” of some sort at work. “You got that right,” my client chuckled wryly. We went on...

I’ve been doing a lot of speaking and coaching lately on business development, and someone asked a great question: what are the top obstacles to rainmaking success? I’ve identified three universal challenges. Do any of these sound uncomfortably familiar to you? 1. “I don’t know what to do.” There’s so...

One of the ways that I describe the work I do is “professional and personal coaching for lawyers.” Although I occasionally do what amounts to life coaching for someone who happens to be a lawyer, my passion lies in helping lawyers develop their professional lives, which often relates in some...

Leaders are better rainmakers. Bold statement, isn’t it? But think about it. Would you easily place your trust in someone who manages a team of worker bees who don’t make much individual contribution - knowing that if the manager goes down, the team will at best miss a few beats?...

Let me start boldly: I believe that the single most important pedagogic development since I entered law school (nearly 40 years ago) has been the creation of online distance learning programs as part of the law school curriculum. 1 I have been offering online courses as part of New York...

In mediating conflicts, it helps to understand the five styles of dispute resolution most often used by negotiators. Often, the various styles need a mediator to buffer the interactions and turn a toxic negotiating atmosphere into a successful mediation. The five methods of negotiation are: Attack or fight. This type...

Introduction Two hypotheticals: 1 -- You, as a mediator in a personal injury case, are in a separate caucus and one side's representative comments that they have no authority and are at the mediation purely to see how low the other side will go. 2 -- You, as a mediator...

Is there a simple and elegant way of building and transforming an organizations' culture? I wonder about this question when I repeatedly hear the phrase 'cultural change' as the goal for an organizational strategic initiative. An organization's culture includes the social and behavioral actions and experiences like: the way work...

A Challenging Time for Organizations The capacity of technology is far greater than what most of us need. Regulation is way behind trying to catch up to the reality of actual practice. This is true with technology, the internet, patents, biotechnology, finance, utilities, mergers etc., etc., etc....! Many people are...

The following article is adapted from "Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict into Collaboration" recently named one of the 30 Best Business Books of 1998. It suggests a new paradigm for the legal profession - a calling noble in its tradition, but troubled it it's current identity, and high level of...

Crafting effective agreements is an elegant way of arriving at a shared vision, either as the final step of resolving conflict, or at the beginning of a new project, transaction or relationship. When you think about "agreements," you probably think of difficult negotiations, and long legal documents. Your focus goes...