Accelerated Leadership Program: Transition from Lawyer to Leader

The Accelerated Leadership Program: Transition from Lawyer to Leader is an intensive, four-day program designed to empower emerging legal leaders with the concepts and tools they need to effectively lead teams, influence strategy, and support clients in today’s ever-changing, global landscape. The program prepares participants to:

• Identify and apply personal leadership strategies to better balance responsibilities as a leader with elevated responsibility.
• Build team leadership skills, including motivating and engaging their teams more successfully.
• Develop stronger client and stakeholder relationships by more effectively collaborating with, managing, and supporting them to contribute long-term success for their business objectives.
• Understand key business concepts to influence and drive strategy at their organization.

The Learning Model

Case studies, lectures, classroom discussions, hands-on exercises, and small group discussions focused on legal teams and departments, organizations, and the industry will let participants analyze and understand what behaviors lead to sustained success and effective leadership.

The sessions will help participants work through a range of approaches to the issues that confront aspiring leaders with growing responsibilities in legal organizations. Participants will learn, reflect on, and discuss effective leadership in the face of real-life challenges in a professional service setting.

Participants in the program will develop a practical understanding of critical business and leadership frameworks and how they can be applied effectively in a challenging market.

Key Concepts:

• Personal leadership: How to have more impact as a leader by building self-awareness and a deeper understanding of how to work across differences more effectively.
• People and team leadership: How to develop, motivate, and manage people and teams more effectively, and understand and apply research-based recommendations for achieving organizational and team buy-in.
• Practice leadership: How to analyze and develop business unit strategy, build and drive internal collaboration, and develop a keen awareness of the critical levers for building a thriving practice.
• Client leadership: How to deepen and broaden client and stakeholder relationships and communicate more effectively with clients and stakeholders about value, pricing, and collaboration.

Who Should Attend?

The Accelerated Leadership Program is tailored for new to mid-level partners of law firms of any size, emerging in-house leaders, and aspiring business professionals in the legal industry.

Participants in this program typically manage or oversee other lawyers and/or professionals in their current role and may have firmwide or office/regional responsibilities.

Class size is small and we encourage diversity of participants, drawing from different geographies, backgrounds, practice areas, and firms.

Visit the Admissions page for information on the process.

Our core faculty are members of the Harvard Law School faculty – distinguished academicians, educators, researchers, authors, and practitioners in their respective fields. Representing various disciplines, they are close to practice through relationships with law firm leaders and through personal involvement as consultants for top firms around the world.

Teaching Team

Carrie Fletcher, London Business School Leadership Institute – Program Co-chair

Kevin Doolan, Strategy Four

Ashish Nanda, Harvard Business School

Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard Business School

Scott Westfahl, Harvard Law School, Faculty Co-chair

David Wilkins, Harvard Law School