Training
We are well placed to provide crucial training for your managers, partners and employees in the following areas:
- Appraisal Schemes
- Leadership for Law Firms
- Lexcel Workshop
- Marketing Workshop
- Partner Induction
- Risk Management
- 21st Century Time Management
- Combating Money Laundering
- Avoiding Discrimination & Achieving Diversity
Our courses are all designed to be delivered in-house, providing consistent, cost-effective training geared to meeting your particular requirements. For further information about any courses listed, or to discuss your firm's bespoke training needs, please contact Matthew Moore.
In most firms the appraisal system is a vital element of staff retention and development. Partner appraisal schemes are also becoming more commonplace.
Objectives
- Review the general operation of performance appraisals
- Rehearse the application of the firm's scheme
Contents
- The nature of appraisals
- What should we expect from appraisals?
- What goes wrong in appraisals?
- Conducting the interview
- Styles of interviews
- Tell and sell
- Tell and listen
- Joint problem-solving
- Some practical considerations: stage management
- Conveying bad news: the need for self appraisal
- The operation of the firm's scheme
- Review of paperwork and procedures
- Practical exercises
- The coaster who could do better
- The under-performer
- Conclusions and future action
Specialist advice on the operation of partner appraisal and reward schemes is also available.
The need for effective leadership of law firms has never been greater. Greater competition from within the profession and, increasingly, from without means that law firms have to function at least as well as any other business.
Partners, however, are fee earners first and managers second. Many are now judged on responsibilities that they are not trained to perform.
Objectives
- Examine the need for leadership as a core element of supervision
- Provide specific guidance on how leadership skills can be developed and made effective
Contents
This workshop course analyses what is understood by leadership and lists the skills of the effective supervisor. This training works particularly well on an in-house basis as it enables delegates to confront issues of leadership relevant to their role within the firm.
All Web4Law presenters have extensive experience of law firm management consultancy and training.
- How not to manage a law firm
- Tasks and responsibilities
- The qualities required
- Management - art or science?
- What good leaders do
- Effective delegation
- Supervision - tools and techniques
- Coaching and review
Many of the elements of this course have been delivered at partnership weekends. Weekend bookings are welcome.
Whether your firm is actively considering a programme leading to an assessment under Lexcel or merely considering doing so, this course will assist. Benefit from the expertise of one of our speakers on any of the wide range of practical issues that will need to be addressed.
Objectives
- Explain the requirements of the Lexcel standard and the management of the scheme.
- Show the interaction of quality standards for law firms
Contents
- What is Lexcel and where does it come from?
- The meaning of 'Quality'
- Relationships with other standards
- The application process: how to get going
- The guidelines for assessors
- Case and file management provisions
- Review of risk management procedures under Lexcel
- Case Study examples on risk and file management
- Supervision and Risk Management
- Business Plans and Marketing
- Financial Management
- People Management
- Practical suggestions for implementation
- Developments in the scheme
For firms already advanced in a Lexcel programme, specialist implementation training for partners and staff, working in the firm's own manual references, is also available.
Rejuvenate your firm's understanding of and commitment to marketing with this highly practical marketing workshop. The emphasis is on the practical application of marketing principles to the firm. If your marketing is in the doldrums, this course is for you.
Objectives
- Gain greater focus on marketing within the practice and ensure better co-ordination of efforts.
- Reduce wasted time on marketing and improve its cost-effectiveness.
Contents
- Introduction: objectives: issues the firm faces: strategic considerations
- The background to marketing: the marketing concept, the marketing mix
- The role of client care in marketing:
- The management of marketing:
- objectives
- promotion
- budget
- Application of marketing management principles to each department/practice group and conclusions (discussion session)
- Marketing management systems: exchange of internal information and databases
This session can be adapted to include networking skills and personal presentation if required.
An increasing number of firms assist incoming partners with specific in-house training on how their role will change. Programmes are planned around the specific interests of the firm but would typically include some of the following contents.
Objectives
Of all the courses in our portfolio this is the one that varies the most between different firms. The contents of this session will vary according to the contents of any prior management training within the firm, the profile of the practice and the training needs of delegates. Typically a firm will wish to assist delegates with their change of roles by covering some of the following:
Contents
- The role of partner: what is expected?
- Handling role change
- How to supervise: qualities of the effective supervisor, supervisory styles, being organised to supervise others
- Supervisory style questionnaire
- Delegation: difficulties and practical steps to delegate effectively
- Understanding teamwork: advantages and disadvantages
- Understanding my personal contribution to teams
- Networking and marketing: structures and skills
Failures in administration and service delivery tend to lead to most complaints and claims against solicitors. Only a small proportion of professional negligence claims arise as a result of inadequate legal knowledge.
In addition to lack of proper systems and poor quality training, many mistakes stem from the attitudes, values and beliefs from within the practice itself - in short, its culture. Both a tightening of controls and a change in culture are fundamental to ensuring the future survival and success of many practices.
Following the move to the commercial insurance market in September 2000, each practice is being held accountable for its own claims experience. Winners are those practices who not only have in place good systems and procedures to control their exposure to operational risk, but can also prove those systems and procedures are working effectively.
Objectives
This course introduces the key principles of risk management and sets out how Lexcel and other quality standards can help provide practices with a framework to put systems and procedures in place that will help you to reduce mistakes and manage risk.
Contents
- Risk assessment and management responsibility
- Understanding risk in law firm processes
- Key safeguards against negligence: file and case procedures
- File reviews, auditing and checks
- Action plan
Many traditional time management courses fail to address the realities of fee earning in today's law firm. The familiar advice to plan and prioritise are all well and good, but if they ignore the computer functions that increasingly shape the working day they will prove largely impracticable.
This new course harnesses the best experience of law firm time management with Web4Law's expertise in computer training. The result is a highly relevant analysis of how any fee earner can optimise their working routine and their impact within the firm. Delegates will benefit from the improvement of their routine and will learn how to meet client demands and manage stress.
Objectives
Examine how traditional time management techniques can be made to work in law firms, with a review option for personal organisation with and without computer support. This module also considers stress reduction strategies.
Contents
Firms will gain advantage from the specific advice on time capture that form part of this course.
- bases of time management
- personal techniques
- importance of routine
- diary and planner systems
- e-mails
- capture: finding the lost 500 hours
- the billing double-whammy
- stress
The materials include discussion exercises and questionnaires, ensuring a lively and enjoyable day. The emphasis is on the changes that will be made in the firm as a result of the course.
The Money Laundering Regulations 2007 require all solicitors’ firms subject to its provisions to conduct a risk assessment on their exposure to money laundering and terrorist financing activity, and to be able to demonstrate to their supervisory body that they have done so. The firm then needs to conduct risk-based identity checking procedures on all matters in accordance with its procedures.
All staff need to be trained in respect of the new regime. Failure to train personnel amounts to an offence, punishable by a maximum of 2 years' imprisonment and/or a fine.
The Web4Law Money Laundering Training Initiative provides:
- a detailed in-house training session, suitable for fee earners and senior managers, delivered by one of our expert speakers, and counting for 2 hours of CPD
- accompanied by comprehensive training notes,
- shorter (1 hour) sessions for secretaries and administration staff
- draft procedures for consideration and adoption by the firm, available in e-format if required
- condensed training notes for use within the firm by managers or heads of department for other support and administrative staff
Cost
| For one fee earner session, morning or afternoon | £800 |
| For one fee earner and one support staff session | £900 |
| For two fee earner sessions on the same day | £1200 |
| For two fee earner sessions on the same day with one support staff session | £1300 |
| For three sessions on the same day or 2 fee earner and 2 support staff | £1600 |
Prices do not include travel and VAT. The maximum group size is 35. The notes are licensed for use in your law firm only. If you wish to purchase the course notes only, in e-format, the price is £150 (VAT exempt).
Please contact Matthew Moore to book this course for your practice or to purchase the course notes.
Please see also details of our MLRO Compliance Manual and Combating Money Laundering Training CD.
Avoiding Discrimination & Achieving Diversity
With recent legislation focusing the mind on the issue of age discrimination, this new course from Web4Law could not be more timely. Carrying 3 hours of CPD, it consists of an inter-active session for partners and managers which examines the risks posed by discrimination provisions, and the actions needed to achieve diversity. Contents include:
- Discrimination questionnaire - risks in employment, training and career development and promotion to partnership
- Client service and the instruction of outside advisers - is discrimination ever permissible?
- Positive action and positive discrimination - what's the difference?
- The need for management procedures and monitoring
- Partnership management and age awareness - does experience equate with age?
Please contact Matthew Moore for further details.