Confidential coaching for law firm partners navigating difficult colleagues, partnership politics and high-stakes career decisions.
Based in Melbourne, working across Australia and internationally.
Award-winning PhD • 25+ years advising senior leaders • Published author • Conference speaker
“The client is God”. A former managing partner of Allens said that in 2005. It still resonates.
You know the cost of this culture. The impossible hours. The expectation that you’re always available. The difficulty of saying no to a partner, a client or a piece of work without career consequences.
Add to this the internal politics of partnership. Competing for work, managing difficult colleagues, navigating power dynamics, protecting your practice while being seen as a team player.
By the time you reach out, you have usually been dealing with the situation for a while. You may have tried different ways of handling a difficult partner, an untenable client relationship or your uncertainty about your place in the partnership.
What you need is somewhere confidential to work out what is actually happening, what matters most and what you want to do next.
This work gives you a place to read those situations accurately, so you can:
work out whether staying or leaving is right for you
handle difficult partners or colleagues without absorbing the political fallout
set limits with clients or within the partnership without breaching unspoken rules
stop treating organisational problems as if they’re personal failings
I work with partners who need somewhere confidential to think through situations they cannot discuss openly inside the firm.
I bring formal training in organisational psychology and more than 25 years working with senior professionals in complex organisations. We can consider the commercial realities of your practice, the relationships involved, what has happened so far and your own part in it at the same time.
You may become clearer about whether a difficult relationship can be repaired, where firmer limits are needed or whether staying in the partnership is still right for you.
You may spend less time replaying conversations and second-guessing yourself, and become clearer about what to raise, what to leave alone and when to act.
Some partners come to work through one particular problem. Others continue because new situations arise and it helps to work with someone who already understands the firm, the relationships and what has happened so far.
The work happens through regular, confidential one-to-one conversations focused on live situations and decisions that matter.
We take the time to understand what is happening: the partnership politics, the power dynamics, the commercial pressures, your own role and what has already been tried. We keep the timing and practical realities in view.
My role is to test your read of what is happening, notice what may be missing and help you think through the likely implications before you act.
If this is the kind of thinking space you’re looking for, you can schedule a conversation here.
I’ve delivered more than 7,400 one-to-one sessions over 25+ years, working with partners and senior lawyers at Seyfarth, Linklaters, Allens, Hall & Wilcox, as well as specialist firms such as Davies Collison Cave and Griffith Hack. I also provide executive coaching to senior leaders across various industries.
I have a PhD in organisational psychology, am a registered psychologist with formal training in business and counselling psychology and have published in the Law Institute Journal.
The first conversation is about understanding what you’re dealing with and whether it makes sense to work together.
It’s confidential, 45 minutes and there’s no obligation to continue.
My article in the Law Institute Journal:
Boundaries at work: It’s a two-way street
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