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Over the past ten years, Sonia and some of her colleagues from Consultants At Work have been involved with three City law firms, Linklaters, CMS Cameron McKenna and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Over the past five years, Sonia has worked with the Chief Executive and members of the board of a firm that had expaned from the core law firm business to a significant financial services company in Jersey. This meant year on year growth on an unprecedented scale. Some of the work undertaken was as an executive coach and other aspects focused on the design of change processes to respond to such rapid growth. This involved working with individual executives as well as groups of executives.

Examples of the assignments undertaken

The repositioning of a Marketing Department from an inward looking, almost entirely reactive function to one which understood and was capable of being committed to its new role as a key influence in shaping the firm’s strategy led by its recently appointed Director of Business Development.

Following a strategic review of the fee earning practice, (undertaken by another consultancy)Consultants at Work designed and undertook, with six of the Directors, a review and evaluation of the Practice Support function. The aims of this were to align the business support activities with the commercial and cultural changes to which the fee earners had committed themselves in a strategic repositioning.

As the change management advisor chosen by one of these firms to advise the external technology consultants they appointed to undertake a piece of work, we have taken part in diagnostic consultations in London, Europe and Asia on behalf of the firm.

The successful retention of lawyers who have been so carefully and expensively hired is, from time to time, a challenge for all firms. Consultants at Work has undertaken a survey on behalf of one of the firms which seeks to determine why female lawyers do not appear to fulfil their career aspirations in the same time frame as male lawyers and why so many of them leave.

Sonia has contributed to a Directors Development Programme in which Directors individually and collectively reflect on their role as heads of their functions and seek to improve the effectiveness of the services delivered to the fee earners.

We provide individual consultancy services to Partners who may choose to use this on ad hoc basis or more regularly, two or three times a month.

The successful transition from Senior Associate to Partner represents a challenge to each individual who is fortunate enough to progress this far and yet; few resources are allocated to help people make the change in the most effective way. We have been involved in programmes which address some of the challenges.

Sonia Inniss
April 2009