As the legal profession changes, so the training and education required evolves. Josh Bottomley and Rob Farquharson report

It is a truism that lawyers are the ultimate knowledge workers. In maintaining that position the depth and, importantly, the currency, of a lawyer's understanding form the knowledge bedrock on which their practice is built.

However, how lawyers learn and what they learn is changing. Externally, in-house counsel and the organisations that employ them are reviewing their roles.A recent review of training needs shows the pressure on in-housecounsel – as a result of the recent economic upheavals and subsequent corporate insolvencies – to take a wider role as an active risk manager, who is also expected to be the guardian of a company's ethics and its reputation. Where this results in a seat on the main board, the role is no longer that of the traditional detached and reactive legal adviser.

This new role is a shift from a purely advisory role to a more decision-making one and requires a more diverse set of 'management' skills such as communication, leadership and people insight than before.

As in-house counsel diversify and look for ways to expand their skills, they expect their external advisers to support them. This includes not only partners but associates and trainees. It means that lawyers will need to understand the individual personalities of their client base and the organisations' culture to understand what an in-house counsel is specifically responsible for and what drives their thinking.

In a recent paper on coaching and the effective use of business information in client development, clients rate the top strengths of partners as their technical skills, experience, ability to marshal large resources, and the law firm's brand. The key challenges for senior legal staff are their inability to visualise an issue in its commercial context; the need for a greater understanding of project management; and a sense of how to differentiate themselves to stand out and be selected.

Paul Gibbon, executive director from UBS Leveraged Capital Markets comments: "Exceptional legal knowledge is now a given – what I want is advice from their experience. I need to understand the real risks that I am taking so that I can make an informed decision".

Leading practices are introducing coaching for partners which combines professional coaching, training and the provision of targeted business intelligence in realistic client development challenges toenable the development of these new skills.

Alongside these strong external pressures, there are equally powerful internal pressures that are driving change: the need for lawyers to become more productive and profitable, to lower overall training costs including time out of the office and travel costs, and to give lawyers new skills to enable them to easily transfer between practice areas as market demand shifts.

To address these pressures, training is being embedded in lawyers' workflow so that when they are working on a particular matter they can learn efficiently how to deal with an issue, as well as understanding the underlying principal. Embedding this learning in a lawyer's day-to-day activities increasingly means electronic delivery, often within another solution that the lawyer is using, whether research or case management.

This type of seamless solution supports the trend towards better workflow integration. Head of knowledge at Nabarro Mark Collins commented: "We don't just do the training as a cosy option, we do the training because it improves our work… delivering training at your desk, as an integral part of the work, makes the learning more valuable and relevant."

This 'distance' learning can be delivered more cost effectively than sending a lawyer away for a traditional classroom course. Learning packages can save up to 40% on the cost of training without a diminution in the quality nor the variety of the learning that is offered to the lawyer.

Andrew Greensmith, partner at Dickson Haslam commented: "Different models of training offer different advantages. For example the advantages I regard as being particularly important in the case of webinars are that they offer fee earners the opportunity to engage in continuing professional development training in the company of their colleagues, or sitting alone with a sandwich, with the minimum disruption to the working day… I'm totally convinced that the medium offers an excellent method of accessing up-to-date training in a convenient and cost effective manner."

By choosing flexible on-demand training via a medium that best suits their needs, legal professionals can stay current, be alert to the 'hot topics' that concern their clients and, as a result, stay competitive.

Josh Bottomley is managing director, UK and Ireland, and Rob Farquharson is director of LN Connect at LexisNexis.