Harvard started a revolution in leadership training for law firms in the 1990s. Alex Aldridge and Alex Novarese tell the story and assess what management training can offer

In 1995, two Harvard Business School (HBS) case writers interviewed Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz's celebrated co-founder Marty Lipton about the firm's marketing practices after it came top in The American Lawyer Am Law 100 survey for revenue per lawyer and profit per partner.

Initially, Lipton said the New York law firm didn't do marketing, but later conceded that it did conduct some activities aimed at building its reputation, including actively seeking out ways to expose its expertise to general counsel, ensuring it had solid relationships with investment banks and going out of its way to recruit the best talent at entry level.

This information formed the basis of '"Marketing" at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz', one of the first – and arguably still the best known – case studies on HBS's highly-regarded Leading Professional Service Firms executive training programme. And, according to senior lawyer alumni, the ethos behind the Wachtell case study of identifying the often simple drivers behind success (and then applying them to new scenarios) still represents the essence of what the six-day programme is all about.

"The ideas themselves are not new," says SJ Berwin chief executive officer Keith Wood, who completed the HBS course two years ago. "But they do require reanalysis from today's perspective, with the lecturers, who are absolutely inspiring, providing a stimulating and challenging environment for this."

It is not often that you hear senior City law firm managers lavish such praise. But Wood isn't the only one to have been wowed by the likes of professors Jay Lorsch (pictured) and Ashish Nanda, who teach the course alongside five other Harvard professional services experts. The reputation of Nanda, in particular, is hard to overstate, being cited repeatedly by partners on both sides of the Atlantic as the best in the business.

Talk to senior partners in the City and it also quickly becomes apparent the extent to which HBS has cornered the niche market of executive training for law firms. And while the much-vaunted Harvard brand is undoubtedly a major element of HBS's drawing power – more powerful still is the feedback from the majority of lawyers who have been before the group's highly polished lecturers.

"Lorsch is an amazing character," says one partner at a top 20 City firm. "He appears soft and gentle, then walks into the room and silences people with his aura."

"Nanda has this comedy shtick, which is very funny, but there is real steel underneath it and he's an incredibly clever guy," adds another.

"They are fantastic – the smartest guys around and they are at the top of their game," says Eversheds chief executive Bryan Hughes. "But they are also first-class presenters. We have nothing but praise for them."

David Bradley, UK managing partner at DLA Piper, is equally glowing regarding HBS, adding: "You have never seen partners pay attention like when they are in that lecture room."

Ninety-minute sessions are delivered in rooms laid out in the style of a Greek amphitheatre, with the lecturer in a sunken 'pit', standing at eye level with the approximately 70 students assigned to each group (the course, which runs twice a year, contains an average of 140-150 students). Learning is based on case studies which students prepare in advance, before having questions fired at them on how they would tackle the various situations. The differing responses from the international mix of professional services people in attendance – a large proportion lawyers, but also accountants, consultants and participants from other industries – produces, according to Lorsch, "some rich discussions which often generate new ideas for us to explore on a research level".

"It certainly isn't for the faint-hearted," reflects Andrew Williams, EMEA general counsel of investment bank UBS, adding that the level of interaction among individual participants is high despite the relatively large group sizes – a common observation of HBS alumni. "It is very engaging – not at all like your typical lecture."

HBS's Lorsch argues the depth of professional services experience Harvard has gleaned over the years lies behind its domination of leadership training. "We have had a faculty doing this stuff for well over 10 years, and around eight people deeply involved in one way or another doing research and outside activities. Plus many of our MBA alumni have gone to work in the professional services arena, meaning that we've been researching these firms for 20 years."

Since Williams did the HBS programme in 2007, Nanda has set up a similar programme at Harvard Law School aimed at senior in-house lawyers – Leadership in Corporate Counsel.

For the last two years, Harvard Law School has also offered a version of the HBS programme tailored specifically to lawyers in private practice – Leadership in Law Firms.

Running Sunday to Friday from 8.30am until nine in the evening, with plenty of pre- and mid-course reading, the Harvard programmes are also hard work. "It is no jolly," says Ashurst managing partner Simon Bromwich, who did the Harvard Law School Leadership in Law Firms programme two years ago. "But it is also really helpful to escape the office for a few days and focus on the theory of what law firms are actually doing."

Harvard does have its detractors, of course, with some arguing its content can be too mainstream to bring fresh ideas to law firm leaders. Some also argue the institution attempts to make a fairly generalist programme fit all purposes. But in truth, much of the appeal of HBS appears to be in its strength to practically apply fairly basic ideas in a way that is relevant to professionals, and the excellence of its lecturers' presentation skills. It is a formula that does a good job of disarming the constitutional resistance of partners to receiving direction from non-lawyers.

Part of the reason that lawyers connect with HBS is that the school's preoccupations fit with those of partners at commercial law firms. In particular, HBS is known for its interest and focus on star performers: how to identify them, how to develop them, how to manage them and how to recruit them. (HBS warns the latter feat is particularly tricky, a lesson that should be familiar to the many law firms that struggle to make lateral hires deliver commercially).

The intensity of the experience, which is augmented by the courses being residential, means participants become familiar with each other quickly, with the associated network-broadening benefits. "People get to know each other and chat freely in that environment," adds Bromwich, whose coursemates included Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer chief executive Ted Burke and Herbert Smith senior partner David Gold.

And despite the relatively short length of the programmes, the consensus is that what is taught during the week sticks pretty effectively. "Two years down the line I can honestly say I still think about some of the things covered on the course," says Bromwich.

"The HBS programme provides a template that we use at SJ Berwin to test and align our strategic direction," adds Wood.

England calls

Given the popularity of the Harvard courses among UK lawyers, it seems surprising that so few local business schools have attempted to replicate them given the size and explosive growth of the UK legal profession over the last decade. To date, only London Business School (LBS) and the Judge Business School at Cambridge University have tried. LBS ran a course in the late 1990s aimed at managing partners and those running practice areas that was dropped following a strategic review after three years (although it still runs short general executive programmes on management and leadership).

Last month, Judge unveiled The Law Firm Partner programme, a three day residential course based at the Moller Centre on the outskirts of Cambridge.

"You cannot just throw anyone at this, you need people who really understand the sector – and executives are generally very experienced, discerning buyers," says Tim Morris, who ran the LBS Managing Professional Services course before moving to Oxford University's Said Business School.

Morris continues: "What you are looking for with such courses is insight based on sound academic research and some sort of effective practical application. It sounds easy, but finding those things and blending them together well is deceptively challenging."

Still, Judge's recent efforts have won more than a few backers in the legal profession. The inaugural The Law Firm Partner programme appears to have gone down well, attracting partners from firms including Herbert Smith, Osborne Clarke and Bond Pearce, alongside several well-known European independent firms.

Set up by programme director Tim Bellis, former managing partner of Herbert Smith's Asia practice, the course runs from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday, with teaching based on case studies (it uses a mixture of its own UK and internationally-focused case studies and HBS case studies). "The aim has been to provide a credible European alternative to the Harvard programme by following its case study approach, which has some wonderful strategic insights, but modifying its US-slanted content and combining the case studies with some more practical sessions on how to apply the learning," says Bellis.

As well as being shorter than the Harvard courses, the Judge programme is cheaper, costing £2,950 (exclusive of VAT but including course materials, meals and accommodation), as opposed to an all-inclusive $11,500 (£7,100) for the HBS Leading Professional Service Firms course, or $10,000 (£6,200) for the Harvard Law School Leadership in Law Firms and Leadership in Corporate Counsel courses.

But the Judge's main selling point is arguably convenience. Bond Pearce chairman Nick Page, who attended last month's course, comments: "We'd sent some partners on the Harvard courses previously. When we heard about the Judge course we thought, 'If Harvard was essentially here, adapted to the UK and European markets, then it must be worth exploring.'"

The teaching is conducted by a team of six speakers from a variety of backgrounds, including Des Woods, former director of learning and organisation development at Linklaters, and ex-Ernst & Young head of human resources and professional development Rob Lees. Full-time Judge professors specialising in various areas of management make up the rest of the team. Page, who describes the course as "very high quality", adds: "Not only did the core coaches have extensive experience of working within a partnership culture, they also used the wider resources of Judge Business School – for example, an analysis of how Cambridge had won the Boat Race in 2004 – and applied that to law firm management, giving the course added breadth."

Another institution being watched with interest by senior lawyers is Cass Business School. In particular, Cass's recruitment of professor Laura Empson (pictured) from Oxford Said in June 2007 to head its Centre for Professional Service Firms has caught managing partners' eyes.

Empson, who spent 15 years at the LBS and Oxford, is arguably the best-known UK academic in executive education for the legal profession, further raising her profile with the well-regarded 2007 book Managing the Modern Law Firm.

Empson's work in the professional services area concentrates on how organisations respond to and manage change.

"Firms tend to turn to me when they are grappling with a particularly tricky internal problem. Bringing me in as an academic to talk about my research under the guise of executive education provides a relatively safe environment to enable them to confront and address some deep-rooted challenges within their firms."

The current focus of Empson's research is on leadership in professional services firms. "This is a fascinating area", she says, "which has been almost entirely neglected by management researchers. Professionals, by and large, don't want to lead and, by and large, don't want to be led. This is the fundamental management challenge at the heart of any law firm."

She continues: "I find lawyers fascinating to work with. Although they are typically very bright, they also tend to be rather insecure about their management abilities. But they have an impressive appetite for learning. I introduce them to new conceptual frameworks which I have developed and help them to think about management issues in different ways."

Tailoring your training

Executive education is not limited to 'open' programmes delivered at the business school – with bespoke 'closed' courses designed in conjunction with law firms becoming increasingly popular.

Harvard is also a major player in the bespoke market, with Nanda, for example, spending as much time on such work as he does delivering programmes on campus.

"One third of my time is spent teaching in Harvard's JD and executive education courses," says Nanda (pictured), "while another third is spent doing research, including developing case studies, and the final third is spent doing outside work, such as consultancy and partner development programmes for individual firms."

Nanda's outside client roster among UK-based firms includes Berwin Leighton Paisner, Ashurst and Linklaters – the latter enlisting him to advise on its recently launched in-house Linklaters Law & Business School, which features structured training for the firm's new managing associates and newly-promoted partners, plus ad hoc training for lawyers at all levels on subjects like negotiation skills, providing feedback and mentoring.

Linklaters' scheme mirrors an earlier effort conducted between DLA Piper and HBS, which drew on HBS's open programme to create a bespoke course. DLA Piper chief executive Nigel Knowles was an early evangelist for HBS having gone on the pilot for its leadership course back in 1995 ("I was one of only two Brits on the course – it was me and a guy from Coopers & Lybrand," remembers Knowles). The following year, Knowles, as the new managing partner of the emerging UK national practice, had Harvard's Jack Gabarro over for two days working with partners of the firm in the wake of its merger with Alsop Wilkinson, which created Dibb Lupton Alsop.

In 2005, DLA Piper worked with HBS to create a tailored week-long programme based on the leadership course, which now trains around 60 partners a year. DLA Piper also collaborates with HBS on drawing up case studies and continually modifies the course, which is overseen by Jay Lorsch and Robert Eccles, to reflect the firm's needs.

Knowles comments on his close association with Harvard: "I believe in what I've taken from Harvard because fundamentally it is what I have used to build and develop [DLA Piper]. I have been very loyal to Harvard."

Linklaters and DLA Piper have gone further than some firms in collaborating with business schools, but other firms have used HBS and other major business schools on a more specific basis.

For example, Eversheds, which has used Harvard's Nanda and David Wilkins, turned to HBS when drawing up its last three-year strategy, both as a sounding board and to help in communicating their ideas to the partnership.

Hughes comments: "It's great for getting the partners' focus and also talking the same language."

DLA Piper also called on Harvard in the wake of the merger between DLA, Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich.

In this sense, bespoke leadership training can cross over significantly with the provision of consultancy services.

Indeed, a major benefit law firms have of using business schools rather than consultants is that it is easier to build a long-term relationship with professors who handle training on a continuing basis rather than consultants brought in for specific mandates. There is also far less cynicism from senior lawyers regarding the contribution of business schools as there is about that of consultants.

Other players in the closed training space include Judge, Cass, Oxford Said, Cranfield School of Management, LBS and INSEAD. The benefits of a closed programme are a combination of cost and the ability to customise the content of the course to the needs of an individual firm, say course leaders.

"Put simply, when you want to educate more than around 10 partners in one go, you get more bang for your buck with a bespoke course because it is focused on your specific needs. For example, if you've just promoted 20 partners who you want to undergo the same type of training, it obviously makes a lot of sense to work with a business school and have the course essentially brought to you," observes Morris of Oxford Said, which has worked with several top 20 UK law firms, including Clifford Chance, with which it set up the Clifford Chance Centre (based at Oxford Said but entirely independent from the research centre) in 2003 to provide training to non-lawyer managers at the firm.

Empson of Cass – which adapts the professional services module of its executive MBA to fit law firms' requirements – concedes that the downside of such courses is that attendees miss out on the opportunity to mix with lawyers from other firms and professionals from other industries.

But she argues that bespoke courses at international law firms give partners a chance to make essential internal contacts.

"One of our magic circle clients flies all its new partners into London for our course, which we deliver at its London office. In many cases partners already know the guy at the other firm over the road from university, but have never met their counterpart in the Shanghai office."

Knowles backs this view, arguing that firm-specific training is a "great integration tool" for partners at larger law firms.

Empson thinks the state of the economy is likely to be the main factor in determining how the executive training market evolves – with her money on firm-specific programmes to dominate for the next few years.

"In the current market an open programme seems like a bit of a luxury. Right now firms are focusing on getting partners to understand the particular issues facing their own organisation," she says.

Either way, the professional services training model that Harvard forged back in 1995 looks like it still has plenty of mileage in it. In fact, it would make a pretty good case study itself.

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Outside the box: the people law firm leaders turn to for ideas

Law firm leaders looking for insight and original thinking do not have a huge amount of choice given the lack of theorists focused on the legal sector, or even professional service firms in general.

The standout name for many is David Maister, something of a godfather figure in the field having in 1993 published Managing the Professional Service Firm, the first book on the topic to receive a wide audience.

Receiving almost as many mentions is Harvard's Ashish Nanda, who is highly regarded for, according to Linklaters' Markus Hartung, marrying an "unparalleled way of giving lectures" with a "deep understanding of what makes professionals tick". Harvard has produced a number of other highly-rated thinkers, including John Gabarro, David Wilkins and Jay Lorsch.

Stefan Stern, a management columnist with the Financial Times, also recommends Laura Empson of Cass Business School, arguably the most high-profile writer in law firm leadership that a UK business school has produced. The impeccably-connected Empson further raised her profile in 2007 with the publication of the well-regarded book Managing a Modern Law Firm.

Though he continues to sharply divide the legal profession, the author Richard Susskind, who specialises in analysing the impact of technology on the law firm model, has many admirers at senior levels of the UK profession. Even readers who are unconvinced by some of his assertions can gain much from reading works like The Future of Law, the 1996 book which thrust him to prominence in the profession, or his most recent and equally controversial book, The End of Lawyers? While Susskind's use of technological terms and jargon doesn't make him the easiest read for lawyers, his writing brings a host of interesting lateral observations to the legal industry, often pulled in from other fields.

Susskind himself, as well as citing Maister and Harvards's Nanda and Wilkins, recommends the US-based writer and consultant Bruce MacEwen, who is best known for his popular blog Adam Smith Esq, which marries law firm management with economic theory, usually in an accessible style. Susskind also mentions Scott Adams, the author of the Dilbert cartoons, which he says are "wonderfully funny and hugely insightful for lawyers".

MacEwen's own favoured thinkers include Don Sull, the London Business School professor who also blogs on management for the FT. Sull, whose new book is The Upside of Turbulence, is known for focusing on the increasing volatility that managers and entrepreneurs have to deal with in a world of international capital markets, global trade and fast-moving information technology. Having formerly worked at McKinsey and Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Sull has also advised Baker & McKenzie.

MacEwen also cites Steven Davidoff, the author of The New York Times' whip-sharp blog The Deal Professor, which covers legal and corporate issues. Davidoff is a former lawyer with Shearman & Sterling and now a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. This genuinely distinctive writer this month publishes a new book, Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal and the Private Equity Implosion.

Another US writer cited is New Yorker contributor Malcolm Gladwell, who has received industry attention for his recent book Outliers: The Story of Success, not least because it features a chapter on the story of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom's legendary M&A lawyer Joseph Flom. Clint Evans, chief executive of Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, says law firm leaders can also get ideas from management journals, rating Management Today and Harvard Business Review as both pretty good, even if their content can be a little too general for law firms.

Some, such as Eversheds chief executive Bryan Hughes, recommends classics of business writing like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People. He comments: "There's a lot of very good stuff in there. If you combine that with some common sense, you've gone a long way."

Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal, and the Private Equity Implosion is published by Wiley – click here for more information.

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Get 'em early – longer courses and Pre-partner business training

While partners have become rapid converts to the short, sharp shock of executive training, usually courses that last between two to six days, the legal profession has been slower to embrace longer courses designed for people in the earlier stages of their career. As such, there is only a niche market for MBA-style training targeted at lawyers.

One partial exception is the venture launched in 2006 by Cass Business School to run a course for Lovells known as the Business Programme for Lawyers. When it was launched it gave Lovells' lawyers the opportunity to follow up what they had learned during in-house management training with further study to gain an executive MBA. It is split into two modules. The first, a business foundation course, is covered over 12, three-hour evening sessions delivered over two years. This covers basic elements that would be handled in a typical MBA.The second stage is drawn from Cass's MBA module on client relationship management. The course has been completed by 160 Lovells lawyers since its launch.

While Lovells' venture is unusual, there are plenty of options out there for lawyers wishing to do longer management-related and MBA courses, with the leading business schools all offering part-time programmes aimed at busy senior professionals.

Martin Clarke, director of Cranfield School of Management's General Management Programmes, argues that longer executive management courses offer more benefits than shorter programmes.

"Our students come to us, then go off with a three-month action plan based on improving an area of their business. Then they come back, we review it, and we formulate the plan further from that stage. It allows students to go into quite a lot of depth, while at the same time keeping it as practical as possible."

Vanni Treves, former senior partner of Macfarlanes, who now holds a number of non-executive positions including chairman of the governing body of London Business School, also champions broad-based, longer-duration management courses. "Management training is not, for me, about getting down to the nitty gritty of day-to-day management, but more about obtaining a wider perspective on the issues facing senior managers and the tools available for dealing with those issues. Going into a degree of depth on areas such as organisational behaviour, for example, can be extremely useful for law firm leaders," he says.

For those wanting to do a more in-depth course with a specific legal slant, Nottingham Law School offers an MBA in legal practice. According to Nottingham Law School professional division head Jane Ching, the MBA in legal practice is "aimed at managing partners and aspirant managing partners of law firms", with a range of different types of lawyers doing the course, from sole practitioners to managing partners of larger firms. It is conducted over two years on a part-time basis – with the option to complete after one year and gain a postgraduate diploma. The first year contains five modules, taught over extended Thursday-Sunday weekends; the second year is devoted to a dissertation – typically a project based on a student's workplace. "The aim is to make it as practical as possible, enabling lawyers to put into practice the things they learn on each module into their working lives straight away," says Ching.

BPP Business School, meanwhile, launched an MBA in legal business last month, but currently it is only available for students with training contracts at Simmons & Simmons. However, the course is expected to be opened up to other applicants in the next few years.

"We are currently exploring other opportunities to deliver the programme on a wider basis," says BPP law school chief executive Peter Crisp. "Options which we are considering include developing versions of the programme which could be run on an open basis for lawyers from a range of firms and/or in house legal departments."

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The Linklaters approach – start your own business school

One firm that has taken a different approach to business training is Linklaters, which in September 2008 launched the Linklaters Law & Business School. Linklaters argues that the initiative functions as an in-house business school and positions the firm at the cutting edge of training among its professional services peers.

The venture is overseen by knowledge and learning head Suzanne Fine, who helped set up Lovells' training venture with Cass Business School in 2006, and Michael Voisin, the partner in charge of training.

The firm also put in place a team of experienced academics for the project, including HEC Business School director general Bertrand Moingeon and Harvard's Ashish Nanda.
The training includes a week-long orientation programme for new joiners and a more advanced practice diploma, which is targeted at newly-qualified to mid-level associates.

In total the course comprises 110 modules, covering a wide range of practice areas and skills. The training is arranged into four key areas: Legal Knowledge; Business Skills – soft skills, understanding and managing clients and how to run a negotiation; Clients – mainly working on industry knowledge; and Internal – the economics and practicalities of running a legal practice successfully. The firm handles a lot of the training internally, particularly for junior lawyers, but regularly collaborates with outside business trainers. It is currently working with Nanda to relaunch its leadership training within the framework of the Linklaters business school.

Voisin, who believes his experience building up Linklaters' derivatives and structured products practice helped him win partner buy-in for the venture, reports that the school has been well received. The school has now offered training to 1,000 staff since its launch last year. Voisin, who became knowledge and training partner at Linklaters in 2008, comments: "When I first started this I was a bit nervous, but I believe that partners really see the connection between the investment and the return."

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What's on offer? 'Open' short executive courses

Harvard Business School – Leading Professional Service Firms
When? March 14-20, June 13-19, 2010
How much? $11,500 (£7,100)

Harvard Law School – Leadership in Law Firms
When? October 18-23, May 16-21 2010
How much? $10,000 (£6,200)

Harvard Law School – Leadership in Law Firms
When? June 23-26 2010
How much? $10,000 (£6,200)

Judge Business School, Cambridge University – The Law Firm Partner
When? 7-10 March, 26-29 September 2010
 £2,950 + VAT

Longer courses

Nottingham Law School – MBA in Legal Practice
Duration: Two years part-time via five residential extended study weekends
How much? Year one: £8,500 (plus VAT where applicable); Year two: £9,000 (plus VAT where applicable).

Cranfield School of Management – Advanced Development Programme
Duration: 3 x 5 days residential + 24hr review module (after three months) + 24hr review module (after 12 months).
How much? £14,250 + VAT

Said Business School, Oxford University – Diploma in Organisational Leadership
Duration: 4 x 4 day modules
How much? £14,500

BPP Business School – MBA in Legal Business
Currently only available to Simmons & Simmons trainees. Set to be rolled out on a general basis in the future.

In addition, part-time general executive MBAs are offered by most of the leading business schools.

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