Building a Flourishing Law Firm 2024

Course Chairs
Carina Bittel — Advisor, The Lawyer Coach, Vancouver
Allison Wolf — Founder and Lead Coach, The Lawyer Coach, Vancouver

About the Course Chairs
Carina Bittel’s 25 years of experience in law firm management includes all aspects of business strategy and operations. She spent most of her career with Clark Wilson LLP and served as the firm's Chief Operating Officer for many years. Carina's responsibilities included leading the firm's strategic planning and plan implementation efforts and running day-to-day operations with the Senior Management Team. She was known as a "sounding board" for leadership, lawyers and staff on all variety of decisions, and for providing strategic, practical and thoughtful advice.

Carina's experience serves as the foundation for her comprehensive approach as a consultant and advisor. Her practice is focused on the areas where she is most passionate and has clear value to add: strategic planning; aligning strategy, vision and culture; and coaching law firm leaders to succeed and thrive in their roles.

Allison Wolf, PCC, is a senior coach who leads the coaching team at The Lawyer Coach (TLC). She and the coaches at TLC work with lawyers in Canada, the US, and abroad.

Allison is the creator of the template for CLEBC's new AMP (Associate Mentorship Plus) program. This program provides junior lawyers a constellation of support for establishing a foundation for flourishing in law and life. Her latest work for CLEBC is Building a Flourishing Law Firm.

Allison is passionate about being a force for positive change and is motivated by the mission of transforming the practice of law for the better. Learn more about Allison and the team at TLC at thelawyercoach.com.

Part 1 (February 14, 2024)
A Decision-making Framework for Small and Mid-size Firms

In presentation one, we will teach a simple planning framework for establishing a strategic foundation for the law firm.

Our framework is structured like a house.

The roof:

• VISION—what does great look like? What type of work are you doing, who are you working for, who are you working with?

Three pillars:

• PEOPLE—To serve "great," what players do you need? Who do you have already, who do you need to recruit or develop? Is their "great" aligned with your "great"? What types of feedback and training will help the team grow? How can you better support your team?
• CLIENTS—Who are our best clients? How do we reach them? How are they best served? What clients would be better served elsewhere?
• FUTURE—Leadership and client succession considerations, future of practice considerations.

The foundation:

• PLATFORM—What needs to be more efficient? What tools or processes are we missing? Accounting, Systems, Training, …

The energy source:

• The CULTURE battery pack (to be discussed in part two)

In this session, Allison and Carina will show with practical examples how, with this foundation in place, operational decisions and people and process questions (such as those listed above) are simplified and the answers are clear.

Part 2 (February 21, 2024)
Firm Culture and Strategy: Boom or Bust

Law firms with a clear vision, a solid strategy, and a commitment to action still need to consider one more vital ingredient that can make or break their investment: culture.

Culture when done right becomes the engine powering recruitment, retention, and results.

In this presentation, we will provide a guide for law firms to proactively cultivate their culture to be an important asset that encourages desired behaviours and drives results.

We will point to the warning signs that strategy and culture are not in alignment and will show how law firms can correct course on aspects of their culture that are holding them back from achieving their best.

In this session, Allison and Carina will define the often-amorphous concept of "culture" and will show how it can truly be the boom or bust factor in a law firm's achievement of their strategy.