In today's rapidly evolving legal services market, senior leaders face an increasingly complex set of external client-facing and internal management issues that directly impact the sustainable performance of the firm. Intensified levels of competition, increased globalisation, economic uncertainty and continued market consolidation are elevating a new set of issues to the top of the law firm leadership agenda including:

• Evaluating strategic options for growth
• Expanding and maintaining client relationships
• Service offering and process innovation
• Supporting the global aspirations of key clients
• Finding, engaging and retaining top talent

Bridge & The Legal Sector

The Bridge Legal Services Team has worked with a range of leading law firms including Allen & Overy, Linklaters, Eversheds, and others. Beyond client serving work, Bridge is active across the legal profession through our work with the Law Society and International Bar Association.

For more information about current legal sector research projects and upcoming industry events, please see the Bridge News section of our home page.

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Our Customisable Programmes

Strategy and Competitiveness

• Firm Vision and Strategic Growth
  Shaping Firm Vision and Evaluating Options for Growth: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Organic Growth.
• Leading in a Period of Economic Uncertainty
  Implications of the Credit Crunch and Regulatory Change for the Legal Services Business Model, Client Relationships, Practice Mix, and Talent
• Differentiation and Creating Client Value
  Identifying Your Firm's Source of Differentiation and Building a Unique Client Value Proposition
• Strategic Client Relationship Management
  Building New and Expanding Existing Client Relationships as a Trusted Advisor
• Innovation in Legal Services
  The Market Drivers of Innovation & How to Create a Space for Innovation to Happen Within Your Firm
• Outsourcing and Off-shoring Strategies
  Understanding Commoditisation & Alternative Delivery Models
• The Sustainable Law Firm
  Understanding the Ethical Imperative, Business Case for Action, and Best Practices for Environmental Sustainability in Service Firms
• Measuring Success
  Looking Beyond PEP to Understand the Underlying Drivers of Law Firm Performance

Managing the 21st Century Law Firm

• Law Firm Management and Practice Development Simulation
  Critical Issues and Practical Skills for Understanding and Optimising Law Firm Dynamics
• Developing a High Performance Culture
  Coaching Style of Leadership, Cross-Practice Collaboration, Motivation and Leading High Performance Teams
• Talent Management
  Key Issues and Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
• Diversity
  Master-class for Creating Awareness and Shaping Modern Policy

Emerging Markets

• Strategic Issues for Law Firms and Their Clients
  Exploration of Critical Issues Associated with Doing Business in Emerging Markets for Law Firms and the Clients They Serve
• Doing Business in China & Market Entry Simulation
  Multi-cultural Insight Into the Challenges, Risks and Rewards of Doing Business in One of the World's Most Dynamic Economies
• Doing Business in India & Market Entry Simulation
  Market Outlook, Risk and Rewards, and Lessons for Success.
• Ethics and Reputation Risk in Emerging Markets
  Master-class for Assessing Reputation Risk and Utilising Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Methods

Many firms are now finding that their existing approach to partner development no longer addresses the demands of the modern law firm. The leaders of law firms are being challenged, not only to set the course for change within their firms, but also to inspire those around them to rise to the challenge of making it happen. Bridge offers radically different leadership development programmes to help law firm leaders prepare their partners for these challenges. All of our programmes are:

• Intellectually challenging and highly relevant to the strategic issues facing law firms today
• Based on our experience of providing development programmes to professional service firms
• Informed by twenty years of experience in managing partnerships
• Brought to life by our in-house strategic research capability
• Delivered with leading academics using the latest experiential learning approaches
• Reinforced by innovative learning environments to enable collaboration and networking
• Customised to meet each client's specific requirements and learning objectives
• Focused on achieving real business results

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Legal Services Team

Bridge utilises a proven team of leading academics and industry experts to deliver highly relevant content and provide cutting edge industry insight.

For our professional service firm clients, the Bridge team brings a unique synthesis of extensive professional service experience, cutting-edge legal services knowledge, and pre-eminent academic and industry specialist insight.

Our programmes for law firms are based on our deep understanding of the culture of partnerships, the challenges of leading a professional service firm, and the way in which partnerships reach decisions.

The Bridge design and delivery team works collaboratively with a worldwide network of specialists to deliver leading edge content and facilitation tailored to meet the particular needs of our clients. Our core team for the delivery of legal services programmes is highlighted below:

• 

  Professor Nelson Phillips
  Strategy and Markets Specialist

  Chair in Strategy and Organisational Behaviour, Imperial College London, Tanaka Business School and Head of the Organization and Management Group. Widely published thought leader on strategy, innovation and client value creation. Nelson has significant experience in helpingpartners develop their business strategies in the legal sector.

• 

  David Hemery
  Specialist in Leadership Development and Coaching within Partnership Culture

  Olympic Gold-medalist, now widely recognised for his deep insights into developing the leadership potential of senior executives. David has worked within world-class organisations to help leaders adopt the Coaching Style of Leadership for achieving sustainable success for themselves and their teams.

• 

  Garrick Jones
  New Service Design & Innovation Specialist

  Garrick, a Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, has worked for many of the world's largest organisations in Innovation, Business Design, Problem Solving, and Cultural Transformation. His career has included Director of the Innovation Lab, Innovate UK and Director of the Accelerated Solutions Environments for Ernst & Young. During his career he has worked for most of the boards of the Fortune 100 companies.

• 

  Tom Manning
  Emerging Markets and Business Strategy Specialist

  A leading speaker on professional service firm strategy, with 25 years experience of working in Asia, Tom has held various CEO and senior management posts with Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company. Specialising in the challenges associated with emerging markets, he is a highly knowledgeable business practitioner with experience in assisting the legal sector in shaping growth and global expansion strategy.

• 

  John McMunn
  Business Development Specialist

  John specialises in the building of client relationship skills in professional service firms. As a sales coach and consultant, John has worked with leading organisations including KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, Ernst & Young, Canon, Accenture, New York Life, General Electric, Boeing and many others.

• 

  Ken Elvy
  Leadership Alignment and Change Management Specialist

  Having built and led the UK change management practices for Ernst & Young and Deloitte Consulting, Ken has over 20 years experience in supporting major change programmes, specialising in guiding client executive teams through the process as a coach and mentor. He has worked with Eversheds, Linklaters and Allen & Overy as well as organisations as diverse as Qatargas and the BBC.

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