Why Every Lawyer Needs Coaching Skills (And It's Not Just for Managing Teams)

Most lawyers think coaching is something reserved for team leaders managing junior staff. And it is certainly true that coaching has a crucial role to play in leadership and management.  However, when we limit the relevance of coaching skills to management contexts, we miss out on applying those skills in broader areas of legal practice.  Here at the Thriving Lawyer, we believe that developing basic coaching skills can help lawyers develop better relationships with clients and ultimately get better outcomes for them, all whilst improving lawyer wellbeing.  

Those are some big claims.  So how? 

The Hidden Power of Coaching in Legal Work

At its core, every lawyer's role involves serving clients to achieve specific outcomes. Whether you're a criminal barrister keeping someone out of jail, a contracts lawyer facilitating business deals, or a government lawyer advising on policy options, you're ultimately helping clients navigate complex challenges to reach their goals.

Here's the problem: clients often don't know what they truly want or what constitutes a good outcome. They come to you with surface-level requests, but the real challenge lies deeper. This is where coaching skills become invaluable.

Beyond the "Advice Monster"

Lawyers are trained to be experts who provide solutions. We're rewarded for our knowledge and ability to give definitive answers. But this creates what coaching expert Michael Bungay Stanier calls the "advice monster" – that tendency to jump straight into solution mode without fully understanding the problem.

When you pause and adopt a coaching mindset, something powerful happens. Instead of immediately providing what you think is the right answer, you start asking questions like "What's the real challenge here?" This simple shift can completely transform both the problem you're solving and the solution you provide.

Three Essential Coaching Skills Every Lawyer Should Master

1. Active Listening Beyond Words This means hearing not just what clients say, but what they don't say. Listen for emotions, concerns, and unspoken fears. In our increasingly remote work environment, this skill becomes even more critical when you're missing visual cues during video calls.

2. Powerful Questioning Replace closed questions ("Did you file that document?") with open-ended ones that invite deeper thinking ("What's the most pressing obstacle you're facing right now?"). These questions create richer dialogue and often reveal insights that transform your legal advice. 

3. Curiosity Over Certainty Adopt a mindset where you don't have all the answers. This isn't about diminishing your expertise – it's about enhancing it by building trust and collaboration with clients.

The Trusted Advisor Advantage

These skills are particularly valuable for in-house counsel striving to become trusted advisors rather than just technical advice-givers. By combining your legal expertise with strong human skills like deep listening, clear communication, and emotional intelligence, you create relationships that go far beyond transactional interactions.

Start Small, See Big Results

You don't need to become a certified coach to benefit from these skills. Start by:

• Slowing down in client meetings
• Asking one additional open-ended question per conversation
• Pausing before jumping to solutions
• Noticing how these small changes impact your client relationships

The Future of Legal Practice

In this rapidly changing world, technical legal skills are necessary but no longer sufficient (if they ever were!!??).

The lawyers who will truly thrive are those who combine their legal expertise with strong human skills – the very skills that coaching develops.

Ready to transform your practice? The investment in developing these skills pays dividends in stronger client relationships, better outcomes, and a more fulfilling legal career. 

You can listen to our recent podcast episode above (or search for the Thriving Lawyer on Apple Podcasts or Spotify). 

We have also developed a one hour on-demand seminar that may qualify in your jurisdiction as a CPD point, which you can access here.