Course Description and Typical Schedule

 

The Lawyer's Compass Workshop:

Character, Ethics and Trust in Modern Legal Practice

 

Lawyers are different. Our role in society in general, and the legal system in particular, places great responsibility in our hands.  Our ethical rules call upon us to exercise that responsibility in a manner that differentiates us positively in our modern world.  Despite this opportunity, our profession suffers from ever declining levels of public perceptions of our value to society and trustworthiness.  At the same time, technology and competition threaten professional opportunities.

 

Our future success and fulfillment resides in learning how to expand trust and confidence in each of us as a practitioner and in our profession in general.  Doing so requires a comprehensive review how each of us can harness the power of trust, the key driver in successful relationships, to enhance our personal and professional lives. 

 

The Lawyer's Compass Workshop focuses your attention on the critical interplay between your character and competencies and how they combine to build trust in client relationships. In particular, you will:

 

• Learn How and Why Trust is the Primary Driver of Success In the Attorney/Client Relationship and in Your Practice

• Discover How Your Character is Derived from Your Values and Actions

• Identify Your Individual Personality Type and How This Guides Your Actions Daily

• Walk-through a Comprehensive Review of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to Uncover its Inherent System of Values and Aspirations

• Learn Professional Competencies That Will Help You Quickly Build Trust in Client Relationships

• Discover a System for Identifying and Managing the Four Expectations That Every Client Holds in Every Engagement

• Explore How We Derive Congruence, Satisfaction and Contentment in Legal Practice

• Build Your Own Lawyer's Compass to Guide Your Efforts in Building Future Personal and Professional Fulfillment and Success

• Take an Opportunity to Reflect on How to Become “The Aspirational Lawyer”

 

 

Typical One-Day Course Outline

 

9:00 to 10:30  Modern Practice and the Demand for Trust

 

The Practice of Law Today and Tomorrow

 

• Current State of the Legal Profession: The Three-Dimensional Crisis and Lack of Trust

• The Future of Work: Technology and Markets Are Causing Radical Changes to the Nature of Work

 

Trust Model of Legal Practice: Character and Competency

 

• Trust and the Lawyer Advisory Relationship

• How Do We Create Trust? Character and Competency

• Values Are the Key to Building Trust

 

10:30 to 10:45 Break

 

10:45 to 12:15   Model Rules of Professional Conduct: Our Ethical Framework

 

• Status and History of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct

• The Role of Values in Ethical Practice

• MRPC Matrix and Underlying Values

• The Broken Compass: The Rule Compliant, Unethical Lawyer

 

12:15 to 1:15   Lunch

 

1:15 to 2:45  Generating Trust and Personal Contentment

 

Becoming a Trust Generator

 

• Trust Building Professional Competencies

• Exceeding Expectations in the Client Relationship

 

Contentment Theory: Values, Congruence, Satisfaction and Calling

 

• Values: Your Foundation

• Congruence: Matching Who You Are to Where You Are

• Satisfaction in Activity: Happiness, Fulfillment and Excellence

• Calling: Where Activity Takes Place for Others

 

2:45 to 3:00     Break

 

3:00 to 4:30  Building the Lawyer's Compass and The Aspirational Lawyer

 

• Congruence Theory of the Lawyer's Compass

• What Are Your Values? How Do You Spend Your Time?

• The Lawyer's Compass Tool

• Becoming The Aspirational Lawyer