Overview

Leadership and management skills are a completely different ball game from the technical role of practicing law, but in-house lawyers must have these skills to succeed in a business setting.

By enhancing your management skills and your understanding of the main challenges facing business leaders today, you will understand how you can better support and advise your business from a legal viewpoint.

This course will enable you to discover key frameworks, tools, techniques and concepts to enhance your business knowledge and excel in your role as a valuable in-house lawyer. Overall it will enable you to become a more rounded business professional.

The expert trainers will share their own experiences from working in law and as business managers. By attending this intensive course, you will benefit from their considerable expertise and have time to explore new skills and ways of working to ensure you succeed in a demanding role.

Are you ready to build your skill-set as a lawyer by increasing your business knowledge?

Key topics covered in this comprehensive and interactive seminar include:

Business strategy concepts and frameworks
Operational effectiveness: process and quality management
Balancing demands on legal services with business goals
Building teams, motivation, engagement and a better culture
Managing finance and understanding KPIs

This training course is part of our collection of Legal Function Training Courses for the in-house lawyer.

Benefits of attending

By attending this course you will:

Enhance your core management and leadership techniques
Understand how to enable effective change management
Learn key business strategy concepts and frameworks
Achieve better outcomes by applying project management techniques
Understand the challenges facing businesses today and how the legal dept can provide support
Establish a motivated and engaged legal team
Get to grips with corporate culture and use it to your advantage
Develop your finance and accounting principles knowledge
Enhance your budgeting skills
Identify creative options for fee arrangements

Who should attend?

This 3-day event has been specifically designed for the legal professional who wants to succeed in their role, including:

Heads of legal departments
Legal directors and managers
Senior corporate counsel and advisers
Key corporate law team members
Private practice lawyers seeking to switch to an in-house role

Enrol/reserve

This course will cover:

Introduction

Module 1: Business strategy and strategic planning

Business strategy

Key business strategy concepts and frameworks
- Includes understanding its purpose, value, and alignment with departmental strategies
- Includes Blue Ocean/Kim & Mauborgne; Porter/USPs, Grant, Johnson & Scholes
The strategic process – investigate, create, implement, embed
Challenges facing businesses today
Understanding customer value, including customers inside your organisation

Operational effectiveness and efficiency

Introductions to
- Process management
- Quality management
- Knowledge management
- Risk appetite and corporate culture
Using these strategies to:
- streamline your legal services inside your organisation, and
- understanding tensions between profitability, efficiency and risk inside your organisation

Developing a strategy for legal services

Understanding the needs and demands for legal services
Aligning legal services goals with the goals of the business
Delivering value for the business
In-house capability decisions
When to engage with external providers

Module 2: Leading and managing strategic change

People management and leadership skills

Team-building, collaboration, culture and trust
- Understanding and leading global and virtual teams; building trust; encouraging collaborative behaviours; understanding cognitive biases; psychological safety
Building motivation and engagement
- Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations; trust; autonomy, mastery and purpose
Leadership and influencing skills
- Leadership styles; leading versus managing; becoming comfortable with leading; influencing in 360°

Leading strategic change

Managing change
- Including Kotter, Lewin and ADKAR models
- Overcoming common problems
Successful strategy implementation and the importance of communication, transparency, coaching and influencing skills

Module 3: Project management and teamwork

Introduction to project management and working with stakeholders

Essential skills of project management
- An introduction to waterfall project management and agile projects
How to plan, execute, control and manage a project to achieve set goals
Managing risks and monitoring progress
Avoiding pitfalls and staying on target
Working with and getting buy-in from stakeholders

Module 4: Finance for business

Accounting principles

A general overview of accounting principles and how they should be applied (with examples)
Identify specifics within UK-GAAP / IFRS where applicable in general accounts

Understanding the statement of cashflow, profit and loss and the balance sheet

Case study using an anonymous set of accounts
The key factors and what they mean
Identify how different statements within a set of accounts are related to one another

Identifying accounting scenarios that illustrate good performance – profitability and solvency

Examples of key performance indicators that demonstrate performance levels
Discuss what KPI’s mean
The ranges of KPI’s in terms of output that determine good performance or otherwise
Practical: consider KPI’s that relate to your business

Identifying accounting scenarios that might raise legal concerns

Focus on insolvent accounts
Work-In-Progress (WIP) measurement
Overdrawn Directors Loan Accounts (DLA)
VAT and the principle of timing with invoicing

Module 5: Managing finance and the legal department

Managing a budget for the legal department and external expenditure

The importance of an 80/20 approach to analysis
Owning a budget
Involvement in constructing a budget and understanding the mechanisms in that construction
Identifying and understanding variance from the norm

Managing fees with external law firms

Understanding margin from the departments cost base and pricing accordingly
Communicating with client on costs
Tracking costs
Recording time
Money-on-Account
Credit control

Traditional fee arrangements and more creative options

Hourly rates vs fixed fees.
Ensuring fixed fees create margin.
Retainers and MOA

Work-In-Progress – the great unknown

Understanding and measuring WIP
Managing WIP
WIP as part of fee-earner performance

Enrol/reserve

Rupert Hawke
Hawke Legal

Rupert Hawke, founder of Hawke Legal, has a business degree and is a qualified management accountant. He spent the first 10 years of his career working in multi-national business. In 2007 he was appointed Finance Director of Cartwright King Solicitors – then a regional East Midlands firm. Firstly as FD and then as Managing Director (appointed 2013), Rupert oversaw CK’s journey to becoming a national law firm with 18 offices nationwide offering a wide range of legal services and renowned for a great culture, quality staff, and cutting edge IT systems.

Through his wide-ranging managerial experience in the legal sector, Rupert is a leading authority on law firm financial / strategic management and its application, and has contributed to numerous publications and spoken widely including for The Law Society.

After 12 years at Cartwright King Rupert decided he wanted a new challenge and started Rupert Hawke Legal – a consultancy that utilises the mass of experience and contacts Rupert has developed in his leading role in the legal sector.

More details

Helene Russell
TheKnowledgeBusiness

Hélène Russell, founder of The Knowledge Business, is a UK solicitor (non-practising) and specialist in Knowledge, Learning and Innovation. After 8 years in practice, primarily in clinical negligence litigation defence, she has worked as a self-employed knowledge management consultant for 13 years. Hélène specialises in practical tools to improve the efficiency and profitability of real-life law firms.

Hélène has extensive experience in business strategy, project management and teaching leadership skills. She runs a popular 'KM Strategy + coaching' course in UK and has written short form and lengthy strategies for a variety of law firms, as well, of course, as writing her own business’s strategy. Hélène has spoken at various events, including Ark’s KM Legal, Lexpo-18, for UWE, St Andrew’s University, BLS and Allice, and chaired international conferences.

She runs a global online KM training and networking group and is a core committee member organising the annual UK Knowledge Mobilisation Conference and Chair of CILIP’s Knowledge and Information Management Special Interest Group. Hélène has an executive MBA with distinction (which included a strategy module), and she is the sole author of two textbooks, contributor to five of Ark’s multi-author books and is currently contracted to Facet Publishing to write a handbook on KM Strategy.

More details

NEW higher discounts for multiple bookings - bring your colleagues to make your training budget go further:

30% off the 2nd delegate*
40% off the 3rd delegate*
50% off the 4th delegate*

Please contact us for pricing if you are interested in booking 5 or more delegates

26-28 March 2025

Live online

09:30-17:00 UK (London) (UTC+00)
10:30-18:00 Paris (UTC+01)
05:30-13:00 New York (UTC-04)
Course code 14623

GBP 1,099 1,399
EUR 1,589 2,009
USD 1,821 2,289

Until 19 Feb

3 days live online live online training
Browser-based, no download usually required
See presenters and interact with fellow attendees
Download documentation and certification of completion
Fair transfer and cancellation policy

View basket

Not ready to book yet?

for 7 days, no obligation

14-16 July 2025

Classroom
Rembrandt Hotel
London

09:00-17:00 UK (London)
Timings may be different for each day
Course code 14834
Optional £300/€419/$479 per night

GBP 1,699 1,999
EUR 2,379 2,799
USD 2,731 3,199

Until 09 Jun

3 days classroom based classroom-based training
Optional accommodation - 3 nights including breakfast, checking in the day before the course
Meet presenters and fellow attendees in person
Lunch and refreshments provided
Download documentation and certification of completion
Fair transfer and cancellation policy

View basket

Not ready to book yet?

for 7 days, no obligation

5-7 November 2025

Live online

09:30-17:00 UK (London) (UTC+00)
10:30-18:00 Paris (UTC+01)
04:30-12:00 New York (UTC-05)
Course code 15011

GBP 1,099 1,399
EUR 1,589 2,009
USD 1,821 2,289

Until 01 Oct

3 days live online live online training
Browser-based, no download usually required
See presenters and interact with fellow attendees
Download documentation and certification of completion
Fair transfer and cancellation policy

View basket

Not ready to book yet?

for 7 days, no obligation

* Early booking discounts may not be combined with other discounts or offers. As such, the discounts for 2nd/3rd/4th delegates are based on the full price; and apply only when booking multiple delegates on the same date.

Reviews of IPI's 3-day Mini MBA for In-house Lawyers training course

Everything was perfectly organized, and I truly enjoyed the experience. I really appreciate the effort that went into making it such a great session. [Speakers demonstrated: "remarkable mastery", "outstanding" teaching].

Oct 16 2024

Syed Arshad Iqbal Pakistan
Manager Legal General, MPCL

Apr 17 2024

The smallness of the group made it more personal and relatable through shared stories.

Paula Howells United Kingdom
Senior Legal Counsel, Yunex Limited

Jul 15 2024

Helene was excellent. Very engaging. Great at listening and guiding any conversation. I cannot comment on Rupert as haven't been through his day yet!

Katie Harris United Kingdom
Legal Manager - UK, Kohler Co

United Kingdom

Tokio Marine Kiln Insurance Service Limited
Amgen
Ardonagh
Belmond (UK) Limited
Boxxe
FedEx
GAMI
Impellam Group Plc
Insights Learning and Development Limited
Jetcraft Global (UK) Limited
Kohler Co
LSL Property Services plc
Siemens
TMF Group
Twilio
UK DRI Ltd
Wilmington Trust
Yunex Limited

France France

Egis
Trainline

Poland Poland

SYNTHOS S.A.
UBS Investment Bank

Saudi Arabia

Altawail Management Consulting & Training
STIC

Denmark Denmark

LEO Pharma A/S

Germany Germany

Axalta Coating Systems Deutschland Holding GmbH & Co. KG

Iceland Iceland

Landsvirkjun

Luxembourg

Ferrero

Mozambique

Companhia Moçambicana de Gasoduto, SA

Netherlands

Philips International B.V.

Pakistan

MPCL

Romania Romania

Booking Holdings Romania

Spain Spain

Medichem S.A.

Switzerland

Alcon

Trinidad And Tobago

COLFIRE

United Arab Emirates

TECOM Group

Enrol/reserve

Run 3-day Mini MBA for In-house Lawyers Live online/Classroom for your team

3 days

Typical duration

Pricing from:

GBP 1,200

Per attendee, based on 10 attendees
Course tailored to your requirements
At your choice of location, or online

Contact us

We can customise this course to your requirements and deliver it on an in-house basis for any number of your staff or colleagues.

Contact our in-house training experts Aleksandra Beer and Yesim Nurko to discuss your requirements:

3-day Mini MBA for In-house Lawyers Training Course