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

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