#LawFest – not just fun
I have been asked a lot about the idea for LawFest …and been told a lot that it is brave (which my head de-codes as “foolish”). It is true that the idea started as a conversation about a particularly dull conference for lawyers – Politbureau talking heads at the front, overwhelmingly dull presentation slides, dull… More
Being different isn’t…
Being different isn’t different. We are all different. It is easy to be ourselves, to be different. Trying to conform is so much harder than being different. It takes us away from what we truly are, it takes energy to conform, energy we cannot use being ourselves. Yet for most of our working lives we… More
A note on the future of law firms, from a friend…
Over the last 15 years working as a consultant and for 13 years before that working as a lawyer I have seen so much change. Some change has been very positive, some change has been anything but …Change for sure is a constant. My sense now is that the pace of change is getting ever… More
A future based on the best of the past not the worst of now
Ten years ago I joined the trustee board of a small UK charity called The Solicitors Pro Bono Group. Next month I stand down from what has become the leading national pro bono charity, now called LawWorks. Ten years of my career in law that have provided many of the most inspiring and joyful moments… More
The End
I love writing. Writing is an expression of thought. The transitory captured. Ideas that would otherwise spin away, allowed a place to live. The page is a butterfly net. The words we use are a prism through which our ideas are given focus and place. And yet nothing changes by writing alone. Turn the page,… More
What makes you happy?
What makes you happy? What makes you work at your best? What would make you even more productive, engaged, creative, secure, loyal and willing to contribute? I am not sure we have addressed these questions well enough. We have made the workplace an art form of intimidating glass towers with atriums as high as the… More
A crisis of well-being
I have written many times about what a privilege it is to be a mentor. It is something I relish and provides me with the most job satisfaction I can imagine. For many years my work in this area consisted mostly of meeting talented, good people needing some encouragement, support or direction as they developed… More
Innovation – of course, it’s what we all do, isn’t it?
It won’t be long and once again our thoughts will turn to what will be new in the next twelve months; what innovation will we see, what new gadgets and ideas will come forward, who will make a break-through with something that will astonish us all? In legal services we have had a decade or… More
IT: The challenge is clear, the prize is big, the race is on…
Technology plays an increasing role in all our lives and to a large extent we welcome this as an opportunity and an essential need. We see this in our obsessive updating of phone-camera-music devices, to our use of tablets, laptops and the development of home entertainment systems. We spin around the latest gadgets and functions… More
Legal Aid – is it more than just a protest?
Legal Aid is under threat like never before – so before I go any further, please, PLEASE, consider signing this petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628 It really matters. It matters for reasons far more eloquently expressed by many others including a series of brilliant blogs by “a barrister’s wife”: http://abarristerswife.wordpress.com/ …Read this and any of the very many… More