If you were to ask lawyers what their ultimate client compliment would be then many will say that it is to be considered a “trusted advisor”. It doesn’t matter if these lawyers work in-house or in law firms the phrase “trusted advisor” seems to have a very special resonance which goes to the essence of what being a lawyer means to them.
I have thought about this phrase a great deal, examined examples where it has been achieved (and not) and analysed what it might actually mean in practice. In this article I will explore the steps lawyers can take that will help them move along the relationship development pathway towards becoming a “trusted advisor” to their clients.
The headline conclusion of what this phrase means will not be surprise; the essence of being a trusted advisor is to be influential.
One of the most rewarding days of my career as a lawyer was when my then Chief Executive, with whom I did not always have the warmest of relationships, said to our Sales Director “I agree, but subject to what Paul says”… In that moment I knew that my judgement was trusted and that I was regarded as someone with influence whose judgement was considered neither partial nor self-motivated and whose views would be offered in the best interests of the company.
This was not about the quality of my legal expertise (how would they know if my technical knowledge of legal regulation was accurate or not?), but about the quality of relationships I have developed and the sense those colleagues had of my judgement and of me as a person.
This point in my career however was not achieved quickly – It took a number of years for me to reach this level of acceptance; so what is this concept that we have called “influence”? Can it be trained or coached? And how do we know how well we are doing? I think there are five stages to becoming more influential and therefore to becoming a trusted advisor:
Earlier, I posed the question can this be trained or coached? The answer is undoubtedly that it can, but if you find yourself attending a half day workshop entitled “Influencing skills for lawyers” it will most probably be too superficial to be useful and may seem a little trite. I believe developing influencing skills requires a deeper and more thoughtful approach. It is an approach I can summarise in six short points:
Present well, be visible, project management, network, be ethical and patient – all these points are about building influence over time in a disciplined, systematic and thoughtful way. It is just one among many important skills, but in my opinion it is THE core skill for all successful lawyers. It is the window through which others will judge your talent, your commitment and your judgement – and it doesn’t get any more significant than that…