Making it to Partner: The Roadmap for Associates & Senior Associates
Want to advance your career and make partner? Unfortunately being a great lawyer isn’t enough. Building a successful career takes an understanding of the profession and its economics, the ins and outs of building a client base, strategies to be engaging, tips to become a leader, how to avoid the traps that can derail a career and more. Gain valuable insights into all of these areas from leading lawyers & industry specialists who will guide you to where you want to go. WEB218N14
Description
Attend and earn 3 CPD units including:
2 units in Practice Management & Business Skills
1 unit in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
Chair: Carina Zeccola, Managing Partner, Griffin Legal; President, YWCA Canberra
9.00am to 9.45am How to Succeed in a Competitive Environment
- Don’t get left behind: a principal’s perspective on recent trends in legal firm ownership, where it’s going, and where you fit in
- Building and maintaining a client base: where to start, how to succeed, and why having good skills isn’t enough
- The difference between being a good senior associate and being a good partner
- Understanding the economics of the firm and leveraging that information for your career
- Disaster averted: avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a career
Presented by Dr Bradley Postma, Principal and Patent & Trade Marks Attorney, Spruson & Ferguson; author, Junior to Partner in Under 5 Years
9.45am to 10.30am Proving Your Worth: Professional Skills to Make You Indispensable
- Show that you are 'partnership material'
- Become a client-magnet
- Make business development part of your legal work
- Understand your client's world
- Engage your audience through speaking and writing
- Develop your skills as a thought leader
Presented by Shelley Dunstone, Principal, Legal Circles; Advisory Board Member, Senior Lawyers Committee, International Bar Association; Adjunct Faculty, Carnegie Mellon University; Adjunct Lecturer, College of Law
10.30am to 10.40am Break
10.40am to 11.25am Selling to a Friend: How to Maintain Great Client Relationships that Create Real Value
- The key to managing valuable, profitable client relationships: knowing how and when to sell
- Overcoming hurdles: why you don't sell to people you like, and sell badly to people you don't
- Articulating value: how becoming a better salesperson will help you build and maintain client relationships
- Finding your tribe: why you should be showing more love to less clients
- Purposeful pitching: how to frame your work with the client in mind
- Raising your profile: how to scale your pitch and manage more relationships with less time
Presented by Sam Burrett, Client Relationship Manager, Clayton Utz; Podcast Host & Author, The Leading Lawyer Project; Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Legal Innovation
11.25am to 11.45am The Specialist Legal Recruiter’s Perspective: The Realities of the Legal Market & Becoming a Partner
Join John Castello, a former lawyer and a specialist legal recruiter, for a practical, real world look at the 5 things you will need to become a partner.
Presented by John Castello, Director, Gatehouse Legal Recruitment
11.45am to 12.30pm What’s It Really Like When you Get There? The Truth About Life as a Partner
- I’m liable now, what have I done?!
- So I now run a business…wait, was there an instruction manual I didn’t read?
- Who is my boss now and who will teach me?
- Always on my best behaviour
- Being mindful of conscious and unconscious power dynamics
- Looking after the team
- What do my clients expect?
Presented by Luke Geary, Partner, Mills Oakley; Founder & Former Managing Partner, Salvos Legal
Presenters
Carina Zeccola, Managing Partner, Griffin Legal
Carina Zeccola is the Managing Partner of Griffin Legal, a nationally operating law firm providing Total Quality Service to Government, Business and Not-for-Profits. Carina was appointed as a Partner of Griffin Legal in 2017. Carina is diligent, genuine and personable in her approach to the law. Carina prides herself on getting to know and understand her clients and the environment in which they operate to ensure that the advice Carina provides is relevant, commercial and practical. Carina first started at the firm working in and managing the firm’s conveyancing and property team. Since then, Carina has managed the commercial law area, and currently focuses on providing Government and Business with advice in the areas of commercial law and privacy.
Dr Bradley Postma, Principal and Patent & Trade Marks Attorney, Spruson & Ferguson
Brad Postma is a principal with Spruson & Ferguson. Brad helps small businesses to make money from inventions. In particular, he specialises in patenting products so that they cannot be copied. Electronics and software are his specialties. Brad is also the author of the legal career book "Junior to Partner in under 5 years."
Shelley Dunstone, Principal, Legal Circles
Shelley is the founder and Principal of Legal Circles, a consulting practice that helps lawyers to achieve their business and career aspirations. She helps lawyers to build profile and attract more of the work they want to do, from clients they like to work with. Admitted as a lawyer in 1981, Shelley practised in a wide variety of legal fields before specializing in commercial litigation and becoming a law firm partner. In addition to Law, Shelley holds qualifications in Marketing and Applied Finance. She is a Life Member of the Australian Legal Practice Management Association, an Adjunct Lecturer with the College of Law, and Co-Chair of the Senior Lawyers Committee of the International Bar Association.
John Castello, Director, Gatehouse Legal Recruitment
John is one of Australia’s most respected executive legal recruitment and search consultants, driven to source outstanding opportunities for his candidates and the best legal talent for his clients. John is very passionate about the legal profession and specialises in executive level legal searches for Partners, Special Counsels, Senior Associates, General Counsels and Senior Legal Counsels. John also assists his clients in establishing new law firms and facilitating law firm mergers and acquisitions. As both a former lawyer and a specialist legal recruiter, John has been able to use his experience to build a loyal network of candidates and clients, and develop meaningful relationships with key stakeholders around the country.
Luke Geary, Partner, Mills Oakley; Founder & Former Managing Partner, Salvos Legal
Luke is a Partner in the Mills Oakley Not-For-Profit & Social Enterprise team in Brisbane and has extensive experience in the Not-For-Profit sector. Luke was a Partner at Mills Oakley in Sydney until late 2009, when he left the firm to found Salvos Legal and Salvos Legal Humanitarian. At Salvos Legal Luke headed up the Corporate & Commercial team, together with being the firm’s Managing Partner. Luke returned to Mills Oakley as a Partner in November 2017. Luke was named one of Australia’s Best Lawyers for Non-Profit/Charities Law in the 2021/2022 Best Lawyers list for the sixth consecutive year, including in 2020 being named as Australia’s Non-Profit/Charities ‘Lawyer of the Year’. In 2017, Luke was admitted to the Order of Distinguished Auxilliary Service. Additionally, Luke was recognised as one of the 10 Most Innovative Lawyers in the Financial Times Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers 2016 awards. He was included in Pro Bono Australia’s ‘Impact 25’ most influential people in the Australian social sector in 2015. In 2013, Luke was awarded Managing Partner of the Year in the Australian Law Awards, he was Australia’s Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year in 2012 and in 2010 he received an Anzac of the Year award for service to the legal profession and the community.
Sam Burrett, Client Relationship Manager, Clayton Utz
Sam Burrett is a Client Relationship Manager at Clayton Utz, a Distinguished Fellow at the College of Law's Centre for Legal Innovation and the Host of the Leading Lawyer Project podcast. In 2020, Sam held over 100 conversations with General Counsel and legal teams across Australia, gathering insight into what it's really like for the clients of law firms. Building on that experience, as well as geek-level passion for sales and marketing strategy, Sam helps lawyers win new work and retain the right clients.