At Zacks Law we view coaching as the art of using one's experience, knowledge, and insight to motivate, educate, challenge, help you grow and create accountability for one's choices.
Traditional legal services place a small emphasis on this function because the legal issues are often piecemeal and deal with legal jargon and rules that are activity, project and transaction focused. The time pressures of hourly billing and fee generation have taken the legal profession from a counseling profession to a client notion that its an "hired gun" mentality. We believe that the best solution is legal issue avoidance, so helping you spot legal issues and pragmatically avoid unintended consequences is correctly addressed by coaching.
Legal coaching is serving not only as a legal consultant but as a macro and micro coach. General Counsel services are different from coaching consultant services because the coaching provides the coach who helps the executive better act to accomplish your goals free from legal over-protection and avoiding issues before they develop. If the issue develops while engaged in coaching, the coach helps get to the end game and helps the executive grow. A coach is a behind the scenes leading member of the team whose success is measured not by micro results and time, but by metrics related to the specific task and coaching assignments that the individuals and collective team members have undertaken.
Legal coaching assists the executives and contracting parties in the legalities of the organization. Coaches differ from inside General Counsel. An inside counsel focuses on representing the organization and building its resources and expertise to encounter future problems. General Counsel's focus on the organization and working through the legal quagmires in the organization among team members and legal impacts outside the organization. Coaches focus on the here, now and next action steps in real time to do the job at hand.
