In this inaugural Platforum9 Coaching Forum session, Kara Irwin, lawyer and qualified coach, and Stephen Hopkins, former law firm leader and now professional coach to the legal profession, explored why coaching is becoming indispensable for lawyers and legal teams. They were joined by fellow moderator Ron Given, a lawyer and executive coach.

The conversation traced how coaching has evolved from a perceived “nice-to-have” or remedial fix to an essential performance tool for modern legal practice – particularly as legal work becomes more pressured, more technology-driven, and more dependent on human relationships.

From traditional partnerships to pressured institutions

Hopkins reflected on his four decades in private practice, noting how law firms have shifted from “genuine partnerships” to large, hard-driven institutions. As firms became more corporate, he saw:

• Intensifying focus on chargeable hours and promotion metrics
• Lawyers are moving from one high-stakes matter to the next with little recovery time
• Early signs of burnout, long before the profession had language for it
• Talented lawyers leaving practice or moving in-house in search of something “easier,” which often turned out not to be

For many years, these pressures were treated as simply “how it is” if you want to be a serious lawyer. Only relatively recently has the profession begun to recognise them as performance-limiting problems, rather than unavoidable conditions of success.

Mentoring, training, and coaching – different tools, different jobs

Irwin and Hopkins emphasised that training, mentoring, and coaching each have a place – but they are not interchangeable.

• Training delivers knowledge and skills efficiently: “Here is how to do X.”
• Mentoring is experience-based guidance: a more senior lawyer sharing what has worked (and not worked) for them.
• Coaching helps the individual work out their own solutions, aligned with their strengths, context, and values.

Irwin described how her own work in academia and legal training highlighted the limits of “I know something you don’t; let me teach you.” Issues like burnout, confidence, networking, and leadership resist one-size-fits-all answers. They call for reflection, experimentation, and personalised strategies – which is precisely where coaching excels.

Hopkins now often blends all three approaches: training to transmit information, mentoring to share hard-won lessons, and coaching to shift mindset and embed sustainable behavioural change.

Coaching as a counterweight – bringing humanity back into legal practice

For Hopkins, the seeds of coaching were sown as a human counterweight to increasing impersonality. As firms moved to open-plan and sped up, always-on working, he saw the loss of informal “door-open” mentoring that used to happen in partners’ offices.

Coaching re-creates some of that space – but in a more structured, intentional way:

• Time to pause and reflect after major matters, rather than instantly moving to the next deal
• A confidential, non-judgemental forum to explore doubts, fears, and ambitions
• Support for rebuilding confidence and self-esteem when the environment has eroded both

Irwin underlined that coaching provides “thinking space” where lawyers can reconnect with what they actually want from their careers, and how they want to show up with colleagues and clients.

Emotions, mindset, and the lawyer’s discomfort zone

A recurring theme was the profession’s deep discomfort with emotions. Lawyers are trained to prioritise logic, precedent, and analysis; feelings are often treated as irrelevant, or even unhelpful.

Hopkins argued that this is exactly backwards when it comes to behaviour and performance. Our actions are driven by emotions and beliefs, whether we acknowledge them or not. Ignoring that reality makes change very hard.

Many lawyers arrive at coaching sceptical, seeing it as “flimsy” or fearing it signals weakness. Hopkins often hears some variation of: “I wasn’t expecting to get anything out of this.” Yet by the end of the first session, it is common to hear surprise at how powerful it feels simply to have the right questions asked in the right way.

Given pointed out the cultural clash: lawyers are used to being paid to supply answers. Coaching asks them instead to sit in questions, uncertainty, and self-inquiry – and to generate their own answers. Reframing coaching as something their most successful clients and business leaders already use can help shift that mindset.

Coaching in the age of AI – why the human work matters more

Irwin and Hopkins both noted that as legal tech and AI take on more research and drafting, the value lawyers bring will increasingly centre on the human side:

• Leading and motivating teams
• Building trusted, durable client relationships
• Handling conflict and difficult conversations
• Creating a healthy, sustainable team culture

These are precisely the domains where coaching is most effective. Training can describe good leadership; coaching helps a specific lawyer become the kind of leader they want to be, in their context, with their personality.

Given suggested that the profession is still in the early days of this shift, but that many of his own clients are already self-funding coaching. They see it as core self-investment rather than a remedial intervention.

What a coaching engagement actually looks like

For those unfamiliar with coaching, Hopkins demystified the process:

• Chemistry/discovery call – a free, initial conversation to see whether coach and client “gel”. Trust and rapport are non-negotiable.
• Structured series of sessions – commonly four to six sessions of 45–60 minutes, focused on a specific opportunity or challenge.
• Client-led agenda – the coachee sets the topic. If something significant has happened in the week, the session often pivots to that, because that is where the energy and impact sit.
• Work between sessions – reflection and experimentation in day-to-day practice make the change stick.

Research and experience show that four to six sessions are often enough to make meaningful progress on a discrete issue or goal, though some engagements continue longer.

How lawyers can find the right coach

The panel closed with practical guidance for lawyers who are curious about coaching:

• Start with your employer: Many firms and in-house teams now fund coaching as part of professional development.
• Use professional bodies: In-house counsel who are members of the Association of Corporate Counsel, for example, can access a panel of vetted coaches and an initial free session.
• Search within the profession: LinkedIn searches for “executive coach” or “leadership coach” filtered by legal background can surface coaches who understand the law’s culture and pressures.
• Look for accreditation: Bodies such as the International Coaching Federation, Association for Coaching, and European Mentoring and Coaching Council maintain directories of trained coaches.
• Insist on a chemistry call: Most coaches offer a free 30–45-minute conversation. Use it to test fit – style, communication, challenge level, and understanding of your world.

Irwin stressed that coaching has moved from being remedial to a luxury for the chosen few, to something closer to essential kit for any lawyer who wants a sustainable, satisfying, and high-performing career.

Key takeaways for lawyers and legal leaders

• Coaching is no longer about “fixing problems”; it is about unlocking potential and protecting performance in a high-pressure profession.
• Training and mentoring remain valuable – but they do different jobs. Coaching complements them by working at the level of mindset and behaviour.
• Lawyers’ reluctance to engage with emotions is understandable, but unhelpful. Emotions drive behaviour; working with them makes change easier, not harder.
• As AI takes over more technical work, the human skills coaching develops – leadership, empathy, relationship-building – will define the value lawyers bring.
• You do not have to wait for your firm. Many lawyers are self-investing in coaching and seeing it as a hallmark of ambition, not a sign of weakness.