People

We believe that it is vital to ensure the right people are handling or overseeing the delivery of legal services; whether that be devolving responsibility to the business supported through self-serve tools, outsourcing work to a law firm/managed legal service or ingesting work for the in-house team through a legal tech 'front door'.

​

Further, now more than ever, it is imperative that legal leaders focus on the development of and retention of their people. In recent years discretionary budgets, such as training and development, have been plundered to achieve cost savings in established businesses; thus enabling GCs to preserve headcount to accommodate rising workload. Whilst within disruptor companies, training and development is often shelved for ‘when things calm down’.

 

The reduced investment in development is problematic in terms of staff motivation and in turn productivity and retention. This is compounded in companies where the more traditional ‘motivation carrot’ tools such pay rises and promotions are not available due to a lack of growth or even decline. Development is a key tool for a GC to prove to her/his team that she/he genuinely cares about them; in Isambard's experience, if an employee genuinely feels they matter as an individual, evidenced through proper development and proactive career management, increased productivity and stability naturally follows as does better retention. This increased productivity is vital in a ‘more for less’ environment.

​

Isambard's lead consultants, Barry Matthews, Nicola Phillips and Andrew Garard, have been responsible for lawyer development for over three decades at Reuters plc, Cable & Wireless plc, ITV plc and Meggitt plc. This has included ITV group-wide ‘Developing Future Leaders’ programme - part of the 'Fit for Purpose’ limb of the four prong Transformation Strategy devised by Adam Crozier and Andrew. More recently, the team have led on transforming the global Corporate Affairs (CA) team at Meggitt plc, which included the creation of a CA Development Academy for team members (across Legal, Commercial and Compliance) and internal clients alike. In addition, the team have extensive experience of coaching and mentoring.

​

Drawing upon this experience, Isambard can deliver a number of learning and development programmes targeted at In-house legal teams (to improve legal skills and commercial acumen) or private practice lawyers (to improve their business development and relationship building skills).​