The T-Shaped Lawyer Guidebook

Every lawyer now realises that legal knowledge and skills are no longer sufficient for a successful career. Now, everyone is trying to decide 'what non-legal skills etc are necessary?'. As I pointed out in my first book - The T-Shaped Lawyer: A New Vision for You and Your Work - you cannot answer that question unless and until you first are clear on what work you will do and how you plan to use these non-legal capabilities. It should be obvious that for corporate lawyers non-legal skills are primarily to do non-legal, or as I call it 'business', work. That is crucial if you want to be a T-Shaped Lawyer which I define in the first book as a businessperson, not just a lawyer, who provides business advice, not just legal advice, and does business work, not just legal work, for the benefit of the company, not just the legal department or firm.

Also, despite the tendency in legal commentary to refer to everything as a skill, not everything is a skill. You need much more than skills. You need to develop a range of skills, competencies, qualities, knowledge and mindsets. The distinction between these dimensions is more than semantic because the way you develop and use each one is very different.

Rather than just randomly selecting what new things you need to learn, it helps to utilise a Framework that is designed to achieve your specific change objectives. The T-Shaped Lawyer Framework™ is specifically designed to help you become a T-Shaped Lawyer and to do business work but it will also help you enhance the quality of your legal work.

My first book is about what a T-Shaped Lawyer is and why become one. As such it is preferable to read this book before reading the second book. However the second book stands on its own and can be ready without reading the first book. This second book is about how to become a T-Shaped Lawyer.  It provides you with a structured approach to your professional development and a base level of understanding of each of the components of the Framework. Think of this book as your Lonely Planet-style guidebook for your professional journey to become a T-Shaped Lawyer.