Why do your best lawyers struggle to lead?
The precision that wins cases becomes perfectionism that won't trust or delegate.
The skepticism that protects clients becomes risk aversion that blocks innovation.
The collegiality that holds the partnership together becomes the reason hard conversations never happen.
The self-reliance that built the book becomes the bottleneck the practice can't grow past.
None of this is a character flaw. It is what happens when the skills the profession rewards meet the mindset leadership requires. We coach partners through that collision — connecting leadership to what partners deal with every day: origination and compensation tensions, client succession, lateral recruiting, tough conversations, and holding peers accountable.
Offer 1 — Partner coaching
For practice group chairs, office managing partners, firm leaders, and partners preparing for larger roles. Every engagement starts with an assessment and a confidential 360, and is tracked against behaviorally anchored goals:
- Building strategic influence instead of defaulting to individual execution
- Difficult conversations with partners, associates, and clients, before they become bigger problems
- Delegation and building a talent pipeline instead of staying indispensable
Offer 2 — Cohort programs
In-firm leadership programs for partners at the same transition point. Six to twelve months: assessment up front, monthly one-to-one coaching, action-learning teams working on live firm initiatives, and case discussion. Each cohort leaves the firm a durable output it keeps using. Two successive cohorts at one Am Law firm have put 29 senior partners through this model.
When the answer is a hire
Sometimes the firm needs to bring a leader in, not develop one — a practice chair from outside, a lateral whose book changes the practice. Bench Strength does not conduct searches. When the answer is a hire, the search is an August Leadership engagement — a separate roof — conducted by August's search consultants worldwide; where the firm wants it, every finalist is assessed with the same rigor we apply in our assessment practice. The hire arrives with evidence attached.
Leadership AssessmentThe partner leadership system
We work through three lenses at once: the leader, the partnership, and the practice. In law firms, the human issues and the business issues are usually the same issues.
Selected engagements
Challenge: A senior partner had never identified or worked through a right-hand person; everything ran through her, and top client work crowded out firm-building.
Approach: Coaching on selecting, onboarding, and building genuine trust with a deputy.
Outcome: A functioning right-hand relationship for the first time — time freed for top client work and firm leadership.
Challenge: A new IP practice group leader at an Am Law 100 firm had a mandate to grow, but no real capability for assessing lateral partners.
Approach: Built a recruiting discipline: identifying external rainmakers, assessing for culture fit, and using fit to close.
Outcome: Four new partners landed, with books of $3–5M each.
Challenge: A new office managing partner — the firm's second-largest office — avoided direct feedback with well-liked underperformers.
Approach: Coaching on direct feedback and holding peers accountable, tracked against specific conversations.
Outcome: Accountability became routine. Over the same two years, office profitability rose 23%.
Testimonials
"We brought in Bench Strength Advisors after trying out a slew of other leadership advisory firms and elite executive education programs — but behavior never changed. Their 'mindset challenge' is totally different... and it's gold."
"Carrie is an outstanding coach and a trusted advisor to several of our rising-star partners. She understands the subtle — but powerful — ways leaders shape culture, and she helps them grow in ways people actually feel."
"We saw a real shift in how key partners delegated, developed associates, and collaborated across practices — and our lateral integration outcomes improved noticeably within a year."
Your principals on this work
Jeffrey Cohn leads program architecture, facilitation, and sponsor conversations — and August Leadership's law firm practice. Dr. Carrie Muchow leads assessment and coaching. Both are personally in the room — no junior bench, no handoff after the sale.
AboutIs this right for your firm?
- Do your best lawyers see themselves the way others see them?
- Are your strongest partners hitting ceilings that talent alone doesn't explain?
- Are your leaders still thinking like individual contributors — my work, my clients, my hours?
If the honest answer to any of these is yes, the next appointment deserves evidence before it.
Start with one confidential conversation about one live transition.
Start a conversation