Sue Weston Smith

Sue has worked within the legal sector for the last 20 years, as a lawyer, a headhunter and a business coach.

Following a law degree she trained and qualified with Baker & McKenzie, working in their in London and Hong Kong offices. She has subsequently worked within executive search over a period of 16 years, specialising in the legal and professional services sectors. Her clients include leading UK and US law firms for whom she has worked at partner and senior associate level across a wide range of legal practice areas.

For the past 3 years Sue as been building a business coaching practice within the legal sector; coaching partners, senior lawyers and business managers at City law firms, having graduated as an accredited Business Coach from the Meyler Campbell Business Coach programme.

Search Experience

Her legal search expertise includes working for leading UK and US law firms on predominantly partner level searches over a number of practice areas, including finance, private equity, capital markets, real estate, energy, IT, tax and corporate. She has also conducted for clients market background and benchmarking exercises for lateral hires, and due diligence on new -market entry. In addition she has worked on in-house Company Secretary and Director of Tax positions, and as a consultant to a company specialising in senior level interim placements.

Coaching Experience

Sue works with senior lawyers and law firm managers in leading firms on professional development, career strategy and transition. Key transition points for coaching intervention have been working towards and attaining partnership, promotion to senior managerial roles, and career review and options for career change for lawyers leaving their firms.

She believes that coaching is about attaining focus and effecting positive change, and that the strength of the coaching process for the client lies in allowing the individual ‘time-out’ in which to review, discuss and plan, then action their own solutions. For employers she firmly believes that coaching is a powerful tool in professional development and in the retention of key talent within the organisation.

Sue works with clients in a non-directive way, focussing on what they want to achieve, and helping –and challenging - them to identify their strengths and motivators from which they can establish strategies to enable them to effect change and develop their performance, for their own benefit and consequently for the benefit of the organisations for which they work. In advising on career strategy in the case of redundancy or reviewing of career options she adopts a more directive, practical, collabrative approach, working with lawyers in examining and actioning options and clarifying objectives as a means of moving forward.

Examples of recent assignments include:

• Working with a senior partner of a Magic Circle firm on re-focussing commitment and structuring his career following various changes in his department and the firm as a whole.
• Working with a senior partner of a top City firm in formulating a decision on running for a senior management role, enabling him the space in which to examine the implications from all sides and to formulate a strategy for going forward.
• Working with 4 partners leaving a City law firm on examining options and dealing with the change in their circumstances.
• Coaching a senior lawyer at a Magic Circle firm on her partnership selection, building on points that had arisen from her firm’s leadership development programme; coaching another lawyer at the same firm on enhancing his partnership prospects.
• Coaching a number of senior City law firm management professionals on personal professional development, with particular emphasis on greater innovation and driving forward change.