Chief Learning Officer - December 2007 - (Page 78) VANGUARD Gold, Division 1 Heather Bock, Global Director of Professional Development, Howrey LLP This year’s Division 1 Gold Award winner in the Vanguard category is Heather Bock, global director of professional development for Howrey LLP. Before coming onboard at Howrey, Bock was in HR, organization development and consulting. She’s been Howrey’s global director of professional development for almost four years, overseeing approximately 700 employees. Howrey LLP is an international law firm specializing in intellectual property, antitrust and global litigation. When Bock was hired, Howrey had about 500 attorneys in 12 cities. Since then, it has grown to approximately 600 attorneys in 16 cities and is continuing to expand. Four critical challenges faced Bock when she joined Howrey: 1. Lack of comprehensive talent management strategy to attract, develop and evaluate attorneys. 2. Lack of shared vision among the partners regarding the skills and training that Howrey attorneys need for success. 3. Inconsistent attorney skill development across the offices. 4. No line of sight between the firm’s strategy and the professional development and learning function. Advocating change within a law firm is challenging. In a riskaverse profession that clings to tradition, solving problems requires vision, planning and arm-twisting. Bock needed to form alliances and build a team to accomplish her mission. In short, she needed a change management strategy. She assembled a professional development team and looked to the training committee to help define the vision, structure, roles and responsibilities. She networked, benchmarked and brought in new ideas. One by one, key members of firm leadership bought into Bock’s vision. Changing the culture of an organization is a difficult task under the best circumstances, and when the decision is made to alter core institutions such as evaluations and hiring, change must be managed carefully. Bock kept partners in constant communication about these changes. For example, in rolling out the competency model and subsequent training strategy, Bock used e-mails and FAQs to make sure messages were consistent. She met with associate class representatives to encourage sharing information with and collecting feedback from their peers to get input on design and ensure buy-in of the new strategy. The Training and Performance Evaluation Committee partners presented the new plans in meetings within each office. Bock knew that since an innovative approach to training and development would involve the whole firm, its development necessitated the support of the whole firm. So, she made sure the talent management design included input from around 25 percent of Howrey’s attorneys. By moving to a pay-forperformance system linked to the competency model, Howrey will continue to be a leader in innovation among law firms. Howrey’s competency model is now part of the everyday language for partners and associates. It is a central part of the learning culture at Howrey. This model — the core of Howrey’s training curriculum — consists of four clusters: building the case for the client, advocating for the client, working with others, and positioning self and firm for success. This year, Bock is focused on advising firm leaders in a major initiative — moving compensation to a pay-for-performance model built around competency levels, whereby salaries will be determined by competency evaluations of associate performance. Like the majority of law firms across the country, Howrey’s existing attorney compensation is based on a legal institution called lockstep, in which associates receive a pay raise each year based only on tenure. While the current transition to a new compensation philosophy is a large-scale change to Howrey, such a change will better differentiate top talent. By moving to a pay-for-performance system linked to the competency model, Howrey will continue to be a leader in innovation among law firms. The new strategy aims to reward highly skilled, competent associates more than others; attract and retain higher-quality associates; and provide a stronger value proposition to clients by linking skills to billing rates. – Daniel Margolis, dmargolis@clomedia.com December 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 78 http://www.clomedia.com
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