August 2025

Great lawyers aren’t always great leaders, but they can learn.

by David Curtain

When you’re promoted to lead a legal team, it’s usually because you’ve done great legal work. But the role itself changes. You go from being the lawyer (on the tools) to leading the lawyers (managing the bigger picture), from subject matter expert to team leadership expert — and most lawyers are never taught how to do that. Plus, you have to manage what can be an awkward transition from being a ‘colleague’ to being the ‘boss’.

That was my experience. I had strong legal knowledge, but suddenly I needed a whole new set of skills. I didn’t get them right away. I figured it out through instinct, observing others, reading, training and messing it up. The learning curve was steep. Here’s what I learned along the way.

Legal teams work better with aligned goals

In many teams, there’s no clear strategy connecting organisational, team and individual goals. Team meetings often become repetitive updates on how busy everyone is, rather tracking progress, assessing what’s working, what’s not and discussing necessary adjustments. There’s rarely a shared understanding of what progress looks like.

Most legal departments have flatter hierarchies than other parts of the business. Senior people often work in silos, using different approaches with limited knowledge sharing. Most teams have systems, but they’re not always used in consistent ways. These areas of misalignment are where friction – and frustration – starts to appear.

Legal ability is different to leadership readiness

You can be a technically brilliant lawyer and still struggle to manage a team. Legal training sharpens skills that are different to those needed to lead well.

Leading a team is about creating clarity, supporting others and advocating for your team within the organisation. That’s not something most in-house lawyers are taught. And it takes them to places where they can’t easily work out the best way forward, which is an uncomfortable place to be.

Knowing how your team works helps you lead them

When leaders aren’t connected with their team, it shows. Some avoid hard conversations. Others misread what people need. Often, they don’t know how their team does its best work or where issues are brewing.

A team member who rarely speaks in meetings might have a lot to say in one-on-ones. If you don’t learn how people operate – and how to support them to do their best work —that’s when good people often start to leave.

Being open to feedback builds trust

One of the most useful things I’ve learned is how to listen to feedback without getting defensive. That’s not easy when your job has always been to be right. But it matters. There’s often something useful in it, even if you don’t agree with everything being said.

Asking, “What’s the intent behind this?” helps shift the focus. It becomes less about being correct, and more about understanding and moving forward together.

How you show up sets the tone

Leadership isn’t about having the perfect plan. It’s about being willing to adjust, noticing what isn’t working and doing something about it. The role is shaped by small shifts, not big declarations.

It’s also shaped by how you manage pressure. If you’re overwhelmed, your team will feel it. That affects the culture, whether you intend it or not. And if you don’t have space to breathe, neither will they.

Leadership is a different job, and it can be learned

You don’t have to be a natural leader. It’s about thinking differently, listening carefully and figuring out what your team actually needs from you.

It starts with understanding that being a great lawyer and being a great leader are not the same thing. That’s not a weakness. It’s just a different job.

At Front Foot, we work with legal teams to build structure and alignment. It’s not just about making the work more efficient. It’s about helping leaders lead more effectively and enabling their teams to do great work. It’s not about big transformations. It’s about building clarity, capability and trust, piece by piece.

You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to keep learning.