The article, which appeared in the January/February 2026 issue of the ABA’s GPSolo Magazine, describes attorney coaching as a meaningful alternative career for lawyers who enjoy helping others grow and change. Effective coaching differs from mentoring or consulting because it emphasizes curiosity, reflection, and helping clients develop their own solutions rather than simply giving advice. Lawyers bring valuable skills to coaching, but building a successful coaching practice requires learning a different mindset, developing a niche, gaining experience, and accepting the entrepreneurial realities of building a business.
- Lawyers have transferable strengths: Analytical ability, communication skills, issue spotting, professionalism, and an understanding of the legal profession can make lawyers effective coaches.
- But lawyers need to unlearn some habits: Good coaching requires resisting the impulse to supply answers, becoming comfortable with silence, listening for meaning, and remaining curious longer.
- Start gradually: Get coached yourself, consider training, experiment with coaching conversations, and begin with a small number of clients rather than immediately abandoning your legal career.
- Choose a niche and expect to build slowly: Specialization helps establish credibility, while a sustainable coaching practice generally takes time to develop and requires an entrepreneurial mindset.
Becoming an Attorney Coach: Guiding Lawyers Toward Clarity and Change
Stephen E. Seckler
When Sarah first reached out to me, she sounded both energized and overwhelmed. She had recently moved to a new firm with more modern systems, better staffing, and the promise of growth, but her two largest corporate clients had stayed behind at her old firm. She was new to Boston, didn’t know many people in the city, and felt uncertain about how to rebuild what she had left behind.
Like many lawyers in transition, she had a lot on her mind. She knew reaching out to past clients was a good idea, but she was not sure where to start or what to say. Her legal training—spotting risks and avoiding missteps—was keeping her from taking any action at all.
Our early coaching sessions gave her something she didn’t have anywhere else: space. She could speak freely because I wasn’t her partner, colleague, or spouse. With accountability, she began taking steps she had been avoiding. With reflection, she saw how “thinking like a lawyer” was sometimes a barrier to growth. And with encouragement, she experimented with outreach that felt genuine rather than forced.
Nothing changed overnight. But small, consistent actions (reconnecting with former clients she genuinely liked, attending a trade association event, testing new language to describe her value, posting regularly on LinkedIn) helped her regain momentum. Within six months, she had reactivated her network and began shaping a practice that aligned with the life she wanted.
Sarah’s story, which is actually a composite of work I did with several recent clients, captures the essence of coaching: helping someone get past roadblocks, think differently, and align their behavior with their goals.
In this article, I discuss my own journey, why coaching resonates with so many lawyers, how it differs from other forms of professional and personal development, and what it takes to get started.
From Law School to Learning and Development
My transition into coaching didn’t happen all at once. It was an evolution. When I left law school, I had the sense that my greatest energy came not from solving legal problems, but from helping people grow. Coaching didn’t appear in my life as an obvious next step. It emerged slowly as I paid attention to what actually energized me.
I arrived at Northeastern University School of Law in the 1980s, thinking I would pursue something related to social justice. In college, I had spent time lobbying the New York State Legislature on environmental issues and doing some community organizing. While I didn’t know many lawyers at the time, I believed legal training would help me with whatever I decided to do.
At Northeastern, I rotated through several co-op jobs—the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the public defender’s office, Boston University’s Office of General Counsel, and a plaintiffs’ toxic tort firm. I also participated in a clinic called the Prisoners’ Assistance Project. I admired the commitment of the attorneys I met and appreciated the impact and importance of their work.
But the day-to-day reality of practicing law became clearer with each experience. The work felt isolating. For the most part, much of it required long hours alone, immersed in detail, or at the very least, anticipating every possible thing that could go wrong. The conflict-driven nature of the work didn’t energize me. I began to see that my talents and interests were better aligned with work that involves collaboration, communication, and helping people grow professionally.
My first real job after law school at Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) confirmed that intuition. As a program attorney, I collaborated with more than 1,000 practitioners, judges, and consultants to create hundreds of CLE programs. I learned how lawyers develop professionally. While most attorneys stay siloed in their practice area, I saw patterns many lawyers never see because I was working across practice areas. I was also organizing a lot of courses on marketing, something that was just emerging in the legal profession.
It was also at MCLE that I first encountered the idea of coaching. At the time, coaching was just finding its way into the legal workplace. A few consultants were offering business development coaching for lawyers, but the idea was still new. Even so, something about it resonated immediately.
Discovering Coaching as a Tool for Change
In the early 1990s, while I was still at MCLE, I trained as a mediator. Mediation taught me to listen without judgment, stay curious, and ask questions that help people uncover their own answers—skills that are foundational in coaching.
Several years later, I became a coaching client myself. That experience was transformative. My coach didn’t tell me what to do. Instead, she helped me clarify what I wanted, recognize what was holding me back, and take steps that aligned with my goals. Through coaching, I realized that while classroom learning raises awareness, coaching is what changes behavior.
I also began to appreciate something fundamental about lawyers: We are exceptionally good at solving other people’s problems but not always as good at solving our own. We excel at analysis but are less comfortable with self-reflection. We know how to build arguments but can struggle to articulate what we truly want. Coaching helps bridge that gap.
What Coaching Is—and What It Isn’t
Training, mentoring, consulting, therapy, and coaching all serve different purposes, and each plays an important role in professional and personal growth. In order to understand coaching, it is helpful to understand the other tools.
Training is designed to transfer knowledge or teach specific skills.
Mentoring offers guidance based on experience. The mentor helps someone navigate a path the mentor has already walked.
Consulting, on the other hand, provides expert advice and recommendations, often with a focus on solving a defined problem.
Therapy supports emotional healing, resolves past issues, and addresses mental health concerns.
Coaching, by contrast, is future-focused and grounded in the belief that clients are capable of generating their own solutions. It helps people clarify what they want, recognize what is getting in the way, and take meaningful steps forward.
These tools often complement one another, and many professionals benefit from more than one at different stages of their development.
Although I rely primarily on a coaching approach, there are moments when I offer direct guidance, especially when my experience can help someone sidestep avoidable obstacles and where I have particular knowledge (for example, job hunting or marketing). But I still underscore to my clients what one Peloton instructor said with a swagger: “I make suggestions. You make decisions!”
For example, a midlevel associate I was working with had an offer from a company that she was afraid to lose. She was more interested in an opportunity with a nonprofit organization where she had interviewed, but she assumed that she had been passed over. I suggested she reach out to the nonprofit. Within two days, she received the offer she truly wanted.
These moments don’t replace coaching; they complement it. Advice, used sparingly and intentionally, can be a good catalyst.
Why Lawyers Make Great Coaches, and What Lawyers Need to Unlearn
Many of the strengths that make us good lawyers—organizing information, clarity of communication, and getting things across the finish line—become enormous assets in coaching. We are skilled at analyzing patterns and understanding complex systems. Our professionalism and expertise build trust quickly. We trained in issue spotting. And in coaching other lawyers, we understand instinctively the pressures our clients face.
But shifting from lawyering to coaching requires a genuine change in mindset. Coaching requires a different stance, one grounded in curiosity, patience, and openness.
As lawyers learning to coach, we must unlearn the instinct to jump in with solutions. We must become comfortable with silence and learn to see questions as more powerful than answers. We must begin to understand missteps as experiments, not failures.
I often find that lawyers misunderstand what coaching is. Some believe coaching is simply another form of mentoring, where an experienced professional dispenses wisdom. Others assume coaching is “soft,” lacking the rigor we associate with legal analysis. A few worry that coaching veers too close to therapy or that seeking coaching signals weakness.
None of that is accurate. Coaching is structured, future-focused, and grounded in change theory. It is not about pathology or advice-giving. It is about helping people think more clearly so they can act more intentionally.
To become effective coaches, we must unlearn some deeply ingrained habits from our legal training. We are accustomed to being the expert in the room, identifying risks before possibilities, and supplying answers rather than asking questions.
We have a tendency to be skeptical and pessimistic and communicate in an analytical way rather than in a relational way. This often means we jump quickly to problem-solving without pausing to explore what a client actually wants. We may listen for flaws instead of listening for meaning. We may view silence as inefficiency rather than space for insight. And we may forget to provide encouragement.
For the most part, these habits serve us well in practicing law, but they can hinder effective coaching. The shift from “What’s the problem and how do we fix it?” to “What matters most here?” doesn’t feel natural at first.
Once we learn to let go of controlling the outcome, to stay curious a bit longer, and to view exploration as progress rather than delay, coaching becomes far more intuitive. Our existing strengths become even more powerful when paired with genuine curiosity.
Finding Your Niche
Coaching has expanded dramatically since I first encountered it. When I started, saying “I coach lawyers” was specific enough. Today, specialization is essential. Lawyers who coach can focus on areas such as career transitions, leadership, business development, productivity, well-being, or retirement planning. There are also energy coaches, time management coaches, and a host of others.
If I were choosing a niche today, I would narrow it even further. A well-defined niche accelerates credibility and makes it easier for clients to find you. That doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to attorneys. But today, I coach lawyers on career transitions, marketing, leadership, and retirement. My career coaching has been a natural complement to the recruiting I did for more than two decades. Coaching lawyers on marketing and leadership stems in part from the three decades I have spent networking in the legal community and observing highly successful rainmakers and leaders.
How to Explore Coaching Further or Get Started
The best path into coaching is experiential. Getting coached yourself is the most direct way to understand the process. Speaking with a variety of coaches can provide valuable insight into the profession. (Feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss the profession.)
Reading foundational texts helps, too. Co-Active Coaching by Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, and Phillip Sandhal (later editions added author Karen Kimsey-House) is one of the earlier books on the subject, but there are many others depending on your specific interests.
Training is also useful. Programs accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) offer structure and rigor. Beyond the ICF, there are now many organizations offering training in a wide range of coaching modalities, each emphasizing a different approach, methodology, or specialty area.
Certification is a route that many people now take. The ICF offers several levels of certification, starting with Associate Certified Coach, which requires 60-plus hours of training, 100 hours of coaching experience, 10 hours of mentor-coaching, and passing a performance evaluation. There are numerous other organizations with certification programs, but you’ll have to do your own research to find what works for you. That is beyond the scope of this article.
If you’re curious about coaching, you don’t have to quit your day job. Start informally. Try having coaching conversations with colleagues who report to you. While you may be inclined to mentor, try using a coaching lens rather than giving advice. Michael Bugay Stanier’s book The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, and Change the Way You Lead Forever can provide a framework for these conversations.
Once you are trained, work with one or two clients on the side. Coaching develops with practice, and no single path works for everyone.
Practical Realities of Building a Practice
Coaching is deeply rewarding, but it is also entrepreneurial. A sustainable practice takes time to build. Income usually grows gradually rather than all at once. For many lawyers who are accustomed to earning reliable six-figure salaries, this is challenging.
This is why I encourage lawyers to begin coaching on the side. It allows you to develop skills, build confidence, and create a client base without the financial pressure of a full career transition.
If being your own boss is not for you, there are also formal opportunities to do coaching at a bigger law firm. A growing number of in-house programs help lawyers manage their careers, develop better business development skills, or become better managers and leaders. Many programs like to hire lawyers to fill these roles. I participate on a panel of external career coaches for an AmLaw100 firm.
The Rewards of Coaching
After nearly three decades of coaching lawyers, I still find tremendous fulfillment in helping attorneys think more clearly, act more intentionally, and build careers that are consistent with their strengths, interests, and most importantly, values.
Coaching draws on everything I’ve learned about human behavior, business development, career transitions, adult learning, leadership, and the legal profession itself. It allows me to use my background in a way that feels authentic, plays to my strengths, and most importantly, is consistent with my values.
A Meaningful Alternative Career
If traditional practice doesn’t feel like your final destination, coaching may offer a meaningful alternative. You can begin by coaching other lawyers but expand to other professionals, such as accountants, management consultants, architects, or just about any individual whose work is, in part, analytical.
When I first encountered coaching, hardly anyone in the legal profession had heard of it. When I started my recruiting and coaching business in 1997, coaching was still emerging.
Today, coaching is a respected profession with expanding opportunities inside and outside firms. If you are inclined to continue practicing and want to invest in the growth of your team, try incorporating coaching into your daily habits. Your colleagues will develop their skills faster, and you’ll end up with happier employees and less turnover.
Coaching allows us to use our legal training differently to help people gain clarity, see possibilities, and build careers that truly align with their values.
For me, it is the most meaningful work I’ve done in my career.
Published in GPSolo: Volume 43, Number 1, © 2026 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
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