One question keeps surfacing in our conversations with firms: “Do you have anything for developing managers?”
Sometimes the request is broad. Sometimes it's specific: “We have lawyers stepping into management for the first time. They know the legal work. They've never really been taught how to coach someone, delegate effectively, or give feedback that actually helps someone improve.”
These questions are increasingly paired with another reality firms are navigating: as AI changes how legal work gets done, the human skills that shape judgment, communication, trust, and leadership are becoming more important, not less.
When a question comes up once or twice, it might reflect one firm's particular need. When it comes up this often, across many firms, it usually points to something bigger. That pattern came through in our first SkillBurst Showcase Content Forum, where clients talked about the growing need for leadership, communication, feedback, and client-value skills in an AI-enabled workplace. We build what our clients ask us to build, so a pattern like this one tells us something real is shifting.
Managing people has always required a different set of skills from practicing law, and firms have never had the same systems for teaching it that they have for legal skill. Lawyers learn legal judgment by watching experienced practitioners, taking on harder work, and building experience over time. That apprenticeship model is one of the profession's real strengths. Management development has rarely had the same structure. A strong lawyer becomes responsible for other people, usually because of good judgment and a strong record, and is then expected to lead, coach, delegate, and give feedback largely on their own, while still carrying significant client and matter responsibilities.
The challenge looks different depending on where someone is in that transition. For new managers, it may be learning how to set expectations, assign work clearly, or make the move from peer to manager. For more experienced managers, it may be leading through change, influencing people who don't report to them, thinking a few steps ahead instead of reacting, and building a team where people are willing to contribute their real thinking.
A few things have made all of this harder to ignore. Hybrid work has taken away a lot of the informal coaching that used to happen by osmosis: the hallway conversation, the debrief after a hearing, the moment a partner pulled someone aside to explain not just what changed in the draft, but why. AI is changing how junior lawyers build experience in the first place. As tools handle more routine tasks and accelerate early work, firms must be more deliberate about the human capabilities that cannot be automated: sound judgment, clear communication, coaching, feedback, emotional intelligence, inclusive leadership, and the ability to lead people through change.
All of that has put more weight on managers than the role used to carry. They translate firm priorities into daily work, notice when someone needs support, and set the tone for how a team communicates under pressure, often in ordinary moments: a draft review, a client debrief, a staffing decision, a feedback conversation, a discussion about competing priorities.
These skills matter for lawyers and staff. They matter in large firms with dedicated professional development teams, and they matter just as much in smaller firms where one person may carry much of the development load.
What firms are asking for is practical: guidance people can use right away, in a feedback conversation, a coaching discussion, a staffing decision, a hard moment with a team. That’s why the Emerging Leader Series and Management & Leadership Series work best as a progression. The Emerging Leader Series helps people build leadership readiness before they have formal authority. The Management & Leadership Series then supports the move into supervision, team alignment, coaching, performance management, change leadership, and broader influence. The latest expansion adds seven new modules covering coaching, difficult conversations, emotional intelligence, inclusive leadership, strategic thinking, leading through change, and influence.
When firms develop managers with intention, teams benefit from clearer expectations, more useful feedback, better support through change, and more room to contribute. Firms benefit too, through stronger communication, more consistent management practices, and a deeper bench of people ready to lead.
Management capability has always mattered. What feels encouraging now is how many firms are choosing to build it on purpose, developing managers deliberately instead of hoping the right people simply rise to it. That investment reaches further than the manager alone: it shapes the team, the culture, and the clients they serve.
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