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Helping lawyers flourish

– professionally and personally

jens 
näsström

I am convinced that the great developmental potential in the legal sector lies in honoring and developing the human factor. But how do you go about it? That’s the question that I have been exploring for the past fifteen years. 

what i do

By integrating a deep experience of working with lawyers in my capacities as a consultant and psychologist, I can offer new perspectives on significant challenges within the profession. Relevant, empirically grounded, and precision in the application are essential guidelines in my work.

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Independent Research

I integrate the rigorousness of academic research with a business perspective, in the pursuit of cutting edge insights into a conservative industry that is operating in a rapidly changing world. 

Systemic Transfer of Professional Knowledge

One challenge in the legal sector is how to systematically capture and transfer experiences and know-how from generation to generation, with regards to how to sustain top performance in a long term perspective and with balance. This is one of my tasks.  

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Focus on Development that Generates Value

By drawing upon research and proven knowledge, I develop new tools, strategies, and approaches in the legal industry: from improving the quality of delegation and feedback provided by partners, to managing difficult clients.

The World’s First App for Soft Skills Training of Associates

App-based training addresses new challenges and needs:

non-localized training that provides lawyer-specific training at a minimum cost.  

  • Microlearning 

  • Screen-based training that appeals to millennials

  • Full track records of training available – which associates are the ambitious learners and which are the stragglers?

  • Lawyer-specific strategies, tips, and tricks

Learn more here

Years of experience of researching and training lawyers

lawyers trained

research projects

cups of coffee since 2005

current lecturing 

  • Swedish Bar Association’s open CLE/CPD program: Client Psychology
  • Swedish Bar Association’s open CLE/CPD program: Efficacy and Well-Being for Lawyers
  • Swedish Bar Association’s Leadership Program: guest lecturer
  • Stockholm School of Economics (Fall 2020): Program for Leadership in Professional Services (ranked #1 in the Nordics and 16th place globally for management and leadership development by the Financial Times)

current Research 

Impact of Imposed Remote Working in a Law firm due to the Covid-19 virus – a qualitative study (March 2020) 

Design of the study:
– semistructured research interviews
– broad representation of participants  encompassing all positions and seniority, from support to partners, from lawyers to support staff

Topics assessed include:
– focus, easier or more difficult?
– social cohesion
– support by leaders
– stress, more or less?
– impact on work-life balance? relations at home?
– after the crisis, will this have a lasting effect on the way of working at the firm? anything you would like to keep doing?

Leadership in Professional Services (2020)

Despite the distinctiveness of professional service firms, very little academic research has been conducted on leadership in the sector. This study seeks to explore several under-researched aspects of this particular type of leadership.

  • Which leadership is most effective in leading associates in professional services?

  • Which leadership skills are most requested by associates?

  • How can leaders be trained more effectively?

  • What is the best leadership strategy to manage insecure overachievers?

The Resilient Associate Project (Fall 2019-)

To identify personality trait/s that accurately can predict resilience in lawyers.

  • Perfectionism is a prominent and important trait in both law students and lawyers, and current research differentiates between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. By considering this factor in recruiting the following parameters could hypothetically be substantially improved in the firm without any other intervention: 

Phase I (concluded): 250+ associates in three major Swedish business law firms. 

 

Research Review of the Effects of Corporate Mindfulness in Law firms

Evaluate outcomes of mindfulness in law firms in general, and Potential Project’s corporate mindfulness program in particular. 

Levelling the playing field for female lawyers in law firms and assessing stress in associates (Fall 2019, concluded). 

Identifying the factors that could explain why female company lawyers report thirty percent more stress than their male colleagues. 350+ participants in two law firms. 

  • Increased understanding of stress in associates.
  • Decreased staff turnover among female associates.
  • A model for understanding differences in stress between male and female associates
  • An actionable road map for increasing the proportion of female partners in law firms.

Quantitative assessment of stress in inhouse lawyers (2019) in collaboration with the Swedish Company Lawyers’ Association (concluded). 

  • Analysis of surveys of 250+ corporate counsels.

 

International study of inhouse lawyers in collaboration with Thomson Reuters (Spring 2020): gender based patterns of stress (concluded).  

  • Survey to be distributed to 30.000+ in-house lawyers. 

 

Assessing sexual harassment and discrimination based on gender in firms (Fall 2017-ongoing). 

  • 600+ participants. 
  • Developed a survey that maps harassment and discrimination based on gender in among legal workers.
  • Assessed frequency and type of harassment and discrimination in Swedish law firms.

 

National study of Swedish lawyers: stress and efficacy factors (2017, concluded).

  • 1800+ participants. 
  • Identified new, or underestimated factors, or efficacy and well-being: leadership and capacity for focus. 
  • Analyzed changes in Swedish lawyers between 2005-2017 quantitively as well qualitatively.
  • Analyzed the impact of IT on lawyers in the past decade.  

Corporate mindfulness for lawyers

Down load my research review  ‘MIND TRAINING IN LAW FIRMS’

What drives exceptional performance in lawyers? People often believe that is analytical capability. However, studies show that top-performing lawyers actually excel in soft skills such as stress management and interpersonal competencies. Moreover, mindfulness – the capacity for directing and sustaining one’s attention – is a key driver of performance, especially in today’s environment of mounting pressure, disruption and high turnover. Fortunately, mindfulness can be trained.

  • Herbert Smith Freehills
  • UX Research – 77%
  • Interface Design – 85%