Occupational psychologist Independent researcher      specialized in professional services 

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näsström

THE SIX CRITICALS RIGHT NOW:

 1) Train leaders in remote leadership. Irl leadership does not automatically translate into effective remote leadership. 

2) Train everyone in self-leadership.  Some suffer unnecessarily simply because they don’t know how to cope. Give staff the know-how to stay healthy and productive when working from home. 

3) Monitor well-being continuously. A prolonged scenario is becoming quite likely, and no one knows how people will react long term. It is imperative to monitor well-being continuously, to catch a possible decline early on. I recommend using the psychometric WHO-5 scale.

 4) Identify and support the most vulnerable members. In my research, I see smaller groups of staff whose professional development and mental health is threatened. Identify them, and support them.

 5) Provide gold standard training on how to manage online meetings effectively.  Meetings are very costly, tying up multiple staff members. Yet they are more important than ever, being crucial in saying connected. With the exception of leadership, no other aspect of work right now is more ‘2019’, leading to unnecessary frustration, fatigue, and underperformance. 

6) Keep planning, but in smaller cycles.        The ‘wait and see’ phase is over. Stay proactive and innovative. Keep the dialogue going on ideas and needs – within your own organization and with others. Encourage, firmly, a learning culture. 

    The way forward:     

Legal Hybrid work

I am now dedicating myself full time to study – and train – legal leaders, HR, and lawyers on how to best navigate the new unknown territory of non-office based work.

 Drawing upon on almost fifty in-depth interviews, and extensive data from twelve law firms in four countries, I provide a roadmap –  Legal Hybrid Work – and training for these challenging times. 

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Uniquely Timely Research

By drawing upon data from my previous research on lawyers, which dates back to 2005, and supplementing it with new assessments, I describe the impact of covid-19, lockdown, but also identify the opportunities. This crisis does actually hold great promise, for those 

Systemic Transfer of NEW Professional Knowledge

One challenge now is how to systematically capture and transfer experiences and know-how across the legal industry, with regards to how to sustain top performance in a long term perspective and with balance. This is my mission.  

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Moving Forward

The ‘wait and see’ phase is over. It is time to shift from reactive to proactive, to start controlling the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities. 

By drawing upon current research and current best practices, I develop new tools, strategies, and approaches for the legal industry.

The World’s First App for Soft Skills Training of Law students & 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

Curent faculty Positions

  • 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)

Curent MEDIA APPEARANCES

  • Interview in Briefing Magazine about leadership in law firms under covid-19 (May 2020)
  • Updates on research on inhouse lawyers on Practical Law (March 2020)

current Research 

Tracking Well-being in a Major Business Law Firm under covid-19 (launched, April 2020) 

Extended firm-wide distance working is an unprecedented change in the operations in business law firms. This study will track the continuous impact of distance working on the work force in a firm. 

Design:  

  • IT based survey
  • assessing well-being and social support, which are correlated with seniority, position, and practice group

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

Design of the study:

  •  research interviews
  • broad representation of participants  encompassing all positions and seniority, from associates to partners, from lawyers to support staff
  • correlating findings with previous quantitative research

Leadership in Professional Services (launched May, 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.  

BLOG POSTS

Stress hos associates

by | Nov 4, 2019 |

Imorgon kommer nästa nummer av Advokaten ut, i vilken jag intervjuas om bland annat skillnader i stress-nivåer mellan kvinnliga och manliga biträdande jurister på affärsjuridiska byråer. Låt oss först fastslå att stress är en substantiell utmaning generellt för...