Renaissance Lawyer Coaches

 If you are interested in hiring a coach, please contact one of them directly and let them know that you have learned about them through Renaissance Lawyer. 

[Listing on this site is not an endorsement by RLS.  
We provide this listing as information for lawyers who wish to be supported in transforming their legal practices.]

 J. Kim Wright, J.D. is a coach and consultant who is an international speaker and writer on a new model for the legal profession that works for everyone—lawyers, clients, and society. Kim was a business owner and mother of seven children when she returned to law school at age 29. After passing both the Georgia and Florida bar exams, she joined the North Carolina Bar in 1994 and began practicing law in the traditional legal system. After enthusiastically winning her first custody trial and crushing the other side, she noticed that the family still had a lot of problems. Litigation did not resolve their conflict, it actually made it a lot worse, and her client kept calling her, wanting to ease the pain. The long hours, the brilliant trial techniques, and legal expertise didn’t cure the problem the client brought to her in the first place. It was frustrating for Kim and she was tempted to become cynical and to give up on ever making a difference. She questioned whether she should practice law at all. Instead, Kim began to investigate ways to work with clients that were innovative and focused on healing the pain and chaos of divorce.

As she explored innovative approaches, she took them into her own law practice and applied them with her clients. From 1995 to 2000, she experimented with the approaches in her practice in a small town in central North Carolina. Using a coach, she created The Divorce and Family Law Center , a comprehensive law practice providing for all the needs of clients going through divorce: legal representation, social work, coaching, counseling, mediation, and resources for divorcing clients and the community. As her practice evolved, she began to see that her clients were much more empowered and she was making the difference that she always wanted to make, resolving problems, easing pain, and helping people. She actually liked to practice law! She even worked less hours and made more money. Clients welcomed the new approaches; even the blue collar workers who initially came in looking for revenge shifted when they were offered the opportunity to actually resolve their situations.  She began to see herself as a peacemaker and began to imagine a legal profession where all lawyers saw themselves as peacemakers, healers, and problem-solvers.

As she met and worked with other lawyers who were committed to these approaches, she discovered that they were useful in areas that were not family-related, that the same principles could be used in corporate law or real estate or any other legal context.  In 2000, when she relocated to Oregon, she made the decision to focus her energies on sharing the lessons from her law practice into a new coaching practice, working with other lawyers to transform their practices, creating a new model and future for the legal profession, creating a new context of lawyers as peacemakers, healers, and problem-solvers.

Discovering many like-minded lawyers, she founded Renaissance Lawyer in 2000. Now, Renaissance Lawyer is an international nonprofit membership organization committed to creating a legal system that works for everyone.  The Renaissance Lawyer web site, written by Kim, features about twenty innovative approaches to law practice. Kim now serves as Chairman of Renaissance Lawyer and has returned to North Carolina to create a new cutting edge law practice. She also speaks and writes for legal periodicals about innovative approaches to law practice that are based upon connecting people, solving problems, and resolving conflict.  Her coaching practice is limited to lawyers.


Dolly M. Garlo, R.N., J.D., PCC, is licensed in Utah and Texas and has had a general civil law practice with an emphasis on health care regulatory law and litigation for 15 years. In the past 7 of those years, she ran her own firm with a consciously collaborative environment in which all staff, from the attorneys to the file room employees participated in firm operations and planning, and openly expressed mutual respect for one another and support for each other’s individual growth. She is a trained Mediator and has conducted numerous trainings for health care groups on legal issues affecting their work, and has worked in the area of individual treatment decision-making and end of life care since 1979. In 1999, she formed a law partnership (www.GarloWard.com) and coached her partner to carry on the management of the law firm environment, allowing it to further grow and prosper with the same foundational principles. This allowed her to develop Thrive!! Coaching, Consulting & Training (www.AllThrive.com.)She has attained the designation Profession Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation. Dolly can be reached at dmgarlo@AllThrive.com.


Cheryl Stephens, a California native now living in Vancouver Canada, practiced law in British Columbia after UBC Law School. She entered the field of legal education working on curriculum design and teaching paralegals at the community college level, on public legal education for the Canadian Bar Assoc. and Department of Justice Canada and other organizations, and designed legal writing training for lawyers with the Continuing Legal Education Society's Plain Language Project. She worked as a consultant in legal training, communication, and marketing from 1990 through 2000.
      Cheryl has trained as a coach with the both Coaches Training Institute and the Vancouver Community College Leadership Coaching Program. She has also trained as a peer coach with the B.C. Lawyers Assistance Program where she is a volunteer.

     Cheryl volunteered with the BC Branch Canadian Bar Association for ten years on projects related to public legal education, client literacy, client relations and client communications including plain language drafting. (See links to plain language sites on Links page.)

Cheryl is currently the Secretary of the BC Branch and the Secretary-Treasurer of the National Law Practice Management Sections of the Canadian Bar Association. She also co-chairs the ABA LPM Section's Igroup on Work-Life Excellence with Pat Sullivan.
     In addition to individual lawyer coaching, Cheryl is interested in organizing workshops, teleclasses, retreats, and group training in communication and interpersonal skills.


Irene Leonard, (LLB, MCC) practiced law from 1979 to 1997 in both the United States and Canada as real estate and corporate attorney. During her legal career she practiced within a firm, as a sole practitioner, and as general counsel for a major real estate development company. Since November, 1997 Irene provides services as an international business and professional development coach for lawyers, other professionals and business executives. Lawyers work with her to create the practice they want. They typically want to increase their income, improve their marketing, redesign their practice to increase their satisfaction, identify their values, make a career change, or learn how to work smarter so they can do less and enjoy life more. Her services include telephone consulting and coaching, teleclasses, team building, meeting facilitation, and speaker services. She works with groups to improve performance, build consensus, and establish common vision. She is available to lead workshops on topics including, but not limited to “Coaching Skills That Will Improve Your Practice” and “Increase Your Satisfaction in Your Practice.” Irene is a member of the: Washington State Bar Association; WSBA Professionalism Committee; American Bar Association; Law Society of British Columbia; Canadian Bar Association; International Coach Federation.
    Irene received her law degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada in 1979. She has lived in the Seattle area since 1986.
     Visit her web site: www.CoachingForChange.com for more information including testimonials, newsletters, articles, workshops, teleclasses and information on coaching.


Neil Olson J.D., CPCC is an attorney and professional coach who lives and works in San Francisco.  Neil has been a practicing attorney in San Francisco since 1985. His legal experience led him down the path of associate and partner in a financial district civil litigation law firm. Neil served on several of the firm’s management committees including the firm’s recruiting, hiring and executive committees. In 1997 Neil founded his own law practice in San Francisco and in 1998 completed the professional coaching certification program at the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California. Neil has been coaching lawyers since 1998 and recently founded InAccord, a coaching business committed to the professional development and personal satisfaction of lawyers.  Neil completed CTI’s advanced leadership training program in 2000 and has taught skills to other coaches wanting to coach lawyers.   Neil coaches lawyers interested in taking charge of their careers.  His approach is coactive and integrated.  Whether it is making partner, changing law firms, creating one’s own firm or transitioning out of the practice of law, Neil brings focus, commitment and balance to the lives of his clients through conscious planning, values clarification, deliberate commitment and follow-through. Neil’s clients work on building their ‘books’ of business while tending to all aspects of their lives—both professional and personal.

 

 Kathleen S. Fong, J. D., CPPC is a certified professional and personal coach experienced in helping clients create and implement strategies for exceptional professional and personal growth. Her clients include professionals, small business owners, human service providers, and other creative, successful people who seek greater quality of life. She supports her clients eliminating barriers to success, improving efficiencies, and creating greater clarity and direction. This often results in greater peace of mind, simplicity, and joy in life. She accomplishes this by helping them envision what they want to achieve, set goals, make action plans, stay focused, and reduce obstacles. She facilitates personal development as an integral part of achieving important goals.