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This graduate certificate program provides students with the best of two worlds - an in-depth understanding of the legal services industry coupled with the strength of an internationally recognized university.
- Nine-day In-classroom Residency at GW's Graduate Education Center in Alexandria (6 credits)
- Online distance learning between residencies (3 credits)
- Four-day Capstone Residency in Alexandria, VA (3 credits)
- Combine this certificate with 12 credits of Law Firm Leadership coursework and 6 credits of research to earn a GW Master's in Law Firm Management
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"The depth of the learning, the team interaction, the diversity and quality of the faculty and the camaraderie are all significant attributes which distinguish the program from any other." – Richard Pearson, GW Law Firm Management '06
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The Graduate Certificate Program in Law Firm Management is a challenging, highly interactive education experience for lawyers and other law firm administrators who want to broaden their skills and career opportunities.
Co-sponsored by The George Washington University (GW) College of Professional Studies and The Hildebrandt Institute, this one-of-a-kind program imparts business and legal knowledge to individuals who want to be leaders in the legal services industry. Through its partnership with The Hildebrandt Institute, a premier consultant to law firms around the world, GW's College of Professional Studies is uniquely positioned to provide law firm professionals with the skills they will need to lead their firms forward in this ever-changing legal environment.
Students have attended the program from law firms of varying sizes located throughout the United States and Canada. Professional administrators from Bingham McCutchen, Kirkland & Ellis, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Patterson Belknap, and Skadden Arps, as well as 25-lawyer to 400-lawyer firms, have attended the program over the past two years.
Program faculty consists of professors from the GW School of Business, the School of Public Policy and Public Administration, and adjunct professors from The Hildebrandt Institute, the Citigroup Private Bank Law Firm Group, and executive directors of law firms.
Benefits to Firms from the Programs: The Business Rationale
- Sustaining the Firm's Competitive Position. Today's law firms cannot remain competitive without the enhanced growth and sophistication of the professional administrative services supporting their attorneys and other legal staff. This enhanced growth and sophistication requires the continued professional development of the firm's administrative staff.
- Retaining Top Professional Administrative Talent. Research has shown that teams become more productive the longer team members remain together. Reduced turnover of administrative professionals lowers firm costs. By sponsoring participants to attend the Law Firm Management programs, firms reflect a concern for the professional development of their administrative staff and a belief in their future contributions. In so doing, firm managers contribute significantly both to the retention of top professional administrative staff and to the longer term development of increasingly effective firm teams.
- Increasing the Value Added of Administrative Services. By possessing a knowledge and understanding of law firm strategic thinking, planning, implementation, and leadership practices, administrative professionals can more creatively and effectively ensure that administrative services provide added value to the legal work of the firm's lawyers and other legal staff.
- Enhancing the Motivation and Morale of the Firm's Administrative Professionals. Positive motivation and morale among a firm's administrative professionals improve firm productivity, lowers costs, and reduces staff and client dissatisfaction. Firm managers contribute significantly to the positive motivation and morale of the administrative staff when they express an understanding of and appreciation for the important contributions professional administrators make to the ongoing success of the firm. By sponsoring their professional administrators, firm managers provide a specific and concrete expression of this understanding and appreciation.
- Immediate and Practical Returns to the Firm. As participants in the programs acquire additional management and leadership skills, they can immediately bring these to bear in their work with their staffs and with the lawyers and other legal staff within their firms. In many instances they will be able to pass these skills along to others in the firm, thereby expanding the returns on the firm's investment.
- Research Valuable to the Firm. As part of the Master's Program, students are required to complete a major Individual Research Project. In the past many students have undertaken research projects directly related to addressing important and critical problems, issues or opportunities within their firms. These projects have then become the basis for decisions made by the firm's management.
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Download a program brochure