Developing our people

We are committed to becoming one of the leading international professional services organisations in developing people's capabilities. One of the reasons behind our success is that we were one of the first law firms to recognise the need for ongoing training throughout an individual's career. The only way to maintain our excellence in all we do is constantly to invest in the legal and professional skills of our people.

We aim to recruit people with an appetite for personal development and we continue to invest in many formal development opportunities. Everyone who works here has equal access to training and other career development appropriate to their role.

Our learning and development team provides a range of professional skills and language courses, including focused workshops, longer personal development programmes and online 'skills at your fingertips' training. The team also designs tailored projects to support an individual practice group's development objectives and business services departmental training.

Associates attend three international development programmes at key stages in their careers.

We adapt our learning and development interventions to meet the needs of our people. Examples of our innovative programmes are the senior associates' programme in London and the principal associates' residential programme in Germany at St Gallen University. Our award-winning 'Real Deal' and 'Virtual Office' programmes pioneered the combination of technical and development training. We invest in creating development interventions that are enjoyable and challenging. We even develop programmes for our future lawyers that we run alongside the Legal Practice Course.

We provide development and coaching for partners and staff who are promoted so that they can successfully fulfil their new duties and responsibilities. For the first year of partnership we run a development initiative designed to manage the 'transition into partnership'. This offers virtual skills sessions and intensive workshops on four key dimensions: self management; client management; team leadership; and business management. Each new partner is also given 1:1 support and challenges by an external business coach as part of this transition year.

We have provided business development, knowledge-sharing and soft skills training to the newly integrated knowledge management and business development (KBD) teams, providing them with the requisite skills for their new roles. We will be implementing a structured development programme for KBD at key stages in their careers, akin to the associates' programmes, to ensure we attract and retain the best KBD talent.

Legal training and knowledge management

The firm is a market leader in its investment in knowledge management and legal training. Every department and team provides extensive technical legal training in its particular specialisation, as well as knowledge management resources (eg precedents, standard forms, survival guides, practice notes and current awareness) and support, ensuring our professionals work as effectively and efficiently as possible.

A number of departments fund associates who wish to pursue postgraduate study in a relevant field, but most development occurs on the job: how to provide effective day-to-day feedback is therefore a common theme throughout our development courses.

Appraisals

All employees have a formal appraisal at least once a year. In response to feedback from the associate engagement group, a new appraisal form was introduced in 2008. Partners and senior managers are encouraged to participate in 360-degree feedback programmes, promoting greater self-awareness and providing opportunities for change. Each partner develops a personal business plan annually. Our appraisal system is currently the focus of an associate working group.

Secondments

Secondments provide lawyers with the opportunity to experience clients' businesses first-hand, or to broaden their cultural awareness by working in an international office, or with an organisation such as the human rights group Liberty. We take a broad view of our professional responsibilities and contribute to the legal, business and regulatory community in many ways.

Find our more at www.freshfields.com/careers/learning/.