How to Make Partner Podcast

Only 22% of professionals on the partnership track have a regular routine to keep their network warm. This episode is about closing that gap; not with more coffees that go nowhere, but with a deliberate strategy for building and maintaining the relationships that generate your own client work. Using the five-step Networking Strategy framework, this episode gets practical about how to stop wasting...

Only 50% of professionals on the partnership track say they are known as the Go-To Expert for a specialism, both inside and outside their firm. This episode is about what it takes to get into that half, and why this will help you progress to partner quicker. This episode walks through the three steps to Go-To Expert status: choosing and committing to a niche, researching and packaging your brand,...

Only 41% of professionals on the partnership track say they have a trusted group of people they regularly delegate to. This episode explores why that gap is so costly. And what to do about it. This episode explores what effective delegation actually looks like, where it typically breaks down, and how to build the team around you that makes it possible. In this episode you will learn: Why the inabi...

Six in ten professionals actively pursuing partnership are doing so without the active backing of the key people who could open doors for them. They are relying on their work to speak for itself. On partner track, that is rarely enough. This episode covers the fourth of the 12 key indicators of partnership readiness: Support Team. This episode explores who needs to be in your corner, why most peop...

Only 31% of professionals pursuing partnership have a career plan that is genuinely guiding their progression. Nearly seven in ten are navigating one of the most important career transitions of their lives on good intentions alone, and then wondering why six months have gone by and nothing has moved. This episode covers the third of the 12 key indicators of partnership readiness: Plan. It introduc...

Only 44% of professionals pursuing partnership have truly considered whether the partner role is right for them and made an informed decision about it. More than half are moving towards one of the biggest career commitments of their lives without ever properly asking: is this what I actually want? This episode covers the second of the 12 key indicators of partnership readiness: Direction. Using th...

The most technically brilliant professionals don't always make partner. This episode explores why, through the lens of the first, and most important, of the 12 key indicators of partnership readiness: Mindset. Using the real example of a lawyer with 98.5% utilisation who was asked to wait another year, this episode unpacks the fundamental difference that separates the people who make partner from...

Most lawyers on the partnership track have tried time blocking. You carve out the slots, and then a real deadline arrives and the block gets sacrificed. The problem isn't your discipline. It's that most people are time blocking the wrong things: treating their diary like a to-do list with timestamps rather than a deliberate design for the kind of partner they're trying to become. In a recent group...

Most of us land on "I'm bad at delegating" or "they weren't up to it" and then quietly decide to do it ourselves next time. But that pattern isn't a skills problem. It's an identity problem, and it's one of the main reasons professionals on the partnership track stay overloaded and under-strategic for far too long. Drawing on a recent group coaching session with lawyers on the partnership track, t...

Are you secretly dreading your next piece of feedback? Do you find yourself going into defence mode the moment someone tells you something you don't want to hear? You're not alone. And it's not a character flaw. Your brain is literally wired to treat negative feedback as a threat, triggering a fight-or-flight response that makes it almost impossible to hear what's actually being said. The result?...

It happens to all of us. Life gets in the way. A week turns into a month. And suddenly you're not just behind on your BD activities; you're dealing with the added weight of embarrassment, procrastination, or a nagging inner voice telling you it's too late to restart. The longer you leave it, the harder it feels to begin again. In this episode, Heather gets candid about her own experience letting t...

If a partner in your firm is retiring and you’re being lined up to take over their portfolio, it can feel like the route to partnership is clear. The clients are there. The revenue is there. All you have to do is step in. But brokers who sell books of business factor in at least 20% client attrition when a portfolio changes hands. Clients are typically within ten years of the retiring partner’s ag...

When my team reviews a client’s Business Case for the first time, we almost always find at least one of the same mistakes. Some are fixable with a few hours of rewriting. Others can’t be fixed in the document at all because they’re not document problems. They’re practice problems. In this episode, we go through all seven; what each one looks like, which category it falls into, and what to do about...

Most Business Cases are built around one thing: winning more clients. But your partners aren’t just looking at your revenue ambitions. They’re looking at whether you think commercially; whether you understand margin, efficiency, and what it takes to build something sustainable. This episode shows you why growing your practice profitably often means improving what you already have before you go aft...

When someone asks how you’re going to grow your practice, most people’s answer is some version of: win more clients. But winning more work is only one of five and a half ways to grow a practice. And it’s not always the highest-leverage one. If your Business Case feels vague, e.g. lots of good intentions, not enough specifics, it’s often because you haven’t yet identified where your real growth lev...

Have you ever had a partner read your Business Case and ask: “But why should it be you? And why now?” That can feel deflating. Especially when you’ve spent years building your practice and the answer feels obvious to you. But here’s the truth: the vast majority of Business Cases never answer those two questions explicitly. And partners feel that gap, even when they can’t immediately articulate wha...

You've been working on your Business Case for months, maybe years. You know you need to start talking to partners about your partnership ambitions and getting their buy-in. But here's the problem: How do you actually have that conversation without coming across as presumptuous, pushy, or desperate? Do you prepare a full presentation deck? A written Business Plan? Treat it like a formal pitch? Or k...

You've been working on your Business Case for months, maybe years. You know you need to start talking to partners about your partnership ambitions and getting their buy-in. But here's the problem: How do you actually have that conversation without coming across as presumptuous, pushy, or desperate? Do you prepare a full presentation deck? A written Business Plan? Treat it like a formal pitch? Or k...

Imagine you've decided it's time to have "the conversation" about your partnership ambitions. You book time with a senior partner in your firm. The meeting goes well. You feel energised. Then, a few days later, you sense something's off with your direct line manager. The atmosphere has changed. They seem cool with you. What happened? You just committed one of the cardinal sins of partnership polit...

How many times have you thought: "I'll put myself forward for partnership when I feel more confident"? Or "I'll start leading that client meeting when I'm sure I know what I'm doing"?Here's the problem: you're waiting for a feeling that only comes after you've done the thing, not before. The confidence gap isn't about what you're capable of. It's about the story you're telling yourself about what...

You've decided 2026 is your year. You've identified your ONE BIG FOCUS. You've blocked out time in your diary. You're ready to go. But here's what usually happens: you go too hard, too fast. You try to overhaul everything at once. You add business development on top of your crushing workload. You say yes to every opportunity. By week three, you're exhausted. By week six, you've quietly dropped mos...

It's early January. Fresh notebook. New determination. Clear goal: this is the year you make serious progress towards partnership. You've written down your intentions: "Build my profile. Win more work. Delegate more" By February, that notebook is buried under client files. By April, you've given up pretending. By December, you're making the same promises for next year. Here's the brutal truth: mos...

Picture this: It's December 2026. You're looking back at the year, and once again, you haven't moved your career forward. Not really. You meant to. You had good intentions in January. But somehow, twelve months slipped by whilst you waited for the right moment, for your partners to give you clearer guidance, for your workload to calm down. Meanwhile, your peer, the one who's arguably less technica...

Picture this: You're on the partnership track. Your partners want to see you being a good firm citizen - getting involved in office initiatives, social mobility programs, pro bono work, workplace culture activities. So you say yes. You say yes again. And again. But now you're stretched thin. Your utilisation is suffering. You're working longer hours just to keep up with your chargeable work. And y...

You've spent years building your career. Strong financials, great client relationships, partners telling you you're on track. You're in touching distance of partnership - maybe 3 months away, maybe 15 months away. This should be the exciting final stretch. Here's the uncomfortable truth: this is exactly when some of the best candidates accidentally derail themselves. In cricket, they call it the "...