SAN FRANCISCO — Business clients say they want their lawyers to be financially literate. So last week, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe put 40 senior associates, including 14 from the firm’s California offices, through a weeklong MBA boot camp. Developed in collaboration with The Fullbridge Program, which offers business education to a range of professionals, Orrick’s Senior Associates Academy aims to prepare its lawyers to be “trusted advisers” by better aligning them with the firm’s clients.
Orrick’s chairman Mitchell Zuklie said it’s “critically important for legal advisers to understand the business of clients,” and said the course provides the skills to do that. After last week’s sessions in San Francisco and New York City, 46 percent of the firm’s senior associates have completed the program, which involves training in leadership, persuasive communication, business strategy, financial analysis, valuation and project management. The culminating project required the participants to prepare group presentations based on an Apple case study for a panel of Orrick partners.
