An idea for a retreat that builds knowledge of how clients see the world

You may want to try this to encourage your lawyers to learn more about the business they support (See my post of May 7, 2009: learn as much as you can about your company’s business.). At a retreat, Karen Wishart, the General Counsel of TV One, assigned her legal team to come up with a new business idea, laying out the marketing approach, projecting the financials, filling in the resources needed, doing everything business people do. She explained during her remarks at the SuperConference that her team of lawyers complained about the project, which they labored through for two weeks after the retreat ended.

The effort culminated with a presentation by the lawyers to the CEO and CFO, but before then there was much consternation and grumbling. Afterwards, however, the participants realize they had learned a huge amount about the business, the difficulties of their client colleagues, and their role in business initiatives.