Master the Business of Law
The
LEGAL
MBA®
BigHand's 2026 Annual Law Firm Finance Report, based upon responses from over 800 senior finance and legal leaders, sums up the commercial challenge facing law firms:
"Profitability continues to leak in everyday decisions by partners, team leads and matter owners [resulting] from a lack of business acumen.
[...]
Realization, revenue diversification, and matter-level performance are therefore heavily dependent on individual confidence and experience, rather than ingrained capability. This creates unpredictability and uneven commercial outcomes within and across practice groups"
Our own research indicates that AI is only going to exacerbate those uneven commercial outcomes.
Managing Partners and C-Suite members are expecting AI to yield ~30% efficiency savings when it comes to matter delivery, but are split on whether that has negative or positive impact on the law firm overall.
The difference between the negative and positive outcome has little to do with the technology, and everything to do with the commercial skills of senior fee earners within the firm.
Commercial skills which can be taught.
30%
Expected AI efficiency savings
The Legal MBA research
WEBINARS
We regularly discuss these topics within our free webinar series:
Despite the widely recognised importance of commercial skills, only one third of firms have training programmes in place, with another third able to put a programme in place within the next 12 months (Source: BigHand)
There is a clear gap between the problem and the solution.
Here's our answer...
THE LEGAL MINI-MBA
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12 week programme of 6x fortnightly lessons and discussion to put the theory into practice, delivered exclusively to a cohort of 8-15 partners and aspiring partners from your firm
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Copy of The Legal MBA Essentials book, Mini-MBA Action Plan and Workbook, and on-demand e-learning to help complete the exercises
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January, May and September start dates, timed to work around holidays and busy periods such as financial year end
Rated 4.6 / 5 across all reviews submitted to 31 December 2025
CORE TOPICS
To be fully effective in their role, Partners need a firm grasp of the following topics, and the connections between them:
Appreciate the difference between goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. Create SMART goals to guide your Mini-MBA Action Plan
At the end of the programme, delegates will have completed a one-page Action Plan summarising what commercial actions they intend to take.
We also offer Group Accountability Coaching to help put the Action Plans into practice after the Mini-MBA.
TESTIMONIALS
BENEFITS FOR
LAW FIRMS
1 | The Legal Mini-MBA equips your senior lawyers with the commercial skills they need to succeed
Imagine if all your Partners and Senior Associates had a clear understanding of how their practice generated both profit and cashflow. Imagine if they had a clear go-to market strategy, articulated in client-centric language, with their pricing and service delivery models optimised accordingly. What commercial impact would that have on your firm? For one partner, implementing just a single action from our Introduction to Pricing lesson recovered the firm's entire investment into The Legal MBA.
2 | Training that's tried, tested and ready to go, with minimal set up time required from firms
Creating a full curriculum covering the range of commercial skills a modern lawyer needs is time-consuming and can be a significant draw on internal Subject Matter Experts to prepare and deliver, with the task all too easily deprioritised or pushed to side of the desk. We deliver a comprehensive programme for you, with regular progress reporting back to stakeholders, so you can see who is engaging, and with which topics. Or as one senior finance professional put it "you've taken this problem off my desk, freeing up my time to focus on the strategic, value adding elements of my role".
3 | Opportunity to reinforce strategic priorities
We take time to speak to senior stakeholders at the onboarding stage to understand your strategic priorities and weave key messages into the live sessions. Our aim is that participants understand ‘why’ this matters to your firm, as well as ‘what’ they need to do.
BENEFITS FOR LAWYERS
1 | Business and commercial education covering the topics that lawyers weren’t taught in law school, tailored to the context of a law firm
Traditional MBA programmes and commercial training programmes are generic, with Strategy modules focused on global brands, Operations modules on manufacturing processes and Finance modules failing to explain the partnership and billable hour models. In contrast, The Legal Mini-MBA is specifically designed for lawyers working in private practice, with highly relevant examples, case studies and exercises.
2 | Minimal time-commitment with a flexible, modular structure to accommodate a range of learning styles and busy calendars
Lawyers are time poor, and don’t have time for full day training sessions away from their client work. We have created a modular method of delivery, with highly focused and actionable 60-90 minute live sessions - recorded for easy catch up, with bitesize eLearning and Workbook exercises available on demand to support the learning when it's convenient and most relevant for the individual.
3 | Quickly apply theory into practice
Theory learnt in the classrooms can often stay in classrooms. Throughout the Legal Mini-MBA programme we encourage lawyers to put the learnings into practice with clearly signposted next steps and actionable guidance.
THE BOOK
ABOUT US
James Markham
James is a Chartered Management Consultant (MCMI ChMC) with 15 years’ experience working with law firm Managing Partners, COOs and CFOs.
He was previously a member of the UK senior management teams at Hogan Lovells and Dentons, with a directorate at Dentons covering Practice Management, Innovation, Commercial Finance, and Legal Project Management.
James holds an MBA and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA). He is a certified Design Thinking and Lean Six Sigma practitioner.
Darren Mee
Darren is an independent consultant with over 15 years’ experience working with the largest global law firms, medium-sized national and regional practices, and ABSs.
He is a former Partner at RSM, a global Professional Services firm. His expertise covers Strategy, Marketing, Service Design, Technology and Process Improvement.
Darren has a published academic paper and holds an MBA alongside qualifications in Project and Programme Management and Lean Six Sigma.
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