Browne Jacobson delivers O shaped training to government legal department teams

Lawyers and support staff advising the Government are encouraged to adopt an O Shaped mindset, an innovative approach aimed at driving cultural change in the legal industry. The Government Legal Department (GLD) has enrolled its corporate and operational teams in O Shaped training programmes delivered by Browne Jacobson, a law firm in the UK and Ireland.

Since 2022, Browne Jacobson has implemented O Shaped training for its own teams and is now helping clients integrate this mindset into their organisational culture. O Shaped, founded by former Network Rail general counsel Dan Kayne in 2019, promotes five mindsets: Openness, Originality, Optimism, Opportunities, and Ownership, enhancing legal teams' value and trust.

Claire Stripp, Head of Talent and Knowledge at Browne Jacobson, and a member of the O Shaped steering board, highlighted the impact of this mindset: “We’ve found within our firm that the O Shaped mindset really provides a framework to think differently about clients’ challenges and our role in collaborating with them to find solutions. This goes far beyond technical legal skills and traditional added value.”

The first training session for the GLD covered stakeholder relationships and took place last October. Subsequently, a modular programme was delivered to the panel services management team from November to February, integrating the O Shaped mindset into their work. Further sessions are being planned for other operational teams.

Peter Ware, Head of Government at Browne Jacobson, emphasised the collaborative nature of their work with the GLD: “Our work with the GLD involves our lawyers collaborating closely with the department’s in-house legal teams so that we effectively work as one team. With this in mind, it is important that we are all adopting a similar mindset in how we deliver legal services and O Shaped can be a central ingredient in this approach.”

This initiative showcases Browne Jacobson's commitment to fostering close partnerships with in-house lawyers at the GLD, supported by contracts awarded under the Crown Commercial Service legal services panel framework agreement. Recent appointments include work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport.