Leadership Lab for Lawyers/Leaders:
Bench Strength Advisors helps high-performing lawyers become the leaders your firm actually needs.
Your best lawyers know what good leadership looks like—but they often don’t step up when most needed.
The gap isn’t skills or motivation; it’s psychological: perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, and identity as an individual, star performer. We close that gap through coaching, action learning, and structured mindset work, so your partners can set a vision, delegate effectively, develop successors, collaborate across practices, and lead your firm through complexity and change.
The Leadership Lab Helps Law Firm Partners Become Better Leaders by Removing Psychological Barriers
The Mindset Challenge: The very mindset that helped your lawyers succeed in the past may now be holding them back. Rising stars need to rethink old assumptions and habits—that’s easier said than done. Our team takes your lawyers through a rigorous process to help them prepare psychologically for increasing leadership scope, so they can delegate more effectively, develop others, and lead beyond their own book of business.
Action Learning: we create experiential leadership development programs in which small teams of lawyers analyze, collaborate, and solve real problems facing their firm. It is both a change engine and an opportunity for reflection and growth. Each action learning program is built by a team of former executive educators at Columbia and Harvard Business School, linking leadership development directly to issues that matter to your firm.
Coaching: Our team of leadership advisors offers one‑on‑one, purposeful coaching to high‑potential lawyers and partners. We act as catalysts to a leader’s growth by facilitating stakeholder conversations (360 feedback), surfacing blind spots and core patterns, and supporting lawyer‑leaders as they practice new behaviors and mindsets in a safe, confidential environment.
Meet the Team Leaders
The The Leadership Lab is co-led by Jeffrey Cohn and Dr. Carrie Muchow, who combine deep law-firm strategy experience with Columbia-trained, PhD-level clinical psychology. As both business and life partners, they bring an integrated approach to leadership development that blends strategic insight with vulnerability and psychological depth.
Jeffrey Cohn
Jeffrey is a former fellow at the CEO Leadership Institute and case facilitator at Harvard Business School, where he helped write the first leadership case study on Apple. He has served as an executive coach and succession advisor at Spencer Stuart and Heidrick & Struggles, working with CEOs, general counsel, and senior partners on leadership, culture, and succession. Recent articles include “How Yale Law School Is Becoming the Next Harvard Business School” and “Why CEOs Should Model Vulnerability.”
Dr. Carrie Muchow
Dr. Carrie Muchow is a sought‑after executive coach, cognitive‑behavioral therapist, and professional assessor. She received her Ph.D. with honors in psychology, with an emphasis in neuroscience, from Columbia University. Carrie specializes in helping high‑potential lawyer‑leaders manage stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and perfectionism, and has helped global talent consultancies create proprietary assessment tools.
A Few Client Testimonials
Practice Group Lead, AmLaw 100
"We brought in Bench Strength Advisors after trying out a slew of other leadership advisory firms and elite executive education programs—but behavior never changed. Their mindset challenge is totally different...and it's gold.”
Global Managing Partner, AmLaw 100
"We saw a real shift in how key partners delegated, developed associates, and collaborated across practices—and our lateral integration outcomes improved noticeably within a year."
The Leadership Lab Podcast
Listen to our Podcast –
Amy Edmondson
Professor, Harvard Business School
Pioneer of psychological safety and “intelligent failure,” ranked the #1 management thinker in the world. In our conversation, Amy shares what leaders get wrong about failure, risk, and creating cultures where people can speak up.
Is the Leadership Lab a Good Fit?
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Do your best lawyers see themselves the way others see them?
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Many brilliant lawyers have a blind spot: they overestimate how well they lead and underestimate their impact on others.
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Bench Strength Advisors helps close this gap with honest, structured feedback and the psychological support needed to hear it—and act on it.
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Are your best lawyers hitting invisible ceilings?
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High-potential lawyers face a litany of inner obstacles: fear of failure, imposter syndrome, risk aversion, chronic stress, and a deep need to stay in control.
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These patterns quietly limit their ability to develop as leaders. We help them see and work through these barriers.
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Are your best lawyers still thinking like individual contributors?
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The mindset that produced success as a lawyer—mastery, control, risk‑avoidance—often works against success as a leader.
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Leadership requires embracing uncertainty, taking smart risks, and inspiring others around a shared direction.
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To grow, lawyers must move beyond “my work, my clients, my billable hours” and think institutionally. We help them make that mindset shift.
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