About Simona Hamblet
Coach for law firm founders, partners, senior solicitors & legal executives.
Approximately 20 years as a former employment solicitor and salaried partner. Coach for 10 years.
The mind behind TheUnstuckLawyer®.
YOU – When responsibility stops with you, the work never seems to end, and confidence may waver
You left another firm to build your own practice, or you stepped up as an equity partner, because you wanted something different for yourself, your team, and your clients. Yet somehow the balance, profitability, and freedom you hoped for, is not your current reality. So you find yourself thinking, why does everyone else seem to find this easier? Why can I never get a minute to think or plan? Why is every day so reactive? Why can I not fully trust the team to deliver and support? Why do my own priorities always come last? And why do I keep trying to change things, only to end up back in the same cycle?
Or perhaps you are newer to it all. You have just made partner, or you can see it coming, and alongside the pride there is a quieter question, am I really ready for this? The skills that made you an excellent fee-earner are suddenly not the whole job. Now there are teams to lead, more business to bring in, difficult conversations to hold, and a sense that everyone expects you to know how, without anyone quite showing you. Stepping up is exciting, and it can also feel exposing.
You are not alone in feeling the pressure to do it all, prove your worth, hold up the team, and not fall behind. Most lawyers I work with already know time-management and leadership theories. The real challenge is setting boundaries that last, find ways to ease the inner pressure and critical self-talk, and build habits that actually stick.
I understand all of this from two directions. I spent around twenty years in practice myself, as an employment solicitor and then a salaried partner. And then, a decade as a coach. I have coached and listened to law firm owners, founders, partners, and solicitors as they worked through these exact challenges and patterns. Having the privilege of seeing, again and again, what genuinely keeps capable, motivated, lawyers stuck and what finally moves them forward.
ME – A coach who has actually sat behind the same desk
I am Simona Hamblet, a mindset, skills, and behavioural coach for legal professionals. Before coaching, I practised as an employment law solicitor for around twenty years and became a partner in a dual-office firm, from the date I qualified, my focus turned increasingly to people development, marketing, and growing the business (infact I was asked to set up a new employment department on qualifying!).
For roughly the last ten years I have coached solicitors, associates, heads of department, partners, CEOs, law firm founders, and law firm owners. Some I have worked with intensively over shorter periods, others continue to work with me year after year, to be both proactive in planning, and tackle matters as they arrive.
That combination, two decades inside the profession and a decade coaching within it, means there is a great deal you will not have to explain to me. I already know the rhythm of the billing target, the outward and inward pull between fee-earning and leading, and the particular weight of running a firm that, some weeks, seems to be running you.
WHY THIS – How it all began
My fascination with behaviour and habits actually started very young, but the psychology associated with business began after I qualified as a solicitor.
For example, money mindset and billing clients. I noticed how differently I felt about charging certain clients for certain things, and other clients for other things. And how little that feeling had to do with the actual value of the work. Or I would feel bad that clients needed to instruct me and that I would need to charge me. I used to try and offer them ways to save money when I was not even asked (and in fact it was often not wanted).
Another was developing people. I cared a great deal about bringing people on well. I struggled to understand why people did not respond to feedback or want to progress.
Much of it was personal. Over the decades, I wanted to change my own reactions and habits, the ones that did not match the person I wanted to be.
This interest in the mind, was equally matched, by an interest in how to market and grow new employment departments (the first time I was asked to do this was on qualification!) and the firm. From websites, to sales strategies, to the introduction of social media, and everything in between. Again, I noticed where beliefs about what was appropriate, or sharing opionions were creeping into holding back at times.
It is an ongoing learning process through my experiences, and those of my clients.
WORKING WITH ME – Mindset and practical change together
A different experience. A lot of support for lawyers is either purely practical (here is a better system) or primarily psychological (here is how you feel about it or what are common beliefs). In my experience the two are inseparable. For example, the reason the business development work keeps slipping is rarely time. It is what allows interruptions, constant email checking, letting other people’s agendas go first.
So my work joins the two. We create real, tangible actions and results within your practice for you, and at the same time we shift the beliefs, self-talk, and habits that drove the behaviours and habits in the first place. Practical change that lasts, because the thinking behind it has changed too.
Coaching and speaking takes place online or in person. My work is international, though I am mainly based in and around Guildford & London.
Each programme is tailored to your outcomes, needs, potential hurdles to achieving them, your role, and firm.
I take a deliberately no-pressure approach to first conversations. I believe in the right coach, at the right time, and if that is not me, I will happily say so. No scarcity tactics, no hard sell. An initial call is simply a chance to talk and see whether we can close your gap, or effectively make the change, or achieve the goal you want.
Pricing is always transparent.
QUALIFICATIONS & BACKGROUND
I am a non-practising solicitor, with around twenty years’ prior experience as an employment solicitor and partner in a dual-office law firm, where my focus included setting up new employment law departments, business growth, and developing staff.
My coaching and related qualifications include:
- ILM Level 7 and ILM Level 5 in Coaching and Mentoring for Senior Executives
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner Certificate
- Solution Focused Therapist Certificate
- Positive Psychology Certificate
- Time To Think Facilitator, including Transforming Meetings® specialisation
- EMDR Plus Practitioner Certificate
- EFT Level 1 and Level 2 Practitioner Certificate
- Advanced Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy
- Marketing for Coaches Diploma
LIFE BEYOND THE FIRM – One Life. Your Life. Live It.
Beyond thriving firms that create better working environments. Much of what I help with extends to the life around it. I care that my clients lead purposeful and joyful private lives as well. Find ways to slow down their days, prioritise the things that are important to them, create the internal and external changes they want, achieve their dreams, and truly live their lives with fewer regrets.
What firm and life do you want for you?
Ready to make leading your firm feel easier?
If you want to find out more, the next step is simple. A relaxed, no-pressure, no obligation conversation to see whether coaching, and I am, the right fit for you and your situation.
Not quite ready? You can also sign up to my Newsletter for ideas on how to run a firm for you, rather than feel like it is running you.
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Ready to talk about what you want to be different? Get in touch, and we can explore whether coaching with me is right for you.