Perfection matters.
Take your professional persona to the highest level and be a better lawyer.
You will discover and define your professional persona – the behaviors and attitudes that enable you to develop your full potential and flourish.You will learn how to be more intentional about developing your legal professional persona, the single most important factor for your success as a lawyer.You will build a stronger foundation for your success in law and in life.Based on Toni Jaeger-Fine’s book, Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona, our programs have been developed for individuals, groups of clients and law firms or legal departments.
Programs
At Matter of Perfection, we believe that competent, mindful, motivated, skilled and engaged talent is the single most important factor for success in delivering quality legal services.Investment in empowering and sustaining legal talent pays for itself many times over. You will improve your engagement, loyalty, efficacy and reputation. The result is the kind of legal services that creates stickiness with clients, who return time and again for outstanding and efficient representation.Our team brings together unique expertise with a decidedly global outlook to empower individuals to reach their potential. Law firms and legal teams are enabled to strengthen, develop and retain talent.
Who benefits and why?
For individuals
Attain greater professional success and personal satisfaction
For law firms
Attract and retain better talent, improve client loyalty
For legal departments
Foster teamwork, increase department’s value to organization
Our Team
Toni Jaeger-Fine
Senior Counselor, Fordham Law SchoolPrincipal, Jaeger-Fine Consulting
Get Toni’s book
Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona
Uwe S. Schuricht
Human Resources ExpertLeadership and Management Coach
“We offer our programs in English and German, in-person and remote.”
Daniel Biene
Serial Digital EntrepreneurInnovation and Management Coach
“We work on a global scale and tailor our programs to your specific goals.”
FAQ
What is the main benefit of your programs?
We help professionals become better professionals. By “better” we mean more successful in a business sense, while being more fulfilled on a personal level. Because of this, our programs pay for themselves very quickly, in many ways. In professional services, the biggest differentiator between success and mediocrity is people skills and behavior, not subject matter expertise.
Ancora imparo —
I’m still learning
Michelangelo, age 88
Matter of Perfection helps law firms and legal teams curate professional excellence —
Because seeking perfection matters.
About
Matter of Perfection helps law firms and legal teams curate professional excellence … because seeking perfection matters. Our team brings together unique expertise with a decidedly global outlook to empower law firms and legal teams to strengthen, develop and retain talent.
At Matter of Perfection, we believe that competent, mindful, motivated, skilled, professional and engaged talent is the single most important factor for success in delivering quality and efficient legal services. Empowering and sustaining legal talent pays for itself many times over in lawyer engagement, loyalty, efficacy, reputation and many other ways. It also enables the kind of legal services that creates stickiness with clients, who return time and again for outstanding and efficient representation.Partners and other responsible managers in law firms or business organizations often overlook this key ingredient to institutional success, are too busy to address these matters, or are unsure how to meet the complex and challenging task of attracting, developing and retaining talent.Matter of Perfection is based on the work by co-founder Toni Jaeger-Fine and her book, Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona. The book is premised on the recognition that the attitudes and behaviors essential for success are missing from formal legal education and law firm training; and that with the right amount of intentionality, individuals can become more valuable to their firms and clients, more successful and happier.At Matter of Perfection, our mission is to help you strengthen, motivate and retain talent for the benefit of all stakeholders through a series of defined and proven programs, as outlined on this website. We understand that the needs of firms vary, and these programs are illustrative only; we are eager to work with you and your team to adapt individual programs to meet your specific goals. We can employ live and virtual delivery methods to make the experience most meaningful and impactful for you and your team.
Programs
Basic Program
2 hours
Includes:
Foundations of a robust professional persona, self-management, relationships
Participants develop an understanding of their professional persona and the importance of attitudes, behaviors and competencies in the context of their professional success
Sessions can be held for an entire law firm, an organization or for specific individuals or teams (e.g. new hires, mid-career professionals, senior partners)
Advanced Seminar & Workshop
1.5 days
Includes the basic elements and focuses on:
Practical exercises applying learnings to the specific realities of participants and matching theory with everyday practice
Participants develop a blueprint for developing a stronger, more effective and more intentional professional persona
Programs will be customized to participants’ needs and seniority
Executive Portfolio
6-12 months
Includes the content of the basic and the advanced programs and focuses on systematic upskilling, coaching and mentoring of the participants:
Initial training sessions based on individual participant profiles and regular coaching and development meetings
Participants achieve specific development goals and resolve challenges that arise in their daily practice
Sessions are most appropriate for senior associates, junior partners and partners who take on leadership or management roles, and will be held individually or in small cohorts
Our Team
Toni Jaeger-Fine is Senior Counselor at Fordham Law School in New York City where she previously served as an Assistant Dean for 16+ years. She received the Dean’s Medal of Recognition, the highest honor that a dean can bestow. She has taught and lectured in the United States and in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan and Vietnam. Toni has received the Badge of Honor from Bucerius Law School in Hamburg/Germany for her contributions to transatlantic legal education.She also has held positions and taught at NYU School of Law and Cardozo Law School, is past chair of the sections on Post-Graduate Legal Education, International Legal Exchange, and Legal Education for Foreign Lawyers of the Association of American Law Schools and was a litigation associate at Crowell & Moring in Washington DC. She graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina.Toni was the first non-German member of the Board of the German-American Lawyers Association (DAJV) and is a Vice President of the American Foreign Law Association (AFLA).Toni has developed or co-developed and managed numerous degree and non-degree programs on a range of topics including law firm management and leadership for women. She is the author of several books, including Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona, which explores a range of behaviors and attitudes professionals need to succeed. She has lectured widely on these topics, as well as on talent development, legal and other professional writing, women’s leadership, client service, and a mindset approach to wellbeing. She is principal of Jaeger-Fine Consulting.
Uwe Schuricht has more than 20 years of experience as a top level coach and human resources specialist.After studying law in Germany, Great Britain and New Zealand, he started his career as a lawyer for the New York based law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Paris, France. Uwe then continued his career in management, working as Senior Counsel for Germany’s biggest media group Bertelsmann AG and as Chief Executive Officer of real estate development companies in Stuttgart and Berlin.As of the late 1990s, Uwe has focused on his passion for human resources and has since worked as Head of HR and Communication of Axel Springer AG, then as a top level headhunter and business coach. He was a headhunter with Egon Zehnder International serving internet companies and received training as a business coach from the Meyler Campbell Community in London. Uwe founded Change Group in 2003 and has been a trusted advisor to and coach of some of the leading international and national corporations and law firms. In his 20 years as Managing Partner of Change Group, he has won several accolades by clients and in the press.Uwe holds a doctorate (Dr.) in corporate law from Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Victoria University in Wellington, N.Z. and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the European Business School in Wiesbaden. He has held teaching positions in business schools and universities in Stuttgart and Berlin. His courses include Human Resources, Cross Cultural and General Project Management and Leadership. Uwe was appointed Professor of International Human Resources Management at Berlin’s biggest private university bbw in 2016.With his unique skill set and depth of experience both as a lawyer and a manager he developed a particular interest in coaching law firm partners who are preparing for or hold executive roles and decided to focus his activities on Matter of Perfection. He is frequently retained to review professional development and partner selection programs. Uwe particularly enjoys supporting big name law firms in international mergers & acquisition activities, and in the HR topics that come with those activities.
Daniel Biene is a serial entrepreneur in the digital innovation space. He attended law school with a media industry focus in Germany, Hong Kong, the United States and Switzerland. In addition to his two law degrees from Germany and New York, he holds a Ph.D. in international media law and economics from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition and has completed executive education in leading customer-centric growth at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.After working for Clifford Chance in Hong Kong and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Berlin, Daniel switched his career to the management side and worked in C-level leadership roles for large media companies in Germany and the United States. Most recently he served as President & CEO of a U.S. subsidiary of Axel Springer, the international media group. During this time he was responsible for several widely known digital media and digital platform brands. He then founded successful internet startups backed by renowned venture capital funds, among them Smartlaw (acquired by Wolters Kluwer) and Legalbase (acquired by LegalZoom), both of which pioneered the legal tech category in Europe. Following Smartlaw's acquisition, Daniel became Managing Director of all of Wolters Kluwer’s digital B2C platform businesses. Later, he served as Managing Director of Axiom Europe and supported several other international companies in adapting their business models and sales processes for the European market.He currently is involved as a board member, consultant and coach in building and scaling a wide variety of ventures, both corporate and startup. In this work spanning several industries, he found that contrary to popular belief, success does not come from ideas, but first and foremost from the mindsets and competencies of people, and from how well people work together.Daniel is one of only a handful of professionals with deep leadership experience in large global corporations as well as in greenfield startups managed according to lean and agile best practices. He enjoys helping create purpose-driven, highly motivated and truly impactful teams, and is a frequently invited speaker on topics of innovation and digital transformation. Daniel has been serving on the Board of the German-American Lawyers Association for more than 20 years.
Clients
The Matter of Perfection team has extensive experience in coaching and working with lawyers from well-known firms.
Clifford Chance
CMS
Dentons
Greenberg Traurig
Hogan Lovells
Linklaters
Milbank
Olswang
Pfizerand many others
FAQ
What is the main benefit of your programs?
We help professionals become better professionals. By “better” we mean more successful in a business sense, while being more fulfilled on a personal level. Because of this, our programs pay for themselves very quickly, in many ways. In professional services, the biggest differentiator between success and mediocrity is people skills and behavior, not subject matter expertise.
Have you done this before?
Yes. We have many decades of experience training and coaching professionals in some of the most recognizable professional services firms around the globe. A few of the clients we have worked with are mentioned on this website.
Can you give examples of why clients typically retain you?
This varies widely, and there is no typical case.Some clients want to provide their young professionals or new joiners with a foundation of behavioral skills (and a dash of motivational fun) to set them up for success, hence ensuring the success of the firm. In more than a few cases, this is related to recruiting and retention, setting themselves apart from the many other firms out there vying for the same candidates.Other clients want to engage and retain their mid-career professionals with meaningful personal development opportunities, at a stage in their career where standing out in excellence versus blending in with talent at other firms can make all the difference.Senior partners also make up a sizeable portion of the clients we work with. For them, it is about polishing their skills to live up to ever increasing demands beyond mere subject matter expertise.
Where do you work? What is your geographic scope?
While we are physically based in the United States, France, and Germany, we work globally. In fact, we have conducted programs in 20+ countries on five continents over the past several years.The subject matter of our programs is truly global, because it is centered around humans, not specific legal systems or the like.
What languages do you offer?
We offer our programs in English and German.
Are your programs more suitable for junior or for senior professionals?
We tailor our programs for specific participants. While the underlying ideas are the same and content is similar, we focus on different topics and apply different methods depending on the seniority of participants. We also take into account your specific goals.
How many people can participate?
We have conducted programs for hundreds of people, for individuals, and for any number of participants in between. The recommended cohort size depends on your specific goals. A smaller group of course allows for closer personal interaction, and likely better results. But we are very flexible and want you to achieve your goals.
Are programs conducted on site or remotely?
In general, we recommend at least parts of the program to be conducted on site. Since in our programs we focus on professional relationships and behavior, it is helpful to get to know each other and interact in person. However, we have done many fully remote programs, as well as hybrid programs, and have found those to be fruitful as well.
Will you provide a venue?
We can provide fitting venues in various cities around the world, or you can choose your own venue. Typically, we recommend conducting our programs on “neutral ground”, meaning not in firm conference rooms. Alternatively, we can meet remotely over video calls.
What is your pricing?
Our pricing is based on hourly and daily rates, irrespective of the number of participants. If so desired, we factor in the cost of venues, travel and other costs without profit. For recurring sessions, we can offer special rates.
This website is published by
Matter of Perfection
c/o Dr. Uwe Schuricht
7 Impasse des Cormorans
40660 Messanges
Franceschuricht@matterofperfection.com+49 172 4141300
Privacy
We do not collect personal data through this website, measure visitor statistics or use cookies and similar technology. Simple. If you contact us we may store any personal information you provide and will do so in accordance with current privacy legislation. You may contact us at any time to find out about the data we hold about you, and to have personal data deleted or corrected.