Learning to be a lawyer in transnational law firms: communities of ...

Our research suggests, then, that CoP are important in transnational law firms not only because
of their role in generating new and transferring existing procedural knowledge and best practice
relating to service delivery but also because of their role in allowing learning about the attitudes
and values – i.e. the identities - the firm expects lawyers to display when interacting with
colleagues and clients. This is demonstrated by the dominance of non-legal, commercial and
behavioural skills in the training programme outlined in Figure 1. Indeed, the aims and
objectives laid out in the documentation supporting one firm’s training programme further attest
to the importance of training-based CoP for allowing identity-related learning, stating that
participation by lawyers should shape attitudes and values and:
• Allow the firm to develop a cohort of lawyers who have a consistent approach to legal
practice
• Ensure lawyers know their colleagues worldwide and share common understandings of
how to meet clients’ needs
• Develop globally minded, diverse and flexible people
(Source: Adapted from documents
collected during fieldwork)
In the rest of the paper we therefore focus our analysis on CoP formed by the types of training
programmes outlined above so as to better understand their role in shaping the identities of
lawyers. Such ‘identity regulation’ – defined following Alvesson and Willmott (2002, 625) as
intentional effects on identity construction and reconstruction - is important for law firms
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