ARMSTRONG TALENT DEVELOPMENT - Key Persons
Steve Armstrong has led professional development and talent-management programs at major law firms for more than 20 years. During that time, he has guided firms to think strategically about managing their talent, has taught programs on managerial and leadership skills, and has designed and implemented a wide range of programs and policies. These have included training curricula, mentoring programs, evaluation and compensation systems, leadership development programs, diversity initiatives, work-life balance programs, associate surveys, and "upward" evaluations. He has published and spoken widely on the topic of talent management, and has served as chair of the Professional Development Consortium, the professional organization for in-house legal educators, and as co-chair of the ABA Committee on Business Law Education.
Since establishing Armstrong Talent Development in 2009, he has provided training programs and consulting services for partners and associates in many of the leading law firms in the U.S. and Canada, focusing in particular on improving the leadership and management abilities of the firms' lawyers. With Tim Leishman, Steve is a principal of Firm Leader, Inc., which provides leadership, management and business development programs for law firms and law departments.
For more than 20 years, Steve has also taught writing programs for lawyers and judges in the U.S. and Canada. His programs for lawyers have been conducted for law firms, in-house legal departments, and such government agencies as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. He conducts the opinion-writing segments of the U.S. Federal Judicial Center's orientations for new district, bankruptcy, and magistrate judges, as well as programs for Canadian judges.
With Professor Timothy P. Terrell, he is the co-author of Thinking Like a Writer: A Lawyer's Guide to Effective Writing and Editing (3rd edition, 2008, Practicing Law Institute).