I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partner & Still Have a Life. I’m the leading global expert in what it takes to move from senior fee earner to partner . I created the How to Make Partner website and Progress to Partner Academy to help lawyers, accountants and consultants like you to realise that you need stop waiting patiently to get noticed, take control of your own career progression to get noticed as “one to watch” for partner-track and beyond in your firm.
Present yourself as the future partner they can’t afford to overlook. Click here and I’ll send you my FREE guide to creating a cast-iron business case for partner.
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Go-To Expert – Why Trying to Be Good at Everything is a Career-Limiting Strategy
Only 50% of professionals on the partnership track say they are known as the Go-To Expert for a specialism, both inside and outside their firm. This episode is about what it takes to get into that half, and why this will help you progress to partner quicker. I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership and co-author of How…
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Delegation or are you freeing yourself up for higher value activities?
Only 41% of professionals on the partnership track say they have a trusted group of people they regularly delegate to. This episode explores why that gap is so costly. And what to do about it. This episode explores what effective delegation actually looks like, where it typically breaks down, and how to build the team…
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Support Team – The people you need around you to make it to partner
Six in ten professionals actively pursuing partnership are doing so without the active backing of the key people who could open doors for them. They are relying on their work to speak for itself. On partner track, that is rarely enough. I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partner & Still…
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Plan – Why good intentions will not get you to partner
Only 31% of professionals pursuing partnership have a career plan that is genuinely guiding their progression. Nearly seven in ten are navigating one of the most important career transitions of their lives on good intentions alone, and then wondering why six months have gone by and nothing has moved. This episode covers the third of…
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Direction – The question no one asks before going for partner
Only 44% of professionals pursuing partnership have truly considered whether the partner role is right for them and made an informed decision about it. More than half are moving towards one of the biggest career commitments of their lives without ever properly asking: is this what I actually want? I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership…
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Mindset – Why the Most Brilliant People in the Room Don’t Always Make Partner
The most technically brilliant professionals don’t always make partner. This episode explores why, through the lens of the first, and most important, of the 12 key indicators of partnership readiness: Mindset. Using the real example of a lawyer with 98.5% utilisation who was asked to wait another year, this episode unpacks the fundamental difference that…
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What Should Actually Be in Your Default Diary
Most lawyers on the partnership track have tried time blocking. You carve out the slots, and then a real deadline arrives and the block gets sacrificed. The problem isn’t your discipline. It’s that most people are time blocking the wrong things: treating their diary like a to-do list with timestamps rather than a deliberate design…
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Why Delegation Keeps Failing (And It’s Not What You Think)
Think about the last time you delegated something and it came back wrong. What did you tell yourself? Most of us land on “I’m bad at delegating” or “they weren’t up to it” and then quietly decide to do it ourselves next time. But that pattern isn’t a skills problem. It’s an identity problem, and…
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How to turn tough feedback into your best career asset
Are you secretly dreading your next piece of feedback? Do you find yourself going into defence mode the moment someone tells you something you don’t want to hear? You’re not alone. And it’s not a character flaw. Your brain is literally wired to treat negative feedback as a threat, triggering a fight-or-flight response that makes…





