Keynotes & Workshops
Sessions for legal departments and their teams, built around the room rather than delivered from a script — in person or live over Zoom, in 45, 60 and 90 minute formats.
See the speaking pageThe Firm
Carl Shawn Watkins Consulting
Leadership development for the legal profession — built to outlast any one person.
This is the firm — who we are, what we carry, and where we are going. For Carl’s own books, keynotes and workshops, see My Work.
Who We Are
A firm built for one profession
Carl Shawn Watkins Consulting™ is a leadership-development firm for the legal profession. It works with legal departments and their teams, law firms, employee resource groups, professional organizations and corporate teams.
Its founding belief is simple: leadership development has to work at both levels — the system and the person. One without the other fails.
The firm also carries Courage2Connect Coaching™, which works on the person: the individual leader’s courage, self-awareness and capacity to hold hard conversations.
Courage Is the Currency™.
What the Firm Does
Four ways the firm works with legal leaders
Every one of these is live on this site — each card leads straight to it.
The Legal Leadership Accelerator System™
The firm's flagship 90-day consulting and coaching program for managing partners and legal executives.
Explore the AcceleratorThe Attorney Leadership Trust Audit™
The firm's leadership diagnostic, identifying what is quietly driving burnout, silence and turnover.
Take the Trust AuditThe Iron-Clad Leader Course
The firm's six-module course, each module paired with a practical tool.
See the course
Our Founder
Carl Shawn Watkins
Founder
Carl Shawn Watkins is the Founder of Carl Shawn Watkins Consulting™ and the author of The Iron-Clad Leader and Vulnerability: The New Way to Lead.
Over 30 years he has trained more than 1,500 leaders and coached 250+ senior executives, with a practice built specifically around the legal profession.
He founded the firm on a conviction he kept running into: attorneys are promoted into leadership because they are excellent lawyers, and then left to work out the people side alone. That is a fixable problem — and it is the problem this firm exists to fix.
Where We Have Worked
Engagements already on the record
01
Mercer County Prosecutor's Office
Keynote and workshop for 25 prosecutors.
02
Greater Vineland Chamber of Commerce
An executive summit for 50 managing partners, practice group chairs and senior attorneys.
03
Rebel Brown Law Group
A leadership-development engagement on trust and team building among associates.
Growing the Firm
Built to grow beyond its founder
Carl Shawn Watkins Consulting is built to grow beyond its founder. The work is being documented, structured and taught so that the people who join this firm can carry it — and carry it further.
What we look for in the people who walk with us
Leading from courage rather than performance.
Naming the real situation instead of talking around it.
Treating leadership as a learnable skill rather than a personality trait.
Wanting the client's team to be stronger after you leave the room.
If that is you, write to info@cswleadership.com.
Work With the Firm
Ready to build a high-trust, high-retention team? Let’s talk.
Booking an event? Request Carl for your event →