Hogan Lovells Cadwalader (HLC) and Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education have launched a global programme to develop the firm’s next generation of leaders, following its July merger.
Called ‘Leading The Future’, the programme brings together around 60 partners from across HLC’s global network. It is aimed at experienced partners and established and emerging practice group leaders from across the combined firm that have been identified as having the potential to take on significant leadership responsibilities.
Developed in collaboration with Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education’s specialist professional services practice, the programme draws on Cambridge academics and lawyers to examine the strategic, organisational and personal dimensions of leadership.
While not unique, Johnny Fort of City recruitment specialist Fort Stratford noted the new programme was comparable to other initiatives at top-end law firms that link with elite universities.
Freshfields, he noted, runs a similar programme with Oxford Said Business School for existing partners going into senior leadership positions. Similarly, Milbank runs a programme at Harvard University for associates, while Dechert runs a staged partner development programme at the same university.
The International Bar Association, meanwhile, also runs its own leadership development programme for partners.
Fort says this “suggests that, after the merger, the aim is not just to develop capable leaders, but to build an integrated leadership group with a shared sense of direction”.
Starting in-person this week in Cambridge and running through October 2027, Leading The Future combines immersive on-campus modules with virtual masterclasses, leadership assessments and individual coaching.
Sessions will cover scaling strategy, navigating uncertainty, sustaining high performance and storytelling that makes an impact. Partners will collaborate, debate future scenarios and translate learning into action.
They will also explore the firm’s vision and strategy alongside wider leadership challenges, HLC said, translating shared ambitions into institutional action. Each participant will address a leadership challenge, apply the programme’s learning to the firm, and exchange perspectives and build relationships across the global partnership.
Professor Stelios Kavadias at Cambridge Judge Business School said: “Leadership is rarely about having all the answers; it is about creating the opportunity to step back, question assumptions and learn from the experience of others. Bringing together accomplished leaders with different perspectives creates richer conversations and fresh ways of thinking that benefit not only the individual, but the organisation as a whole.
“Leading The Future has been designed to create that space, helping participants reflect on the challenges ahead while strengthening the relationships that underpin long-term success.”
Miguel Zaldivar, the firm’s CEO, said: “The success of our combined firm will depend on our people and the leaders we develop for the future. We are bringing together 60 established and emerging leaders from all over the world, across two cohorts, to contribute to our strategy and help translate it into action.”
He added: “Cambridge combines tradition with innovation in a way that strongly resonates with us. It is a place with centuries of academic excellence, but also one focused on new ideas, innovation and the future of business and leadership.”
Noting the firm’s low attrition rates, with several management committee members having spent their entire careers at one of HLC’s legacy firms, Zaldivar called the initiative “another investment in our next generation of leaders, and I look forward to learning alongside them” as a member of the first cohort.
Leading The Future is the final part of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader’s leadership pathway, with the firm offering pathways at different levels of qualification and experience. The Momentum pathway, for example, supports high-performing senior lawyers with potential to progress to partner; Transform supports newly elevated non-equity partners and lateral hires; Ignite is for newly elevated equity partners and lateral hires; and Leading The Future develops experienced partners’ advanced strategic leadership capabilities.
Laura Kind, global head of leadership, said the programme was “deliberately global and cross-firm, bringing together experienced and emerging leaders from across our practices and regions”, and that this mix of perspectives was central to the programme.
She said: “It gives participants the opportunity to learn from one another, strengthen relationships across the firm and apply the learning to real leadership challenges. Our aim is to build leadership capability that translates across practices, sectors and geographies.”
Fort said the initiative was a welcome one, noting that “too often, like sports teams, law firms have a tendency to make their best player(s) the captain(s), when there are others who are better qualified or naturally suited to the task”.
He added: “The skills that make someone a highly successful fee earner are not always the same as those needed to lead people and a global organisation. Identifying that leadership cohort and investing in its development can only be good for [the] firm.”
The initiative comes as HLC announced the next phase of its AI strategy, including a specialist AI board, one of the topics likely to be discussed as part of the Cambridge initiative.
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