Rachel Brushfield is the founder of EnergiseLegal and is ‘The Talent Liberator’; an experienced career strategist and coach & published author in multiple topics. Portfolio careers, mid career transitions including Consultant Lawyers, thought leadership and personal branding and marketing yourself are coaching specialisms.
She has over 30 years’ experience to help the legal profession embrace change and Energise has been established for over 28 years (1996). Rachel’s career heritage was in FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) in client side marketing and brand strategy and integrated communications, both employed and on a consultancy basis for design, advertising and innovation consultancies, providing multiple benefits for clients. Rachel’s own portfolio career is comprised of career and executive coaching, marketing mentoring, talent management consulting, events, feature articles and books, content curation and creation and action learning sets (group coaching.)
Entrepreneurial in nature, and incisive, insightful, strategic yet practical and down to earth in approach, she keeps ahead of trends and up to date with best practice, and has focused on the legal profession for over 20 years. Rachel’s published material includes a book on ‘Career management for lawyers. Practical strategies to plan your next chapter’ (January 2019, The Law Society), ‘Smarter legal marketing. Practical strategies for busy lawyers’, (September 2018, The Law Society), ‘Talent management for lawyers: a hands-on guide’ (2012, Ark), ‘Professional development for lawyers’ (2012, Ark) and over 18 articles for high quality legal magazines including ‘Managing Partner’, Modern Law magazine, Westminster and Holborn Law Society’s The London Lawyer magazine and the Law Society’s ‘Managing for success’ and ‘Inside out’ magazines.
Rachel contributed a chapter on ‘Helping women lawyers overcome their blocks about marketing themselves’ in the book ‘Business Development for Women Lawyers’ (August 2018, Ark), ‘Essential skills for the changing legal market’ for the book ‘The Talent management toolkit for law firms’ for Ark (2016), a chapter on ‘Women in law and gender balance’ for the book ‘Managing talent for success’ (2013) for The International Bar Association (IBA)/Globe Law and Business and one on the ‘Impact of mentoring and coaching on life balance issues’ for the book ‘Mentoring and coaching for lawyers’, also for IBA/Globe. (2014).
EnergiseLegal white papers include ‘The New Polymaths’ about career agility and ‘Consultant lawyers – a meteoric rise in popularity.’
Accolades include Rachel Brushfield being shortlisted in the entrepreneur category of the We are the city ‘Rising star’ awards, one of only 200 women in the UK, a judge in the Marketing and Communications category of the Law Society Excellence Awards and a LexisNexis D+I expert.
Rachel has done events for Birmingham Law Society, Women In The Law (WITL), the Society of English and American Lawyers (SEAL), American Women Lawyers in London (AWLL), the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) London, Surrey and Manchester groups on ‘Personal branding & social media’ and ‘Blowing your own trumpet’, and she initiated, planned and spoke at 2 events on ‘Portfolio careers’ for the women lawyers division (WLD) of The Law Society (2014, 2015). She organised and spoke at The Law Society’s first ever ‘Changing career direction’ event (2015). Other event topics include self-marketing, talent management, personal branding, career planning, portfolio careers and employee engagement. She designed and presented at the Law Society’s Confidence and Empowerment event in celebration of International Women’s Day, achieving a 100% delegate rating.
Rachel supported the successful Law Society’s bi-annual ‘Returners course’ (rebranded Recharger programme) for over 10 years doing sessions on job tips and legal market/work trends and CVs. She was involved in its redesign for the digital age in 2018. Her interactive multisensory session ‘A good CV is like squeezing oranges’ got delegates squeezing oranges, drinking fresh orange juice and eating orange chocolate to think about what ‘juice’ meant for their own CV, and what ‘pith, pips and peel’ to leave out.
Content creation projects include: diversity & inclusion checklists and questionnaires for LexisNexis to help Partners and senior associates in mid-market law firms implement D+I practically creating an inclusive culture, business skill guides for aspiring solicitors, career transition case studies and articles and career webinars for the Law Society, and webinars on Personal Branding and Consultant Lawyers for LexisNexis.