Talks and short sessions
for firms, forums and functions
An hour or two that people talk about afterwards.
Firms ask us for an hour at a quarterly meeting, a morning at a women’s forum, a session at the year-end function, or a start-of-year morning on direction. Maryke Swarts delivers it; Sonja Cilliers writes it for the room. It is a training session with the science in it and a tool to take away, pitched so that a partner, a candidate attorney and the office manager all get something they can use on Monday. Where it fits the occasion, every attendee leaves with a short printed booklet written for that audience.
Themes we are asked for
Each one is a session in its own right. Tell us the occasion and the room, and we will suggest which fits.
Finding me in the noise
For women’s forums and women’s month events. Why a capable mind that carries a practice and a household feels full, what working memory can actually hold, how to clear it, and the question worth taking home: who do I want to become?
Burnout and the year-end stretch
For the last quarter, when everyone is tired and the deadlines are not. What burnout is in the brain, how to tell which stage you are at, and how to get to December with your concentration and your temper intact. Also available as a recorded two-hour reset with a 96-page workbook for individuals and teams.
Productivity and focus in an interrupt-driven office
Why an interruption costs far more than the minutes it takes, what it does to drafting quality by four in the afternoon, and how to protect real thinking time without becoming unavailable.
Direction for the year ahead
A start-of-year morning on goal setting that survives a legal diary: why plans collapse under other people’s urgency, and a one-page plan the brain can hold.
Decisions under pressure
How the mind keeps time across a day, why late decisions are drawn from faster and older circuitry, and the four-step protocol for the moment before a decision that matters.
Leading people in a firm
Why strong practitioners struggle when they are put in charge of people, and the few habits that make the difference: delegation that develops, feedback without fallout, steadiness under load.
Working across difference
For firms working on inclusion: what the brain does with unfamiliarity and status, why good intentions do not change behaviour on their own, and the practices that do.
Something else on your mind? Every theme on this site can be delivered as a session. Ask.
A quarterly or annual general meeting. A partners’ or practice-group forum. A women’s forum, a candidate attorneys’ induction, a professional body’s regional event. A year-end function that should leave people with something more than a hangover. The first morning back in January.
What it costs
A session of one to two hours for a room of any size in Gauteng is R12 000, including preparation written for your occasion and the tools we leave behind. Travel and accommodation elsewhere are added at cost. A half day or a morning masterclass is quoted on the format. If the session leads to something more, the day at the firm and the continuing work are described on the training for firms and leadership pages. PMRI is not registered for VAT.
Who delivers it
Maryke Swarts, Neuro-Coach · Behavioural Specialist · Co-Founder, presents. Sonja Cilliers, Advocate of the High Court of South Africa with 27 years in practice, writes each session for the room it is going into, so the examples are legal examples and the tools survive contact with a real week.
Book a session
Tell us the occasion, the date, roughly how many people and what you would like them to leave with. We reply within one business day with a suggested theme and a quotation; acceptance by return email reserves the date.
If this was useful, there is one like it every month.
One idea, one practical habit, and the month's articles from the PMRI Library. Written for legal professionals under pressure.