legal sanity

Like many of you, I consider my work in the legal field very much a work in progress. I'm constantly thinking about how I can make it more interesting, fun, profitable and meaningful for me and my clients. Jennifer Rice at What's Your Brand Mantra has this interesting take on building your business "not on what you do, but how you do it." She asks us to consider how we distinguish ourselves from the pack: "Are you faster, better, cooler, more innovative? More connected with your customers? Or, asked another way, how do you inspire emotion in your customers? Do they feel liberated? Hip? Special? In control? Connected?" Although she's speaking the language of niche marketing and branding, Rice's queries logically extend to the hub and heart of our business - the attorney-client relationship. At this time when public opinion of lawyers is so low and client infidelity and practitioner attrition are riding high, we need to focus on the "hows" of our service delivery. As Rice points out, "Own a 'how' in your industry, and you'll have a path for future growth as the market and competitive set changes." I also venture that aligning how you work with who you are - with your core values and interests - goes a long way towards building a sustainable, successful and satisfying career in the law.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments

Here are a few tests from Psychology Today for your enjoyment. I think they're all quite relevant to our work in the legal profession. Go on, see how much of a procrastinator you are; find out your emotional intelligence quotient; evaluate your communication skills; and assess whether all those people who accuse you of being "Type A" are right. The tests are comprehensive, informative and take time. Don't procrastinate. Find out where you stand.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A great post over at You Already Know This Stuff led me to this article and this one on Tim Sanders, Yahoo's Chief Solutions Officer. Sanders, a self-proclaimed "lovecat" and author of the book Love Is The Killer App, firmly believes that the "most powerful force in business [today] is love." He defines love as the "the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your knowledge, networks, and compassion with your business partners." Building (or re-building) business on a foundation of love is essential in an age where a dominant culture of choice and information sharing is toppling the reign of business villians and noxious companies. In the world-according-to-Sanders, "People who love what they're doing, who love to learn new things, to meet new people, and to share what and whom they know with others: These are the people who wind up creating the most economic value and, as a result, moving their companies forward." I'm in.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

I'm reading and very much enjoying Larry Schreiter's book, The Happy Lawyer. It contains some great insights and advice on finding our passion and purpose in the law. What makes it a standout, though, are its clear and concise written exercises on discovering (or re-discovering) why we went into law, who our optimal clients are and what practice areas really resonate for us. As you probably know by now, I think that the self-talk and introspection these types of exercises generate are essential to creating career success and satisfaction. This kind of internal dialoging might take us outside our comfort zone. But, I've found that the net results - less stress, better clients and work that pays off on many levels - make any temporary discomfort worthwhile.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Hugh MacLeod of the insightful gapingvoid recently posted about the emergent "Creative Age." In this new era, he posits, we place a premium on finding meaning in our professional and personal lives. Indeed, we've awakened to a view of work as inseparable from "real life." So, we seek jobs that are fun, that sing to us and that honor our uniqueness. When we find our own "unique door," MacLeod continues, it will "resonate. Not just with us, but with everybody it comes in contact with. The door will [be] useful and productive. Alive and kicking. It'll create wealth and laughter and joy." I think he is right on. So many lawyers I meet are desperately searching for this kind of meaning in their work. They're on the hunt for a way of practicing law that's uplifting and financially rewarding. Law firms that want to survive and thrive in this Creative Age will have to heed the call and engage their lawyers in a candid conversation about creating a genuine culture of fun and meaning in the workplace.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Conflict is a big part of everyday life, especially for lawyers. This article, raises the interesting point that understanding our own attitude about conflict is integral to building solid conflict management skills. Launching from the premise that people typically see conflict as "something undesirable," the piece asks us to view it through the metaphor of fire. Like fire, conflict has the potential for destruction, but also for creating great opportunity. If we approach conflict situations with knowledge of this duality, we're less likely to run from them or to immediately try to extinguish them. We realize that we have more options than that. And we also learn that, like fires, not all conflicts are sustained and snuffed out in the same way. Acknowledging these differences, we become more open and able to navigate conflicts through to optimal resolutions.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

My name is Arnie Herz and I work with my wife. I can't do justice to the looks and quips I get when I tell people that my wife, Lori, and I practice law together. They just don't get it. As I've said before, this is not a fall back position for me. The two of us work quite well together because of our different, but complementary, interests and talents in the law. For those thinking of melding marriage and business, here's an article discussing the nuances of such teamwork. The piece points out how some firms are redesigning their nepotism policies in the wake of increasing lawyer-lawyer marriages in their ranks. While there may not be a need for such formal policymaking in your workplace, I do think it's important to have an ongoing, open dialogue with your spouse regarding expectations and the division-of-labor between office and home.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

I just had to give it another go. I recently started reading Christopher Bailey's terrific blog The Alchemy of Soulful Work. In this post, he notes a Fast Company article declaring work-life balance an unattainable pipe dream that has won huge cultural resonance. The problem, the article asserts, is that we define balance as achieving in all aspects of our lives. It's an all or nothing proposition that sets us up for failure. A saner approach, the piece proposes, is to look at life as a many-chaptered portfolio with a goal of striking a balance among chapters rather than within each chapter. The life chapters, with their unique combination of circumstances, commitments and priorities, can be seen as temporary episodes that together make up a coherent and satisfying whole. I believe that achieving life balance is a tenable goal for us all. But, we need to reframe the prevailing notion of what constitutes balance. It's not about deftly juggling all balls in the air at any given moment. Rather, I look at balance in terms of living life and working in a way that's consistent with our deepest values. By aligning what we do in the world with our core beliefs, we naturally feel an underlying sense of contentment and ease, even in the most challenging times.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

This article describes how retailers nationwide are looking to amp up customer satisfaction and loyalty by educating their "front lines" in the art of creating a "positive people experience." With a surge in consumer complaints about interactions with sales people, businesses have come to recognize that "there simply is no other company for consumers than the one embodied by workers they meet." Of course, this applies equally to the legal profession. In this era of escalating client discontent and infidelity, it makes tremendous sense for law firms big and small to pay close attention to the human beings behind the legal issues and billable hours. Clients will likely be more satisfied with services rendered and results obtained if there's been an open, concerted effort to create an uplifting experience for them. An investment in training programs on active listening and emotional intelligence would go a long way towards fostering consumer contentment in the legal sector.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

It seems I've got work-life balance on the brain of late, as evidenced here, here and, oh yeah, here. Apparently, I'm not alone. The Center for Creative Leadership is now featuring three short but engaging articles on the subject. One presents a laundry list of warning signs of a life off balance. Another piece suggests that the quest for life equilibrium "can become all-consuming and non-productive" because our idea of what constitutes balance changes over time. The proffered fix for this flux is to shift our focus to making choices that support our core values. The final article asserts that a good way to evaluate "where you are in terms of balance" is to get feedback from family, friends and co-workers. The goal of this assisted self-assessment is to see if our perception of how we spend our time and effort matches how others experience us.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

This week's Legal Tech New York afforded me a terrific opportunity to dine with fellow bloggers Matt Homann, Dennis Kennedy, Bruce McEwen, Josh Fruchter, Marty Schwimmer and Johnnie Moore. Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer was also there. It was great to get to know the folks behind the blogs I regularly read and learn from. The dinner conversation was lively and interesting and I came away with a strong sense of common purpose and community. It set the bar for some serious brainstorming and innovation at April's LexThink! Chicago.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks