The top 5 ways to manage stress in the office

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You’re probably running all day, trying to handle conflicting requests from multiple clients, colleagues, and/or opposing counsel, managing staff, facing deadlines, and hoping to maintain your personal life, perhaps wanting to address family needs as well.  Law practice is a breeding ground for stress.  And we’ve all had days that just start off wrong — the alarm doesn’t go off, your coffee cup explodes in the microwave, you spill breakfast down your last clean shirt; you get to the office only to find that your secretary is in a vile mood and you have 25 new emails and 15 new voicemails, all wanting immediate activity.  As the day marches on, you begin to feel that you’re living the lawyer’s version of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 

How do you handle that kind of stress?  Hint: you may feel stress, but you don’t have to marinate in it.

Many activities are helpful in minimizing stress — time management, strong organizational skills, adequate sleep, good nutrition, etc.  But these activities help only prospectively.  They aren’t rescue tools when stress kicks up.

When a stressful moment arises, whether it’s a deadline, discovery of a mistake, trial preparation, or simply having too much work and not enough day, many techniques are useful to reduce stress.  I’m going to focus on the top 5 tactics here.

1.  Breathe.  Stress is a by-product of the “fight or flight” response, which is a biologically-driven response to a perceived danger signal.  The “fight or flight” response causes the body to make certain physiological adjustments, including tightening muscles and increasing the rate of heartbeat and breathing, so that our bodies are ready to fight off the danger or to run away from it.  The stress we feel is a consequence of this response, which is well designed to help us survive if we spot a tiger but not so well designed to help us cope with a pressing deadline — there’s nothing in a deadline to fight or to run from.  Engaging in deep breathing can interrupt the “fight or flight” response by relaxing the body and releasing stress so we can do the necessary tasks to face the more “civilized” threats that we tend to face today.  The quickest way to release tension is to take deep breaths that fully inflate your lungs and provide your body with sufficient oxygen, alternating with slow exhalations.  Try breathing in and out to a count of 7.

2.  Move.  It’s important to get up and walk around when you’re feeling stressed.  Two reasons for this: first, it allows you an opportunity to release some of the tension in your muscles, and second, moving allows you to shift your perspective in a tangible way.  Make sure you get up and walk around at least every other hour.

3.  Relaxation exercise.  Find an audio guided visualization or develop a meditation practice.  It only takes 5 or 10 minutes to feel relaxed once you’ve become accustomed to the relaxation process.  You can close your office door, pop in a CD or turn on your iPod, sit comfortably in your chair, and relax.  A good resource for short meditations is Meditative Moments, which offers a free daily meditation that takes less than 3 minutes or so to play.

4.  Anger release plus frame shift.  This is my favorite way to move through stress based on anger and frustration.  Go somewhere private (a parked car is a good place) and allow yourself 2 minutes to rant about whatever is making you angry.  Begin with a cadence:  “I am angry, I am angry, I am angry because…” and just let loose for 2 minutes.  The idea here is to release the anger in a safe place (i.e., somewhere that won’t create negative repercussions).  DO NOT do this in your office.  Following your anger release, shift your perspective by moving to gratitude instead, beginning again with the cadence, “I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful because…”

5.  Laugh.  Yes, it’s hard to do when you’re in the moment of stress.  But make time to watch a funny movie, read a funny book, or listen to a comedy performance that makes you laugh.  You might even want to keep a list of things that make you laugh (such as a TV series, a great website, a friend who always makes you laugh, etc.) so you don’t have to think it through when you need to laugh.  You might even try to take a humorous look at what’s causing you stress and see whether you can reframe the situation in a way that allows you to find the comedy.  Getting a guffaw going can take as little as 5 or 10 minutes, and you’ll feel like a new person.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to avoid stress.  These tactics will allow you to perform emergency stress reduction, but you must also be aware when you’re beginning to feel stressed.  Do a self-check periodically (when you get up and move, for instance) so you can notice stress build-up so you can take these stress reduction steps before the stress level becomes unmanageable.

Fun Monday

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Is “Fun Monday” an oxymoron?  Thought I’d share some humor today… Most of us can use it on Mondays:

Legal Humour is just what it says — good legal humor, no lawyer jokes.

Law Ha-Ha is Andrew McClurg’s brainchild.  Love it.

And then there’s Law Laughs, which is more of the same.

For dark non-legal humor, visit the Darwin Awards website, which proclaims an honorable mission: “We salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously.”

Enjoy.  Perhaps for at least a few minutes, today can indeed be Fun Monday.

Increase your efficiency by cutting the time you spend in the office.

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We all go through periods when we just aren’t that efficient at work.  Maybe there’s something personal going on that’s distracting you, maybe it’s been a beautiful summer week and you want to be out in the sun, maybe you have a cold and just don’t feel good but also don’t feel bad enough to stay home.  (And a sidenote: please, don’t be one of those superheros who goes to work sick as a dog, hacking and sneezing and wheezing all around the office, succeeding only in making yourself even sicker and infecting everyone in a 20-yard radius.  Please.)

How to recapture your usual efficiency and focus?  Spend less time in the office.

Not dramatically less, but an hour or two.  (Note that this isn’t a long-term strategy to increase efficiency — that’s another topic altogether — but rather one designed to help you get over the hump of whatever has got you off your regular game.)

Why does this work?  This tactic will:

Remove the PLM mindset.  (PLM, of course, stands for Poor Little Me.)  Over the years, I’ve known lots of people who essentially fritter away Friday lunchtime or afternoon because they know they need to work over the weekend and they’re having a serious pity party.  Don’t believe me?  Repeat the following using your best Eeyore voice: “I may as well take a 2-hour lunch, since I have to be here all day Saturday anyway.”  Sound familiar?  I thought so.  Instead of taking a long lunch or surfing away a couple of hours, decide to leave at a set time that’s a little earlier than you might otherwise, and stick to it.  No pity party needed, because you’re leaving early today.  That’ll make you more effective throughout the day.  Why?  That leads to the second benefit.

Plug into getting-ready-for-vacation mentality.  Have you ever noticed how much you can accomplish on Friday when you know you’ll be away from the office for the next week?  You have something to look forward to, and you have a set time when you’ll catch your plane, meet family or friends, or whatever.  Deciding to leave the office an hour or two earlier than usual can help you shift into this mindset.  Suppose you normally leave at 7, but instead you decide to leave at 5.  How will you shift your day so you can leave early?  Will you bring lunch to your desk?  Eliminate those little breaks that add up to wasted time?  Ask your secretary to hold non-critical calls?  And what will you do with your “found time”?  Maybe go to a movie, slide into the restaurant that’s too crowded by the time you can usually get there, or just go home, put on sweats, order in Chinese, and relax.  That’s worth a manufactured in-office crunch on occasion.

Keep you from sitting in the office when you’re being inefficient so you can recover.  If you’re too tired or you have a hideous headache or whatever, perhaps trying to focus isn’t what you need or what will help you get your energy back.  Of course, if you’re on a deadline, you can’t afford this luxury.  But, for those ordinary times, cutting one day short may allow you to return to the office and do what you need to do the next day.

I assume it’s obvious why I advocate this technique only for rare occasions, but let me belabor the point.  You don’t want to be the person who never goes to lunch and never has time to chat.  You don’t want to be the person who’s always leaving early.  And you probably don’t want to have to cram everything possible into every day — if you do want to do that, you probably don’t have an efficiency problem anyway.

But on occasion, cutting your time in the office can lead to a much-needed burst of efficiency.  Use it wisely.

Time management skills: is a task urgent or important?

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One of the top concerns for most lawyers is time management.  We all have so much to accomplish in so little time, and it often seems that we’re always trying to cram more activities (whether professional or personal) into the non-negotiable 168 hours we have each week.  Most of my coaching clients bring time management issues to the table at some point, and the high levels of stress that many lawyers face derive largely from time pressures.  One distinction, “urgent” versus “important,” can form the basis for effective time management.  Let’s dig in.

Urgent vs. important is a simple distinction that applies equally to the substance of a lawyer’s work as well as to practice or career management.  Stephen Covey has written about time use and devised a four-quadrant chart to help us judge where we spend most of our time:

QUADRANT I: Urgent and Important:  Crises, problems, deadline-driven projects.

QUADRANT II: Not Urgent, but Important:  Preparation, problem prevention, planning, relationship building, values clarification, true recreation (“re-creation”).

QUADRANT III: Urgent, but Not Important: Interruptions, some phone calls, some meetings, some email.

QUANDRANT IV: Not Urgent, Not Important: Junk mail, spam, busywork, trivia, “escape” activities, mindless web surfing, etc.

Where do you spend most of your time?  While it’s undeniable that Quadrant I requires attention and Quadrant III calls for attention (though the call may be illusory), Quadrant II is the critical zone.  That’s where the real work that truly moves us forward gets done.

For instance, suppose you’ve decide to leave your current job.  Quadrant I may demand you update your resume, call a recruiter, and set up a job agent on a job search website.  Quadrant III is returning a call from a recruiter who has the perfect position — except that it’s in Salt Lake City and you have no desire to live there — and it’s most interviews.  (Note that in this example, it’s hard to evaluate in advance whether something is important or not!)  Quandrant IV is browsing all the legal jobs in the U.S. on a website — things that may look like they’re related to your job search but really do nothing for you except waste time.  And Quadrant II is where you spend time when you stop to think about what exactly you want in your new job: firm or in-house?  Small, medium, or large firm?  Should you work with a recruiter?  What geographic location suits you best?

Quadrant II yields the strongest results.  That’s where the real work happens, where we’re able to engage in analysis that will help move us forward.  It may be helpful or even critical to spend time in Quadrant I; we all spend some time in Quadrant III, but we can be aware of that time and choose to limit it; Quadrant IV is best avoided because it’s neither productive nor refreshing time.

Question for reflection: both in practice and in your career/practice management, where are you spending your time?  Are you visiting Quadrant II enough?

According to a 2001 article published in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly:  “Lawyers are good subjects for coaching because they are results-oriented professionals. But like most busy professionals, it is hard for lawyers to consistently focus on things that are important, but not urgent. In addition, while attorneys may get good training in “lawyering” in the early years of practice, they are less likely to get any consistent and focused training on how to develop their professional and personal lives. A law degree can still open up a lot of doors for you, but real career satisfaction takes both hard work and planning. Having the degree, and working in a good law firm, are not enough.  Many of us do not take the time to reflect on what we really want. Some of us do not know what steps to follow to get what we want. Still others know the steps, but cannot figure out how to rearrange their professional and personal lives to make room for these important, but not urgent, activities. A coach can be the key ingredient in making things happen.”  Do you need a coach?

I’ll close with an example.  I worked with a client I’ll call Sheri, who was having a great deal of trouble getting everything done that she needed to in the office.  She found herself staying later and later, then going in earlier and earlier, and before long she was exhausted and angry that her personal life had disappeared.  We started with the urgent/important distinction and looked at the kinds of tasks on her “to do” list through that lens.

Sheri decided to cut Quadrant IV activities completely and to get better at identifying Quadrant III activities so she could eliminate as many of those as possible.  And then she looked at the Quadrant I tasks she’d listed to see whether any could be delegrated or otherwise handled.  And then our focus shifted to Quadant II.  Sheri developed a schedule that guaranteed her planning and strategizing time (pure Quadrant II activities) and found that by spending time on those tasks, she was able to prevent problems and facilitate the orderly accomplishment of important aims.  Her stress level decreased, as did the number of hours she had to spend putting out fires.

Sheri was delighted to discover that working out qualified as a Quadrant II activity, and she planned a half-hour walk or visit to the gym five days a week.  As a result, she began to feel better physically, which also decreased her stress level and increased her energy so she could get more work done in the hours she had available.  By further focusing on categorizing tasks in the quadrants, minimizing time spent in Quadrants III and IV, and maximizing the time she spent in Quadrant II, Sheri developed work habits and a daily schedule that allowed her to get her work done, to feel good about it, and to have some time and energy for her personal pursuits as well.

Congratulations to the women of Kuwait!

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This is off the ordinary topic, but today cannot be overlooked.  As readers likely know, women voted today in Kuwait’s elections for the first time in a national poll.  Without delving into the politics (or the socio-religious implications of the politics, or any combination thereof), this is a red-letter day for women in Kuwait and perhaps more generally for women in the Gulf and Arab world.  The spirit of change is clearly expressed by the offer extended by Jazeera Airways, a Kuwaiti carrier, for free flights to Kuwait for women, to ensure that as many Kuwaiti women as possible get the opportunity to cast a vote.  We may argue about what freedom is, how any society may or should express it, but it’s remarkable to see when all members of a society get a voice.

As an American woman, it’s hard to imagine not having the right to vote.  But, for the sake of interest, I offer the following selected dates:

1869:  unmarried female householders permitted to vote in Britain’s local elections
1893:  New Zealand grants equal voting rights to women
1894:  married women permitted to vote in local (but not national) British elections
1906:  Finland grants women equal voting rights
1907:  Norwegian women permitted to stand for election
1913:  Norway adopts full woman suffrage
1920:  U.S. adopts woman suffrage nationwide
1971:  Switzerland grants women the right to vote

The Woman Suffrage International Timeline is a fascinating read.  It’s surprising to note how early some women were permitted to vote, and how long women were required to wait in some “advanced” societies.

Did you know that U.S. women were first granted full voting rights by the Constitution of Wyoming Territory in 1869?  Indeed, Wyoming promised to forgo statehood rather than give up woman suffrage, though it was granted statehood in 1890 and termed the Equality State.

I grew up learning about Wyoming’s suffrage history because my mother wanted to research the story.  She did so for more than twenty years, and an overview of her findings were printed in the Centennial edition of the Wyoming Annals:  Sidney Howell Fleming, “Solving the Jigsaw Puzzle: One Suffrage Story at a Time,” Annals of Wyoming 62, no. 1 (1990): 23-72.  But there’s much more to the story.  Although I write with a daughter’s pride, the history deserves to be more widely known than it currently is.  I invite anyone interested in this topic to contact me for further discussion… It’s a breathtaking conversation.

What training should law firms offer? Networking 101.

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I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the “soft” skills on which law firms can profitably offer training to summer associates.  Networking was on that list, and it’s probably my top pick for the hands-down most important soft skill.  I received a number of questions about what I mean by teaching networking.  So, here’s a brief overview of the networking seminar that I’ve developed.  The seminar of course goes more deeply into the how and where of networking, as well as focusing on self-presentation skills… But this is the foundational material.

Networking for Career Advancement

Few “soft” skills receive as much attention in law school as networking.  The reason is simple: networking will have a huge influence on your career success, so attention to why, where, and how you network will pay immediate rewards.  The good news is that you network every day, whether you recognize it or not.  You have networking opportunities every time you come into contact with another person, so your focus should be on how to make the best use of those opportunities.

Why should you network?  Networking is critical for client development.  Most people who have a legal need will ask their colleagues and friends for lawyer recommendations – and that’s true whether the need is personal (i.e. will and estate matters) or business (i.e. commercial litigation).  People hire, give work to, and buy from other people they know, like, and trust.  That’s what networking accomplishes.

Networking is not the process of going somewhere armed with business cards, ready to pounce on the first person you encounter to get the business.  That’s the kind of behavior that gives networking a bad name and leads nice people everywhere to dread it.  Instead, networking is relationship-building.  It’s the process by which you meet someone, learn about him, his work, his interests, his family, what he needs and desires, and so on.  It’s developing an acquaintanceship that may yield benefits someday for you or someone you know.  Sometimes the benefits are immediate: occasionally, networking will reveal an immediate need that you can meet or will lead you toward an as-yet undiscovered opportunity.  More frequently, it’s simply the opening stages of a relationship that will mature over time.

Where should you network?  Anywhere and everywhere.  Networking can be structured.  Most commonly for lawyers, networking occurs at bar association meetings and firm- or law school-sponsored social events.  As a law student, look forward and think of networking as something you can do for your own professional and career development starting now.  Networking opportunities come up every day, every time you meet someone.  When you meet someone at the gym, that’s a chance for networking.  Attending a party is a networking opportunity.  Even attending your child’s little league game can be an occasion for networking.

You can and should network whenever you meet someone, but you should be networking to build relationships and not to get a job or get business or to get anything else.  The best networking occurs when the person with whom you’re networking has no idea that you are networking.  It’s social behavior at its best. 

How should you network?  This is a broad topic that deserves a post of its own.  But the bottom line is that you should seek to get to know other people, to look for opportunities to make yourself useful to them, to be other-focused.  There are two reasons for this.  First, and most importantly, this is an honorable way to conduct oneself in any setting.  Second, people like to talk about themselves and their business, but few people like to listen deeply.  You will distinguish yourself by focusing on the person with whom you’re in conversation.  She will appreciate your attention, and she’ll especially appreciate anything you can do to help her.  One terrific way to follow up on a networking contact is to send an article that would be of interest to your contact.  It shows that you were paying attention, and it’ll demonstrate your desire to help that person.  Your contact will be flattered by the attention, and he will reciprocate because he will be curious about the person who is so nice and so interested in him and his business or his life. 

One book that I highly recommend for summer reading is Bob Burg’s Endless Referrals.  Although the book is written primarily for sales professionals, everyone can benefit from the other-focused networking skills that Burg teaches.

Follow-up — it isn’t easy being green.

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Apparently I’m not the only one who found the comments to the WSJ Law School: Does It “Keep Your Options Open”? blog post notable.  The WSJ law blog has posted a response from Professor Stracher himself, in which he provides the admirable advice:

But if your only reason for going to law school is because you want to be rich, or because you are confused and someone has told you it will “keep your options open” STOP RIGHT THERE, and read on.

This is a worthwhile addendum and clarification to Professor Stracher’s previous comments… And yet, the comments roll on.  It will be interesting to watch.

And, just as a matter of interest amid the law school bashing going on here, anyone who missed Friday’s news might be interested to note that the ABA has conceded that it breached a 1996 consent decree prohibiting it from misusing the law school accreditation process.

We’re as green as Kermit the frog.

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Lawyers who regret attending law school are green with envy of those who made other decisions, while some aspiring law students are green in their naive approach to what it means to be a law school graduate.  The grass is greener on the other side… And let’s not forget the green cash that magically appears (or is that disappears??) upon graduation from law school.

There’s a fascinating post on the WSJ law blog, entitled Law School: Does It “Keep Your Options Open”?  The question is whether, because of the cost of law school tuition, it’s a cost-effective strategy to attend law school to keep open a variety of options, rather than to become a lawyer.  The answer appears to be a resounding no:

There’s something wrong with a system that makes a whole lot of people pay a whole lot of money for jobs that are not worth it, or that have no future. If we wanted to be honest, we would inform students that law school doesn’t keep their options open. Instead, we should say that if they work hard and do well, they can become lawyers.

So says Cameron Stracher in a WSJ article (available online only with a subscription).  A New York Law School professor and author of Double Billing: A Young Lawyer’s Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair, Professor Stracher is also a blogger who asks whether one man can change his life by making dinner with his family at least 5 nights a week for a solid year.  (It looks as if the answer to that question is yes, but perhaps we should wait for the “great book, and a great movie, then a great bathtowel and beach chair, and finally a great sequel” to follow.)

The publisher’s synopsis of Double Billing says, “As the author vividly describes, law school may teach you how to think like a lawyer, but it’s being an associate that teaches you how to behave like one. Or misbehave. Stracher doesn’t mince words about the duplicitous behavior and flagrant practices of many lawyers in his firm, which is one of the premier partnerships in America.”  Notwithstanding Professor Stracher’s current employment, that’s a rather unflattering view of law school and practice.  In candor, I haven’t read the book (yet, though it’s on my constantly growing list), but it could be either an accurate portrayal or a Swiftian satire or possibly a combination of the two.  So, perhaps the gist of Professor Stracher’s article is not surprising.

What is surprising about the WSJ blog is the comments.  A few aspiring law students provide the tenor voice begging for guidance while the percussion section provides a drumbeat of danger warnings: tuition is expensive, law doesn’t pay well enough for the vast majority of graduates, the work is dull and oppressive, and business school (presumably investment banking) is the route to true wealth.  The composition is rounded out with a staccato of reeds who ask when lawyers came to be such whiners.

Wow.

It’s certainly true that law school is now very expensive, even at most state school.  My own anecdotal evidence suggests that a substantial number of college students go to law school because they don’t know what else to do.  (I was a college senior in a 1990 English class when the professor asked how many of us were headed for law school.  A forest of hands went up.  Then he asked how many of us had any intention of going to law school before junior year, and mine was the only hand still up.)  And frankly, I do believe that those who end up in law school for lack of anything better to do have a much more difficult road to professional success (certainly in terms of personal satisfaction and enjoyment) than those who actually want to be lawyers.  I think the group next likely to suffer the consequences of an uninformed decision to attend law school are those who lack a realistic understanding of what a legal practice is all about.

If you’re headed to law school, ask yourself why.  If your answer is some version of “Eh, what else would I do?” start thinking now.  You can save yourself a lot of pain and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars if you clarify your reasons and your goals now.  If your answer is that you watched a lot of Law and Order (or Ally McBeal or any other tv show) and you know you’ll enjoy practice, do some informational interviewing now.  You may save yourself lots of money and heartache as well.  Personally, I’m in favor of an entrance and exit exam for law school: “Why are you entering law school” and “Why are you a lawyer”?  A cogent answer to these questions may be the best indicator for a meaningful career.

Does that mean it’s all gloom and despair if you went to law school and didn’t particularly want to be a lawyer?  Or if you’re practicing now and you’ve lost the passion — or perhaps never had it?  No.  It may take some self-examination (and the answer may be challenging, such as to change your area of practice or to leave the law altogether) but just about anyone can find a viable path in the law or a productive use for a law degree.  (For some resources, check the books on my Resource page.)

The road from law school is not paved with gold bricks.  It’s a lot of hard work, and the reward cannot be viewed solely as a matter of finances for the great majority of graduates.  As Professor Stracher says, hard work in law school promises only that a student can become a lawyer, and even that isn’t guaranteed.

If you have a vision for your practice (a reason for your decision to become a lawyer), be sure that vision is somehow integrated into your day-to-day life.  If you don’t, work to develop one.  The surest route to become permanently seasick-green is to finish law school, to be a lawyer, to be swept into a career that you didn’t want or intend and to see no way out.  If that describes you… Please, stop and think.  Get a partner to help your strategize what is and isn’t working.  It is possible to be a happy lawyer or to be otherwise happily employed with a law degree.

But, really…. Check out those WSJ blog comments.

Preparing to launch a job search

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This post is primarily directed toward those of you who have been in practice for 3-5 years, though the general ideas may be useful for a broader spectrum.

So, it’s summer, and you’ve decided that it’s time for you to move on from your current position.  Popular wisdom suggests that summer is not a good time to begin actively searching for a new job.  As with so much popular wisdom, there’s some truth to that, but the situation will vary dramatically from person to person — so evaluate your own situation before you decide whether to wait until fall.  Consider factors such as the force of the reason prompting you to leave where you are now (ask questions such as: how unhappy are you?  do you have a sense that you may be asked to leave?  is business slowing to the point that your position may no longer be sustainable?  how are you faring, in terms of your work performance, workload, likeability, etc., in comparison with your contemporaries?), the state of business generally in your practice area, hiring trends in your geographic area, etc.  This is a great place to brainstorm with someone else, because it’s easy to see only one perspective when you really need a 360 degree view.

If you do decide to wait until fall, you can certainly begin your preparations now.  And you should.  Here are some ideas on steps that will move you forward before you’re ready for an official launch.

  1. Get your resume in order.  (Of course, you know that.)  Especially if you’re more senior, think about whether you should reorder your resume to highlight your work experience or to bring attention to other items.  This is not the time to accept the same old, same old without giving it serious thought first.
  2. Prepare a table of your work experience.  List every client for whom you’ve worked and what you did, in as much detail as you can, and list the opposing party where relevant.  Then, prepare a second table with the same information but omitting the client and opposing party names.  This does two things for you.  First, it sets you up to provide the conflict information that your new employer will (or should) request.  And second, it provides a handy reference for you and quite probably a useful document to provide to potential employers to demonstrate the breadth of your experience.  (Obviously, you provide the table without identifying information.)
  3. Network.  I hope you have a good network in place, not only of people in other firms or other practice settings, but also friends from undergrad and law school, bar activities, non-legal social activities, etc.  Re-connect with these people.  Summer is a particularly nice time to do that.  Perhaps you want to drop hints that you may be moving on, perhaps not.  But be attentive and ask questions that will not only generate good conversation (lawyers love tot alk about themselves and their work) but also will serve you well as you launch your search.
  4. Spend some time thinking about what kind of practice you want, what practice setting you want, how you’d like your work life to look.  What has worked well in your current position?  What hasn’t?  If you’re in a large firm, how would you feel about moving to a small firm?  What would it mean to you to lose the ready resources you likely have access to now?  If you’re in a small firm, what would it be like for you to move to a larger firm?  Do you want to consider moving in-house?  What about government work?  Do you want to stay in a strictly legal role?  This is the time to vision your next position.  There are plenty of books to help with these questions.  Use them and work this.  If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re at the mercy of what’s presented to you.  Not a great approach.
  5. Consider whether to talk with a recruiter.  This can be a good way to get a feel for hiring trends, for how marketable you may be, etc.  You will also get a good sense for the likelihood that working with a recruiter will benefit you.  The more senior you are, the less likely a recruiter will be able to present you as a candidate unless you have a book of business.  Ask around for who the good recruiters are in your area.  A recruiter can be an incredibly helpful source of information, sounding board, and partner.  Make sure you choose someone who is ethical and well-respected.  And consider whether to approach some of the recruiters who represent the candidate rather than the employer.

These steps will help you move forward before you launch your search.  So, if you’ve decided to leave but you aren’t ready to take action, be sure you’re laying the groundwork.

Change your mind, change your practice(s).

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We cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them.
— Albert Einstein

This is one of my favorite quotes.  It is, at least for me, a truism that I must change my perspective, my way of thinking, my approach to a problem before I can possibly solve the problem.  Another great quote on this topic is, If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.  I understand that many 12-step programs use that statement to explain “insanity” in the context of the program.

What does the mean in the context of practicing law?  Plenty.  With regard to career advancement, if you’ve been taking the approach of being a reliable, industrious, somewhat reserved workerbee and you notice that you keep getting passed over for the big cases you’d like to work on, the answer probably isn’t to do more of the same and hope for a different result.  If you’re constantly running ragged, wondering how you can connect with your spouse and/or children in an hour or so at the beginning or end of each day, it’s a safe bet that you won’t shift your actions until and unless you shift your perspective.  Want a new job?  You’ll have to pull some time and attention away from what you’re doing now to make the time to launch a job search.  And if you believe that client development is something that you’ll begin “later,” you likely won’t recognize client development opportunities that may come your way — because chance favors the prepared mind.

To make a change requires stepping outside the situation long enough to identify a problem and then to make a mental shift that will help in solving that problem.  How the shift happens is individual to each person.  But creating and then using a shift relies on several basic principles.

1.  The shift must be authentic.  If your partner, your supervisor, your doctor, or anybody else tells you to make a change and you don’t buy into it, there will be no shift.  Remember the punchline to the joke asking how many psychiatrists are needed to change a lightbulb?  One, but the lightbulb has to really, really want to change.  No psychiatry here, but if you don’t really, really want to change (or at least really, really believe you need to change), chances are good that you’ll keep on doing the same old, same old.

2.  Maintaining the shift means keeping it in the forefront of your mind.  If you’re trying to make a habit of arranging lunch with one potential client a week, put that on your calendar where you see it daily.  If you’re trying to incorporate some stretching into your day so you don’t feel like you’re 90 years old when you hobble away from your desk at the end of the day, set an alarm that go off periodically.  If you’re wanting to improve your efficiency in the office, use time management tools that keep your eye on efficiency.  Holding onto a shift in perspective means keeping it in front of you visually and/or aurally, because it’s often all too easy to slide back to the old, familiar approach.

3.  Reaping the benefit of the shift requires action.  While it’s important to recognize a problem or a situation that can be improved, that’s empty if it’s a recognition without follow-through.  If you want more balance in your life, take some action, even if it’s small.  Claiming a 15-minute walk for yourself in the afternoon will not only provide some balance but also will remind you that you’re seeking balance.  (Put it in your calendar and keep that commitment, too!)

4.  It’s easier to maintain a shift, and to design and implement the actions that the shift calls for, with support.  Tell your spouse that you need to set aside 3 hours on Saturday morning to catch up on work.  Tell your secretary that you plan to eat lunch away from your desk one day this week.  Work with a coach to provide accountability as you set out on your client development plans.  If you decide you’re going to make a change, you probably have about a 40% chance of succeeding.  If you decide to make a change, tell someone what you’re going to do, and commit to doing it by a certain deadline, you have about a 95% chance of succeeding.

What shift do you need to improve your practice and your life?