Expecting a bad evaluation? What to do today.

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Evaluation season is coming up soon.  I recently received a question that might be paraphrased as follows, with identifying information removed:  “I’ve had a difficult couple of years for reasons that are partly out of my control (a serious, but now resolved, health issue and a slowdown in the work available) and partly within my control (some mistakes that don’t reflect well on me even though none of them were tragic).  What can I do to manage this situation?”  Since this isn’t an uncommon question, I thought I’d share my answer here.

1.  My first suggestion is to perform a realistic self-evaluation and to be clear with yourself about what has and hasn’t gone well this year, and why.  Understanding what has happened is a step toward correcting any issues.  It also gets you back in touch with the particulars of the year.  That’s especially important during a difficult year so you’re prepared to respond to whatever comments the evaluator may make.  If you’re expecting a negative evaluation, you probably know what the issues are, but this post may help you round out your own review of the year.

2.  Ideally, you’ve already begun whatever corrective action is necessary and you have some track record to show improvement or reversal of a negative pattern.  If not, identify the necessary changes and make them immediately.  If you need input from someone to be sure the changes you’ve identified are the appropriate steps, seek it before your evaluation.  Not only will you get back onto the right path sooner, you will show initiative and ownership of both the problem and the solution.  Implementing your plan may be the make-or-break phase of this approach, and that’s why it’s so critical to start immediately.  The longer you have to turn things around, the better the opportunity to succeed at doing so.

3.  Next, prepare for the evaluation meeting.  Each situation requires unique handling, so it isn’t possible to recommend a particular course of action without going much more into the details of the expected negative feedback and the corrective action underway.  However, by setting your intentions for the meeting (do you want to acknowledge the issue and its solution? do you want to present evidence that you’ve turned things around? other intentions?) you’ll have taken the first defining step toward setting your plan.  (And, of course, implicit in that step is deciding what you want out of the meeting.  Your plan will be quite different if you intend to demonstrate that you’ve corrected a problem as opposed to if you’ve concluded that the problem is insurmountable and have decided to move on.)

And if you feel that the problem may be insurmountable, I urge you to seek guidance from a mentor or other knowledgeable outsider.  Especially when a situation is emotionally charged, it’s sometimes difficult to get a good view as to whether circumstances can be satisfactorily resolved.

4.  Decide whether you want to take charge of the conversation and if so, how.  Again, your intentions will control execution of this step.  If you do want to take charge, you might practice how you will start the conversation and how you will react if the others in the room try to take charge as well.

5.  Decide how you would like the meeting to end.  Of course, this is not 100% within your control, but knowing what you would like to happen  may guide your presentation and your responses through the meeting.

If you’re expecting a negative evaluation, these steps will help to minimize the challenges you’ll confront.  I strongly advise not waiting until the formal evaluation, though, to deal with the situation.  It’s much better to get started as soon as you sense a problem.

 

“I hate being a lawyer”

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When I review the searches that lead people to this blog, I all too frequently find some version of, “I hate being a lawyer.”  Often I shrug and move on without much thought, but seeing the search last weekend took me down a different line of thought.

Is this really true for the searcher?

Maybe it is.  If so, I empathize.  Although I’ve never hated practicing law, I’ve (briefly) had jobs I hated and sometimes had to do tasks I hated even in jobs I loved.  It’s painful to hate something that consumes the bulk of one’s conscious hours, and change is in order — pronto.

More likely, though, it’s not entirely true, though there’s some part of the statement that is true.  So, the key is to determine which of two aspects (and perhaps more) is untrue.  (And for here on out, I’m addressing the “you” who agree with the search statement.)

1.  “I hate being a lawyer.“  What does it mean to you to “be a lawyer?”  How do you interpret that identity, and what do you dislike about it?  Is there a way to reshape “being a lawyer” so that it’s more acceptable?  Is it different to “be someone who practices law” than to “be a lawyer”?  This is a rich area for exploration.

2.  “I hate practicing law.”  This is what I suspect the search is really all about.  But again, is this entirely true?  Is there some part of practice you enjoy?  Maybe you really like research and writing but hate dealing with clients — or vice versa.  Maybe you enjoy the puzzle of tax law but not the clients you represent.  Maybe you want to be on your feet and out of the office more than anything.  Finding the parts of practice that you do like is the key step toward a situation that’s a good fit for you.  This is another area rich for investigation.

Although happy lawyers explain the source of their happiness in many different ways, the common denominator seems to be that they connect what they enjoy to what they do on a regular basis in practice.  I don’t imagine that any lawyer or any person likes every single professional task undertaken, but there’s a tipping point, and those who stay above that point tend to self-identify as happy.  I’ve also observed that happy lawyers connect with a sense of fulfillment or a belief that what they’re doing matters.

The bottom line, of course, is that making the statement “I hate being a lawyer” calls for some kind of action.  Maybe the action is a job/career change, or maybe it’s analysis to identify what changes would negate that statement (partly or completely) and making those changes.

So, searcher, you “hate being a lawyer.”  What will you choose to do about it?

 

Pump up your writing!

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My major (on my first trip through undergrad) was in English, with an emphasis on creative writing.  When I asked my favorite writing professor for a recommendation to law school, she literally covered her face with her hands and started shaking her head.  After determining that she had slid into despair and was not, as I feared, refusing to support my applications, I asked why she was so appalled.  After all, I reminded her, I’d be writing all the time!  But my professor believed that lawyers tend to lose the craft of writing and get mired in pointless Latin, highfalutin’ language, and eye-glazing prose.  I realized, after I’d been in practice for just a short time, that she’s too often right.  We get wrapped up in the law and lose the story.

Brian Clark of copyblogger has written a terrific post titled Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques.  Some of you may be thinking that it’s odd to refer to a post from a blog devoted to “copywriting tips for online marketing success” to speak to legal writing, but consider a few of Clark’s suggestions and note their application to the law:

*  Consistency.  “Use this in your writing by getting the reader to agree with something up front that most people would have a hard time disagreeing with. Then rigorously make your case, with plenty of supporting evidence, all while relating your ultimate point back to the opening scenario that’s already been accepted.”

*  Address objections.  “If you present your case and someone is left thinking ‘yeah, but…’, well, you’ve lost. . . Addressing all the potential objections of at least the majority of your readers can be tough, but if you really know your subject the arguments against you should be fairly obvious.”

*  Storytelling.  “Stories allow people to persuade themselves, and that’s what it’s really all about. You might say that we never convince anyone of anything-we simply help others independently decide that we’re right. Do everything you can to tell better stories, and you’ll find that you are a terribly persuasive person.”

Every lawyer writes persuasively, and I encourage you to visit this post and to consider how copywriting techniques may help to pump up your writing.  More broadly… From what other fields might you draw in developing your professional skills?  It’s a great question to ponder.

Simplicity: where personal and professional meet

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One of the rules I keep in mind when writing  is that good writing is clear, crisp, and simple.  The same rule often applies more generally as well.  As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

When it comes to managing one’s personal life while maintaining a practice, “simple” is the name of the game.  (And this is a good time to note a favorite distinction: “simple” is not a synonym for “easy.”)  For instance, it’s much less stressful to prepare a simple dinner — say, a salad with various store-bought toppings and dressing — than it is to prepare a meal that requires numerous ingredients.  Likewise, I find that dressing in the morning is much more simple when my clothes are in reasonably good order and my closet not overstuffed.  Aspects of life that are more complicated than necessary drain energy.

And the same is true in the office.  If my files are a mess and I can’t find anything, I’ll have to stop and launch a search everytime I need a document, and that takes a tremendous amount of energy away from the task at hand.  Having a cluttered email box pulls at me because when I check for new messages, my eye is drawn to all of the messages I need to answer or otherwise handle, and slick filing system that put the messages out of sight make my life even more complicated.

Simplicity is especially important when personal and professional life intersect or affect one another.  One of my favorite questions to clients working on work/life integration issues is, “What can you stop doing?”  Releasing an activity that isn’t productive (in pleasure or in business) is often one of the most simple and most impactful steps to take.

Unfortunately, though, simplifying isn’t always an easy thing to do.  An overcrowded, disorganized closet may take hours or even days to get straightened.  So, I was delighted to find Simple Living Simplified: 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life on the zenhabits blog.  Ideas include:

— making a short list of top priorities (similar to an Absolute Yes list, which I previously discussed in this post);

— simplifying the “to do” list by identifying tasks that can be “eliminated, delegated, automated, outsourced or ignored;” and

— focusing on one task at a time.

And if 10 simplification steps aren’t enough, check the expanded list of the Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life.  Any list of 72 items feels unwieldy to me, but it’s worth a skim.

Tuesday shorts 9/25/07

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Anne Reed of Deliberations hosted this week’s Blawg Review #127.  It’s a cleverly arranged Blawg Review, using the “17 best tips for voir dire” as an organizing theme.  Reading this round will not only teach you about voir dire (with tips such as #4 watch for points of view, #8 watch for the quiet ones, and #17 remember the majesty) but also introduce you to a wide range of interesting and insightful posts for the week.  Nicely done!

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal featured an article titled Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers, which describes the disconnect between the top law school graduates who secure jobs in large firms with starting salaries around $160K versus the rest of the graduates, some of whom may struggle to make it on $20-35 an hour document review positions while carrying as much as $100K in law school laws.  Although the article starts with the puzzling observation that “A law degree isn’t necessarily a license to print money these days,” (was it ever?) the situation described is familiar to many recent grads and those who work with them.  Don’t miss the charts that illustrate graphically just how the dollars are — and aren’t — moving.

And today’s inspirational moment comes courtesy of Good Morning America.  Last week, I happened to catch a part of a broadcast and saw Randy Pausch, a 46-year old professor at Carnegie Mellon who has terminal cancer and delivered his final lecture titled How to Live Your Childhood Dreams.  I listened with half an ear at first, but his comments grabbed me, particularly when I heard his tone — clear, funny, not a drop of self-pity.  I believe the interview wrapped up, as the website story does, with Dr. Pausch’s lesson:

You know, life is a gift,” Pausch told Sawyer. “Again, it sounds trite, but if you wait long enough, other people will show you their good side. If there’s anything I’ve [learned] that is absolutely true. Sometimes it takes a lot longer than you might like. But the onus is on you to keep the hope and keep waiting.

The full lecture is split into 4 parts.  Watch it.  You’ll be glad you did.

How to speak as a new associate

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One of my favorite parts of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law (previously reviewed here) is the section debunking the myth that a new lawyer is a potted plant.  It’s easy for a new lawyer to get tripped up by the knowledge that he lacks experience and the desire not to appear arrogant.  So, what’s a new associate to do while learning the lay of the land?

1.  Don’t be silent.  A great many new lawyers will be too young to remember the “potted plant” reference.  When Oliver North was testifying in connection with the Iran Contra hearings, the questioning attorney rebuked North’s counsel Brendan Sullivan for his frequent objections, and Sullivan replied, “What am I, a potted plant? I’m here as a lawyer. That’s my job.”

The moral of this story for new lawyers is, of course, that your job requires you to speak up and to participate in whatever is going on.  A new lawyer is unlikely to have the deciding vote on much of anything, but you’re a fresh brain and new eyes, and your perspective is valuable.  Don’t be arrogant, but do be confident in your ability to contribute.

Some lawyers who are reticent to speak up will need to break out of their comfort zone or to find another method to share their thoughts.  Staying silent is career suicide.  If this is a stumbling block for you, get help from a mentor or coach.  Now.

2.  Ask questions, wisely.  A new lawyer isn’t expected to know everything about the facts of a case, or the controlling law, or the client, or… You get the idea.  However, it’s important to use good judgment in deciding what questions to ask and what you need to discover on your own.  Initiative is a common measuring stick for attorney development, and it’s unwise to get a reputation for asking questions without forethought.  So, ask questions, but make sure you put thought into your inquiry.

3.  Don’t preface questions/comments.  Especially when new and uncomfortable, lawyers may have a tendency to preface their questions or comments with a disclaimer, such as:  “I may be wrong, but…” or “This might be a stupid question, but…” or “Do you think maybe it would be better to…”  These prefaces remove all power from the question or comment.  Of course, judgment comes into play here too, because it may be quite wise to say something like, “I realize the law is unsettled in this area, but it seems to me that…”  Don’t let yourself off the hook in a preface, but do signal appropriate uncertainty.

4.  Manage your tone and breath.  Some lawyers, especially new lawyers, get nervous and their voice shakes a bit or they stumble over words.  And sometimes a lawyer will end a suggestion with a tonal question mark.  Be attentive to your speech pattern.  End statements with a downward tone and questions with an upward tone, and don’t reverse the two.  Explore breath control for presentations.  And remember to breathe — and to breathe out before you breathe in.

5.  Be thoughtful.  Make sure your comments and questions reflect the thought and analysis you’ve put into the issue.  Especially in the early weeks and months of a new job, one of the key tasks is to demonstrate consideration of all the relevant factors and the process of arriving at a well-reasoned and insightful suggestion or comment.  On this point, see What Are You Thinking? on the always thought-provoking What About Clients? blog.

6.  Be ready to respond to questions.  When you’re asked for an opinion, do have one.  It need not be correct, necessarily, but you need to be ready to share and explain it.  Here again, the goal is to demonstrate your insight and your thought process.

Best two lines ever on business development

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Tom Kane of the Legal Marketing Blog has written perhaps the best two lines on marketing that I have ever read:

You can overcome your procrastination when it comes to developing business by doing a simple item each day. If you don’t get started, you may never become an effective marketer.

Fortunately, his post Spend a Few Minutes Each Day on Business Development continues with a number of concrete suggestions, drawn from Terrie Wheeler’s recent Law Practice Today article on Low Cost, High Impact Strategies to Market Your Law Practice – Even If You Only Have Five Minutes!

A number of clients I’ve coached struggle with procrastination.  I’ve been there too.  Often, perfectionism underlies procrastination, and I find that to be especially true concerning tasks that (like client development) aren’t deadline-driven.  What I love about Wheeler’s 5-minute ideas is that “perfect” or “not perfect” need not enter the picture on many of the ideas, and that may help to quiet the inner perfectionist.

Tuesday shorts: 9/18/07

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I posted a few weeks ago about Saying NO, and I recently ran across a post on The Marketing Mix that suggests 7 ways to say no in a post titled, How to say “no, thanks”.  After all, as is so often true with communication, it’s just as important to know how to say it as what the “it” is that you want to say.  Ilise Benun offers 7 ways to say “no” (courtesy of marketing coach Susan DePue) including the “Gracious NO” (“I really appreciate you asking me, but my time is already committed”) and the “I Know Someone Else NO” (“I just don’t have the time to help you, but let me recommend someone else I know”).  It’s a handy guide to a variety of ways to say that magical one-syllable word.

Peter L. Smith, Managing Director of BCG’s San Francisco office and sometimes-blogger on Counsel to Counsel, has started a new blog called ad arguendo: the blog of law and leadership.  The posts are unusual in their depth and approach (drawing on sources from ancient philosophers to Elvis) and often thought-provoking.  Not surprisingly, I was intrigued by recent interviews with a coach for lawyers (for those interested in continuing to practice) and a firm that provides career counseling for those who intend to leave practice, as well as a post on taking action to make a bad situation better, titled Don’t Succumb! Unlearning “Learned Helplessness” Among the Attorney Ranks.  Ad arguendo isn’t a blog for casual reading, but it’s likely to tickle your brain in stimulating directions.

Designing your personalized professional development plan

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A lot of law firms are working to make their associate review processes more useful — and some are even succeeding.  Over the last 2-3 years, it’s become quite vogue to require associates to design a professional development plan so that they and the firm can track their progress.  Although the plan is designed to be co-created by the lawyer and the firm, it’s obvious that the firm has a strong interest in the program and that the lawyer is likely to accede to the firm’s “suggestions.”

And please understand: I’m not knocking the firms that insist on such a co-creation.  It’s appropriate for the firm to bear a strong interest in ensuring that its employees develop the skills that the firm believes necessary for the employee’s development and his contribution to the firm’s development.  And devising such a plan is certainly a huge advancement over the stereotypical reviews in which a lawyer is told everything is “going just fine” right until things fall apart because no one is comfortable with confrontation or honest feedback.  (This is a real, if counter-intuitive, problem in many firms!)

But while the firm-sponsored professional development plan is a great start, it’s insufficient for most lawyers.  Given the associate attrition rates and the ease with which lawyers can change firms, it’s a mistake to assume that you will remain with a firm for your entire career no matter how happy you may be there today.  And even if you do stay at the same firm for the entire length of your career, it’s a sure bet that you won’t do so as an employee.  Instead, you’ll develop your own practice (albeit within the firm’s structure) and in so doing, you’ll be running your own “business” in a very real sense.

So, what’s the answer?  Designing your personalized professional development plan.  Starting with the plan co-created with the firm makes for a nice running start, but if you don’t have such a plan (or if you’re unhappy with your plan), consider the following questions:

*  What are your professional strengths?  How can you maximize them?
*  What are your professional weaknesses?  How can you best compensate for them?
*  What can you do to develop your strengths even more?

*  What do you want your practice to be composed of?  Consider substantive law and the mix of practice areas, type of work, what you want your days to look like, etc.
*  What kind of practice will be fulfilling at the apex of your career?  Describe the setting, the financial aspects, etc. as clearly as possible.
*  What is your practice goal in 1 year?  5 years?  10 years?  Again, describe it in as much detail as possible.

*  What skills and experiences do you need to develop to reach your 1-, 5-, 10-year, and apex practice goals?  If you have trouble with this step, consider gathering data by asking your mentors and successful colleagues, researching in practice development books, etc.  Remember that your answer will change over time.  Nothing about your plan will be written in stone, but the more clarity you can gain now, the better your gameplan and the higher likelihood that future changes will be adjustments rather than complete reworkings.

*  What habits, attitudes, or mindsets do you need to develop to attain these goals?  For example, do you need to break free from the sense that the firm owns you and to recognize that you are designing your practice and your professional life in conjunction with the firm?  Do you need to develop your confidence to increase your client development opportunities and/or your presentation skills?  Do you need to break your procrastination habit or to put your perfectionistic tendency in its proper place?

*  What will you choose to focus on from these lists over the next year?  I recommend a mix of skills/experiences and attitude/habit development goals.  For instance, you might set goals of becoming the go-to person on a certain area of the law within your firm and in the outside world, handling a client matter by yourself (with appropriate supervision but little direction if any), learning how to delegate work effectively to more junior lawyers and to staff members, and how to design and implement a business development plan that works.  (Note that this final goal has a number of subparts that are focused on developing skills and habits/attitudes, and it’s likely a multi-year goal with progress and its measurement changing each year!)

The key difference between your personalized plan and the plan that you may co-create with your firm is that the personalized plan is keyed to your goals without attention to the firm’s goals except to the extent they support your desires.  Your plan should be designed to fit what you — as owner of your practice and “CEO” of your career — want.  The two plans might be identical, or they may be quite at odds.  If you know that in 10 years you’d like to have a personal injury practice with a partner ready and willing to buy you out so you can compete in the America’s Cup, for instance, that’s almost certainly a goal that you’d be wise not to share if you’re working in a mid-sized insurance defense firm because your goals and the firm’s goals don’t mesh.

Finally, I suggest spending time in the fall roughing out your personalized professional development plan.  It’ll give you a good idea of where you’re headed when you have your annual review, and you’ll be ready to suggest the developmental areas that you’d like to work on in the next year.  In addition, you’ll be ready to incorporate the feedback you get into your plan.  So, start now.  Set aside time on your calendar, and mark it in ink.  Designing your plan will move you forward like little else.  Don’t miss this opportunity.

Tuesday shorts

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As I recover from declaring blog bankruptcy, I’m finding time to stay up on the marvelous things going on in the blogosphere.  So, today I introduce Tuesday shorts, a collection of references to interesting posts I’ve run across recently.

Drowning in email?  I say a hearty AMEN to Dan Hull‘s (of What About Clients?) post E-mail is a great tool and it’s making you nuts. Call me.  Everytime I start to send an email, I question whether a call or actual visit would be more effective.  The answer, not infrequently, is yes.

Today’s Dilbert seems to be channeling some law firm managers.  Here’s an advanced management tip: if you have something unpleasant to convey to someone, spit it out rather than allowing them to marinate in worry.  And if you just need to discuss something, be careful of the way you phrase your request.  This suggestion is applicable to clients as well as those you supervise.  And along the same lines, Jay Shepherd of Gruntled Employees has discovered that Ept managers lead to gruntled employees, which in turn lead to minishing profits.  (Wondering about the mangled words there?  Contrast with “inept,” “disgruntled,” and “diminishing.”)  Management and leadership (not the same skill set) matter in law firms as they do in other organizations.  As you advance, be sure to develop these skills along with your practice skills.  And learn how to manage “up” as well.  (I’ll cover “managing up” in another post soon.)

This week’s Blawg Review #125, hosted by Kevin O’Keefe of Real Lawyers Have Blogs, is all about the “art of blogging.”  If you’ve considered writing a blog, or if you’re just wondering what the hubbub is all about, this is a can’t-miss opportunity to learn from some of the best in the blogosphere.

Finally, congratulations to Bob Sutton, whose fantastic book The No Asshole Rule (which I reviewed here) has won the Quill Award for Best Business Book.  Congratulatiopns, Bob!  It’s a well-deserved honor.