How to ask for work as an associate

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I’ve decided to do a series of posts based on the most popular search phrases that take people to my blog.  It’s an experiment, and I’d be curious if anyone has any comments or requests for specific topics.

Some version of “how to ask for work as an associate” is a common search, and that’s quite logical since it’s impossible to hit the critical billable hours without sufficient work.  The short answer to how to ask for work is easy: go to a partner or senior associate who does work that interests you, let them know you have some time, and ask if there’s anything with which they’d like help.  There’s no real formula, no do’s or don’ts, and not a lot of risk.

The bigger question, of course, is why someone might need to ask for work.  There are 3 primary reasons, and each calls for a different response from the associate, and potentially the firm as well:

1.  Business is slow.  If this is the case, in your practice area or in your firm, explore opportunities to network or to write/speak.  Either will be a good use of your time for your own personal promotion and, one would hope, to help generate business for your firm.  Of course, neither of these activities is a short-term strategy and are best done on a regular basis.  Slow times, though, free up time to focus on these activities.

2.  Your workload has been declining and business overall is not slow.  This situation generally isn’t good news.  Although it’s possible that a benign explanation exists, a logical conclusion is that those who assign work are unhappy with the associate.  The problem is generally professional, though on occasion a personal conflict may exist.  Unfortunately, the nature of the professional problem (or even that a problem exists) may never have been communicated to the associate, who may be left feeling a general anxiety and discomfort without knowing quite what’s happened.

If this is your situation, go to the most senior person with whom you’ve developed a strong relationship, tell them you notice your workload has slowed to a trickle (and, if true, that you’ve been asking for work without success), and ask if there’s a problem.  Having that conversation will be difficult, but it may also create an opportunity for a turn-around.  Having performed a realistic self-evaluation of your skill and experience beforehand will be helpful, as will retracing the timing of the slowdown to search for any precipitating event.  And perhaps you’ll learn that there’s another explanation for the slowdown.

If your conversation reveals an insurmountable problem, or if it’s met with stonewalling, your next step should perhaps be polishing your resume, although recovery may be possible with great effort.   If you’re facing this situation, you might consider working with a coach who can help with a realistic look at what’s going on, what your ultimate goals are, and how you can work within the current situation to read your goals.  This is one of the most difficult career issues that a lawyer may face, and having someone in your corner to help you navigate can be invaluable.

3.  You’re experiencing a brief lull.  Find out by asking for work and by checking to be sure that your light load is an anomaly, and then enjoy.  While the business development activities suggested in scenario #1 will always be useful (and you should be doing them even when you’re busy), taking advantage of a short-term lull in your workload is a good work/life balance tactic.  One of the immutable laws of legal practice is that for every lull, there’s an equal and opposite busy period — so you may as well enjoy the lulls when you can.

I hope this is helpful.

Using your time sheets and bills to communicate with clients

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Have you ever received a legal bill?  It’s an interesting moment; all too often there’s a sharp intake of breath (it costs that much?), quickly followed by an investigation into why it costs so much.  What do you want your clients to find when they read your bills?

What you don’t want is pretty clear.
*  You don’t want them to wonder how much time your/your firm spent on a matter.
*  You don’t want them to wonder who did the work.
*  You don’t want them to wonder what each member of the team did on their case.
In other words, “For services rendered” will not be a phrase that pleases clients.

It’s standard to require attorneys and paralegals to keep time sheets that describe in detail what they’ve done.  The issue, though, is how well that standard is honored.  As you’re filling out your daily time sheet (because you do keep your time on a daily basis, right?  if not, visit Time sheet habits: don’t procrastinate  and New lawyer skills focus: Are you losing time? to find out why you should) consider the information value of your billing.

Block billing is easy to do, but very difficult for clients to interpret.  An entry like, “2.5 hours, reviewed documents and drafted/revised motion to compel ” will leave a client wondering how long each task required, and the client may not be pleased to find an entry the next day for more time on the motion to compel because she may expect that the 2.5 hours covered drafting the motion when in fact you only reviewed documents and drafted the motion but not the memorandum in support.  Block billing creates questions.  Instead, consider whether you want to indicate more precisely the amount of time you spent on each task, or whether it would be preferable to include multiple entries.

Although it’s essential to remember that your bills may be discoverable and that they must not include privileged information, consider how you may communicate the scope of your work without crossing the line.  So, for instance, you might include entries like, “Researched law re admissibility of [opposing party’s] statement in [brief] that [whatever].”

Errors happen, but do everything in your power to ensure that you bill the correct client for the work you’ve done.  Finding an entry that doesn’t pertain to your matter is a disheartening experience for the client, who may wonder what other mistakes you’re making.

In-house counsel often complains about reviewing attorney bills because they’re cryptic, not explicit, and sometimes just plain wrong. Draft your time sheets so that your clients know who did what, why, and when.

And a note: in case a new associate is reading this and thinking it’s inapplicable because you don’t get to review the bills that clients receive, remember that what goes into your time sheet is what goes into the bills.  Don’t allow yourself to slip into bad billing practices; that’s not a favor to the partners who review your time sheets or to your clients, and both will hold it against you.

Fighting BlackBerry addiction

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Last week’s Wall Street Journal featured an article titled, BlackBerry Orphans (subscription required, free preview available).  If it weren’t so serious, it would be funny:

As hand-held email devices proliferate, they are having an unexpected impact on family dynamics: Parents and their children are swapping roles. Like a bunch of teenagers, some parents are routinely lying to their kids, sneaking around the house to covertly check their emails and disobeying house rules established to minimize compulsive typing.

BlackBerries are wonderful gizmos that can make it much easier to balance practice and life.  No need to sit in the office waiting for an email if it can reach you while you’re on personal time.  However, so many BlackBerry users seem to respond to device’s siren song as if nothing could be more important.  One of my clients even confided to me that she would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and turn on her BlackBerry just to see if any important email had come in since she’d gone to bed.  I confided to my client that I’ve done the same, too.  And then I shared my strategies for making the BlackBerry serve me rather than vice versa.

If you’re having trouble confining your BlackBerry time, try the following tips published by the WSJ Law Blog:

  1. During meals, do not check email.
  2. Do not hide your email habits from family members. If you feel that someone would be upset to see you BlackBerrying, it’s a sign that you probably shouldn’t be.
  3. Commit to stop emailing while driving (even at red lights), walking across the street or doing anything that requires careful attention.
  4. Do not check email for the first hour of the day. In addition to giving you time to leisurely read the newspaper or spend time with your family, the practice will help you shake the tic-like checking ritual.
  5. Endeavor to leave the mobile email device in the car or at home when attending any function taking place at your child’s school, or when picking up your child from school.
  6. Decide on an email-free block of time. Parents should first assess their child’s conversational patterns — some like to talk about their day immediately after school, others just before bedtime. Even if your child doesn’t seem interested in talking, stick to your promise not to email during that time.
  7. Set boundaries at work: Alert your colleagues that your mobile email device will be turned off during the predetermined time slot.
  8. Actually turn off your device and stick it in a drawer during the time you’ve designated as email-free.
  9. If you are in the middle of a work crisis, still try to respect some boundaries. Consider blocking out a few 15-minute periods to check email — and then turn the device off again. Honestly assess whether the situation at work is an actual crisis that can’t be solved without your oversight.
  10. When emailing while socializing or spending time with your family, ask yourself if your priority at that moment is enjoying after-work activities or getting work done. If it is the former, power-down. If it’s the latter, return to the office.
  11. Upon arriving home, practice a ritual that helps you mentally separate the work day from the after-work evening. Light a candle, put on music, pour a cocktail. Don’t check your email during this time.
  12. If mobile email overuse creates tension between you and your significant other, consider creating jointly agreed-upon BlackBerry-free zones. For instance, unless your bedroom doubles as a home office, consider maintaining it as a sanctuary of your personal life.

And if, as one commenter stated, your firm would never permit use of these tips, query whether the firm’s standards and values match your own.

Target fixation

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In World War II, fighter pilots spoke of the danger of target fixation.  During bombing runs, pilots could become so focused on their targets that they’d dive, drop a bomb on the target, and yet remain so intent on hitting the target that they’d fail to pull up in time.  They’d end up hitting their target and killing themselves.  Although they would have achieved their mission, they wouldn’t survive to fly the next one or even to celebrate their accomplishment.

What does this have to do with practice?

Imagine a lawyer — let’s call her Mary — who is so focused on making partner that everything else recedes.  She spends the hours between 7 AM and 7:30 PM in the office on weekdays and at least 6 hours a day there on weekends.  When she isn’t at work, she’s either working at home or thinking about work.  When she meets someone, she immediately thinks about how they might fit into her goal, whether as a potential client, referral source, or otherwise.  Perhaps she’s married, perhaps she has children, and if so, her family is important to her and yet they’re accustomed to her missing dinner or school plays and being busy for “just a few more minutes” when she’s home.  Mary doesn’t go out to lunch unless there’s a reason, and she feels that exercise is just a waste of time that she could use for work or for marketing.  Her office looks like a tornado hit it, but she doesn’t stop to clean up until she starts to lose things on her desk.  She’s generally known as a nice person, but when she gets stressed, she’s liable to snap at her colleagues and the support staff — and she gets stressed rather often.  Vacations are important to her, but all too often she feels that she’s just moved her work from the office to a spot off-site.

And then, Mary makes partner.  Though she may fantasize about cutting back, chances are good that she won’t.  After all, her hard work put her ahead of the pack, and letting up now would knock her off her game.

And then, something happens.  Maybe a parent gets sick, maybe a child, or maybe it’s Mary.  Maybe something goes wrong at the office, or perhaps she just stops one day and thinks wistfully about her life Before, when she used to enjoy talking long walks through the neighborhood at dawn to get her heart pumping.  Perhaps she wonders what happened, when she quit spending time on non-work things.

Mary is a victim of target fixation.

None of us can function well as a single-dimension individual.  We need input on the intellectual level, but we also need to pay attention to our emotions, our body, and our spirit.  Although it’s possible to neglect those domains, their weakness will eventually bleed over and reduce the effectiveness of the intellectual output, simply because there’s nothing to sustain it.  Another word for target fixation is burnout, the moment when we experience having poured an unsustainable amount of energy into one area of life to the detriment of other areas.  It’s crash-and-burn success.

Work/life balance prevents burnout by nourishing all areas of life, though perhaps not in equal proportions.  Some people really love their work and would feel lost if required to cut back (see Stephanie West Allen’s excellent post Hot worms revisited: Extreme lawyers often love their work for an exploration of what work/life balance “really” means and who gets to decide) and others feel pushed to work so much that important areas of their lives are neglected.  Of course, what’s tricky is that the extreme lawyer may feel restless if he “only” works 60 hours in a week, whereas the more traditionally “balanced” lawyer may start to get antsy and worn out if she sees no choice but to work 60 hours.

Bottom line: define your own balance between work and life, or recognize that your work is your life and work/life describes a continuous, integral whole.  Whatever you decide, though, be on the lookout for target fixation — and pull up well before you crash.

What would you do if you weren’t practicing law?

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One reflection exercise I suggest to disenchanted lawyers is to contemplate what they’d be doing if not practicing law.  The reason is not to identify the lawyer’s next career, but instead to get in touch with what might be preferable and why, and then to consider whether that quality could exist in a legal practice.  Finding the joy the long way around, really.

For instance, one client said she would teach if she weren’t practicing law.  She said she’d enjoy imparting knowledge, challenging her students, and getting the intellectual high of an exchange about principles.  She said she’d want to teach something on the college level, maybe above, where her students would really want to be in class and would be more likely to be engaged.  We explored what she thought she’d like about that kind of teaching, what benefits she felt it would bring, and so on.  When we turned to see whether she could find similar experiences in the law, she indeed found them — not, as you might be expecting, as an adjunct professor (though that would have been a good choice) but through doing training in her firm for new associates.  She found that she got energy from working with these fresh-faced idealists and that she was able to bring that energy back to her practice, with the added benefit of knowing something about which associates she’d like to work on her matters.

So, if you’re unhappy — or even if you are happy, but you’re willing to explore what could be even better — I challenge you to play with this idea.  What would you be doing if not practicing, why, and can you get that “why” in practice?   What steps must you take to do so?

Gender discrimination and work/life balance

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One common thread in the work/life balance conversation is the extent to which the issue can and should be cast as a female issue or a mother’s issue.  So perhaps it’s no surprise that a female shareholder has now sued her law firm for sex discrimination.

Alyson J. Kirleis, a labor & employment litigator, began work at Dickie McCamey & Chilcote as a law clerk in 1986 and eventually became a shareholder.  A mother of two, Kirleis alleges that the chair of the firm’s board of directors told her that she was spending too much time working and not enough at home, that “women whose priorities were straight were those who relinquished their status as shareholders in the firm and who worked part-time so as to be able to spend more time with their husbands and children.”  She claims that she was also told that the firm’s “gals” would prepare cases for trial, but male attorneys would actually try them.  The suit includes other allegations of rather blatant discrimination.

Kirleis is working at the firm while the case is pending and, according to her attorney, would like to continue though she seeks different treatment for herself and for the other women at the firm.

The firm has issued a statement denying the allegations:  “We’re diappointed that one of our shareholders, not an employee but an owner in the firm who has worked with us for 18 years and who still works at our firm, has chosen to take this course. . . . We do not and never have discriminated against anyone on the basis of gender or in any other way.”

Carolyn Elefant shared the story in mid-November. Joan C. Williams, a professor at UC-Hastings College of Law who teaches employment law, cites some surprising statistics in an ABA article (no longer available):

“There’s been a 40 percent increase in this type of case in the past 10 years,” Williams says. “We’ve documented more than 800 lawsuits based on family responsibility against employers in general, and we’ve found 32 other lawsuits of this type against legal employers. Of those 32, it’s a mix of attorneys and staff, but most of the cases have been filed by attorneys.”

“It certainly looks as if [family responsibility] cases are the new face of discrimination law based on the fact that they’re growing so rapidly, when employment discrimination cases have fallen 23 percent, based on our research,” Williams says.

The article also quotes Diana J. Veilleux, a DC-based employment lawyer, as questioning whether there’s been an increase in “family responsibility” cases and suggesting that those that are filed are taken more seriously now than in the past.

Although I’m just barely conversant in employment law, I find this trend interesting.  Why are “family responsibility” cases any different than garden-variety sex discrimination cases?  Does it mean something different that some law firms talk positively about work/life balance on the one hand and discriminate on the other, or does it simply add texture to an already-existing problem?  The allegations that Kirleis has made that don’t concern direct work responsibilities include claims of sexually explicit entertainment at firm functions, visits by the firm’s male attorneys including members of the executive committee to topless bars, and that a male attorney exposed himself to her during a firm golf outing in the early 1990s.  These sorts of claims are nothing new, unfortunately.  While it’s shocking (if true) that any firm, much less one that practices labor & employment law, would permit such activity and behavior, it’s hardly news that such behavior does occur in some workplaces.

It’s unfortunately difficult for me to envision what this case would look like if the plaintiff were a man, though it could happen.  If it did — if a male lawyer had been told that fathers belong at home and that men would be responsible for preparing cases and women would try them, if members of the firm sponsored sexually explicit entertainment at firm functions followed by visits to a male strip club (does Chippendale’s still exist?), if a woman had exposed herself to him — would we be calling this a “family responsibility” case?  Or would we simply see it as a sex discrimination case?  And would it matter?

Would the Kirleis case be any less strong without the allegations that she was encouraged to relinquish her status as shareholder and to take a part-time schedule?  Would it be any less strong without the claims that she was told women would prepare cases and men would try them, and without the claims of sexually explicit entertainment and harrassment?  I suggest that the answers are no and yes, respectively.  And that’s why I question this categorization of the case as a “family responsibility” matter.

But, people more knowledgeable than me have so categorized it.  What does that mean?

I’m curious whether it means we need to treat the desire that some lawyers have for a work/life balance that respects and facilitates a personal life as a gender-neutral issue.  In the desire to retain women in the profession, it may be easy to over-invite a woman to a part-time schedule so she can fulfill her family responsibilities, possibly then making her feel that she “should” take that route whether she wants to or not — in the words of the ABA article title, that she’s being forced onto the mommy track.  Presumably, most of us would recognize the line between encouraging a parent to attend to her (or his) child as s/he feels appropriate, whether that involves taking a part-time schedule or making other changes, versus sex discrimination masked as concern.  But no one wants to open the door to a lawsuit, especially if on a cause of action that’s in vogue and getting lots of attention.

Wouldn’t it make sense, at a bare minimum, to treat this as an issue for parents and not for mothers?  Although biology does dictate that women will always take time from work to bear a child, caring for the child after the mother has recovered from childbirth may fall to either parent, or to both.  Wouldn’t we be operating from a more robust reality if we were to recognize that, and to understand that some men will want to stay home with children?  And wouldn’t that help to separate work/life balance from invidious sex discrimination?

A fun link

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What’s better than a really funny lawyer joke?

Funny cartoons by a lawyer, about lawyers/practice, using “insider humor.”

To find out what I’m talking about, visit Scribble-in-Law.  I guarantee a smile.

Transition in the practice of law

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In April, I’ll be presenting at the NALP annual conference along with 3 colleagues.  Our topic is titled, “Facilitating a Successful Transition from Student to Lawyer.”  Our proposal identified a number of issues that confront new lawyers, and we’ve also identified ways that law schools and law firms (our primary audience) can support those going through this transition.

My transition to practice occurred in 1993 or 1995, depending on whether a clerkship should count as practice for these purposes.  However, I had a second transition when I moved from Georgia to Florida, complete with another bar exam and needing to learn a completely new set of local customs and local rules.  Frankly, I think the state-to-state transition was more traumatic than the school-to-practice transition, simply because after practicing law for 10 years, I’d learned how to do the things that constituted a part of my practice and I was comfortable with those.  I knew what I knew, and I also knew what I didn’t know, so I’d moved past the stage of needing to look up every procedural step to be sure I was doing it correctly.  Ah, but that was no longer applicable!  I suddenly learned that local custom (not rule, which is written, but custom) required service of original discovery, something that was simply unthinkable in my home jurisdiction.  That, and seemingly hundreds of other differences, tripped me up on a regular basis after I moved to Florida, making me feel like a newbie all over again.

We’ll discuss at NALP what schools and firms can do to assist in lawyer transitions, but today, I’d like to consider what lawyers can do to facilitate their own transitions.

1.  Be prepared to learn new habits.  This seems to elementary, and in some ways it is, but I’d submit that it’s tough to change basic habits without a significant effort.  Taking my discovery example, I had to stop each time I was going to serve requests or answers and think about what I needed to ask my secretary to do.  My habits couldn’t stand.  And, frankly, I resented having to remember to check the rules I’d learned so long ago!  But after a few months — notably, after I was willing to relinquish my resentment — the new habit took over.

2.  Find a mentor or colleague you can ask for help.  Whether you’re a new lawyer or just new to your current jurisdiction, you need resources.  Someone who’s been in practice for a few years can be an invaluable ally to help you learn everything from the quirks of particular judges to which lunch spot will guarantee you a stomach ache.  Ideally, you’ll have more than one person to ask, but do yourself the favor of locating at least one friendly and knowledgeable colleague.

3.  Accept that you’re going to feel clueless for a while.  Especially if you’re going to a new jurisdiction, you’re likely to feel that everything you’ve known is suspect, if only because you’re going to have to keep checking the local rules or the new (new to you) state law.  This period is called Conscious Incompetence — you know what you don’t know.  Know that it passes.

4.  Spend extra time getting to know your new city, firm and/or jurisdiction.  This is the time for you to find and read past issues of the local business journal, legal newspaper, firm newsletter, and so on.  You can’t substitute for the knowledge that comes with being in a place over time, but you can begin to create your own database of knowledge.  It takes time, and that time will be well-spent.

5.  Declare your expectations for yourself.  This is specific way of saying, set goals.  Sometimes getting acclimated to a new environment is the top priority; sometimes you’ll be thrown right into a big project and showing your mettle is even moe important than learning your way around.  Super heroes may be able to do everything, but the rest of us have limited time and energy.  You’ll make the most of yours if you make conscious decisions about what you want and need to do as you transition into your new practice.

What’s your best tip for transitioning?

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

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Sorry for the silence of late; my workload over the past week precluded sleep and blogging was a secondary casualty.  (Balance in action, you know.)  Substantive blogging may resume later this week, certainly by Monday.  At the moment, I have a pie in the oven, cranberry sauce on the stove, flourless chocolate torte cooling on the counter, and a turkey getting ready to be brined, and my husband and family clamoring for an advance taste of the goodies.  The work/life balance pendulum has swung firmly into the “life” category.

In the meantime, I wish all readers a happy Thanksgiving, spent over good food and wine with friends and family — or a bucket of KFC and good football, as you prefer.

Because I am at times a sentimental, traditionalist sap, I’ll share a list of my blog-related gratitudes here:

*  The many people I’ve met over the last 10 months as a result of my blogging
*  The new ideas and perspectives I’ve been exposed to in the blogosphere
*  The opportunity to develop a discipline of writing on a (more or less) regular basis
*  The fun of watching my readership grow
*  Having an opportunity to have a voice in the problems and solutions in the profession
*  The joy of working with each of my clients and watching them succeed

For these and so many other things, I am truly grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What sets you apart?

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Imagine for a moment being a client, trying to select a lawyer for a representation in a case you may or may not fully understand, in which you likely have no expertise at all.  And imagine that your case is one of your top priorities: a divorce or child custody case, a bet-the-company business case, or setting up the business you’ve been building in your mind for years.  How will you choose a lawyer you can trust?

The U.S. is blessed (or cursed, depending on your perspective) with huge numbers of lawyers, many of whom are skilled in their practice areas, who strive for excellence in everything they say and do in service to their clients, who seek to provide exceptional client service.  And yet, to the outsider, lawyers in the same practice area tend to sound very much alike.  How does a client choose?

A question for you to consider this morning: what sets you apart from other lawyers?  Is it your expertise in a very narrow niche?  Is it the perspective you bring to your cases?  Is it the dedication you exhibit to your clients?  Or something else?  How would a client see what you identify as your distinguishing mark?  (Maybe you should ask several clients — and if that suggestion feels even slightly threatening, ask yourself why.)  And really drill down.  Don’t allow yourself to accept a weak, watery distinction.

This raises and important and sort of an existential question: What do you stand for as an advocate?  How would a client know?