Are you busy — Or productive?

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One of the most important pieces of coaching rests in illuminating distinctions.  I have several favorites that come up in the course of a great many coaching engagements: reaction vs. response, hearing vs. listening, assertion vs. assessment, interesting vs. purposeful, and so on.  One distinction is particularly relevant to effective action: busy vs. productive.  My favorite definition of busy is “full of or characterized by activity.”  Another definition of busy (often used as in a pattern or design, but still relevant here) is “cluttered with detail to the point of being distracting.”  Hmmmmmm.  Productive is, of course, derived from the verb to produce, and my favorite definitions of to produce are “to create by physical or mental effort” and “to bring into existence; give rise to; cause.”

As I’ve written before, I think we live in a culture that embraces busyness and has made it a virtue to be busy.  And yet, I’m taken by the idea that being busy can mean being “cluttered with detail.”  I’ve certainly found myself there: researching something that’s of tangential relevance to what I’m doing, so that at the end of the day I’ve worked hard all day long and accomplished… Well… Not much.  But it’s an easy trap to slip into, because it feels good to be busy.

I once had a conversation with a colleague about billing.  He said that he’d spent an entire hour staring out of his office window and thinking about a case, and he came up with an approach and strategy that simplified a difficult issue, one that substantially increased the client’s chances of success.  His conundrum?  How to bill for time spent staring and thinking — as well as how to find more of that time and how to protect it since he didn’t appear to be “busy” but he was in fact very productive.

The law actually recognizes this distinction in billing rates.  A 1st or 2nd year associate is billed at a lower rate than a more senior associate or partner because (among other reasons) experience teaches a lawyer how to use her time most productively; the work accomplished in an hour by a senior associate is almost certainly more useful (i.e. more productive) than that accomplished in the same hour by a new associate.  And yet, both may appear to be equally busy.

When someone describes working a lot without getting the results he wants, I often suggest he ask, “Am I busy, or am I productive?”  The question is an adjunct of the Quadrant II time/priority management system that Stephen Covey teaches, and it takes that system to the next level because the question makes manifest the danger of working on an important task without being productive.

This question is particularly appropriate for practice/career management issues.  For example, in the course of a job search, is it busy or productive to spend hours reading ads on a job board?  The answer likely depends on the board and on whether there’s follow-up to an ad of interest.  It’s also appropriate in substantive practice at times, to question whether certain activities are productive or whether they’re just generating work.

So, consider devoting a few minutes today to checking over your task list, or to reflecting on how you spent your time last week, and ask… “Am I busy, or am I productive?”

Living fearlessly

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Graduation is approaching, and I thought I’d share this excerpt from Michael Ignatieff‘s 2004 commencement speech to Whitman College graduates.  The theme will perhaps strike a chord with some of you.

My theme is living fearlessly in a fearful world. Living fearlessly is not the same thing as never being afraid. It’s good to be afraid occasionally. Fear is a great teacher. What’s not good is living in fear, allowing fear to dictate your choices, allowing fear to define who you are. Living fearlessly means standing up to fear, taking its measure, refusing to let it shape and define your life. Living fearlessly means taking risks, taking gambles, not playing it safe. It means refusing to take “no” for an answer when you are sure that the answer should have been “yes”. It means refusing to settle for less than what is your due, what is yours by right, what is yours by the sweat of your labor and your effort. To those of you who have had to struggle to get here, who sometimes doubted that you were going to get through, remember this: You have already come too far to settle for less than the best.

Why am I talking about fear at a moment like this? Because your adult life is really about to begin: jobs, professions, marriages, relationships, children, responsibilities, burdens, worries, and yes, fear. Fear that you are not good enough to make the grade. Fear that you haven’t got what it takes to carry the burden. Fear that you can’t meet the expectations of all those people watching you today as you step up and accept your degree.

Fight the fear. Remember, the most important thing about a life is that it is yours and nobody else’s. You cannot live a life for the sake of your family, your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your children. A life without duty to these loved ones would not be a good life, but a life lived entirely to meet their expectations is not a good life. It is the ones who love us most who put the fear into us, who burden us with expectations and responsibilities we feel unable to meet. So we need to say, “This is our life, not yours, and we are going to do this our way.”

One of the greatest feelings in life is the conviction that you have lived the life you wanted to live – with the rough and the smooth, the good and the bad – but yours, shaped by your own choices, and not someone else’s. To do that, you have to conquer fear, get control of the expectations that drive your life, and decide what goals are truly yours to achieve.

While particularly appropriate for a commencement speech, isn’t this the challenge for each of us, everyday?  One of the guiding principles in the coaching I do is that no one will be satisfied unless the life they’re living will propel him toward his goals.  I’ve observed smart, talented people who sabotaged themselves (usually unknowingly) because they didn’t want to succeed on the path they were trying to pursue.  For example, I know of one woman who’s bright, articulate, savvy, thoughtful, friendly — all the good qualities that usually incline someone to interview well.  Following law school and a clerkship, she started interviewing at big firms.  She noticed that although every interview was pleasant, she shifted the topic of each interview away from practice and law-related subjects to politics, personal issues, and even her children.  She had perfectly nice interviews, but none that led to offers.  On examination, she realized that although she was “supposed” to go to a big firm (according to the path expected by her law school, her court colleagues, her judge, her family, and so on) she didn’t have any interest at all in doing that.  Instead, she really wanted to do public service work.  She had an interview following that revelation, nailed it, and has had a successful and satisfying career.

Am I saying that everyone who doesn’t interview well doesn’t really want the job? No, no, and no.  What I am saying is that when something is off in job search or performance, it’s wise to ask whether there’s a chance that unconscious self-protection is manifesting as self-sabotage.  And that could be equally true if the lawyer is interviewing public service agencies while really want to work in a large firm and earn scads of money.  Remember the 80’s show Family Ties?  (Have I just completely dated myself?)  Imagine Alex P. Keaton as a criminal defense lawyer, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

And in other news…

As I was typing this post, I saw a news story about MIT’s annual piano drop to mark that last day that students can drop classes.  (Here’s a photo from 2006 as proof that I’m not making this up!)  Has anyone heard of this?  I’d love to know the backstory.

And I’ll be flying back east today.  On Wednesday, I had an uneventful trip back down the mountain from Keystone to Denver after presenting on Facilitating a Successful Transition from Law Student to Lawyer.  (More on my short stay at the NALP conference in Monday’s post.)  When I stepped out of the conference center, I was stunned to see that a huge amount of the snow had melted, leaving bare trees and soggy grounds.  But the 22″ that had fallen at the height of the pass was still on the ground, and we passed a herd of maybe 15 elk right by the road, digging in the snow to find something to eat.  I so wish I’d had my camera!

I spent yesterday morning driving from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming, home of the University of Wyoming.  Couldn’t sleep, so I left Denver just past 6 AM (some vacation, right?) and was rewarded with sitings of herd after herd of antelope and mule-eared deer.  I would guess that I saw well over 100 animals, most very close to the road.  Because of the recent snow, I didn’t even try to get into the Snowy Range (west of Laramie), even though I would have loved to see St. Albans Chapel again, where I was married.

A couple of photos, just for the fun of it: part of the Snowy Range and looking through St. Albans.

Photo of Medicine Bow                                                           St Alban's close-up

Monday Grab bag

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Travel week here: I’ll be speaking on Wednesday at the NALP annual conference, on Facilitating a Successful Transition from Student to Lawyer.

Since the conference is in Keystone, CO, I seized the opportunity to spend some time in Colorado and Wyoming over the weekend and into this week.  I flew into Denver (home of Stephanie West Allen, though unfortunately my schedule will preclude a visit this time) on Friday and won’t return til next Friday, when I’ll fly out again.  Though Denver is a lovely city, I love the smaller cities and, better yet, empty spaces.  Although the weather in Cheyenne today is overcast and drizzly, it’s a treat to be here.  We visited Boulder (where I spent a very snowy freshman year of college), Estes Park (home of the Stanley Hotel, where The Shining was set) and the Rocky Mountain National Park (where we saw literally hundreds of elk, as well as prairie dogs, coyote, and even a moose!), the Canyon Wine Cellars tasting room (featuring surprisingly good wine; we even bought several bottles and plan to return to the Grand Junction area with its 65+ wineries later this year), and Vail and environs over the weekend, in much better weather.  We were stunned to find that the slopes are still open in Vail, but I suspect that won’t last much longer.  Sadly, I forgot to bring a camera with me… But perhaps I’ll pick up one today.

All of this is to say that my posts will likely be short this week!  But there’s plenty of interest going on, so I’ll point you to some good posts and news stories elsewhere.

Eliminate clutter that can derail your professional success.  Suzanne Dupree Howe of the Counsel to Counsel blog links to a WSJ Career Journal article titled Decluttering Your Career.  It suggests removing “career clutter” that can pull you off the course of your day — or your career.  This clutter includes distractions from the pursuit of your career goals, conflicts, email overload, and social chit-chat at work.  I’d expand the list to include anything that drains your energy, including home tasks that are overwhelming (perhaps hiring a weekly housecleaning service?), physical clutter in the office or at home, and physical habits that don’t support you.

Living in the Moment: Executive coach Doug Constant has written a thought-provoking post on how we live our lives in the “dash” between birth and death.  The post is definitely a step outside what I ordinarily mention on this blog, but it’s well worth a read and some reflection.  Doug offers 5 principles and one law that will guide the reader toward truly living in the dash:

Principle 1: You are either living YOUR life or someone else’s.
Principle 2: The people that enter your life are the right people…  good and bad.
Principle 3: Whatever happens… happens.
Principle 4: Whatever happens is the right time.
Principle 5: When it’s over, it’s over.

and

The Law of Two Feet. Stated succinctly, if at anytime you find yourself in a situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet. Go somewhere else. Do something useful. Live Your Dash. Stay in the moment and don’t get stuck in the moment.

Some of these ideas may be tough for Type A types, but there’s at least a grain of truth to each.  I admit that I’m not quite as zen as these principles would encourage me to be, but finding the ability to take a deep breath and let it all be ok is a helpful skill, particularly when tempered with the Law of Two Feet.

And now… I’m taking my two feet out to explore Cheyenne before the rain arrives.

By the way… What IS coaching?

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I had an interesting conversation this weekend with a group of friends and colleagues about what I’m doing now.  Although I’m still practicing law part-time (with no desire to stop, honestly), coaching — and specifically, coaching lawyers — has taken the prize as my top pursuit.  So I’ve told these folks about the Georgetown University leadership coaching program that I’ve just completed, about the mix of telephone versus in-person clients, why I think coaching for lawyers is so beneficial and how I got into it, what I’ve observed in working with my clients, and so on.

And then, after we’d been talking for a while, one friend piped up and asked, “By the way… What exactly is coaching anyway?”

Ah.  Because I’ve become steeped in coaching, I forget.  Not everyone knows what coaching is.  I’ve had the same question from people who’ve contacted me after reading my blog, so I thought I’d share the answer here.

In coaching, I work with individuals (primarily but not exclusively lawyers and executive directors/CEOs of non-profit organizations) to create professional and personal change, to reach sustained excellent performance, and to do the work so that my client can self-correct and generate his or her own processes for change.

For instance, I work with lawyers who are in the first few years of their career to map out what professional path they’d like to follow and to identify the steps to get there.  I work with more senior lawyers who’d like to make a change in the path they’re on now.  I support people who are over-committed and over-stressed in finding a way to maintain (or develop) excellent performance by managing their energy and being fully present when they’re at home just as they’re fully present at work.  I help job-seekers with their resumes, cover letters, and interview skills, and I help them to identify the kind of position that would be most satisfying for them.

Some clients hire me to fix a performance problem, and some clients hire me because they want to fast-track their success.

When I coach, I ask questions that cut to the heart of the matter.  What do youwant — you, not your spouse or parents or colleagues or friends?  How do you want to go about getting it?  What’s standing in your way, and how can you work through the obstacles?  I may offer observations (did you notice that your voice quavered when you said XYZ?  What’s that about?) and suggestions for reflection and action.  Because I’ve been in practice and have learned something about being a lawyer, sometimes I’ll also put on my consultant’s hat and give direct advice, if that’s what the client wants, about how some action is likely to play out.

I am results-oriented, because I want my clients to identify what they want, to figure out how to get there, to do the work (both external and internal work), and to learn through the process.  Although there’s a lot of variation, I usually tells prospective clients to expect to work together for at least 3 months, because that’s about how long it takes to see changes, and I usually work with clients for 6 months to a year.  And sometimes clients will stop coaching for a while and then return.  It’s client-driven, because my top concern is to work in whatever way will best serve my client.

And I offer these parting thoughts from What an Executive Coach Can Do for You, reprinted from the Harvard Management Update:

“Coaching has evolved into the mainstream fast,” says Michael Goldberg, president of Building Blocks Consulting (Manalapan, New Jersey), whose clients include New York Life and MetLife. “This is because there is a great demand in the workplace for immediate results, and coaching can help provide that.” How? By providing feedback and guidance in real time, says Brian Underhill, a senior consultant at the Alliance for Strategic Leadership (Morgan Hill, California). “Coaching develops leaders in the context of their current jobs, without removing them from their day-to-day responsibilities.”

At an even more basic level, many executives simply benefit from receiving any feedback at all. “As individuals advance to the executive level, development feedback becomes increasingly important, more infrequent, and more unreliable,” notes Anna Maravelas, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based executive coach and founder of TheraRising. As a result, she says, “Many executives plateau in critical interpersonal and leadership skills.”

. . .

More specifically, the experts say, coaching can be particularly effective in times of change for an executive. That includes promotions, stretch assignments, and other new challenges. While you may be confident in your abilities to take on new tasks, you may feel that an independent sounding board would be beneficial in helping you achieve a new level of performance, especially if close confidants are now reporting to you. More so, you may recognize that succeeding in a new role requires skills that you have not needed to rely on in the past; a coach may help sharpen those skills, particularly when you need to do so on the fly.

But coaching is not just for tackling new assignments. It can also play an invigorating role. Coaches can help executives “develop new ways to attack old problems,” says Vicky Gordon, CEO of the Gordon Group coaching practice in Chicago. “When efforts to change yourself, your team, or your company have failed—you are frustrated or burned out—a coach can be the outside expert to help you get to the root cause and make fundamental changes.”

So, that’s what coaching is.

Too busy? What benefit does busy-ness bring?

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There’s a nice article in last Friday’s New York Times titled Too Busy to Notice You’re Too Busy.  While I admit to a frisson of annoyance at the author’s introduction (she’s married, two children, working part-time, a volunteer, a regular exerciser, and a socializer who employs a housecleaner twice a month), it does seem to me that many people — lawyers especially — really enjoy being busy.

Busy is worn as a badge of honor, and (gender notwithstanding) being busy is often a macho statement of one’s value.  After all, if a lawyer is talented and dedicated, why would she ever not be busy?  And who wants to find out?

I wonder sometimes what’s lost of be-ing when one is so very busy do-ing.  What’s being ignored or unnoticed?  And at the end of the day, or the end of the life, is the “busy” worth it?

I’ve worked with a client to cut back on some of the busy.  Names and details are omitted to protect confidentiality, of course, but my client realized that even when he was at home with his wife, he wasn’t truly present.  He was checking email, making lists, fielding calls, and reading up.  His body was home, but he wasn’t.  Although he was busy and successful, he wasn’t enjoying his life because he felt unconnected, and he felt more and more drained by his work.  After some examination, he decided to set boundaries around his time.  He elected to block out time to be present with his family, to sleep and exercise enough to renew his energy, and to enforce the boundaries he’s set.  The result?  He is more focused at work, he accomplishes more, and he gets to enjoy some time to be.  He is reengaged.  He’s still busy, but his busy is the result of conscious and purposeful choice.

How about you?  Is there some aspect of your life or your practice that’s busy because busy looks good?  Would you prefer something different?  Or do you feel trapped, unhappy with the schedule you have but unable to see any way to change it?  Though it may not be easy to see, choice is always present.  Spend some time in possibility and ask, if you could make one change in your time, what would it be?

For new(ish) associates: Speak up!

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Dan Hull, of What About Clients? blog fame, posted a key question that associates (really, all lawyers) must be able to answer at a moment’s notice: What are you thinking?  As Dan put it, “If a neuron fires in a brilliant young lawyer’s head, and no one hears it go off, did it even happen?”  Dan writes to encourage more senior lawyers to ask junior associates what they’re thinking and to teach those lawyers to volunteer their thoughts, and I couldn’t agree more.

But new(ish) lawyers are often uncomfortable volunteering their ideas, feeling that because they’re new and have a lot to learn about practice, it’s better (as Abraham Lincoln advised) to “remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”  This fallacious belief is what Mark Herrmann, author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, refers to as the “potted plant” mistake.  That “wisdom” backfires in the law firm setting, though.  A new lawyer must add value immediately, and sharing questions or insights is the quickest way to do that.  (It goes without saying that these insights must be well-considered, right?)

What I like about Dan’s advice is that the simple question, “What are you thinking?” creates an atmosphere of collegial inquiry.  It not only allows more senior lawyers to get an insight into a newer lawyer’s thinking process, whether to reap the benefit of brilliance or to dispel a mistaken assumption before it causes harm, but also it open the opportunity for the newer lawyer to learn how the more senior attorneys are analyzing the issue at hand, sifting the important from the irrelevant, and cooking up an approach most likely to meet the client’s goals.

So, new(ish) lawyers, volunteer your thoughts, and ask what others working on your cases are thinking.  (Don’t forget to ask paralegals and secretaries, too.  You might be surprised at the insight that these people can have, and it’s a painless way to remind yourself that non-attorney legal professionals can make a variety of valuable contributions if provided the opportunity.)

Escape the trap

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Most of the lawyers I talk with enjoy practicing law, at least to some degree.  They may not love it, but there’s some part of practice that works for them, whether it’s the intellectual challenge, the stand-up work that can harness the acting bug, or even the money.  I don’t think I’ve ever met a lawyer who thinks her practice is just perfect, with no need for growth or adjustment, but the majority of lawyers aren’t desperately searching for a way out of the profession.

I find that one trait is almost universal among those who are unhappy in practice, though: a sense of being trapped, with no alternatives, no escape, just a decades-long future in the same miserable position.

The source of the misery varies, of course.  Sometimes it’s working too many hours, with the accompanying pain of a distant or angry spouse/family, no time to develop a relationship, or feelings of burnout from trying to please clients, employers/partners, family, friends, etc., but lacking time to enjoy personal pursuits.  Sometimes it’s feeling trapped in a job that doesn’t fit, because of the practice type, clients, colleagues, the way the firm (or company) operates, or because the money is an insufficient reward for the effort required and there’s no passion to balance it.  And sometimes, it’s the result of years of academic competition without any particular direction, yielding a terrific but unwanted legal career.

Lawyers talk about golden handcuffs, and especially in view of law school debt, that’s a real phenomenon.  However, I stand for the believe that no one is ever truly trapped.  There’s always an option, usually a variety of them, though it may take the help of someone else to see what those options are.

Sometimes the choices only require an adjustment.  For instance, burnout can often be countered with rigorous energy management.  (If that intrigues you, read The Power of Full Engagementby Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.)  Sometimes, the choices are much more difficult — a new job or practice, perhaps with a pay cut.  And sometimes, the path is undefined and the first steps of moving into it are exhilarating and also terrifying.

So, for anyone who’s wondering: the trap, though it looks real, is an illusion.  In Einstein’s words: “The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them,” and One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place.

Diagnosing problems to create effective solutions

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Tom Collins, author of the well-respected More Partner Income blog has written a must-read post titled “A Problem Solving Policy for the Law Firm.” (Post is no longer available)

He describes the ordinary approach to problem-solving as the process of identifying and closing the gap between how things are and how they should be, which treats the symptom but not the ultimate cause of the problem.  Tom recommends focusing on opportunities, not problems:

If management is going to concentrate on opportunities, it must avoid problems. That means when you do have to tackle a problem, you should do so with a no-return policy. Look for the conditions that permitted the problem to occur and take steps to prevent reoccurrence.

I’d like to tag onto Tom’s post and to discuss the same approach within the context of individual problem-solving and development.

Suppose you’ve decided that your marketing isn’t producing the results you want.  You assume that the amount of your effort will determine your results: more is better.  Based on that assumption, the simple solution would be to redouble the marketing efforts you’re making now, so you attend two networking events a month, arrange to take a potential client to lunch twice a week rather than just once, and so on.  And that might help you to develop more business — but it also might not, or you might not devote the time to following through on your plans.  Instead, perhaps you might pause to evaluate the effectiveness of your current efforts and discover that every time you attend the [relevant industry] meeting, you walk away with valuable new contacts that bring in business 40% of the time.  Rather than increasing your efforts in marketing generally, perhaps it would make sense to deepen your contacts within that group — perhaps dropping another group altogether.  To find that solution, though, you’d have to examine your assumption that more efforts leads to better results.

Likewise, suppose you decide that you want to communicate more effectively with your assistant to correct a problem that’s developed in which he or she doesn’t deliver things you request ASAP in what you consider to be a timely manner.  You conclude that your assistant doesn’t pay attention when you say ASAP, so you tailor your solution to that issue. You might emphasize that you need the work “ASAP, really, as soon you can get it done.”  You might express disappointment when work isn’t delivered as quickly as you’d hoped.  You might even sit down with your assistant and explain the problem and ask how the two of you might solve it together.  But the problem might well continue until you discover that when you say ASAP, your assistant interprets that to mean “as soon as conveniently possible” rather than “drop everything and do this now.”  Or perhaps the real issue is that you practice as if you were working in an emergency room, running from crisis to crisis so that everything is on an ASAP basis — which means that nothing is a priority.  A shift in your perspective is the only thing that will truly solve the problem here.

What we’re discussing here is single-loop learning, in which we tinker with our strategies in reaction to our results, as compared with double-loop learning, in which we examine the assumptions and perspectives that underlie the problem and, if needed, create new assumptions and perspectives to support a new set of strategies to solve the problem.  For an excellent explanation of single- and double-loop learning, visit Ed Batista’s post Double-Loop Learning and Executive Coaching on his Executive Coaching & Change Management blog.

In short, the task is to stop climbing the same tree harder, faster, or smarter and instead to pause and ask whether this is the tree to be climbing at all and if so, why.  This isn’t navel-gazing; it’s careful analysis of the entire situation at issue and strategizing to meet the actual problem rather than the apparent problem.  Although lawyers tend to be very good at performing this task for our clients, we tend not to take the time to do it for ourselves.

Effective problem solving requires effective diagnosis of the problem, not just the symptoms.  Identifying and challenging our assumptions and expectations is key to creating meaningful and lasting change, whether personal or professional.  Each of us has the ability to do this.  However, recognizing the frame that we use to perceive the world may be difficult simply because we’re so accustomed to it.  That’s why it may be easier to engage in this process with someone who can help with the task of self-observation and challenging perspectives.

Coaching provides assistance and support in finding the truth that underlies a situation and creating the changes necessary to improve performance and results. By working with a coach, you engage not only his or her expertise, but also his or her impartiality to the situation (thus opening the opportunity for an unimpeded view of what’s really going on and why) and dedication in service to the client.  Coaching has often been recognized as a tool for advancing lawyers’ career success.  Is the time right for you to consider hiring a coach?

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.

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?