Musings Archives - Page 2 of 5

Warning: first impressions linger!

July 13, 2007/8 Comments/in Blog, Musings, The practice /by strategic

I’ve been making a lot of calls this week, not only to lawyers and law firms but also to doctors’ offices and a variety of businesses, and I’ve discovered something disturbing. On a distressingly high number of these contacts (including some in-person contacts as well as phone calls), the people who greeted me and who handled my initial inquiry did not make me happy I’d contacted their office. Instead, I felt that I’d interrupted something important and burdened the staff. And just in case anyone is thinking perhaps the less-than-favorable reception was because I’m a dreaded cold-calling service provider seeking business… Nope. I was a client or customer of each business.

The most notable example of this behavior occurred at a doctor’s office. I hadn’t been to this doctor in a while, and when I arrived for my appointment, the receptionist gave me new patient forms without explanation. I told her that I had been visiting this doctor off and on since about 1983, and she asked if it had been more than 2 years since I’d visited. Yes, I said, about 2 years and 2 months. “Well,” she said as she turned away, “we purged your file after 2 years.” Not welcome back, not we’re delighted to see you again, not even a throw-away “apology lite” for purging my file. When I paid my bill after my appointment, I discovered that my previous patient information was printed on it, revealing that they hadn’t purged my information after all. Fortunately, I still like and trust the medical staff and will return because of that, but next time I call, it’ll be with a sigh because I’ll have to deal with the front office first.

How’s your firm’s welcoming committee?

We so easily fall into the trap of thinking that we lawyers provide client service and that receptionists, legal assistants, secretaries, and other staff members provide administrative support that really doesn’t constitute client service. While that may be true on one level, it’s wise to consider how much contact the average client has with your staff as opposed to with you. Unless you’re a really sole practitioner or a third wave lawyer who operates without staff, chances are good that the first person your client speaks with is staff. I assure you that the client will engage with you with that impression in mind.

It’s easy to identify and weed out those who deliver obviously unacceptable client contact. The example that comes to mind is one I overheard a few years ago while waiting for a colleage to get off a call so we could talk: “Well, [Mr. Smith], I know you think you’re [lawyer’s] only client, but you aren’t!” Fortunately, someone who would make a comment like that is generally either retrained or fired with haste. What about the subtle effects of less-offensive but thoughtless behavior? Have you ever stepped back to observe how non-attorney staff in your office interacts with your clients?

Here’s a counter-example. Janette, a receptionist at a large firm in Atlanta, is a ray of sunshine. Everytime I walked into this firm’s reception area, I’m embraced by her warmth and welcome. One time, when I was waiting while the person I was to meet was stuck in traffic, I had the opportunity to watch her for a half-hour or so. She engaged every person who walked in. She knew returning clients, asked how their travel had been, and made them feel welcome. When she met someone new, she exchanged a few comments with them — not the kind of chatter that can annoy someone already on edge, just some niceties that paved the way for further conversation if the visitor so desired. Every person who walked in was greeted, made welcome, and appreciated. I’m sure the clients and other visitors engaged with the lawyers they were meeting there with the effects of that first impression still lingering. Janette is clearly an asset to that office, and (fortunately) the firm knows it.

What does the staff at your office contribute to client relations? Notice what’s happening when your clients and potential clients interact with your staff. If it’s a negative contribution, how can you help to create a shift? And if it’s a positive contribution, do you acknowledge and reward it?

Independence Day: what does it mean for lawyers?

July 4, 2007/0 Comments/in Blog, Musings /by strategic

To those of you in or from the U.S., Happy Independence Day!

Today’s a day that many celebrate with cookouts, fireworks, parades, and the like. I’ve had an interesting lead-in to the holiday through conversation with my husband’s parents. They live in England, though they spend a great deal of time now in the U.S. Their recent questions about what exactly we celebrate on the 4th of July and most especially what’s happening in American politics prompted me to give some thought not only to what’s going on in our country, but also how we as lawyers experience and contribute to our national conversations.

A number of years ago, a prominent criminal defense lawyer (think Matlock) visited the firm where I was working to talk to us about the Patriot Act and to urge us to be educated on the issues, to educate others, and to play a role in unwinding the Act and the laws associated with it. I appreciated his vigor, and I was moved by his passion. And then I returned to my desk to bill some more hours. I was not alone. The pressures of practice demand attention, and lawyers are conditioned to respond.

But what else is important?

Though my coaching engagements always begin with a client’s interest in a particular issue or aspect of her life, very often the conversation expands beyond that single focus. We often look at not only professional goals and issues, but also at personal desires and family concerns. We address community involvement as a part of business development conversations. And, on occasion, we explore broader issues such as whether, what, and how this individual may choose to contribute to our society, perhaps through pro bono work or speaking or political activity.

I have recently become certified in leadership coaching, in part because I believe that lawyers are leaders not only within a practice area or a firm, but also in society. Sometimes by design, and sometimes by default. My mission is to support lawyers in stepping up to leadership — beginning first with themselves, and then reaching outward as far as they wish. My writing usually center on personal or practice-based leadership, but today is a good day to open up the question to a broader scale.

And so, my question today is this: what responsibility do we bear, both as citizens and as lawyers, to step up to the issues facing us today?

Women in law firms

May 9, 2007/1 Comment/in Blog, Musings, The practice, Work/life balance /by strategic

The WSJ Law Blog has an interesting post asking whether women lawyers are reaching a crisis point. The MIT Workplace Center has issued a report titled “Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership,” which states that of the 1000 Massachusetts lawyers surveyed, 31% of female associates and 18% of male associates had left private practice, as had 35% of female associates with children and 15% of male associates with children. As might be expected, the report criticized heavy billable hour requirements, inflexible schedules including the lack of real part-time options, and “a lack of appreciation for the need to balance work and family.”

The WSJ Blog then goes on to ask whether readers would encourage their daughters to enter the law and whether readers agree with the report’s summary that “nothing is changing” concerning women’s role in law. And as is often the case, much of the fun of the post lies in the comments.

Steve Seckler of the Counsel to Counsel blog has a different take on the report in his post Women Are “Staying” in Droves. Reviewing the same report, and having attended a presentation on it, Steve leads with the statistics that almost 80% of women who leave law firm practice stay in or return to the workforce and more than 50% stay in the legal profession. The issue, as Steve sees it, is focused on women’s decisions to leave law firms, resulting in the much-quoted statistic that only 17% of large law firm partners are women. (Robert Ambrogi treats the issue similarly in his post The Uneven Partnership Track.) Fascinating to me is the email attached at the end of Steve’s post from Sheila Statlender, a clinical psychologist who is a member of the Boston Bar Association’s Standing Committee of Work/Life Balance, in which she fantasizes about women and their “male supporters” walking out of their firms for a couple of hours or a day to protest current conditions for women and to support/brainstorm/educate around strategies to address those conditions. Good reading, though I’m not sure I’ll be holding my breath for enactment.

This issue presents a variety of challenges: opportunities for women vs. men in career and family; biological imperatives and societal response to them; sociological stereotypes; law firm economics; family economics… The list could go on and on. Looking at the questions raised on the “big picture” level, it seems to me that what we’re seeing is the challenge that arises whenever someone takes on a one-dimensional role that is (or is expected to be) all-encompassing. It’s the perception that a lawyer who’s a Big Firm Partner (or Associate) can’t also be a Mother, because those two roles conflict.

Perhaps I’m feeling unduly idealistic today, but I wonder whether demoting these roles to being aspects of an integrated, whole person might be a step in the right direction — with a hefty dose of reconciling the whole person to the realities of law firm and personal economics. Not to say that finding that integration is an easy process or without challenges and trade-offs, but most questions tend to move toward solution when posed as A and B rather than A or B. I also will take a stand for the proposition that working fathers are as entitled to the same personal/professional integration as working mothers, and the “societal stare decisis” that holds otherwise (to quote a brilliant turn of phrase by a “2L Woman” commenter on the WSJ Law Blog) deserves to be overturned.

But, when the measuring stick for so many is profits per partner, doesn’t the dollar determine the destiny?

Living fearlessly

April 27, 2007/2 Comments/in Blog, Coaching for lawyers, Musings /by strategic

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.

Tag, I’m it: Gotta Get Goals

April 11, 2007/2 Comments/in Blog, Just for Fun, Musings /by strategic

Stephanie West Allen has tagged me to participate in the Gotta Get Goals meme. The idea is to share 5-10 over-the-top, fabulous goals that I will need to achieve to say I’ve reached my wildest dreams in life. Now, that’s fun!

I’ve always kept goal lists in one form or another, simply because I think it’s critical to define what I want to accomplish as a first (and, often, continuing) step of my actions. I’m sure many people have heard this analogy, but if I get in the car and just start driving without any aim, I may end up in Miami when I would have much preferred Calgary. (There’s a place for exploration without direction too, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

One thing I’ve already learned as a result of this meme: some authors encourage goal-setters not to share their goals with others! Stephanie cites a small $3 book called It Works, which sets out a 3-step process for reaching goals — the third step being not talking about the goals until there’s some objective evidence that you’re reaching them. I’m not sure what I think about this one, having experienced terrific results in the past from goals that I discuss on a regular basis, and for purposes of this exercise, I will spell mine out. And, I’ll put them in the form of an affirmation, which always helps me recognize that my goals are achievable.

1. I am really, really healthy. Suffice it to say that everytime I urge a client to add exercise, eating well, and sleeping enough into his life, I’m urging myself as well. And I’m pleased to say I’m now working out three times a week on average, with associated weight loss, so this goal is well underway. (So perhaps this isn’t a “wildest dream” category, but it’s certainly the bedrock for the wildest dreams.)

2. I speak Italian. It’s such a beautiful language, and I’ve always wanted to learn it. My desire has been refueled by Elizabeth Gilbert’s delightful Eat, Pray, Love, which I’ve been reading recently.

3. I have completed my mother’s book on woman suffrage in Wyoming. After spending more than 20 years unearthing the details on how women got the vote in Wyoming in 1869 (some 50 years before national female suffrage), my mother prepared a manuscript exhaustively detailing the story. She died before she finished it, and I’d like to pick up that torch. It needs to be told.

4. I enjoyed walking a marathon. However, I have NO desire to run one.

5. I’ve spent a vacation hillwalking in Scotland, followed by a retreat to Iona. I’ll also continue my study of Scottish history, which fascinates me.

6. I sustain an ideal balance between coaching and practice, and I have an entirely referral-based business on both sides. I have a number of associated goals here, but no need to go into that detail!

7. I have earned my ICF credentials. Step 1 of this is a short-term goal, as I expect I’ll get my ACC credentials this summer.

I’ll stop there, since 7 is a ripe number. I tag anyone who chooses to accept the challenge — and if you don’t have a blog, feel free to list your goals here as a comment. Play along!

The role of wealth in life at the bar and in associate retention

April 11, 2007/0 Comments/in Blog, Musings, Work/life balance /by strategic

Money is always an interesting topic, and wealth even more so.

I remember being in middle school and fantasizing with friends about being rich. We imagined that if we could just make about $60,000, we’d be set. (Of course, I’d venture to guess that all of our parents were earning at least double that at the time, but that just goes to show that I ran with a rather naive crowd back then.) And indeed, I remember starting my clerkship and making just about $28,000 and the rush of pleasure when I topped out at $50,000-ish just before my clerkship ended. Then I did some contract work and associated with a sole practitioner before I joined Jones Day in 1999, early enough to benefit from the salary hike that hit the fall. Was I rich? Not by the standards I held by that time, no. But “rich” is a standard that tends to rise over time… And that’s why I’d prefer to focus on wealth.

Wealth, for me, refers not only to having enough money to live comfortably but also to having time to enjoy that money, family and friends with whom to enjoy it, and a sense of satisfaction in what I’ve accomplished and possibility in what lies ahead. It’s a 36o-degree measurement of life that requires reflection on more than a bank account.

Wealth depends on one’s values, so it’s a rather individual measure of success. For some, money may be the primary component of wealth, whereas others want to feel they’ve done good in the world, others want close relationships, others want to have fun, others want adventure, and so on and so on. And most of us want some of all of the things I’ve listed, plus who-knows-what else. Of course, this is not to say that money is bad, since money facilitates everything from shelter, food, and medical care to education to the pleasures of hobbies and travel. But money, for most people, isn’t the be-all and end-all.

The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d
be worth if you lost all your money.

– Unknown

True? Probably yes for some and no for others. But it does raise an interesting question for reflection.

The point here is that rising salaries (accompanied by rising billable hour requirements) are not adequate in themselves for many lawyers. The money comes at a cost. If that cost is an unhappy spouse who feels neglected, a lawyer who values relationships will be conflicted, if not unhappy. A lawyer who values travel is unlikely to be satisfied if he has plenty of money in the bank but no time to spend it. And a lawyer who values money as her top priority will have an incentive to jump from firm to firm to maximize her income, unless other benefits or desires outweigh that incentive. Firms need to be mindful of the non-economic rewards in law and need to recognize that if their lawyers don’t experience those rewards in some way, they’re unlikely to be satisfied by high pay over the long term.

As with any other business, the challenge to be mastered in thriving at life at the bar is to minimize the costs and maximize the returns. It’s critical to make a living and it’s important to consider what will make a particular job sufficiently satisfying. What does wealth mean to you? Are you meeting your needs in the areas that matter to you? If not, what changes do you need to make?

Interesting new resources for women who are lawyers

March 19, 2007/1 Comment/in Blog, Musings, News /by strategic

One of my mother’s friends, Margie Pitts Hames, argued in the Supreme Court in 1971, in Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade. She told me that when she went to the clerk’s office before arguing, she was told to put on her hat — because court reporters at that time were required to wear hats in court, and no one expected a woman to be anything other than a court reporter. Dorothy Toth Beasley argued for the other side, later became Judge Beasley of the Georgia Court of Appeals, and literally left her mark on the court by having “and women” chiseled into the court’s credo “Upon the integrity, wisdom and independence of the judiciary depend the sacred rights of free men” in 1992.

Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then. And yet….

It’s pretty common to see news items about women leaving the legal profession and the small percentage of women who make partner in large law firms. A story I read recently in the Washington Post highlighted a website that includes forums on which female (and other groups) law students are sexually objectified and even threatened with physical violence. I’ve posted about the challenges facing female litigators and about a woman who’s suing her firm for sex discrimination because (among other allegations) she claims she was told she was spending too much time at the office and too little with her family.

Although I seek to serve both men and women who practice law, it does seem to me that women at times face unique challenges that seem to persist for reasons both known and unknown.

I recently ran across Ms. JD, “an online community that provides a forum for dialogue and networking among women lawyers and aspiring lawyers.” Ms. JD was created by a group of female law students from Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley), Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, NYU, Stanford, UCLA, UT Austin, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and Yale who are “concerned by the rates at which women opt out of the legal profession, the lack of representation of women in the highest courts and echelons of the legal community, and the role of gender in the progression of many women’s legal careers.”

Ms. JD will launch at a national conference co-hosted by Yale Law Women at Yale Law Schoolon March 31, 2007. The goals of the conference are “(1) to foster professionally transformative alliances through new communications technologies, and (2) to share tools and strategies to enhance the experiences of women in law.” I can’t attend the conference, but I would love to know what happens there. I invite anyone who attends to contact me (see last paragraph of this post) with a report and comments that I will share here with or without attribution, as you prefer.

(A personal aside to the story about Margie Hames: I wish I could link to an online resource about Mrs. Hames. She was a remarkable woman: smart, fierce, kind, funny, reverent, irreverent, and opinionated. She died in 1993 at a much-too-young 60. However, because everything of substance that I’ve found about her on the web takes either a pro- or anti-abortion stance, I’m not linking. If you’re curious, Google. But, please, don’t believe everything you read.)

Success tips for lawyers (and some poetry, too)

March 9, 2007/0 Comments/in Blog, Musings, The Secret Society of Happy Lawyers, Work/life balance /by strategic

Today I ran across a Law Practice Today article titled How to Be More User-Friendly, by Wendy L. Werner. The article lists reminders of what lawyers need to do, be, or think about “to not just be tolerated by the rest of the world, but to flourish.” Here’s the list, and I strongly encourage you to read the full article for amplification. Though I’m not crazy about the tone of the article (which comes across to me almost as a primer on “how lawyers can learn to masquerade as humans”), the advice is well-taken.

* Talk less, listen more.
* Sharing information with those around you is not a bad thing.
* Know what your colleagues are working on.
* Being rigorous doesn’t mean being a jerk.
* Risk is sometimes necessary to find new opportunities.
* If you only spend time with lawyers, you won’t know how to talk to juries or clients.
* Lawyers are frequently smart people — but lots of other people are smart too.
* Diversity is a fact of life. If you want a successful and smart organization, hire and promote a diverse work force.
* Seek opportunities for feedback.
* No matter what your level in the organization, find a mentor, coach or advisor.
* Having fun at work isn’t a crime.
* At the end of your life you probably won’t say — “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

Email “addiction” experiment

March 8, 2007/2 Comments/in Blog, Musings, Work/life balance /by strategic

I tried something new and different this week.

I left my Blackberry at my desk when I closed up shop for the day.

Now, granted, I work from home, so it isn’t such a big issue for me to go back to my desk, check email there, etc. And I can hear my office phone ring from almost every part of the house, so it isn’t as if I was truly disconnected from my office ommunications. Still, I didn’t check email while sitting with my family after dinner, I didn’t do “one last check” of email before I turning off the lights and going to sleep… And I didn’t do my first email check of the day until after I’d had breakfast, showered, and landed at my desk, whereas I usually check it as soon as I wake up.

I ran this experiment mostly as an integrity issue. I’d urged a client not to keep her Blackberry on her bedside table overnight, and then it hit me — that’s what I do, too. Running through the excuses (no, really, I do use it as my alarm clock) didn’t make me feel any better, so I decided to take my own advice.

What did I learn?

The sky didn’t fall in. Not a single client fired me for failure to respond to an email within minutes. (The corollary, of course, is that no client was in the midst of an urgent situation that would have prevented even this experiment.) My down time was my own. I wasn’t distracted, and I didn’t ask anyone to wait while I looked to see whether the latest incoming email needed my attention more immediately than my family did. I was more present for conversation, and I didn’t even consider whether I should check email when I woke up briefly during the night. (Not that I’d ever do that, of course. Often.) I was fully engaged in my personal life, and I returned to my work life with greater gusto in the morning.

I noticed that I felt no angst at all about allowing calls to roll to voicemail, but missing emails did give me great pause. I’ve posted before on the distinction between “urgent” and “important” and I’ve realized that email registers as urgent for me, even though I know that at least 95% of it is not important. How about you?

Imagine the irony when I ran across an article discussing email “addiction.” I put addiction in quotes because, for me, in this situation, that’s slang. Nevertheless, it was a nice experiment, I liked the results, and I think I’ll continue it in some form, though my email-accessible hours may be a bit more extended than they were during the last week.