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!

Public perception of lawyers

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Someone recently found this blog with a search on “All Lawyers Are Assholes.”  Yes, complete with the initial caps.  After I quit laughing (and got over being briefly miffed that this search implies that I, too, am an asshole simply because I’m a lawyer), I started wondering whether the searcher was looking for confirmation of his/her assertion.  I’d love to know whether s/he found that confirmation.

Years ago, after I’d been in practice for a few years, I spent a weekend with a college roommate and met a bunch of her friends.  As I introduced myself and admitted that I’m a lawyer, people’s attitudes shifted subtly.  Sometimes, I’d get hit with a request for free legal advice: “Y’see, I have this problem with my [employer, service provider, spouse, whatever] and I’m wondering….”  Others, especially medical professionals who weren’t doctors, would almost shudder and back off.  (Seriously, I’m not making this up, and I’ve never even worked on a med mal case!)  And a few would ask about my practice, continue the conversation, and eventually circle back to law by saying, “You know, you just don’t seem like a lawyer.”  I never knew quite what to do with that, or even whether it was intended as a compliment or an insult.

It’s always seemed to me that it’s a privilege to be a lawyer.  We have the ability to effect change in society more directly than many other professionals, we have the skill and training to recognize when something just isn’t right and to work to make it right, and we have the opportunity to help people who need it.  Strangely, that isn’t how the public usually perceives lawyers, and sometimes I wonder whether it’s how the profession perceives itself.

Attorneys sometimes behave as if practice is a burden, a horrible way to make a living because of the competing demands of practice and life and satisfying clients.  And, no doubt, sometimes it is a burden, but it’s a voluntary burden and it’s important for us to recognize that if the burden is too heavy, if it outweighs the privilege, plenty of other jobs are available that would reap the benefits of a law degree without actually requiring practice.

Too often, we view our work as hours to be put in, a way to make more and more money.  Reaping financial reward isn’t wrong.  But I submit that something is off-kilter when a profession becomes all about money, and I’d argue that something has gone very wrong when the public perception is that a lawyer can be bought, that the outcome of a legal dispute depends most on which party has the higher-paid lawyer.  This is a bigger problem than I’m prepared to address today, not only because of the public perception but also because so many new lawyers face the squeeze of student debt and salary lower than they’d been led to expect.

Finally, there’s a huge negativity surrounding legal practice.  We lawyers both propogate and, in my view, suffer from this negativity.

What lawyers believe about practicing law has a huge impact on how we behave, and how we behave has significant influence on how we are perceived.  Are you contributing to a positive or negative public perception of lawyers?

Consistency in marketing, Guerrilla-style

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I ran across a fascinating marketing tip sheet recently.  It’s written by Jay Conrad Levinson, who has achieved notoriety as the author behind the Guerrilla Marketing series.  What I found is the 15 Secrets of Guerrilla Marketing (no longer available).

I will admit up front that I haven’t read a single Guerrilla Marketing book or even an article.  However, one of the “secrets” caught my eye as being potentially true for everybody, but right on target for lawyers engaging in client development activities.  Levinson says:

Commitment: You should know that a mediocre marketing program with commitment will always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment.  Commitment makes it happen.

I hope it’s immediately apparent to you why this is applicable to lawyers, but just in case it isn’t, consider this:

Suppose you’re researching an area of law to get a feel for it, knowing that you’re going to need to affiliate with someone who’s an expert in the area.  Would you be likely to contact someone who keeps popping up as an articles author on your topic, someone perhaps with a treatise to boot, who’s spoken on the issue at a number of CLE meetings?  Would you be more or less likely to contact someone whose name comes up once as an author, once as a speaker, perhaps as a member of a relevant committee, etc?  I’d be willing to bet that you’d be more eager to speak with the first lawyer.

Commitment pays off because it increase the depth of your experience and credentials in a particular area.  Whether it’s writing as in the example above or in pro bono work, doing a client development activity once is unlikely to make a significant impact.  But if you do it over and over, make it a regular part of your schedule, you will begin to gain some traction, to know people in the relevant area and to be known, and potentially to acquire a reputation as an expert.  Each of these attributes requires a sustained effort.

As you consider your client development plans, consider how committed you are to the plans you’ve set out.  Are you stretched too thin?  Do you need to let some activities go so you can work deeply in a limited number of areas?

Or perhaps you need to step back even a bit further.  Maybe you don’t have a client development plan or strategy.  You might make an unfocused effort to attend networking meetings, to agree to write an article if someone approaches you, to speak on a topic in which you’re competent but which is not central to your practice.  While any of these activities will get you exposure, this group of plans isn’t enough to get you consistently in front of the people who need to know about you and your practice.

Consistency demands that you evaluate your client development plans, select a limited number of activities that you will plan to accommodate in your schedule.  Then, schedule them and take part regularly.  Be sure you’re building a reputation that will serve you well; be sure your consistent, committed client development activities are directed toward helping you to build that reputation.

And, because I’m curious… Has anyone ever read Guerrilla Marketing?  And/or applied it to client development in the client context?  Interesting stuff, and I’d be curious to hear the results.

Dual career and commuter families

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It’s tough to be married to a lawyer.  I should know, since my husband is a lawyer; pity for him that I am too.  The careers that our spouses or partners engage in may determine quite a bit about our lives.  Lawyers are often accused of arguing in a relationship as if in court, or of cross-examining children rather than gently probing.  Some doctors have the reputation of bringing clinical detachment home.  Scientists may demand amounts of evidence that would exhaust ordinary mortals — other, of course, than lawyers.  Social workers stereotypically give so much to others that they may find it difficult to be emotionally available for their own families.  Fortunately, all of these suggestions describe nothing more than inclinations that may or may not hold true for any individual and, if true, may be overcome with an intentional decision to behave otherwise.

What about dual career families, though?  Each partner will bring the tendencies of his or her career to the table, along with the career’s demands.  I remember that in law school one professor advised married students to seek out the best jobs they could find without regard to location.  That advice may or may not work for all couples, but it’s certainly a popular approach.  The result is to have a commuter family, where partners may live apart for a time or permanently.

I’ll explore this topic more over the coming weeks, but it was put into sharp focus by an article in the October 1 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, available for only a few days for free here.  (The online version requires free registration and does not include photos; when the link expires, it will remain available in the archives for a small fee.)  The article describes a marriage between an Emory University professor, living in Atlanta, and a Samburu herdsman living in Kenya.   Imagine the cultural and business conflicts generated by such differences, and exemplified in this story:

Sidney Kasfir’s cellphone went off, signaling an urgent text message from her husband: “We are being attacked by cattle rustlers.  We are abandoning Tinga.”

Kashir was terrified.

“I was very worried that somebody in my family would get killed,” said Kashir, who was at a conference in Senegal when her husband, Kirati Lenaronkoito, messaged her from his home in Kenya on his cellphone.

Now, your dual career family doesn’t seem so challenging anymore, does it?

Bob Sutton’s No Asshole Rule

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I’ve been preparing a post about the challenging people we encounter in a legal practice: the nasty opposing counsel, the client who always reminds you of the cliche that with “friends” like this, who needs enemies; and even the rare colleague at work who’s a terrific attorney/paralegal/secretary/whatever but radiates fury or blame or negativity.  We all have bad days, but my thoughts were centered on how to cope when we encounter and have to deal with someone who is truly a jerk.  As I sometimes do, I typed in a few keywords to see what other people say about this kind of situation, and a fascinating blog popped up, all built around Bob Sutton’s “No Asshole” rule.  The post I originally contemplated will be forthcoming on another day, because this rule deserves its own post.

Now, I will apologize upfront for using that phrase — it’s the author’s phrase, and the distaste that the phrase brings with it actually mirrors the distaste that we all feel when we work with one of those people.  But the author uses it, on the grounds that when he sees “a mean-spirited person damaging others, no other term seems quite right.”  Truth told, of course, most lawyers hear and probably use coarser words on a daily basis.

Anyway.

The blog I found is Bob Sutton’s Work Matters.  (Love the photo.)  And in the top right hand corner, you’ll see an Amazon link to Sutton’s forthcoming (February 2007) book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.  The blog also links to a tamer-titled Sutton column on Nasty People, as well as a video of Sutton discussing the genesis of the rule, which he first wrote about in the Harvard Business Review.  (I confess that I normally hate website audio and video because it’s so much quicker to read than to watch/listen, but this 4:42 video is very well worth watching.)  Sutton, a Stanford professor, says we can identify workplace assholes through their addiction to rude interruptions and subtle put-downs, and their use of sarcasm and “teasing” as “insult delivery systems.”

In describing a talk on the No Asshole Rule that he recently gave, Sutton identified three interesting thoughts that emerged from what sounds like a fascinating conversation between himself and his audience:

1.  There’s a big difference between intentional assholes and unintentional assholes:

The consensus seemed to be that more forgiveness, patience, and understanding is in order when people travel through life in a clueless state, and need help learning how they make other’s feel.  The consensus also was, in contrast, that certified assholes who demean others on purpose, and who do it because they believe it enables them get ahead at other’s expense, or to simply feel superior to others, deserve little if any sympathy — and that such bullies ought to be punished and banished. This sounds right to me.

2.  Workplace asshole identification is a tricky, inherently flawed concept:

Drawing the firm dividing line between an “asshole” and a “non-asshole” isn’t easy, but I know one when I see one. And although I do offer a definition of workplace assholes, I also realize that the world is messy and that it will overlap with lots of other concepts.

3.  Assholes tend to inflict their demeaning behavior on those who have less power than themselves.  However, peer-on-peer abuse (prevalent in organizations where many share a medium amount of power, such as a partnership) and “asshole underlings” are not unknown.

The relevance of the No Asshole Rule may be lost on some, but just about every practicing lawyer I’ve ever encountered has a story that illustrates the difficulty of working for or with an asshole.  Don’t believe me?  Ask around.

The lesson from the No Asshole Rule is twofold.  First, of course, don’t be an asshole.  We all have an inner jerk who escapes on occasion, but if it starts getting out too much, or if someone lets you know your anger is out of hand, control yourself.  And if you find yourself working for or with an asshole, know that you aren’t alone, call the situation what it is, and do your part in whatever way possible to bring this rule to your organization’s attention.  Unfortunately, abusive lawyers may be permitted to stay on in law firms when they bring in sufficient income, so enforcement is sometimes unlikely.  The tide may be turning, however, as illustrated by Sutton’s story about Perkins Coie, recited in the Nasty People column:

The Seattle law firm Perkins Coie is more specific. They have a “no jerks allowed” rule, which helped earn them a spot on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2003, and again in 2004. According to a Seattle Times article, Perkins Coie partners Bob Giles and Mike Reynvaan were once tempted to hire a rainmaker from another firm but realized that doing so would violate “the rule.” As they put it, “We looked at each other and said, ‘What a jerk.’ Only we didn’t use that word.”

I’ll be curious to read Sutton’s book when it’s published.  This is one rule I’d love to see gain predominance in the legal profession — and in society in general.

Attorney depression

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One of the interesting things about blogging on WordPress (and, I presume, other platforms) is that my nifty stats area shows what search terms lead readers to my blog.  Sometimes it’s clear how someone followed the trail to get here, and sometimes I couldn’t be more puzzled.

I had not expected to have one of two search phrases show up on a daily basis: “attorney depression” or lawyer depression.  But these search phrases have been listed daily for well over a month now.  Unless there’s one exceedingly persistent, unhappy lawyer out there — and even if that is the case — this is a troubling discovery for me.

(As I’ve said in my previous post on depression in lawyers, I am not a mental health professional and I am not qualified to provide therapy.  If you need help, please contact your state’s lawyer assistance program.)

Out of curiosity, I ran these searches today and found mostly articles and blogs that I’ve previously cited or reviewed.  But I found a new-to-me 1999 Notre Dame Magazine article by now-U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz (no longer available), in which he examines the evidence that lawyers are unhappy and unhealthy.  He concludes, “There‘s no mystery about why lawyers are so unhappy: They work too much.”  (Some readers may remember a previous post that discussed another Judge Schiltz article that postulated that lawyers in private practice are all too easily tempted by a firm’s money-driven culture to engage in unethical practices. Apparently, Judge Schiltz has authored a number of articles in this theme, judging from the number of responses published in 1999 to a previous article.)

Does the cause of lawyers’ depression really come back so neatly to working too much?  I doubt it.  (However, the connection between lifestyle and depression does add another facet to work/life balance discussions.)  Perhaps that’s one part of the equation, but another part is likely that law school and the practice attracts some people who are prone to depression, and another part is that some lawyers who consider leaving the practice anticipate and dread an economic hit, deeming it unacceptable. Ray Ward’s Minor Wisdom blog includes an interesting array of posts on lawyer/law student depression, some of which may cast additional light on the causes.

Particularly because I now know that people have visited this blog because they’re interested in depression among lawyers, I’d really like to present an answer to what explains the unusually high rate of depression in attorneys.  But I can’t.  What I have learned, and what I’d like to pass on, is that depression is not uncommon in lawyers and it is treatable.  Recognize the symptoms and be prepared to seek help for yourself or for a colleague.  Please.

Remembering the bar exam and considering your own life at the bar.

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For most of the people in the United States, today is just Monday, July 24.  But for thousands of would-be practitioners, today is something far more sinister: the day before the bar exam.

Assuming you’re a member of the group sitting on the other side of the bar, the Promised Land of Practice, the bar is just a distant bad memory.  (Not distant enough for some of us; though I took my first bar exam over 13 years ago, my most recent — dare I say last? — was just one year ago.  Not distant enough.)

And what of the Promised Land of Practice?  How’s that treating you?  This is a good time of year to get back in touch with what brought you to a legal practice.  Remember being that kid, with a head crammed full of black letter law, not to mention plenty of bar review lore?  Why did you put yourself through two (or, in some states, three) days of agony?  Did you want to be a big-time litigator?  Did you want to help victims of domestic violence?  Did you plan to set the world on fire with your legal scholarship, after serving a few years in a law firm?

And where are you now?  Are those dreams still alive?  Granted that you’ve learned a huge amount since you took the bar and perhaps changed your goals; are you expressing the values that made you willing to endure that grueling experience?

If not, you aren’t alone.  What one change can you make today that will bring you additional satisfaction?  Some ideas: improving your client development skills so you can move closer to your dream of making partner; committing to attending NITA training so your next trial may run more smoothly; working on time management; perhaps making a job or career change to build a work life that works for you.  Sometimes it takes only small changes to reap big results, something as simple as deciding to go to the gym before work so you build more stamina.  Sometimes it’s making a short-term sacrifice, like deciding to volunteer for the big case that no one else wants to work on so you can get two years of experience crammed into nine harried months.

While you’re at it…. Can you still quote the Rule in Shelley’s case?

Congratulations to the women of Kuwait!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re as green as Kermit the frog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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