Archive for category: Quick hits

Lessons Learned on Balance: I’ve read Ellen Rappaport Tanowitz’s article Balancing Act: Lessons Learned (published in the September issue of the ABA’s GP/Solo New Lawyer newsletter) several times now, and it’s touched me each time.  After recounting the story of death at an unconscionably young age, Tanowitz writes:

Luke’s dad has taught me some very valuable lessons, that I plan to carry with me and that I share with you. First, if something is really important to you, find a way to do it. Don’t wait for the perfect time or until you have enough money—don’t be frivolous or reckless or use it as an excuse to hit the spending limit on your credit cards—but do it, because really, the perfect time rarely arrives. Second, I am sure I am not the only one who can tell such a story. I know that most of us know families like Luke’s or maybe we are Luke’s family. So when the minutiae of life has got you down—take a deep breath and try to look at the bigger picture and try to realize that things really aren’t that bad.

Think twice before you check luggage.  Just a few days ago, I received payment and flight coupons from Delta to “compensate” me for the loss of my luggage in early October.  I still can’t quite fathom how the loss occurred, since it seems that the luggage claim tag was removed from my bag and applied to another bag instead, and I’m at a complete loss as to any way to protect against future losses.  The Law Practice Management blog offers a cautionary post with good reminders: Traveling with Luggage Is Getting Harder.  According to the post, 1 in 138 checked bags was lost during the first nine months of 2007.  (I’m unclear on the whether these bags were delayed or truly lost.)  I’ve always been careful not to check client materials when I travel, and this is why:

And most importantly, be sure that any client-sensitive data and other essential work-related information is kept with you at all times, or shipped by a private carrier ahead of time. With the odds increasingly getting worse, you don’t ever want to risk having to inform the client that their confidentiality may have been compromised by airport baggage mishandling.

Do they give thanks?  The Thanksgiving issue of the New York Times included an article on perks that some large firms offer their associates.  The lucky associates enjoy such delights as on-site massage, food delivery (including dinner on a silver tray), on-site daycare, in-home emergency nanny services, a nap room, and much more.  Perkins Coie, which is roundly regarded as a terrific place to work, even features a “happiness committee” that delivers “random acts of kindness” to the hardworking lawyers and staff.  Reading the article, I found myself wondering what clients think of some of the more indulgent treats:

But Mr. Johnson of Law Practice Consultants said that some corporate clients paying $350 an hour and more to some associates, and double that or more to partners, were irritated. The corporate clients “don’t want to be responsible for associate training,” he said. “I hear them say all the time, ‘they treat their associates better than I get treated at my company.’”

Although some of these perks do facilitate work (raising questions about balance), thinking about perks plus quite high hourly rates leads me to think, again, that this is a great time for local/regional small/mid-sized firms to approach clients of large firms and poach some business.

And yet, I must admit that I also wonder: what’s the opposite of schadenfreude?

Work/life imbalance stereotypes: Tom Stern, a Fast Company expert blogger on work/life balance issues, has posted a list of the Top Ten Work/Life Balance Turn-Offs.  This list of stereotypical characters (who may show up just in time to destroy your work/life balance) is both amusing and a good warning for those evaluating potential co-workers and supervisors.  One example is The Rationalizer, about whom Stern observes, “We do not want to hear about the logic which led you to neglect your loved ones in order to come up with such a brilliant idea that’s really going to turn the company around. Sure, we’ll have a stronger third quarter, but we’ll spend it picturing your family staging an intervention.”

Energy management: Anyone who’s heard me speak on time management knows that I hold that energy management is the foundation of time management, since none of us can use time effectively without abundant energy.  Cali Williams Yost, another Fast Company expert blogger, is lauding the recent focus energy management:

Just as the personal and professional demands on your time are going to change throughout your life, so are the demands on your energy. The good news is, however, unlike time which is a finite resource, energy is renewable. But you need to be aware of when energy is being depleted to order to implement strategies to maintain and increase it. If it’s not part of your awareness, you will be continually frustrated when your detailed work+life fit time analysis keeps coming up short.

How to make a losing argument.  James McElhaney’s fictional character Angus shares brilliant litigation insights every month in the ABA Journal magazine.  This month’s column, How to Make a Losing Argument, will be beneficial for non-litigators as well, since all lawyers seek to persuade.  Two ways to lose stood out to me from the seven that McElhaney identifies: “base your argument on obscure technicalities” and “push a good point too far.”

And a follow-up on last week’s post about the flawed room service breakfast I received and how important it is to inquire whether a client is happy with the service rendered — especially for those who thought it a petty point.  My breakfast was incorrect the next day as well.  (I’m usually not such a room service fiend, but when a conference starts at 7 AM…..)  And then I started to notice other shortcomings.  The ballroom was freezing cold; when my assistant called the hotel to get the correct mailing address, the operator said that neither Brown nor Fleming-Brown nor Fleming was registered and declined to confirm that my conference was indeed at that hotel; housekeeping didn’t replenish the toiletries that I’d used.  And then my breakfast was wrong on the third (and final) day that I ordered room service, at which point I called to complain and requested the charge to be removed from my bill.  When I checked out, the clerk didn’t ask how my stay was, which confirmed to me that the hotel really didn’t care, and she didn’t thank me for my business.  Will I stay there again?  Not likely.  Will I consider that experience when I consider the hotel chain in the future?  You bet.  Thus ends this client service parable.

Requesting an extension because of school vacation  Somehow, I missed this WSJ Law Blog post in early October, which reported that Weil Gotshal requested a delay in hearing dates in a bankruptcy case (set for December 18, 19, 20, and 27) on the grounds that “These dates are smack in the middle of our children’s winter breaks, which are sometimes the only times to be with our children.”  The response filed by Kirkland & Ellis called the reason “woefully inadequate” and noted that “The personal needs of a handful of professionals, unfortunately, must be balanced against the thousands of employees, creditors and other parties in interest . . . whose livelihoods and/or recoveries are dependent on (Calpine’s) successful emergence from Chapter 11.”  (The WSJ Law Blog post includes links to the actual pleadings.)  The WSJ blog The Juggle offered this commentary, which quotes Sylvia Ann Hewlett of the Center for Work-Life Policy as finding the request a “promising step” toward promoting work/life balance.

Confessions of a CEO  Fortune Magazine has published a fascinating article about Dominic Orr, a high-tech CEO whose workaholic habits nearly ruined his life. Events such as his decision to travel to a sales conference the day after his mother’s death, causing her funeral to be delayed by three days were the norm until he discovered that his goal was “to die a complete man.” Working with a therapist, now an executive coach, revealed that Orr’s life was missing hikari, which is the Japanese term for light and which Orr views as “speed to enlightenment,” and he resolved never to work again unless he could combine work with hikari.  He was able to do so, and the story of how he did is truly remarkable.

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

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