Law Consulting Blog : Cordell Parvin's Law Consulting Blog : Coach & Consultant For Lawyers & Law Firms : Business Development, Career Planning

I recently received a copy of an email from a lawyer I am coaching to the others in her coaching group. She said:

I am not sure how many of you are reading Cordell's book, but I just read a great tip in there that I thought that I would share with you.  It is not one that I had heard before.

Determine who 5 leading lawyers are in your field.  Print out their biographies.  Study their biographies to determine what has made them successful (e.g. speaking engagements, leadership roles, pro bono, memberships).  Emulate their success.

A few years ago I read a quote attributed to Bobby Knight and also to Paul (Bear) Bryant. It was "Many have the will to win, but few have the will to prepare to win."  I believe  successful lawyers are not successful by accident. Most I know prepare to win by figuring out what is important to them, setting career and life priorities, developing a plan with goals and taking action to achieve them. I also know now that attracting new clients and building a lasting relationship with them is not an accident. The successful lawyers I know prepare to win with clients and potential clients by taking time to understand their needs and making sure they effectively address those needs.  In your career, "the will to prepare to win" will be way more important than the "will to win." So, I chose "Prepare to Win: A Lawyer's Guide to Rainmaking, Career Success and Life Fulfillment" as the title for my new book, which has recently been released.

This book is not about winning in court or on appeal. Instead, it is a workbook designed to help you define your own success and then achieve it. I hope you will find it a helpful tool as you focus on your career, client development, and living the kind of life that is important to you. I hope you find some valuable nuggets in the book that will help you think through what your career and life priorities are and how you can achieve them.

Here are the Chapter titles:

Chapter One:  How Do Rainmakers Do It?
 
Chapter Two:  Living and Practicing Law with a Purpose: You Have to Answer the "Why" Question

Chapter Three:  Your Vision of Success: How Do Rainmakers Do It?

Chapter Four:  Core Values: How Do You Want to Live?

Chapter Five:  The Importance of Role Models and Mentors

Chapter Six:  Setting Yearly Goals and Developing Your Career Plan

Chapter Seven:  A Call to Action: Executing Your Plan

Chapter Eight:  Mind Games: Getting and Staying "In the Zone"

Chapter Nine:  Building Your Profile: The Power of Writing and Speaking

Chapter Ten:  Community Service and Networking

Chapter Eleven:  Connecting with Contacts

Chapter Twelve:  Top Ten Client Development Mistakes

Chapter Thirteen:  Improving Client Service

Chapter Fourteen:  From Niches to Riches

Chapter Fifteen:  Important Extras: The Value of Extraordinary Client Service

Chapter Sixteen:  The Business Case for Better Balance

Chapter Seventeen:  Building the Next Generation of Rainmakers

If you want to read a sample from the book, click here. You can also order the book from the webpage.

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Would it surprise you to know that I thought of quitting a few times in my career? The first time was when I was a first year law student. During the first semester I worked very hard and had no idea how I was doing. I thought to myself: "Who needs this?" I'll just quit law school and fulfill my active duty commitment to the Air Force. Well, I didn't quit and at the end of the first semester I was third in my class. In 1980 I tried a case in West Virginia. One issue in the case was the reasonable cost of completing a construction project. I argued $130,000. The contractor's lawyer argued $30,000. We had jury interrogatories with the specific question: "What was the reasonable cost to complete the project?" The jury answered: "0." I was devastated. I asked the judge to send the jury back. After all, the amount had to be somewhere between $30,000 and $130,000. He refused. On my way back home, I thought to myself that maybe I was not cut out for this stuff. But, what else could I do. So, I stuck with it again.

This week I listened to a Podcast interview of Seth Godin. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/podcast.php The focus of the interview was Godin's 78 page book: The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches When to Quit (and When to Stick) . I bought the book for $7.77 and I would urge you to buy it also. I like it because it focuses on the importance of being number one-"the go to person" in your field. Godin says that to be a superstar it helps if your niche has a steep dip-the barrier between those who try and those who succeed. Microsoft has created a dip so deep and wide that its competitors quit before catching up. Apple has done the same with iTunes and the iPod. I believe I did it with my writing and speaking on transportation construction. No other lawyer had near the content or number of speaking engagements I had.

Godin notes that every project starts out to be exciting. Later there is a dip. Less successful people quit or decide it is OK to be average. Many successful people quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt based on the priorities in their life. They commit to beating the right dips for the right reasons. They actually seek out dips and realize the bigger the dip, the greater the reward for getting through it.

One of the questions Seth Godin is frequently asked is how do you know when it is time to quit. He suggests that it is time to quit when you realize you are have been settling for mediocrity or when you see no measurable improvement and no way to change how you measure it. Seth Godin says the worst time to quit is when the pain is the greatest. For more about the book, go to http://www.squidoo.com/thedipbook.

A couple of months ago, I participated in a program for a very successful New York based firm. The title of the program was "Path to Partnership." The program was for the firm's senior associates. The managing partner introduced me and talked for about five minutes about his vision of the professional and personal attributes of lawyers the firm wants to have as partners. I followed with a one hour presentation. I told the associates there is no formula, but there is an approach that begins with figuring out what is important in their lives. After my presentation, five junior partners told the group about their path to partnership. One junior partner had been a lateral as a senior associate. Another had left the firm to try cases in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. Two of the partners had been with the firm from the beginning. One told the associates that he had come to the firm for the summer while in law school "just for the experience." He never intended to come back as a first year associate. When he did, he planned to leave after a couple of years. Turns out he never left.

While each of the junior partners got to partnership in a different way, they shared one thing in common. During their years as associates, they experienced many dips. They each wondered if the effort they were making was really worth it. One young partner got through the dips because he needed the income to pay for the place he was living in the city. All five of the young partners said that a breakthrough occurred for them when they first sensed what they were doing was making a difference for a client. I came away with the appreciation that each of us encounters dips in our careers. In order to get through them we need a powerful reason-the reason that is the right one for us.

If you are interested in my PowerPoint or the handouts from this program, just let me know and I will send them to you.

Click here to get "the dip"

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Imagine if Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Oprah Winfrey had become lawyers. We'd be handwriting our opening statements by candlelight and packing our briefcases in saddlebags, and, perhaps, we wouldn't know what books merited our reading time. Each of these colorful geniuses would have become grayer, duller and indistinguishable from one another. 

This is, essentially, what happens in law school. We collect some of the greatest minds in the country, strip them of their unique brand of intellect and tell them only one thing matters: thinking like a lawyer. Or maybe two things: thinking like a lawyer and finishing in the top 10% of their class. And then we wonder why law students and young lawyers as a group are depressed, disillusioned and dissatisfied. 

Studies repeatedly show that first year law students arrive with excitement, well-being and passion for a law career. According to Lawrence S. Krieger, who along with Kennon M. Sheldon, conducted the most recent study: "the overall law school experience is likely to have an undermining effect on professionalism and career/life satisfaction." Law graduates are significantly different people from those who arrived to begin law school. "They are more depressed, less service oriented, and more inclined toward undesirable, superficial goals and values." 

For over one hundred years, law schools have taught students "the science of law" using the "Socratic method." Law schools have bragged about teaching students to "think like a lawyer." I fly almost every week and I sometimes imagine how I would feel if the best that could be said about my pilot's training is that he or she was taught to "think like a pilot." I want my pilot to learn how to fly the plane, not just think like a pilot. The "art of being a good lawyer" is all about relationships. According to law professor Daisy Hurst Floyd, "legal education devalues relationships." I believe most clients would prefer that law students learn how to actually be a lawyer rather than just to think like one. They probably would be even more pleased if law students were taught to also "think like a client." 

So, many law graduates arrive at their law firms already disillusioned about their decision to become a lawyer and stressed out over their future. At many large law firms, they quickly conclude that only one thing matters: Their billable hours. They become further disillusioned when they are assigned to a team sent to a warehouse for "document review." The good news is they get to record lots of billable hours, spending 14 hours a day in a warehouse. The bad news is they get further away from the dream they once had when they decided they wanted to be a lawyer. As one anonymous young lawyer wrote in a D Magazine article: "Associates want a sense of Purpose from the practice of law. But, you can't find Purpose in the library or the warehouse doing document review." 

And then we wonder why lawyers as a group are depressed, disillusioned and dissatisfied. And why the clients we represent neither like nor respect us very much. 

Law school teaches that intrinsic values, purpose and passion doesn't matter, and many large law firms teach that having intrinsic values, purpose and passion doesn't pay. And both teach that goals are nothing more than extrinsic numbers: test scores, billable hours, associate salaries and profits per partner. When recruiters search for new talent, they rate candidates by their pedigree: school and class rank without considering emotional intelligence, core values, individual talent or interest. 

There has to be - and, fortunately, there is a better way. We can encourage law students to follow their passions and to realize them by focusing on purpose, vision, core values, goals, plans and execution. We can teach them what it is like to be a lawyer and how to serve clients. We can teach elements of emotional intelligence. In this way we will be focusing on the whole person and better prepare law students for their future careers. 

 

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