Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

When I speak to lawyers about the changes they would like to make in their careers, there are a number of repeating themes. One theme I often hear from litigators is that they are tired of the conflict and petty discovery disputes. They are frustrated in having to deal with opposing counsel who seem more interested in winning than in justice.

One path for these lawyers is alternative dispute resolution.

So where is mediation today and what are the career opportunities for lawyers who want to shift their careers in that direction? In this episode, Amy Mariani answers that question. Amy Mariani is someone I would trust unequivocally if I were involved in a conflict. She is practical, knows how to take the temperature down in a conflicted situation and is someone who knows how to quickly build trust and rapport.

For twenty years, Amy tried cases in the areas of employment, personal injury, and breach of contract. She began, mediating part time in 2014 and since 2016, she has done it full time.

We have spoken a lot on Counsel to Counsel about the importance of building business relationships. But we have not spent much time discussing how to turn those relationships into actual paying work.

In this episode, I am joined by Gary Johnson who understands a lot about selling legal services. We discuss a series of common hypothetical situations where there may be opportunities to generate business. Gary walks us through the process for identifying needs and doing so in a way that does not exert pressure on a client, prospective client, or referral source.

Gary Johnson is President of J2 Marketing Consultants. He helps attorneys get more profitable clients. Gary's experience building strategies and applying proven techniques offers an effective way to help attorneys grow their practice by bringing in ideal clients. He provides the tools needed to focus his clients on building value when approaching prospective clients. Gary makes the process easy, and I can vouch for that.

In thinking about guests to invite to this podcast, I'm always on the lookout for attorneys who have taken alternative career paths. I also try to find both practicing attorneys and former practicing attorneys who have great advice to share with my audience. Today's guest is in the latter category.

Amy M. Gardner is a certified career and career transitions coach and team development and leadership consultant with Apochromatik. She works with employers to reengage teams and help them thrive. She also works with lawyers one-on-one and in small group masterminds to advance in their roles or transition to a new one.

Amy is a former Big Law associate, partner at a mid-size Chicago firm, and dean of students at the University of Chicago Law School. Her career and goal achievement advice has been featured in media including numerous podcasts, ABA publications, Glassdoor, Monster, and NBC to name a few.

In this interview, Amy shares some great practical advice for associates who are trying to build their careers in private practice.

In the past year, I've been talking a lot on this show about The Next Stage, my program to help senior lawyers figure out what comes next. My guests have discussed ways that lawyers can find meaning later in their careers. One topic that we've addressed is succession planning, or ways that lawyers can ensure that what they have built will live on as they scale back or exit the practice of law.

In larger firms, succession planning may mean handing the reins of leadership over time to the next generation and starting a process of transitioning the clients. For smaller firms, there may not be a deep bench ready to take over. In those instances, lawyers may simply opt to practice until they are no longer able to because of incapacity or death. Some lawyers will simply close their doors.

But some small firms may choose another option, and that is a sale.

In this episode, Tom Lenfestey discusses selling a law practice. Tom is a lawyer and CPA in North Carolina who runs the Law Practice Exchange where he helps senior lawyers get value from the enterprise that they have spent a lifetime building. Tom speaks and writes regularly on the subject and is author of Designing a Succession Plan for Your Law Practice.

Additional Resources

• Succession Planning For Your Career: What Comes Next
• Episode 67-Retirement By Design (for Lawyers)

There are a lot of unhappy lawyers in our profession. But when I started this podcast three years ago, it was my firm belief that there are many happy attorneys as well and we can all learn from them.

In this episode, I speak with Arivee Vargas, an attorney who really works at trying to find more fulfillment in her career. She is also someone who inspires others through her own coaching work.

I met Arivee for the first time when I sat in on a career panel that was sponsored by Region I of the Hispanic National Bar Association. Arivee and her fellow panelists were all lawyers who had graduated law school around the time of the 2008 financial crisis and they had some very practical advice for law student looking for work in a pandemic. I was blown away by her take charge attitude and her ability to demonstrate resilience in the face of adversity.

This past Spring she launched The Humble Rising Podcast and I began listening. Again I was blown away at what a what an inspiration Arivee can be.

Arivee is a first-generation lawyer who has worked in two large law firms, clerked for the First Circuit and US District Court in Massachusetts, works for a major biotech company, and has a side hustle now as a Certified Life and High-Performance Coach to professionals who are first generation and women of color. She also manages to be mother to three young children. This is her story.

There are many efforts underway around the country to help lawyers address stress in the practice of law. Several years ago, the Report of the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being was issued by the American Bar Association, Conference of Chief Judges, and other legal organizations. It called well-being an essential element of a lawyer's duty of competence.

In Massachusetts, there is an organization called Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers which helps attorneys deal with substance abuse and some of the underlying causes of attorney anxiety and depression and there are similar organizations in many states. In January of 2020, The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts created a Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. The Standing Committee is charged with planning and overseeing efforts to enhance the well-being of lawyers, judges and law students in the Commonwealth and is doing a great job of educating these different constituencies.

As summer is coming to a close and the pandemic rages on, I thought this was a good time to revisit the subject of attorney well-being. And if you happen to be Jewish like me, this is generally a great time for self-reflection and thinking about the changes you want to make in your life. So with the start of the New Year, Jewish or not, I was pleased to welcome Shailini George, a professor at Suffolk University School of Law.

Shailini is someone who has thought a lot about the subject of attorney well-being and just published a book called The Law Student's Guide to Doing Well and Being Well. She was also co-author of Mindful Lawyering: The Key to Creative Problem Solving. Shailini teaches legal writing at Suffolk and focuses her scholarship on lawyer well-being, mindfulness, and the cognitive science of learning. In this episode, we talk stress in the practice of law and about what Shailini calls distraction addiction. She offers strategies for addressing stress and distraction in order to become a more productive, effective and happier lawyer.

Other Resources

• Episode 33-Mindfulness, Biofeedback, and the Practice of Law
• Episode 37-Managing Anxiety in a Time of Crisis
• Ten Percent Happier (Dan Harris, an ABC News personality, brings mindfulness to skeptics with his book, app and podcast; tons of content and a great place to start for a modest annual fee--look for discounts)

There are many paths to success in a law firm. I've emphasized on this podcast that growing your practice is a good place to start. Having your own clients gives you a sense of ownership that is hard to achieve when you are just servicing firm clients. If you have your own book of business, there is more opportunity to focus on the work you enjoy and the clients you like.

For some, getting involved in the management of a firm is another way to find more fulfillment. But it is not for everyone.

I once heard someone say that managing a law firm is like being the only fire hydrant in a town filled with dogs. David Maister and Patrick McKenna put it another way in their book First Among Equals. When you are running a professional services firm, you must lead through influence rather than authority.

In this episode, I have a great conversation with David Rosenblatt who has been one of the longest serving Managing Partners in the Boston legal market. He has served as Managing Partner at Burns & Levinson since 1998.

During that time, David has seen a lot of changes in the practice of law and a lot of changes at his own firm.

A few months ago, the firm announced that David would be stepping down from the role in 2023 and I thought it would be a great opportunity to speak to David and get him to reflect on his experience.

In this episode, we talk about David's career, the changes he has seen, what has been most fulfilling for him, what advice he has for lawyers thinking about law firm management, and a host of other topics.

There are many ways to build a law practice. Legal marketing is not a one size fits all. Lawyers have different personalities and interests. Different practice areas lend themselves to different marketing techniques. Beyond this, there can be some gender differences in the way men and women approach marketing.

In this episode, I speak with Lana Manganiello who has put a lot of thought into this subject. Lana is a business development coach with Equinox Strategy Partners. We met through our business networking group ProVisors and I've been learning a lot from her. Lana works with attorneys and firms to create bespoke and measurable business development strategies and actionable plans. She truly believes business development is the key to career fulfillment in the legal profession.

Recently, Lana and I were on a call with several other ProVisors members who coach attorneys. As the only woman on the call, she brought a perspective that I thought would be great to bring to Counsel to Counsel. Lana and I talk about how she helps attorneys achieve success with her three-part plan. We then dive into the question of legal marketing and gender.

Additional Resources

Check out other episodes of the C2C podcast and read articles and blog posts. Visit the Resources section on my website

Aging baby boomers now fill the senior ranks of many law firms across the United States. Because of this, hundreds of partnerships will be facing succession planning issues in the next decade. How can firms make successful transitions and ensure the long-term viability of their practices? How will senior partners transition their clients to younger partners, so the clients are well served in the future? How will the next generation assume responsibility for managing the firm of tomorrow?

Underpinning all this is a reality: Lawyers are living longer, lawyers have very strong professional identities, and many senior lawyers are not doing a good job of planning their own transitions. A lot of lawyers have worked hard for so long that it is difficult to imagine what might fill the void if they were to leave or cut back.

What will these attorneys do when they are no longer chairing a department or actively serving clients they have worked with for decades? What are some of the creative strategies that lawyers have used to figure out what comes next?

My guest Ida Abbott has thought a lot about the subject and has put together a great resource for helping senior lawyers to address these challenging existential issues. On today's show, we will be talk about her book Retirement by Design and we discuss some of the practical considerations for lawyers who are further along in their careers.

Ida is a leader in the field of talent management and an internationally recognized expert in the areas of mentoring, sponsorship and the advancement of women into leadership. As a lawyer and consultant to the legal profession, she has focused on the power of mentoring relationships to guide, support and transform professional careers from the beginning of practice through retirement.

Other Resources

• Succession Planning for Your Career: What Comes Next?
• Episode 62- Financial & Career Planning for Senior Attorneys
• Episode 61-Succession Planning With Senior Attorney Match
• Episode 58-Managing Your Exit (Career Succession Planning-- with Bill Lahey, Esq.)
• Episode 40-Succession Planning for Law Firms Meets Chapter 3 for Lawyers

For many lawyers, going in-house continues to be an attractive career option. But the lawyers I speak to have a lot of questions about making a transition to in-house. They ask me about the timing, how to find good in-house jobs, how practicing in a corporate law department differs from private practice and how in-house jobs differ from each other.

In this episode, I speak with David Sclar who has a lot to say on the subject.

David is author of Workplace Strategies for Technology Lawyers, and he is joins me from Washington DC where he works as Healthcare Compliance and Privacy Officer for WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers.)

David began his career doing a clerkship with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. He worked at two AmLaw 100 firms and prior to joining WW, he spent 6 years at a healthcare company until the company was acquired. David has a lot of wisdom to share on going in-house

Additional Podcasts and Resources

• What I've Learned as In-House Counsel
• Frequently Asked Questions About Going In-House
• Episode 49-Adapting to Change, Pivoting to In-house and DEI in the Legal Profession
• Episode 39-An In-house Career in the Life Sciences