Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

On Counsel to Counsel, I speak with attorneys and  consultants who share their advice about advancing your legal career.  We  discuss practical issues to help you build the career that you want. In recent episodes we have talked about how to build relationships in a virtual environment, how to leverage the LinkedIn platform, how to go in house, how to manage your time more effectively, and how to create a side hustle while practicing law.

In this episode, we take a step back to look at much bigger existential issues (how we find meaning in our lives more broadly.)

My guest, Rochelle seltzer, discusses what she calls living big.

Rochelle is a Creative Core Coach and author of the acclaimed book, Live Big: A Manifesto for a Creative Life. Her mission is to unleash the untapped creative capacity inside women everywhere, so they bring all of their greatness into the world.

She teaches and supports accomplished women to move past what keeps them blocked, stuck and small, to create and live their biggest, best lives.

Rochelle began her career as a designer. Thirty years later she sold her firm and embarked on a new chapter, studying creativity. She wanted to unlock her own creativity — and learn to help others unblock theirs. It has been my pleasure to get to know Rochelle through my business networking group ProVisors in the last year.

Being a great communicator is essential to your success as a lawyer. Whether you are counseling a client, managing paralegals or associates, giving a presentation, or just trying to cultivate relationships that might lead to business, effective communication is everything to your success.

If you are like me, in law school, you learned to think like a lawyer.  You cultivated your legal research and writing skills and learned to interpret the law.  When you entered the real world, you soon learned that you need a whole different set of skills to succeed.  And a lot of that has to do with how you communicate whether it is with clients, referral sources, colleagues, and other lawyers.

In this episode, I speak with Donna Mac who has a lot to say on the subject of effective communication. Donna is founder and President of iVoice Communication and trains current and emerging leaders to create new, healthier communication practices so they can become influential, resilient and speak with confidence.  She teaches mindfulness techniques that her clients can use to be more present and more successful in delivering a message.

I met Donna through my business networking group ProVisors and since that time I've had the chance to speak with her about my own challenges in communicating with difficult people (including family members and clients).  I’ve also heard her give great presentations on communication at the New York Public Library speaker series.

LinkedIn is a critical marketing tool for lawyers. This has been underscored this year as the world of in-person networking has remained largely shut down.  But as the world opens up and we find ourselves at conferences, networking functions, meeting for lunch or coffee, LinkedIn will continue to be an important tool in the marketing tool bag.

In this episode episode, we do a quick dive into LinkedIn and talk about how to make the most of LinkedIn. My guest Kristyn Brophy has a lot to say about using the platform more effectively. 

Kristyn has worked in-house at a number of major law firms in the Boston area .  More recently she joined Legal Internet Solutions Incorporated as Director of Client Strategy.  She is a fountain of knowledge about legal marketing, social media, and the newest platform in the social media ecosystem, Clubhouse.

Additional Resources

• With LinkedIn, Measure Quality of Engagement not Quantity
• Getting Personal on LinkedIn Once in a While
• Episode 11-The Social Media Maven
• Networked: How 20 Women Lawyers Overcame the Confines of COVID-19 Social Distancing to Create Connections, Cultivate Community, & Build Businesses in the Midst of a Global Pandemic

This past year has been one of great reflection for many attorneys. The lawyers I speak to are thinking more about what they want from their careers and how they can find meaning in their professionals and personal lives.

One group I'm particularly enjoying working with are senior lawyers who have 30 or more years of experience in practice.  The pandemic has caused this group of attorneys to think more about existential questions (What do I really want to do the next 10-15 years?  Am I ready to make a big shift? Should I cut down on my practice or leave the practice altogether and if so, how do I fill my time in meaningful ways?)

Making a career transition raises a host of issues for lawyers at any stage of their career.  But financial issues are particularly salient for senior lawyers.  Do I have enough to retire?  When can I stop working full time?  How do I protect myself and my family as I go through this transition?

In this episode, my guest Chris Cahill talks about these issues and provides a framework for thinking about the financial part of making a career transition.   Chris is a financial planner who is also an attorney. A lot of his clients are now attorneys and I had Chris as a guest speaker in the Fall.  Chris is much more than a money manager.  He brings a host of skills to wealth management and most importantly, he understands the attorney psyche.  Chris and I talk about the financial planning issues that face senior attorneys, how Chris got involved in this work, and what are the issues that are particularly challenging for attorneys in managing money.

As we’ve discussed several times on this show, there are 100s of law firms  throughout the country that are facing succession planning issues.  Baby boomers are aging quickly and firms that want to be in business in 10 years need to have a plan that makes room for the next generation.  How can firms make a successful transition and ensure the long-term viability of their practices?  What options are available to firms?

In this episode, I’m excited to welcome Jeremy Poock who knows a lot about this subject.  Jeremy, who is Founder of Senior Attorney Match, works with lawyers who have practiced for at least 30 years. He helps develop, design, and implement succession plans for their law practices.  He has a great model for helping senior lawyers to get value out of their firms while ensuring a smooth transition into the future.

More Resources

• Episode 58-Managing Your Exit (Career Succession Planning—with Bill Lahey)
• Episode 50- Late Career Shift to Public Service
• Episode 40-Succession Planning for Law Firms Meets Chapter 3 for Lawyers

In this episode, we return to a coaching session with Beth Masterman.  If you haven’t heard Part I, you should go back and listen to that first.  In today’s episode, several months have now past and Beth and I are continuing to explore my next career move.

To recap,  Steve, is a 9th year real estate associate at Smith Johnson, an AmLaw 100 firm.  Steve was passed up for partnership and reached out to Beth for help. Steve is not a real person but he has issues which are similar to the issues that some of my clients have faced.

After our first session, I reflected on some of the insights I gained from speaking to Beth.  Here is what I came up with:

• The decision by Smith Johnson was a business decision; it had little to do with me.
• While there are things I like about Smith Johnson and it has been a great experience, it really isn't the best platform for building my practice. Real estate is not a strategic focus of the firm and because my bill rate is so high, it is hard to generate the work I want to do.
• The partners I work with are not good role models for what I want from my life and my career.
• I've never thought about a Plan B and always thought that I'd make partner; but now I get a chance to think more critically.

This session takes place several months after this first session.  In working with Beth, I reaffirmed that I actually do like practicing law and even like doing real estate (although it would be nice to branch out a little and do more than leasing).  I met with some contacts at several mid-sized firms but I’m now feeling  that running my own practice is the way to go. But I have some concerns.

Additional Resources

• Listen to Part I of the Mock Interview
• Listen to my original interview with Beth Masterman
• What is attorney coaching and how does it work (follow links to see examples and read more about how coaching works.)

Counsel to Counsel is now in it’s third year and with this episode, we decided to try something a little different. Many people ask me to explain what coaching is.  While I’ve written about the subject and had on today’s guest in an earlier episode to talk about coaching, I thought that doing a mock coaching session would be a great way to demonstrate the power of working with an executive coach. 

I decided that Beth Masterman would be a great guest to invite back. Thankfully, she agreed to do it.  Beth has been a wonderful mentor to me and I truly value her wisdom and the guidance and support she has given me over the last two years.

Beth is a certified and credentialed by the International Coach Federation and has a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching.  She is also a lawyer and has a master’s in psychology.

As an executive coach, Beth is great at helping her clients consider possibilities and interpret the big picture.  She was recently named the Number One Executive Coach in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Readers Rankings awards.

In this mock session, I play Steve, a 9th year real estate associate at Smith Johnson, an AmLaw 100 firm.  Steve has been passed up for partnership and he has reached out to Beth for help. Steve is is based on a client that Steve Secker worked with several years ago.

This is the first of two parts.

Additional Resources

• Listen to my original interview with Beth Masterman
• What is attorney coaching and how does it work (follow links to see examples and read more about how coaching works.)

With aging baby boomer in their senior ranks, 100s of law firms  throughout the country are facing succession planning issues.  How can the firm make a successful transition and ensure the long-term viability of their practice?  How will the younger partners step into the role of managing client relationships so the clients are well served in the future?

Underpinning all of this is a reality for many firms. Lawyers are living longer, practicing longer, and have very strong professional identities as lawyers.  What will these attorneys do when they are no longer chairing a department?  What are some of the creative strategies that lawyers have used to figure out What Comes Next.

My guest, Bill Lahey, has thought a lot about that subject.  Bill began his career in the public sector, worked for one large firm, one small firm and over 4 years, cut his hours by 20% per year and is not entirely out of the practice of law.  Along the way, Bill has experimented with pro bono work, taken a sabbatical in Bhutan, and explored graduate degrees in two fields.  He is anything but a “typical lawyer” and I invited him on the show to share some tips for senior lawyers who aren’t sure how to make their own transitions.

Additional Resources

• Episode 40-Succession Planning for Law Firms Meets Chapter 3 for Lawyers
• Episode 50-A Late Career Shift to Public Service
• Episode 19-Canoeing vs. Whitewater Rafting-A Career Conversation With Jose Sierra
• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

Paul Morton has a lot to say about the term “non-billable hours”.  Paul is the COO of the law firm Burns and Levinson in Boston.  He has been a figure in law firm administration for well over 30 years and he has seen a lot of changes during that time including increased billing pressure on lawyers.  But according to Paul, billable hours should not take priority over all non-billable work.  In fact according to Paul, the phrase “non-billable hours” should be replaced with “investment hours”.

Simply put, attorneys need to generate income for their firms in the short run.  But they also need to invest time in marketing, law firm management, professional development, and self-care.  In the long run, investing in these activities is good for firm profitability, career satisfaction, and mental health.

Carving out time for “investment hours” is challenging for many lawyers.  There are many things competing for an attorney’s time and time management is not a skill taught in law school.  And once you are on a law firm, you are largely rewarded for the number of hours you bill. So how do you balance the two?

Dr. Sarah Reiff-Hekking, has some answers!  She is an expert on the subject.

Sarah is the founder of True Focus Coaching Inc. She is a speaker, coach, and Productivity and Time Matters Expert with over 20 years of experience.  She empowers professionals and entrepreneurs to get a grip on time so that they can get to the next level in their lives and businesses.

In this episode, Sarah and I discuss some of the challenges that busy lawyers face in managing their time. Sarah offers some very practical tips to help us understand how to be more productive, more effective, and more present.

In many ways, practicing law and being an entrepreneur are completely opposite activities.  Entrepreneurs are all about possibilities: What might be? What problems can we solve? Where are the gaps in the marketplace? Lawyers, on the other hand, spend their days identifying risks, thinking about what can go wrong, and managing those risks.

There are numerous examples of lawyers who have left the practice to pursue a law-related entrepreneurial opportunity. There are legal technology firms that have been started by former practicing attorneys.  There are lawyers like me who have gone into legal recruiting and coaching.

There are also attorneys who decide to move in an entirely different direction and start a restaurant or some other business which is not law-related.

But what about lawyers who want to continue to practice law but operate a business on the side? My guest in this episode, Lori Mihalich-Levin, is someone who has done just that. Lori is a partner at the law firm Dentons.  But she is also the creator of a successful consulting business. Lori and I discuss the genesis for her business, how she grew it, and how she balances her work as a lawyer with her business.  Lori also talks about how practicing law makes her a better entrepreneur and how being an entrepreneur makes her a better lawyer.

Lori, is a partner in the health care practice at Dentons and the founder and CEO of Mindful Return.  She is the author of Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave, and co-host of the Parents at Work Podcast. She is mama to two wonderful red-headed boys (ages 7 and just turning 10). Her thought leadership has been featured in publications including Forbes, The Washington Post, New York Times Parenting, Thrive Global, and The Huffington Post.