Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

Electoral politics has always been a career option for attorneys. The halls of Congress and state houses across the country are filled with elected officials who have earned their law degrees.  Legal training helps legislators understand how the bills they want to pass fit into a broader legal context.  Having a JD gives you credibility to run for office.  But what are the options for attorneys who are considering a run for public office. How does being in public office differ from the practice of law?  How does law school prepare you for being a legislator?

In this episode, I speak with State Senator Becca Rausch of Massachusetts.  Senator Rausch and I discuss careers in public office and what it has been like for her to leave the practice of law to become a legislator in the higher chamber of the Massachusetts State Legislature. 

We talk about her decision to seek public office, what was the path for winning the election, what was it like to come to the State House and what have been her legislative priorities since joining the Senate. I ask her what advice she has for attorneys who are aspiring for public office.

Becca Rausch represents the Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex District of the Massachusetts State Senate which covers cities and towns from Wayland in the north to Attleboro in the South.

Prior to joining the Senate, Becca was an associate attorney at two mid-sized firms in Boston, taught civil procedure and health law as a visiting faculty member at Seattle University School of Law, and served as the first ever Secretariat e-discovery attorney in the history of the Massachusetts executive branch.

In this episode, I speak with Jared Correia, one of the pioneers in legal podcasting.  Jared was a huge mentor to me when I was launching the Counsel to Counsel podcast back in 2018 and I’m very pleased to welcome such a seasoned veteran.

As of 2019, over half the US population had listened to at least one podcast. In 2019 over 100 million people listened to at least one podcast every week. There are over 700,000 active podcasts and 29 million podcast episodes available.

Clearly, the age of podcasting has arrived.  But what is podcasting and how can you use it to market your legal services?  What are the mechanics of producing a podcast and how does podcasting interrelate with other legal marketing tools?

Jared Correia, a national expert on the subject, sat down with me to answer some of these questions.  I met Jared over a decade ago when Jared was working for the Massachusetts Law Office Assistance Program and I was co-chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section.

Jared Correia is the Founder and CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, which offers subscription-based law firm business management consulting and technology services for solo and small law firms.  Red Cave also works with legal institutions and legal-facing corporations to develop programming and content. A former practicing attorney, Jared has been advising lawyers and law firms for over a decade.  He is a regular presenter at local, regional and national events, including ABA TECHSHOW. He regularly contributes to legal publications, including his column, ‘Managing,’ for Attorney at Work, and his ‘Law Practice Confidential’ advice column for Lawyerist. 

Jared is the author of the American Bar Association publication ‘Twitter in One Hour for Lawyers’.  He is the host of the Legal Toolkit podcast on Legal Talk Network. Jared also teaches for Concord Law School, Suffolk University Law School and Solo Practice University.  

More recently, he co-founded Gideon, a company that offers chatbot software for law firms to help attorneys automatically qualify leads, book consults, route leads to the right lawyer or staff person, and create new client matters, 24/7/365.

In this episode, I  welcome Dr. Inna Khazan, a clinical psychologist who is a nationally recognized expert in mindfulness and biofeedback.  Dr. Khazan talks about how she helps lawyers and other professionals in stressful jobs to achieve higher levels of performance through biofeedback and mindfulness meditation.

Episode 33-Intro

Law is a stressful business and there are a lot of efforts underway all over the country to help lawyers address the challenges in the profession.

In Massachusetts, for example, we have an organization called Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers which helps attorneys deal with substance abuse and some of the underlying causes of attorney stress.  In the last episode of Counsel to Counsel, I interviewed Heidi Alexander the Deputy Director of the organization about the work they do.

Recently, the SJC of Massachusetts created a new 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 the recent Report of the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, issued by the American Bar Association, Conference of Chief Judges, and other legal organizations, calls well-being an essential element of a lawyer’s duty of competence and recommends mindfulness training as “mindfulness can enhance a host of competencies related to lawyer effectiveness, including increased focus and concentration, working memory, critical cognitive skills, reduced burnout, and ethical and rational decision-making.”

While there are many approaches to dealing with stress in the practice of law, mindfulness is one technique that is getting a lot of attention lately.

For today’s show, I invited an expert on mindfulness to talk about how she works with attorneys and other professionals to achieve high levels of performance in high stress jobs.

Inna Khazan, is the founder of ARETE Institute for Performance Excellence. She is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in biofeedback and mindfulness-based approaches to optimizing health and performance. Dr. Khazan is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, where she teaches and supervises trainees. She is considered to be a pioneer in the area of mindfulness-based biofeedback.

Dr. Khazan is a popular speaker at national and international conferences and prestigious institutions on the topics of biofeedback and mindfulness.  She has conducted biofeedback and mindfulness trainings for notable institutions in the US and abroad, including the US Navy Special Warfare, US Army Special Forces, and the Stuttgart Opera and Ballet Company.

She is the author of numerous publications including her most recent book Biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Practical Solutions for Improving Your Health and Performance, and the highly-regarded Clinical Handbook of Biofeedback: A Step-by-Step Guide to Training and Practice with Mindfulness, published by Wiley Blackwell.

Other Mindfulness Resources

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)

In this episode, I speak with Heidi Alexander, Deputy Director of the non-profit organization Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.  Heidi helps manage LCLs operations and leads the organization’s law practice management program known as Mass LOMAP (the Law Office Management Assistance Program).

Episode 32 Introduction

In 2020, it has never been easier to run your own law practice.  On-line tools for marketing, accounting, document assembly and contact management have never been more affordable or easier to use.   But launching a law practice is not for the faint of heart.

My guest Heidi Alexander talks about some of the challenges in launching and managing a small law firm and how Mass LOMAP is a great resource to help lawyers get started.  We also discuss how Heidi decided to pursue an alternative legal career and the challenges she had in making her own transition.

Not long after Heidi graduated from law school, she became very interested in law firm management.  She completed a judicial clerkship, practiced for a year and then joined Mass LOMAP in 2012.  Since joining LOMAP, she has worked with solo practitioners and small firm attorneys to  develop healthy, sustainable, and productive law practices. 

Heidi is an avid speaker on topics ranging from time management and productivity to legal technology, and an author of numerous articles and a book published by the American Bar Association's Law Practice Management Division, "Evernote as a Law Practice Tool".  This year she is a chair of the American Bar Association‘s TECHSHOW Conference.

Additional Resources

• ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
• Law Technology Today 
• Law Sites Blog
• Mass LOMAP
• Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers
• SJC Lawyer Well-Being Report
• Leveraging Your Blog Posts and Saving Time with TextExpander

In this episode, I speak with Hether Cahill. Hether is a partner at the Boston law firm Burns & Levinson where she handles probate litigation.  Hether and I discuss the path to partnership for women and why she likes family conflict.

Introduction

The majority of law school graduates are now women. Despite this demographic change, the growth of women in partnership ranks in major law firms continues to stagnate. While there are many explanations for this (women still bear a greater burden for child rearing than men and are penalized for that; men have some advantages in cultivating business relationships), there are women who manage to buck the trend and break through the glass ceiling.

Over the next few months I will be interviewing women who have achieved this and made it past the barriers. They will be telling their stories, what it was like then and offer tips for younger women are hoping to elevate their legal careers.

Hether Cahill is one of those women. I met Hether through my ProVisors networking group and I was impressed with her enthusiasm for handling family conflict, something that many of us would much rather avoid. But Hether’s obvious enjoyment of this work is infectious so I invited her to be on the show.

Hether grew up as the daughter of a single mother who was practicing law in Berkshire County. Her mother was a great role model for her and today Hether enjoys being a part of the partnership ranks at one of Boston's prominent midsize law firms.  Hether talks about what it is like to be a female partner at a major firm and offers some advice for younger lawyers who share her ambition.

For over two decades, I have been reading articles in the popular and legal press about unhappy lawyers. The unpleasant issues and people that lawyers have to deal with, the lack of control over outcomes, the isolation and the long hours all add up to a population of professionals who are questioning their career choice or looking for an exit.

While there certainly are a large number of lawyers who experience dissatisfaction in the law, I regularly speak to attorneys who are very happy with their career choice.  I try to feature some of those attorneys in this podcast series.

Sure, nothing is perfect, but for these attorneys, law offers exposure to novel issues, the chance to earn a good living and the opportunity to work with bright individuals on challenging problems. Some find satisfaction in learning about cutting edge legal topics. Still others enjoy the service aspect of practicing law or even the chance to do pro bono work.

In this episode, I speak with Larry Stybel of Stybel Peabody.  Since the late 1970s, Larry has been doing outplacement and leadership coaching.  He has also been doing retained search for board members and the C suite.

Larry has worked closely with the legal profession for many years. 

Stybel Peabody received the "Best in Class" Award in Outplacement four times from the Massachusetts Lawyers’ Weekly Reader Preference Survey.  He co-authors a regular column on leadership and career management for PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.

I met Larry and his wife and business partner, Maryanne Peabody, 20 years ago when I was starting my own recruiting and coaching business.  I was very pleased to reconnect with him this year through my business networking group Provisors.  I have really appreciated the insights Larry has been able to share with me about my own marketing.

Larry has thought a lot about how lawyers can increase their career satisfaction.   I invited Larry to talk about some of the ways lawyers can structure their work to achieve this goal.

Related Career Resources

• A Career Audit for Associates (a questionnaire to help you assess your current law firm position)
• 20 Questions For Law Firm Partners (a similar questionnaire for partners)
• Career Paths: Mapping Out Your Future (Program Notes from a Boston Bar Association Panel Discussion)
• Making a Lateral Move: Are You Ready?
• Canoeing vs. Whitewater Rafting (a podcast about navigating career moves)

Thirty years ago, legal marketing was in its infancy and the focus in the practice of law was on doing great work for your clients.  Provide high quality legal services and more would come (and so would referrals).

In the 1980s, as marketing became more acceptable in the legal profession (both culturally and ethically), lawyers began to spend more time looking for ways to promote their services.  Initially, the emphasis was on the same types of marketing that had long been used by other industries and professions (direct mail, advertising, speaking at conferences, publishing, etc.) 

But by the 1990’s, there was a growing recognition that marketing was a more passive activity and business development (or business relationship building) needed to be part of the mix.  At the same time, by the 2000’s, most law firms had websites and lawyers had began blogging. By the mid to late 2000’s, social media was beginning to take off. And e-mail marketing was thrown into the mix.

Today, a good marketing strategy should employ a healthy mix of marketing and business development. One tool that has been around for 20 years is e-newsletters.  In this episode of C2C, I welcome Michael Katz, an expert in marketing professional services and someone who knows a lot about e-newsletters, social media and the full array of tools that are available to market your law practice.

Michael Katz, is an award-winning humorist and former corporate marketer. He is the founder of Blue Penguin where his is Chief Penguin and where he specializes in helping professional service firms and solos talk/write about their work in a way that is clear and compelling.

Since launching Blue Penguin in 2000, Michael has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week Online, Bloomberg TV, Forbes.com, Inc.com, USA Today, and other national and local media.

He is the author of four books, and has published more than 400 issues of “The Likeable Expert Gazette,” a twice-monthly email newsletter and podcast with 6,000 passionate subscribers in over 40 countries around the world.

Michael has an MBA from Boston University and a BA in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal. He also has a second degree black belt in karate, a first degree black belt in parenting (three children), and is a past winner of the New England Press Association award for “Best Humor Columnist.”

I met Michael through my business networking group Provisors which I have been touting now for months.  Michael is someone who has taught me the value of focusing your marketing message. He does many things but his identity with Provisors is the person to go to if you want to produce a newsletter for your practice.

Additional Resources

• Sign up for Michael Katz's Free Newsletter
• More business development and marketing resources on the Counsel to Counsel website

In this episode of Counsel to Counsel, I take a break from the ordinary discussion of legal careers to speak with my father-in-law William Gamson.  In our interview, Bill talks about his career, his love of baseball and how he combined the two. 

Bill Gamson is a sociologist who is well known for his work involving social movements and media framing.  He is also well known for developing several highly successful simulation games that he created in order to shift his own teaching away from a lecture model.  In addition, during the Vietnam War, Bill organized the first anti-war teach-ins at the University of Michigan.

While many sociologists know Bill for his professional work and as a past president of the American Sociological Association, Bill is also a pioneer in the world of fantasy sports. In 1960, he formed a forerunner of the fantasy baseball league that he called The Baseball Seminar.  There is a direct connection from Bill’s game to the rotisserie leagues that took hold in the 1980s. Dan Okrent, who proposed the rules for a league to his friends in a New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise in 1980, came up with the idea after talking to the Michigan historian Robert Sklar, a regular participant in William Gamson’s “Seminar”.

Bill talks about how The Baseball Seminar grew in part from his academic understanding of statistics.  It also became a way for him to build professional relationships with academics all over the country. And it influenced Bill in developing the simulation game SIMSOC as a more effective way to teach his students about economic inequality, justice, diversity, trust, power dynamics, and leadership.

There is a message here for lawyers:  if you find ways to enhance your career that go beyond the straight practice of law, you will have a more fulfilling career.  You’ll also make more connections, have more fun and you may even end up with a Wikipedia page!

I’ve been working with lawyers for over two decades to help them hone their networking skills. At the same time, I’m always looking for ways to improve my own effectiveness in business relationship building. And so I was intrigued when a number of lawyers mentioned to me that they had joined a great business networking group called Provisors.

Groups like this have always appealed to me but it had been a long time since I had participated in a more structured networking group.

In the early 2000s, I formed my own group of professionals who were selling services to the legal profession. It was a great way to connect with other vendors to the legal community but it was small and eventually the group fizzled out.

In the interim, I have continued to participate actively in Bar Association activities and over the years, I’ve participated in a number of nonprofits. But I knew I was missing out on having a more structured way to expand my professional network.

Then this past Spring, I sat down for coffee with today’s guest and since that time, my professional networking has speeded up dramatically. With her encouragement, I decided to join Provisors. And it has been a game changer for me.

On today’s show, I am very pleased to welcome Jennifer Taddeo, a partner at the law firm Conn Kavanaugh in Boston. Jenn speaks with me about what she has learned about networking and how Provisors has been tremendously helpful in building her own network. She shares some great tips for getting the greatest benefit from the group and how to increase your networking effectiveness more generally.

I also speak with Jenn about her own career transitions and what general advice she has for women looking to advance in the law.

Jennifer D. Taddeo is a partner at Conn Kavanaugh in Boston where she concentrates her practice in estate planning, tax planning, business succession planning, trust and estate administration, elder law and long term care planning, as well as special needs planning.  She provides service to individuals, families, fiduciaries, entrepreneurs, and business owners. She is experienced in drafting wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, and other estate planning documents.

Additional Networking Resources

• Is Your Networking Working
• Ways to Leverage Your Network
• 8 Do’s and Don’ts of Dating—and Networking Etiquette
• 11 Ways to Reciprocate in Networking
• Be Interested; Be Interesting
• Overcoming Fear of Networking
• Using Affinity to Build Business Relationships-a Podcast w/Stephen Seckler
• Documenting Your Networking
• 47 Inexpensive ways to Build Business Relationships

In this episode, I welcome Josh Rissmiller, a corporate partner at the Boston law firm Feinberg Hanson.  Josh began his career at two large and very prominent firms in New York and in Boston. In this show, he talks about his transition, what it was like to leave a large firm and lessons he has learned along the way. 

Episode 27-Intro

There are many advantages of starting your career at a large firm.  It is hard to compete with the training you get as an associate at an AmLaw 100 firm.  The clients tend to be larger and the legal issues tend to be more complex.  Overall, the caliber of lawyering is very high.

Some lawyers who launch their careers at these firms will eventually be elevated to partner. The reality today, is that most associates will never make partner at a big firm.  Many don’t want to make partner or if they do, the path to partnership is long.

In addition to long hours, the clients are demanding and the high bill rates make it challenging to build your own practice.  At the same time, their are fewer seats at the table than there were 30 years ago.

If you are an associate at an AmLaw 100 or 200 firm, the odds are good that you will leave by the time you are in your 8th year.  But where will you go?

For some, the next step in the career is a move to a smaller firm where hours are better and bill rates are lower.  For others, a move in-house is the next step.  So what do you gain when you move to a smaller law firm?  What do you give up? What is challenging about leaving a large firm?

Josh Rissmiller is a corporate lawyer with the law firm Feinberg Hanson in Boston.  Several years ago he left a promising career at a large firm to join a sophisticated corporate boutique in Boston.  Originally, Josh thought about making an in-house move; but then he began to explore a move to a smaller firm and he liked what he saw.  He hasn’t looked back.

For the past ten years, Josh has been helping entrepreneurs, high growth companies and private equity firms successfully complete mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions and investments in emerging companies.

He also provides counsel on day-to-day corporate legal needs such as routine contracts and employee agreements. He has represented a diverse group of clients across many industries but has a particular focus on technology and life sciences.

Josh enjoys working with both investment-side and company-side clients to craft creative solutions to deal-related issues. He has worked on mergers valued in the billions as well as seed financings valued in the thousands. Many of the matters have involved transactions with complex structures, such as tender offers, fund formations, minority private equity investments, joint ventures, recapitalizations, spin-offs, and purchase option transactions.

Other Resources

• Career Paths: Mapping Out Your Future (Program Notes from a Boston Bar Association Panel Discussion)
• A Career Audit for Associates