Lawyer Layoffs? Planning Beyond Finances

Part 2 in a series.
Finances are only part of the action plan when layoffs are looming. Perhaps more important is getting your network up and going.
What’s that? You have no network? Oh, pish tosh! You do, but you call them friends and acquaintances. You may think they wouldn’t be willing to help you. For now, [...]

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Lawyer Layoffs Looming? Get a Plan!

Part 1 of a series.
So Thacher Proffitt has finally admitted that it will lay off associates early in 2008. I was in practice in the early 1990s, when the economy was sucking and firms were taking the then-unheard of step of laying off associates. At first (a small history lesson) many firms did not [...]

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The Lawyer Personality

Hey baby, what’s your type?
This isn’t just a schmutzy pickup line. Do you know your Meyers-Briggs Personality Type?
I took my first MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Typology Indicator) test the year I graduated law school. Oh yes, studying for the bar will drive you to many realizations, and one of mine was that this law crap was boring [...]

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Millennial Expectations

Dilbert on Sunday reminded me of too many projects I’ve been given over the years. The ones where you’re supposed to be a mind-reader and guess what the partner wants you to do, because she or he can’t be bothered to tell you. In other words, they’re just too busy to give useful instructions, but [...]

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Shame and the Alternative Legal Career Search

Shame is the great enforcer of norms. Naturally, shame is rampant among lawyers.
Shame can really warp your decision-making process if you are not keenly aware of it, and sometimes even if you are. It creeps into your life in ways small and large. Particularly if you are from a dysfunctional family (so many lawyers are!), [...]

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A Calendar for ADD Lawyers

Most of you probably use some sort of electronic calendar or PDA to keep your schedule. I used to, and will again (once I save up for my iPhone). But for the last two years, for reasons too weird to go into, I have been using the Franklin Covey planner system for my calendar. I [...]

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Friday Files: The Mad Partner Editor

I worked for a couple years in a boutique firm of about 30 attorneys. Smaller numbers did not make this a warm fuzzy place to work. The parnter I worked for most of the time billed a ridiculous amount of hours, like 3,000 annually. Some of it was actual legal work, but a lot of [...]

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Challenging Your Own Precedent

I knew I wasn’t going to get away with a simple “challenge precedent” message. Thanks for pushing me on that, Jane and everyone else.
Here’s one way to challenge your own precedent: write some fiction. I’m not talking about the Great American Novel; instead, it’s some fiction about your own life.
Sit down with that list of [...]

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How Precedent Works Against You

Lawyers have such a hard time with exploring alternative careers. Simply put, it’s because they long for precedent.
Precedent is another word for roadmap. I’ve read several reviews of lawyer career change books that rip the book for not giving readers a precise twelve-step plan for making a radical career change.
Precedent, though, is inherently conservative. [...]

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Inexplicable Longings

When I finally got serious about getting out of law, I worked with a career counselor and therapist who specialized in lawyers. As a matter of fact, he was a Yale Law graduate, had worked on not one but two journals there, and held some fairly impressive law and politics jobs before getting his counseling [...]

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