Being Different in Law’s Perfection-Obsessed Culture

The legal industry as a whole must fix its fetish with perfection. In the end, calling out colleagues on their weaponized perfectionism benefits everyone, especially lawyers who are different from the norm. It doesn’t require money to address. You don’t need anyone’s permission. It’s a step you can take within the next week.

Born to Argue: Lawyer Dysfunction, Part 2

Lawyers may deserve the “asshole” label at times, but not because we are all mean, nasty people. Yes, there are many lawyers who are. But many more lawyers act poorly because they’ve never learned differently.

Everything Right Is Wrong Again: Lawyers and Dysfunctional Behavior, Part 1

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever argue the correctness of your position, because I am not an idiot. But choosing the right time and the right place for that argument is where we lawyers often stumble. Far too many attorneys have their “I’m right” dial set permanently at 11, one of the reasons lawyers’ interpersonal relationships suffer.

Wanted: High-paying, non-legal job. Keep the change.

Looking first and foremost for the high pay, without delving into the messy reasons you aren’t happy in law, is following the same path that got you into law in the first place. Sooner (usually) or later, you will be at this same point again, just with a different job title.

Feeling Anxious? Put Down Your Screens and Improve Your Life, Creative Lawyers

The opportunity to simply let our minds drift sounds so unimportant, doesn’t it? But it is vital. A mind without a project to obsess over, a problem to solve, a stimulus to respond to, has the time it needs to process. Unstructured time is how we digest some of our lives. With the constant barrage of screens, we have more mental food to digest, and thus an even higher need for mental wandering.

Lawyer’s Lament: But I Don’t Have a Calling

You’re taking a huge risk by not following your calling. You are risking that you will survive, physically and mentally, in good enough shape to one day be able to follow your heart’s desires. Considering the high rates of depression, addiction, suicide, and chronic illness among lawyers, that’s a pretty damned risky path, too.

Instrinsic Motivation for Lawyers: All in One Place

Lawyer misery is depriving us of a lot of talent and energy that would be much better used to improve the world instead. Many bright, creative people are lawyers, and their gifts are not used in a typical BigLaw or Lawyerland setting. We as a nation and a planet have a whole heaping pile of

Evidence

I once read that the traits most necessary to be a good lawyer were the ones that made it unbearable to be around such a person. For example, questioning the strength of evidence. Lawyers are drilled from day one not to accept as proof anything that cannot be demonstrated in some tangible way. Torts and

Friday Files: Lawyer Hygiene

You see some weird shit when you practice law. Funny, yet disturbing. And while creating a better life for yourself either elsewhere in the law or outside it altogether is a serious topic, you have to admit that being able to laugh sometimes while you do it is a gift. Enter, the Friday Files. I’m