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BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ - Making the Hours of Your
Life Worth More ™
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Issue # 10 - Career Design for Free Agents
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You can receive your own FREE subscription to "Beyond the
Billable Hour" ™ at http://LawyersLifeCoach.com
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ARTICLE SUMMARY: Every lawyer is a free agent who needs
to be responsible for designing her own
career. This article reviews how to
create a personal vision for your career.
It outlines steps to:
* help you determine what you will need
to be satisfied with your work and
your life;
* define short- and long-term goals;
* choose work consistent with your goals;
* articulate strategies for achieving your
goals; and
* feel in control of your life.
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Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., Editor
Ellen is the founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com (TM)
Personal and Career Coaching for Lawyers Determined
to Achieve Professional Success AND
a Fulfilling Life
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OUR PERSPECTIVE
Most attorneys - especially women -- live impossibly busy lives.
Finding a balance between work and life without sacrificing
professional success, deciding on the best practice area or
work setting, and making career transitions can be a daunting
task, even for the most gifted and accomplished lawyer.
Just as every person deserves the best possible legal
counsel, every attorney deserves professional, dedicated
support in accomplishing her most important goals.
You know how hard you've worked to get where you are --
you serve others, both personally and professionally.
You've earned the right to both career success and
a fulfilling life.
This newsletter is intended to help you create a
satisfying life -- within, or outside of -- legal practice.
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Career Design for Free Agents
"It has long since come to my attention that people
of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things
happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
- Elinor Smith (1)
"Free agency" is a concept we've come to associate with
professional athletes. No longer "owned" by their teams,
players now negotiate for the richest package and the
best opportunity - helped, of course, by their personal
coaches.
These days, however, the concept of free agency applies to
all knowledge workers - especially lawyers. "In the end,
every lawyer is a solo practitioner making an independent
decision about where or whether to practice law today." (2)
Ultimately, you are the person most responsible for your
career success and satisfaction. As a free agent, it's
essential to create a personal vision for your career.
Once you know what you're working towards - and for -
you can develop long- and short-term goals.
This doesn't mean you need to know exactly what you'll
be doing 10 or 20 years from now. What gives our lives
meaning at 25 is not necessarily the same at 45. But
you can begin designing a career you want to move toward
by clarifying the kind of cases and clients you most enjoy,
the talents and skills you utilize when your work "flows,"
and what you value most in life and work.
Here are seven specific steps a free agent can use to
design her career:
1. Clarify Your Vision
Why did you go to law school? Have your goals changed
since then? How can you make your work more
meaningful? What interests and challenges you? Review
your calendar to see which projects you most enjoyed.
On what kinds of matters were you working? What skills
did you use? What did your clients have in common?
Once you determine what you're passionate about - what
you'd do even if you weren't paid for it - you can begin
limiting yourself to this type of work. Develop your
skills in these areas and seek out mentors who can help
you develop this kind of practice. Offer to work on
interesting assignments and with desirable clients.
Even if you need to approach this goal gradually, it's
time to begin.
2. Define the Kind of Life You Want - Then Fill Your Hours
Do an honest self-assessment of what matters most
to you outside of work. It's too easy to let
demands from your firm and clients define your
working hours only to be filled with regret later
in life.
Balancing work and life is a tremendous challenge,
but you can't even begin without clarifying what is
most important to you.
Balance is always a process. It's not essential
that each day be carefully divided between work
and outside activities. Rather, attend to the aspects
of your life that reflect who you are as a person:
relationships, health, family, and interests
like music, writing, theater, etc. Work is never
a substitute for life - and the longer you postpone
having a life in order to be "successful" at work,
the harder it is to reclaim the non-work activities
that determine the quality of your life.
3. Decide How Much Money is Enough
If you don't answer this question in advance, you
may be surprised to find yourself wearing golden
handcuffs - and sooner than you anticipated.
There's always more money to be made - but at
what personal cost?
4. Choose Work that Helps You Move Toward Your Goals
Choose your work - don't let it choose you. Don't
be driven by fear - that you will lose money, clients,
or your job. Instead, consider taking on new work
in the light of your career vision. If it won't help
you move towards your goals, pass it on. If the work
you really want isn't coming your way, make a plan to
find it. The more people you talk to about what you
love to do and are good at, the more likely it is that
the clients you want will find you. A coach can help you
to develop and implement a plan to get the work you want.
5. Build Your Own Career While Contributing to Your Firm
Being a free agent does not preclude firm loyalty.
But loyalty need not be exacted at the expense of your
career vision or your life. As long as your firm's
vision is compatible with your own, you can grow
professionally, your clients will be well-served and
your firm will profit.
Remember, though, that your firm will not put your interests
ahead of the firm's. In fact, most partners are so busy
themselves that they have little time to consider your
long-term interests. You have to take ultimate responsibility
for yourself. If you need information that a partner
neglects to share, ask his secretary to see that you
receive copies of important documents. If you want
to work with certain kinds of matters or clients,
make alliances with people both within and outside
your firm who can help you. If you've been assigned
a responsibility beyond your current skill level,
don't be afraid to seek assistance. Serve your clients
well, be responsive, show active interest, and chances
are good that your clients will be loyal to you. This
way, you'll be contributing to your firm and building
your own potentially portable career in the process.
6. Take Risks and Consider What You Stand to Gain
Be willing to take risks. As an attorney you've learned
to identify and avoid potential risks. But you cannot
progress in your own career without taking some chances.
Consider what you stand to gain; not only what you stand
to lose.
Designing your career - and creating a satisfying life -
is a continual process of learning what works and what
does not. Mistakes are our best teachers.
7. Avoid the "Tyranny of the In-Basket" (3)
As long as you focus exclusively on getting your work
done, you will never focus on creating your life's work.
There's never a "right time" to assess your current alignment
in terms of your goals.
Most people ignore signs that they need to make some
sort of change. They simply work harder to do their
jobs - while their stress mounts and their passion
for their career erodes.
But periodic self-reinvention is absolutely
necessary, both for career success and life
satisfaction. Occasionally, everyone veers off
course. What's essential is to take the time to
determine where you are and the changes you need to
take to regain your balance, vitality and personal integrity.
As Robert E. Quinn, the organizational behavior
and human resource management expert and consultant
writes:
"Ultimately, deep change... is a spiritual process.
Loss of alignment occurs when, for whatever reason,
we begin to pursue the wrong end. This process
begins innocently enough. In pursuing some justifiable
end, we make a trade-off of some kind. We know it
is wrong, but we rationalize our choice. We use
the end to justify the means. As time passes,
something inside us starts to wither. We are forced
to live at the cognitive level, the rational, goal-
seeking level. We lose our vitality and begin to work
from sheer discipline. Our energy is not naturally
replenished, and we experience no joy in what we do.
We are experiencing slow death....We must recognize the
lies we have been telling ourselves. We must
acknowledge our own weakness, greed, insensitivity and
lack of vision and courage. If we do so, we begin to
understand the clear need for a course correction,
and we slowly begin to reinvent our self." (4)
Free agency means accepting the responsibility for
the freedom to create the career and the life that
will most satisfy you. It may seem like a lot of
work - but it's worth the trouble.
And it's exactly what a coach is trained to help you do.
Notes:
1. Cited in Bridges, William. "Creating You & Co. -
Learn to Think Like the CEO of Your Own Career."
Perseus Books, 1997, p. 160.
2. Vogt, M. Diane & Rickard, Lori-Ann. "Keeping Good
Lawyers - Best Practices to Create Career Satisfaction."
Law Practice Management Section, American Bar Association,
2000, p.xiii.
3. Quinn, Robert E. "Deep Change - Discovering the Leader
Within." Jossey-Bass, 1996, p.60.
4. Quinn, Robert E. Ibid, p. 78.
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ARE YOU A LAWYER WITH CAREER SUCCESS AND LIFE BALANCE?
The legal field needs to hear your strategies. If you
are willing to share them, I'd love to hear from you.
You can send e-mail to Ellen@lawyerslifecoach.com.
Lawyers Life Coach is dedicated to sharing practical
strategies that lawyers are already using --
from something as small as hiring a virtual assistant
to something as large as leaving the profession.
Of course, I will only share your strategies and any
identifying information with your permission.
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BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ is published monthly by
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com.
She brings 20 years of experience assisting women
attorneys to her work in Lawyers Life Coach ™.
LawyersLifeCoach.com is a professional and personal
coaching firm specializing in working virtually (by
phone with email and fax backup) with women attorneys
interested in developing strategies to find greater
satisfaction in their careers within the law or
in exploring career alternatives for lawyers.
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D. established Lawyerslifecoach.com
to coach busy lawyers who might benefit from the
insights gained from 20 years as a psychologist
combined with her experience and familiarity with
the legal profession.
Ellen holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
from the University of Rochester and is a managing
member of Metropolitan Behavioral Health Care, LLC.,
a multispecialty, multidisciplinary psychotherapy
practice in Washington, D.C. and suburban Maryland.
She is a member of the International Coach Federation
and a graduate of the Mentor Coach Program ™.
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NOTE: BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ is intended
for informational and educational purposes only.
It is not a substitute for a personal consultation
with a mental health professional and should not
be construed as a form of, or substitute for,
counseling, psychotherapy, or other psychological
service.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D.
LawyersLifeCoach.com
Phone: (301) 578-8686
email: Ellen@LawyersLifeCoach.com
Web: http://LawyersLifeCoach.com
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(c)Copyright 2000 Ellen Ostrow. All rights reserved.
Distribution Rights: The above material is copyrighted
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Sidereal Designs