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BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ - Making the Hours of Your
Life Worth More ™
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Issue # 18 - The Key to Success: Doing the Work and
Living the Life You Love
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To subscribe to "Beyond the Billable Hour" ™ go to
http://LawyersLifeCoach.com
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INDEX: 1. The Key to Success: Doing the Work and
Living the Life You Love
2. Upcoming Bar Association Presentations -
Williamsburg, VA; Austin, TX; Richmond, VA;
Washington, D.C.; Madison, WI
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ARTICLE SUMMARY: Choosing work that you enjoy, in which
you are genuinely interested and which
expresses the best in you is necessary
for the hard work and determination
required for a successful legal career.
Work/life balance, a network of
supportive social connections and
a sense of meaning and purpose are
also essential ingredients for
success.
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Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., Editor
Ellen is the founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com ™
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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1. The Key to Success: Doing the Work and Living the
Life You Love
As an attorney, simply reading the title of this article
probably caused you to raise an eyebrow. Everything
you've learned in law school and legal practice has taught
you that the key to success is hard work. Long hours,
selfless devotion to work, never making mistakes,
finding a way to do what the client wants, and -
perhaps most of all - winning are touted as the most
important ingredients for a successful legal career.
Of course you need to work hard to be successful.
But what few people tell you is that there are certain
conditions that lend themselves to the kind of focus
necessary for excellence in the law, while other
conditions hinder it and make success elusive.
Here is a list of optimal conditions for success
in your legal career:
1. Articulate Your Own Personal Definition of Success
Your firm and your clients will be happy to define
success for you - but it will be in their best
interests, not yours.
What do you want to accomplish in your work and in
your life?
Our definitions of success change as we move
through our lives and careers - so be sure to
keep updating your definition.
As law firm management guru David Maister says,
"Many professionals are too busy worrying about
their firm's performance criteria to figure out
what success really means to them. They don't
take the time to ask 'What do I really want to
accomplish during the next stage of my career?
What would truly satisfy me.' " (1)
2. Do Work You Genuinely Enjoy
How long can you work hard at something you don't enjoy?
Enthusiasm and passion motivate hard work. Genuine
interest sustains focused attention. Working with
clients you enjoy means you sincerely want to help
them - and nothing sells services more effectively
than genuine concern and interest.
When you work at something you love, it's easy to
be disciplined and determined. Psychological research
on "intrinsic motivation" indicates that people
whose work is self-directed experience more genuine
interest, excitement and confidence in their work.
Furthermore, doing work you enjoy results in better
performance, greater persistence and creativity and
provides a sense of general well-being. (2)
Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi's work on the "flow"
experience indicates the value of this experience
in our work. (3) "Flow" is an experience of total,
unselfconscious involvement, seemingly effortless
performance, when we are so committed to the task
that we lose track of time. We are likely to
experience "flow" in our work when it involves a
difficult task at a level of challenge matching our
skills, and when we know what needs to be done
because the goals are clear and feedback is immediate.
When we experience our work as the full expression
of what is best in us, then it is rewarding and
enjoyable.
3. Seek Rewards Other Than Money
Research reveals that the more people strive
for extrinsic goals such as money the less
well-being they experience and the more problems
they have.
Money really doesn't buy happiness (although it
does pay off law school loans.) In affluent
countries like the U.S., the relationship between
income and personal happiness is weak.
Good and bad events temporarily influence our
mood: lottery winners feel a temporary jolt of
joy, as do you when you earn a significant bonus.
But because of our capacity to adapt, yesterday's
luxuries become today's necessities. The fact is,
except for the very poor, people whose incomes
have increased over the past 10 years are not
happier than those whose incomes have not increased.(4)
4. Develop and Maintain Close Relationships
Developing a supportive network of deep social
connections is the single most health-protective
and success-insuring thing you can do. People
supported by close relationships are less vulnerable
to illness and premature death, cope better with stress
and are less likely to become depressed.
A number of surveys indicate that lawyers are
four times more likely to be depressed than the
public at large and have the highest rate of
depression of any professional group. High
levels of stress are reported by almost 3/4 of
lawyers and this results in damage to the
physical health or emotional well-being of 1/3
of these attorneys. Approximately 20% of
lawyers have a substance abuse problem - twice
the rate of the general population. (5)
There are estimates that substance abuse is a factor
in up to 75% of all disciplinary complaints involving
lawyers. (6)
In contrast to those who are depressed, happy people
are less self-focused, less hostile and abusive, less
vulnerable to disease, more loving, forgiving, trusting,
energetic, decisive, creative, sociable and helpful.
People are happier when they are attached than when
they are unattached. Married people are more
satisfied with life and happier than people who are
divorced, separated or never married. They are
also less likely to experience depression.
Patrick Schiltz (7) reviews research indicating
that the divorce rate for lawyers is higher than
the rate for other professions and that divorced
women lawyers are significantly less likely to
remarry than other women professionals.
Increasing billable hours requirements and
the resulting "time famine" are most often cited
as the reason for the relatively high rates of
reported lawyer dissatisfaction. In particular,
attorneys complain of having little or no time
for themselves or their families. (8) The
lawyers I coach certainly echo these ABA statistics.
Workaholism and a drive for even greater
compensation will never fill the emptiness left
by the absence of meaningful relationships.
Obviously, you can't develop deep intimate
relationships if you spend all of your time
working. Taking the time to maintain
supportive and close connections with others
is necessary for the energy and well-being you
need to achieve career success.
While it is up to firms to make significant
changes in their profit-driven structures,
you need to remain clear about the relative
value money has for you - independently of
your firm's goals.
Flexible schedules and balanced hours policies
will allow you to establish a better equilibrium
between addressing work challenges and maintaining
close relationships. But consistent lobbying
for change will be necessary to convince most
firms to institute policies that really work.
Living according to your values may mean making
difficult choices for the sake of your happiness and
well-being. But if your personal definition of success
doesn't rank money first, then the connection
between happiness and success is easier to see.
5. Live a Life of Meaning and Purpose
Many lawyers chose to go to law school because
they wanted to help people, work for justice,
or produce social change.
Emotional well-being appears to be related to
finding meaning in something beyond pure self-interest.
Some people find this by practicing a faith. Others
work toward goals that have meaning for them.
Examine what it means to you to be a lawyer and
a professional. Although much has been written
about the commercialization of the legal profession
and the resulting loss of professionalism, there
are still many attorneys who retain a strong sense
of ethics, fairness and justice.
* Treating clients and colleagues with dignity and
respect is a reflection of your sense of fairness.
* Fighting for policies in your firm that create
truly equal opportunities for success for women
and lawyers of color is an expression of your
sense of justice.
* Maintaining sufficient independence from clients
to enable you to provide wise counsel as opposed
to feeling like a "hired gun" will allow you to
maintain your professional ethics.
If you examine every choice under the light of
whether you, your family or your children would
feel proud of you if you committed this action,
your life would have meaning and purpose.
It's not easy to live a purposeful life in today's
competitive world, full of 24/7 demands, overwhelming
choices and single-minded emphasis on material gain.
A professional coach can help you clarify your
values and priorities and maintain your focus
on these to enable you to do work that expresses
the best in you and make choices to do what you
believe is right. After all, isn't this what
success is ultimately about?
NOTES:
1. Maister, David H. (1997) "True Professionalism:
The Courage to Care About Your People, Your
Clients, and Your Career." New York: The Free
Press. p. 32
2. Ryan, Richard M. & Deci, Edward L.(2000) "Self-
determination theory and the facilitation
of intrinsic motivation, social development,
and well-being." "American Psychologist,"
Vol. 55 (1), 68-78.
3. Gardner, H., Csikszenthmihalyi, M. & Damon, W.
(2001). "Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics
Meet." New York: Basic Books.
4. Myers, David G. (2000) "The funds, friends and
faith of happy people." "American Psychologist,"
Vol. 55 (1), 56-67.
5. Rhode, Deborah L. (2000) "In the Interests of
Justice: Reforming the Legal Profession."
New York: Oxford University Press.
6. Sells, Benjamin. (1994) "The Soul of the Law."
Boston: Element.
7. Schiltz, Patrick J. (1999) "On being a happy,
healthy, and ethical member of an unhappy,
unhealthy, and unethical profession."
"Vanderbilt Law Review, " Vol. 52 (4),
872-951.
8. American Bar Association (1991) "At the Breaking
Point: The Report of a National Conference on
the Emerging Crisis in the Quality of Lawyers'
Health and Lives, and its Impact on Law Firms
and Client Services.
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2. Upcoming Bar Association Presentations
Ellen will be presenting at:
Virginia Bar Association Annual Meeting
Colonial Williamsburg
"21st Century Professionalism: A Balanced
Life vs. The Bottom Line"
January 18, 2002
Travis County Bar Association Annual Meeting
Austin, Texas
"Strategic Career Management"
February 8, 2002
Virginia State Bar
Young Lawyers Conference
Richmond, Virginia
"Work & Family: Meeting Your Professional and
Personal Needs"
March 16, 2002
Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia
Working Parents Forum
Washington, D.C.
"Marketing Yourself Into a Reasonable Work Environment"
April 10, 2002
State Bar of Wisconsin Annual Meeting
Madison, WI
"Creating Satisfaction Within the Practice of Law"
May 16, 2002
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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 2001 Ellen Ostrow. All rights reserved.
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