Associate Leadership Conference and Parental work/life balance

Stephanie West Allen will be speaking at the Law Firm Associated Leadership Conference, held November 14-15 in Arlington, VA. She has posted a short description of the conference, a link to the full brochure, and a $200 discount for registration. The summit promises to be fascinating — including presentations on professional development (with [...]

Do you delegate well?

An important skill to learn for practicing law is how to delegate. All lawyers delegate; few lawyers delegate well.
Whether you’re just starting out in practice or whether you’ve been in practice for many years, part of your responsibilities will include delegation. If you’ve ever received an incomprehensible assignment, consider these tips so you don’t perpetuate [...]

Working Mother magazine’s Top 100 places for moms to work

Working Mother magazine released its annual list of the top 100 places for moms to work, selected on the basis of each company’s flexibility, leave time for new parents, child care, elder care and the number of women occupying top jobs.
Three law firms made the cut: Arnold & Porter, Covington & Burling, and Pillsbury Winthrop [...]

When personal life impacts professional life

One of the ways that I describe the work I do is “professional and personal coaching for lawyers.” Although I occasionally do what amounts to life coaching for someone who happens to be a lawyer, my passion lies in helping lawyers develop their professional lives, which often relates in some way to their personal [...]

Goal-setting and The Last Quarter

Saturday is the first day of fall. Days are getting shorter, football is in full swing, and we’ll be in the holidays before we know it. Realistically, we have about 3 months left for 2006.
Today, I encourage you to pause and think about what you’d like to do with the last quarter of [...]

Technology — does it help work/life balance or hurt it?

We all have email and web access these days, and it’s difficult to limp along without it. My DSL went down for about 6 days recently, and I realized for the first time how dependent I’ve become on Internet access to get information, to touch base with friends and clients, and for recreation. [...]

Grab bag: on communication, document review assignments, and attorney retention.

Today’s post is a grab bag of three interesting but unrelated items.
1. Thanks to Stephanie West Allen, who told me that the statistics I previously provided on the relative impact on communication of body language, tone of voice, words, and the pace or rate of speech are incorrect, though often cited. (See Introducing [...]

Tomorrow — it’s always a day away.

What word holds the most promise for both positive change and hopeless atrophy? Tomorrow.
Lawyers are, by nature, planners. We also tend to be pessimistic and, therefore, risk-averse. Those tendencies conspire to incline us to create great plans for career or business development — and then to let them sit on the shelf, [...]

Associates’ Pounding Fear: How to Cope

One of the emotions that marks new associates (and, in some firm cultures, all associates) is fear. Law demands excellence, and clients — whether internal or external — require perfection. That isn’t unreasonable. But those expectations can cause enormous stress, followed quickly by a lawyer’s fear of what details he may have [...]

New associate influx: 10 tips for settling into a firm successfully

As we enter the second full week of September, it’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of new associates have arrived at their law firms. Beginning is almost always a wonderful time: expectations are high (as are hopes and fears) and just about everything seems possible. That phase doesn’t last long [...]