Living fearlessly

Graduation is approaching, and I thought I’d share this excerpt from Michael Ignatieff’s 2004 commencement speech to Whitman College graduates. The theme will perhaps strike a chord with some of you.
My theme is living fearlessly in a fearful world. Living fearlessly is not the same thing as never being afraid. It’s good to be [...]

Wednesday Grab Bag

Another pointer to some interesting goings-on…
1. The 800-CEO-READ Blog has an interesting post about the necessity of praising twentysomething workers for absolutely everything, because parents, teachers, and so on have rewarded this generation with everything from verbal reminders to winner’s ribbons and gold stars, following on a similar (but unlinked) WSJ article published last [...]

Monday Grab bag

Travel week here: I’ll be speaking on Wednesday at the NALP annual conference, on Facilitating a Successful Transition from Student to Lawyer.
Since the conference is in Keystone, CO, I seized the opportunity to spend some time in Colorado and Wyoming over the weekend and into this week. I flew into Denver (home of Stephanie [...]

Life at the Bar… Welcome to your game of Twister®!

Do you ever feel stressed? Overwhelmed? As if it’s impossible to meet all of the demands you’re facing at any given moment? Although most of our society seems to have those feelings at least some of the time, anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant number of lawyers experience them frequently. And [...]

More on Administrative Professionals Day; Work/life balance in 3 movements

In my recent post reminding everyone that Administrative Professionals Day is coming up on April 25, I neglected to include a link to The Billable Hour, which is the ideal source for cards and gifts for paralegals. A few examples of cards:

Put a nice gift card inside one of these and you’re assured an [...]

Working with legal support staff

I just flew back to Atlanta from Orlando this morning and as soon as I talk with one client, I’ll be heading out to drive to Gatlinburg for a dear friend’s wedding. So, today’s post will be very brief.
I ran across a fabulous post on the PT-LawMom blog recently: The Curmudgeonly Legal Secretary. [...]

Tag, I’m it: Gotta Get Goals

Stephanie West Allen has tagged me to participate in the Gotta Get Goals meme. The idea is to share 5-10 over-the-top, fabulous goals that I will need to achieve to say I’ve reached my wildest dreams in life. Now, that’s fun!
I’ve always kept goal lists in one form or another, simply because I [...]

The role of wealth in life at the bar and in associate retention

Money is always an interesting topic, and wealth even more so.
I remember being in middle school and fantasizing with friends about being rich. We imagined that if we could just make about $60,000, we’d be set. (Of course, I’d venture to guess that all of our parents were earning at least double that [...]

By the way… What IS coaching?

I had an interesting conversation this weekend with a group of friends and colleagues about what I’m doing now. Although I’m still practicing law part-time (with no desire to stop, honestly), coaching — and specifically, coaching lawyers — has taken the prize as my top pursuit. So I’ve told these folks about the [...]

Too busy? What benefit does busy-ness bring?

There’s a nice article in last Friday’s New York Times titled Too Busy to Notice You’re Too Busy. While I admit to a frisson of annoyance at the author’s introduction (she’s married, two children, working part-time, a volunteer, a regular exerciser, and a socializer who employs a housecleaner twice a month), it does seem [...]