It’s moving day for the Life at the Bar blog! 

It’s been a busy couple of weeks behind the scenes getting the new space ready to go.  Almost everything has been moved over (except for a few recent comments, and I’ll be working on that) and the new space is open for visitors.

Please come on over to the NEW home of the Life at the Bar Blog: www.lifeatthebar.com/blog

See you there!

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

And then I read an article that my coach sent me from last week’s New York Times: Oh Joy! Breakfast With the Boss. To give you the flavor of the article, here’s a snippet:

PLEASE do not invite me to breakfast.

It’s not that I don’t like breakfast. To the contrary, I could happily eat eggs or cereal at every meal. But I write about life-work balance, and it feels a little contradictory to conduct an interview, or attend a conference, or give a speech, when everyone involved had to sacrifice sleep to attend.

I have similar qualms about working dinners. After a long day of work, why follow it up with more work?

. . .

There has been a shift in the role of these meetings-with-food over the years. In the 80′s, a 7 a.m. appointment was a sign that you were so important you had to start before dawn. We called them power breakfasts back then, and Masters of the Universe wanted to be seen at their regular table at dawn.

More recently, however, they’ve come to feel like yet another symptom of an overstuffed day.

But because working meals are important for many lawyers, it seems to me that the question become how to incorporate those meals into a schedule that fits the way you want to live. Whether you’d rather cram as many work functions as possible into your day or whether you’ve dceided to make dinner with your family a priority, is there a way to incorporate working meals and personal plans? Absolutely. Here’s how.

1. Plan intentionally. If you “go with the flow,” someone else will be determining the balance of your life. Instead, spend a few minutes every month deciding what commitments (business and personal commitments) are non-negotiable for you. Don’t forget to include time you spend on true recreation. Mark those on your calendars, and then consider what else you’d like to add in.

2. Exercise your discretion. When you have an opportunity to attend a work gathering, whether it’s a working meeting or business socializing, at times outside the ordinary work day, consider carefully before accepting. What will you be saying “no” to if you say “yes” to this event? Is the event important? Is it urgent? Do you want to do it? There’s no single “right” answer here that means you should or shouldn’t attend. The questions will lead you to your decision without dictating it.

3. Limit yourself. You either have learned or will learn soon that energy is not infinite. Adding morning and evening business commitments to a packed schedule can constitute self-sabotage if done without attention to the effects on your energy level. One client I worked with decided to limit herself to 2 evening commitments each week and never to schedule a morning meeting before 9 AM on the day following an evening commitment. Although she reduced the number of hours she devoted to work in this way, she increased her productivity during working hours as a result.

Are you happy with the amount of time you spend on working meals? If not, what changes will you make?

NOTE: The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED! To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories

Read more about these principles and see illustrations (ranging from urban legends to important consumer health warnings) in an excerpt from the book here.

Made to Stick should certainly be required reading for litigators, but all of us need to make ideas memorable. And what’s delightful about the concept of stickiness is that it’s an easy and enjoyable read that will pay quick dividends largely because the concepts (once identified) are rather intuitive.

Footnote 1: You might wonder why I’m recommending a book that I’ve started to read but haven’t yet finished. That’s because I was reading it while on a business trip. When I was packing for my flight home, I knew I needed to review some papers and so I packed Made to Stick in my checked luggage. Big mistake. My luggage was somehow mistagged when I left Richmond (even though I watched the Delta agent tag the bag) and I got the runaround when I tried to track it down in Atlanta. Very long story short, it’s now been 15 days and there’s no sign of my luggage. I’d be delighted to bellyache about this further (there’s plenty of grist for that particular mill!) but suffice it to say that I’ll have to pick up another copy before I can finish reading the book.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

As an aside, I haven’t been in California before during a wildfire. It seems that areas all around San Diego are burning, and it’s really rather frightening even though there is, as far as I can tell, no danger to the city itself. But yesterday’s sky was brilliant blue day when I went into my conference around 8:30 AM, and it was a sick orangeish-brown color (actually overcast) when I left it around 3 PM. And my hotel is on the coast, so I can only imagine what it must be like inland. My heart goes out to those whose homes and lives are in danger.

Blawg Review #131 David Maister is the host of this week’s Blawg Review #131, which focuses on the business of law. He highlights a number of interesting posts, including discussions of change management by Bruce MacEwen and Tom Collins.

Exclamation Points for Women? According to a recent WSJ article, Deloitte is training its consultants to approach women differently than men. A short excerpt:

Nancy Camarota, a customer-relations executive at Allied Waste Industries Inc., said she thought it was odd when a Deloitte & Touche USA LLP consultant used an exclamation point in an email. “Guys do not use exclamation points,” she thought. “Is he making fun of me?”

She later learned the email reflected a new Deloitte strategy to approach women clients differently than men. Among other things, Deloitte is training consultants to sit across from women at a table, rather than next to them, and to bring subordinates to meetings because women value knowing the people who do the work. In the case of the exclamation point, Ms. Camarota had used one in an earlier email; the Deloitte consultant says he was responding to her enthusiasm as part of the new program.

I find this fascinating. As the article notes, “What some clients might see as sensitivity, others could find patronizing.” (Thanks to the 800-CEO-READ blog for pointing out the article.)

What do your kids (or spouse or friends or clients) think? Stephanie West Allen asks what lawyers’ children (or other close associates) observe about how lawyers spend their days. Coach Carol Ross made a post kicking off the conversation by reporting her son’s perceptions. I hope many of you will ask the question and share the answers you receive.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

PT LawMom by an anonymous (but very real) law student and legal secretary
Lawsagna by Anastasia Pryanikova
The Savvy Entrepreneur by Cristina Favreau
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

and the rest of the list as it exists at the moment:

2020 Hindsight by Susan Kitchens
21st Century Collaborative by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
45 Things by Anita Bruzzese
A Girl Must Shop by Megan Garnhum
A Little Pregnant by Julie
A Look at Art & Design: Lisa Mikulski
Aerophant by Tai Moses
Affirmagy Blog by Kristen Schuerlein
All for Women by Leigh, Naom, Patricia, and Barbara
Alkamae by Susan Reid
Allied by Jeneane Sessum
Artlook by Lisa Mikulski
andHow To Reach Women by Tami Anderson
angiemckaig.com: still a great pair of legs by Angie McKaig
Ask Dr. Kirk by Dr. Delaney Kirk
Average Jane by Average Jane
Babylune by Kate Baggott
Back in Skinny Jeans by Stephanie Quilao
Bag and Baggage by Denise Howell
Balanced Life Center-Spirituality applied to Life by Nneka
be Conscious now by Kara-Leah Masina
Be Relevant! by Tamara Gielen
Becoming a Woman of Purpose by Carolyn Townes
Becoming your StellarSelf by Mary Kearns
Biz Growth News by Krishna De
Blog Fabulous by Tracee Sioux
BlogWrite for CEOs by Debbie Weil
Blogaholics by Arienna Foley
Blog Til You Drop by Laurence-Hélène Borel
Brain Based Biz by Dr. Robyn McMaster
Brain Based Business by Dr. Ellen Weber
Brains On Purpose by Stephanie West Allen
Brand Sizzle by Anne Simons
Branding & Marketing by Chris Brown
Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
Bread Coffee Chocolate Yoga by Fortune Elkins
Breastfeeding 1-2-3 by Angela
Build A Better Blog by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff
Build a Solo Practice, LLC by Susan Cartier Liebel
Burningbird by Shelley Powers
Career Goddess by Susan Guarnieri
Change Therapy by Isabella Mori
Chatting to my Generation by Anja Merret
Cheap Thrills by Ryan Barrett
CherylMillerVille by Cheryl Miller
Christine Kane by Christine Kane
Church of the Customer by Jackie Huba
CK’s Blog by CK (Christina Kerley)
Colloquium by JHSEsq
Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse
Conflict coaching and resolution for the workplace by Dr Tammy Lenski
Confession of a Marketing Addict by Sunny Cervantes
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman by Ree
Confident Writing by Joanna Young
Conscious Business by Anne Libby
Contentious by Amy Gahran
Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni
Conversations With Dina by Dina Mehta
Corporate PR by Elizabeth Albrycht
Cottontimer by Hsien-Hsien Lei
Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra
Creative Curio by Lauren Marie
Crossroads by Evelyn Rodriguez
Cruel To Be Kind by Nicole Simon
Customer Experience Crossroads by Susan Abbott
Customers Are Always Customers Rock! by Becky Carroll
CustServ by Meikah David
DailyAffirm by Jeanie Marshall
Debbie Millman by Debbie Millman
Deborah Schultz by Deborah Schultz
Decent Marketing by Katherine Stone
Defining Spiritual Presence by Greenwoman
Designers Who Blog by Cat Morley
Design Your Life by Ellen and Julia Lupton
Design Your Writing Life by Lisa Gates
Diary of Claudine Hellmuth by Claudine Hellmuth
Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg
Do It Myself Blog by Glenda Watson Hyatt
Dooce by Heather B. Armstrong
Downshifting - by Anne Howe
Driving Traffic – Carol Krishner
EdithYeung.com by Edith Yeung
Eie Flud by Heather
Elise.com by Elise Bauer
Email Marketing Best Practices by Tamara Gielen
Emerging Customer by Michelle Lamar
Emily Chang – Strategic Designer by Emily Chang
Emily in France Emily
eMoms at Home by Wendy Piersall
EmpowerWomenNow.com by Ponn Sabra
Enter the Laughter by Marti Lawrence
Equip and Empower! by Carolyn Townes
Escape Blog by Melissa Petri
Escape From Corporate America by Laurel Delaney
Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
eSoup by Sharon Sarmiento
Essential Keystrokes by Char
Every Dot Connectsby Connie Reece
EvilHRLady by Evil HR Lady
Expansion Plus by Sally Falkow
Experienceology by Stephanie Weaver
Fetch Me My Axe First Light by Julie Keyser-Squires
Flash and Accessibility by Niqui Merret
Flooring The Consumer by CB Whittemore
Forrester’s Marketing Blog by Shar, Charlene, Chloe, Christine Elana, Laura and Lisa
Forward Steps by Thea Westra
Franke James by Franke James
Full Circle – Nancy White
Funny Business by Elena Centor
Fusion View by Yang-Amy Ooi
Garden Variety Family by Karin Marlett-Choi
GenPink by Elysa
Get Fresh Minds by Katie Konrath
Get Shouty by Katie Chatfield
Getting Granular by Aimee Kessler Evans
GGs Swedish WOTD by GG
Giant Jeans Parlour by Anjali
Golden Practices by Michelle Golden
Goodness Gracious by Jennifer
GourmetStation Delicious Destinations Great Presentations Mean Business by Laura Athavale Fitton HartsockCommunications Health Observances by JC Jones and Ijeoma Eleazu
Healthline Connects by JC Jones and Ijeoma Eleazu
Hey Marci by Marci Alboher
Hiring Technical People by Johanna Rothman
¡Hola! Oi! Hi! by katia adams
Holly’s Corner Blog by Holly Schwendiman
Horse Pig Cow by Tara Hunt
idealawg by Stephanie West Allen
ifelse by Phu Ly
Illustration Friday by Penelope Dullaghan
In Women We Trust by Mary Clare Hunt
Infomaniac by Liz Donovan
Inspirationbit by Vivien
Inspired Business Growth by Wendy Piersall
Internet Geek Girl by Stephanie Agesta
Jane Geneva by Jane Geneva
J.T. O’Donnell Career Insights by J.T. O’Donnell
Jemima Kiss by Jemima Kiss
Joyful, Jubilant Learning by Rosa Say
Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog by Katya Andresen
KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog by Katie Delahaye Paine
Kinetic Ideas by Wendy Maynard
Kristy T’s Home Business Blog by Kristy T
Kung Foodie by Kat
Lawgarithms by Denise Howell
Learned on Women by Andrea Learned
Life at the Bar by Julie Fleming-Brown
Lifeblog by anina
Lifecruiser Lifehacker by Gina Trapani
Lindsey Pollak by Lindsey Pollak
Little Red Suit by Tiffany Monhollon
Live The Power by Karen Lynch
Making Life Work for You by April Groves
Marketer Blog by Leslie Jump
Marketing To Women by Holly Buchanan
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
Managing Product Development by Johanna Rothman
Managing With Aloha Coaching by Rosa Say
Mandarin Design Daily:The MEG Blog by Michelle Goodrich
Marketing Roadmaps by Susan Getgood
Mary’s Blog by Mary Schmidt
MediaBlog by Daria Rasmussen
Media Influencer by Adriana Lukas
Mediation Marketing Tips by Kristina Haymes
Mediation Mensch by Dina Beach Lynch
Misbehaving by Dana Boyd, Hilde Corneliussen, Caterina Fake, Meg Hourihan, Liz Lawley, Fiona Romeo, Dorothea Salo, Halley Suitt, Gina Trapani, Jill Walker
Mkgmd – le mag du marketing multidimentionnel Moda di Magno by Lori Magno
Modite by Rebecca Thorman
Mogulettes in the Making molly.com by Molly E. Holzschlag
More Than WE Know by Liz Fuller
Muddy Boots My Beautiful Chaos by April Groves
My Shingle by Carolyn Elefant
Narrative Assets by Karen Hegman
Newbie NYC by Mary Hilton
Netdiver by Carole Guevin
On My Desk by Linzie Hunter
Online Guide to Mediation by Diane Levin
Orlando Avenue by Colleen Kulikowski
Passion Meets Purpose by Kammie Kobyleski
Peggy Payne’s Boldness Blog by Peggy Payne
Poultry Discussion by Louise Manning
Power Energy Leadership by Michelle Kunz
Presto Vivace Blog by Alice Marshall
Productivity Goal by Carolyn Manning
Purple Wren by Sandy Renshaw
Purse Lip Square Jaw by Anne Galloway
Quality Service Marketing by Sybil Stershic
re:Invention by Kristen Osolind
Rebecca’s Pocket by Rebecca Blood
Resonance Partnership by Marianne Richmond
Sacred Ingredients by Nicole Hanley
Sanctuary for Change by Susan Hanshaw
Sent From My Dell Desktop by Alejandra Ramos
Settle It Now Negotiation Blog by Victoria Pynchon
Shiva’s Arms by Cheryl Snell
Small Biz Survival by Becky McCray
Small Business Trends by Anita Campbell
Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us by Jess Sand
So Close by Tertia
Solomother by Christina Zola
Spare Change Spirit in Gear by Debbie Call
Spirit Women by Carolyn Townes
Subterranean Homepage News by Sheila Lennon
::Surroundings:: by Linda Merrill
Susan Mernit’s Blog by Susan Mernit
Sweet|Salty by Kate Inglis
swissmiss by Tina Roth Eisenberg
Talk It Up by Heidi Miller
TechForward by Lena West
Tech Kitten by Trisha Miller
Teen Health 411 by Dr. Nancy Brown
That’s What She Said by Julie Elgar
The Artsy Asylum by Susan Reynolds
The Blog Angel by Claire Raikes
The Brand Dame by Lyn Chamberlin
The Budgeting Babe by Nicole
the Constant Observer by Tish Grier
The Copywriting Maven by Roberta Rosenberg
The Curious Shopper by Sara Cantor
The Diet Dish by Tara Gidus
The Engaging Brand by Anna Farmery
The Entrepreneurial MD by Philippa Kennealy
The Family Fork by Andrea Giancolli
The Fitness Fixer The Floozy Blog by Kate Coote
The Global Small Business Blog by Laurel Delaney
The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing by Sharon Lippincott
The Kiss Business Too by Karin H.
The Krafty Librarian The Kristasphere by Krista Summit
The Lawyer Coach Blog by Allison Wolf
The Marketing Mix Blog by Ilse Benun
The New Charm School by Jennifer Warwick
The Parody by Sasha Manuel
The Podcast Sisters by Anna Farmery, Krishna De and Heather Gorringe
The Qualitative Research Blog by Reshma Anand
The Shifted Librarian by Jenny Levine
The What If…? Women by Randee, Lori, Anne, Lynn and Norka
(Pink Collar Club) Think Positive! by Kristen Harrell
this is rachelandrew.co.uk by Rachel Andrew
Tiny Starfish in a Great Big Sea by Carol Toscano
Toddler Planet by WhyMommy
unstruc chitchat about information Veerle’s blog 2.0 by Veerle
Water Cooler Wisdom by Alexandra Levit
Wealth Strategy Secrets by Nicola Cairncross
What A Concept! By Sherry Heyl
What’s Next Blog by B L Ochman
White Trash Mom by Michelle Lamar
Wiggly Wigglers by Heather Gorringe
Women Presidents’ Organization Chicago by Laurel Delaney
WomensDISH by Diane K. Danielson and Friends
Wonder Branding by Michele Miller
Woolgathering by Elizabeth Perry
Worker Bees Blog by Elisa Camahort
Write Ideas Marketing by Andrea Morris
Ypulse by Anastasia Goodstein

Now if only I had a few more hours to read all of these!

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

Email interpretation: We’ve come to rely on email as a quick and easy way to get a message across. Quicker than voicemail and an easy way to create a record, we use email for everything from assignments to news to forwarding jokes. David Giacalone of f/k/a offers commentary on a recent New York Time op-ed piece by emotional and social intelligence author Daniel Goleman titled E-Mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread). Goleman describes neuroscience-based evidence that email lacks the emotional cues that keep us on track in face-to-face or telephone conversation. As a result, Goleman writes, “we tend to misinterpret positive e-mail messages as more neutral, and neutral ones as more negative, than the sender intended. Even jokes are rated as less funny by recipients than by senders.” The discussion is an interesting one, especially because, as Giacalone points out, written materials have always lacked emotional cues, and the primary difference may be the speed and limited attention we pay to writing emails. Bottom line: be aware of missing context when you write emails and when you read them.

And Matt Homann of the [non]billable hour offers 9 success tips that underlie 25 Ways to Find a Client, based on a post by Dumb Little Man on 25 ways to get a date offline. The tips are easy, simple, and just plain good ideas for living, such as, “Have a simple goal of making new friends. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Seek to find a great friend and see where things lead.” Dumb Little Man isn’t so dumb.

I’ve also been intending to link to a Law Practice Today article about Matt Homann, specifically his Mini-Manifestos with 15 rules for clients and 17 rules for lawyers. Practice would be much simpler and better for both lawyers and clients if everyone could apply these rules. Examples?

For clients: 5. You want to buy results, not time. Most lawyers sell time, not results. Make sure you both understand the difference before your first bill arrives. You will certainly understand the difference after.
6. If you want to find a lawyer who sells results, look hard. There are a few of them out there. They are the ones who can still smile because they get to see their children before 9:00 at night.

For lawyers: 9. Your clients will always know their business better than you do. They may even know the law better than you. Make sure to seek their advice before giving yours.
11. Your clients have wants. Your clients have needs. They often don’t know the difference.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

I found one of the most encouraging findings to be the following.

Predictors of High Originations
* Years of legal practice
* Time spent doing business development each month
* Using a targeted approach to business development
* Participation in pitch groups
* Cross-selling other firm services
* Asking clients for introductions to others who may need legal services

The report addresses a variety of women’s client development obstacles, some self-imposed and some resulting from limitations or perceived limitations imposed by the law firms in which the women practice. Nevertheless, reading the report impressed upon me the benefits of some activities that any woman can undertake or begin immediately.

The report contains a great deal of information. Any woman who’s interested in client development should read it, as should law firm leaders who’d like to support the business development opportunities their female lawyers may cultivate.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

I recently worked with a client who tended to get stuck in things that had gone wrong or felt like slights to her. For instance, after opposing counsel accused her of acting in bad faith in the course of a discovery dispute, she found it difficult to pull herself out of that and wanted to over-correct to demonstrate the good faith that permeates her practice. She felt personally attacked, and she felt defensive and angry. Critically, she experienced great stress in dealing with that lawyer and was concerned that her feelings could compromise her representation of her client. After some probing, we came to the conclusion that developing resilience would help her to move through those stages with greater ease. Here are some of the steps we worked through that resulted in a substantial shift in her ability to recover quickly from adverse occurrences.

1. Examine the event and assess what’s really going on. In this example, was opposing counsel offering valid feedback, or was he attempting to knock her off her game to gain advantage? Is there a third possibility? Was my client exhibiting bad faith? (And if the upsetting event had been a mistake my client made, the task here would be to determine what caused the mistake — miscommunication, undue hurry, etc.) This reality check leads directly to step 2…

2. Put the event in “proper perspective.” My client concluded that opposing counsel, known for trying to provoke litigation opponents through accusation and displays of anger, made his assertion because he calculated that it would draw her attention away from the case. Given that conclusion, ruminating on the accusation and bending over backward to prove it untrue would give the event more energy than it deserved. More importantly, such behavior could damage the representation and harm the client’s interest. Analytically, then, it made no sense for my client to continue to be upset or to react to the accusation. But it still hurt.

3. Self-reflection. My client checked in with what she knew to be true. She knew that she was not acting in bad faith. She knew that she seeks to act and speak in integrity, and she knew that she had done so in this instance.

4. Acknowledge the reaction and then choose the response, and/or shift the emotional energy. Emotions are what they are. They’re neither good nor bad. My client was hurt and upset by the situation, and it was important that she acknowledge that. Having done so, she then had the choice of whether to respond from the hurt and upset or to rely on what she’d unconvered in steps 1-3 and to respond from that knowledge. In other words, she applied problem-solving skills to determine what would be most effective.
In other situation where there’s no actual response appropriate (for instance, if a lawyer has been trying to develop business and is told no by a prospective client), the best action is likely to shift the emotional energy by asking what else is true. Does the “no” mean this lawyer is incompetent? That he’ll never get other business? Probably not. After acknowledging the disappointment, the lawyer can recognize that he’s been retained by other clients and has done well for them, perhaps shift to a sense of gratitude for those clients and that experience, and shift the emotional energy.

These steps facilitate dealing with whatever has happened by (1) acknowledging the event, its cause, and its impact and (2) responding to the event effectively rather than getting stuck in it. That’s resilience, and that’s a key skill for lawyers.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

The most successful lawyers are the ones who can accept that occassionally making mistakes is the price of progression, pick themselves up, move on and vow not to make the same mistake again. The most successful of all are the ones who can make the same mistake a second time, pick themselves up and move on (although if you make the same mistake more than twice, you may want to ask yourself if you were really paying attention before).

Her post responds to this one by Dan Hull of What About Clients? that argues that lawyers naturally lack resilience but must acquire it to be effective in practice and in the business of practicing law. Dan posits that

We lawyers are, in the main, natural-born weenies and squirrels. We are great people. But we sweat small stuff–part of our job, of course–and we over-react. We have amazingly poor defenses to each day’s hard knocks and battles.

. . .

However, without even doing an empirical study, it’s obvious to me that lawyer “over-sensitivity” is a huge problem in our lawyer worlds and workplaces. Our reactions to the sum of small bad stuff prevents us from doing the big stuff or from doing it well. This hurts us as people. But way more importantly, it hurts your client: the main event.

And, for the sake of completeness, Dan’s post was prompted by Mark Bennett‘s post on Resiliency, in which he responds to a post by Ed Poll arguing that lawyers “can’t sell” because they lack resiliency. Mark, who writes the blog Defending People: The Art and Science of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering, convincingly excludes lack of resilience as an attribute of criminal defense lawyers.

I find this conversation fascinating and worth some exploration. My first question is, as usual, is it true that lawyers (as a group) lack resilience? Whether it’s true as a generalization is much less important than whether it’s true for a particular lawyer, in my view. And if it’s true for someone, the reason why it’s true is much less important than devising a method for that person to increase his or her capacity for resilience.

So, how can a lawyer choose resilience in the face of a challenge? Rather than make this post one of mammoth proportions, I’ll provide some strategies on resilience on Friday… So check back!

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It happens tomorrow! Please visit this post for information about joining a free teleclass titled Five Foundations of Time Management for Attorneys on Thursday, October 11, 2007. If you’d prefer, you can also sign up to attend and to receive the recording of the call (as well as a few other reasources, which all together comprise the Life at the Bar Survival Kit) by visiting this page of my website. I hope you’ll join us! Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the teleclass.

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. offers a fascinating interview with Bruce Stachenfeld of Duval & Stachenfeld, a New York-based firm that’s made the news recently with its unusual compensation plan. The firm pays first-year lawyers $60,000 and calls them “opportunity associates.” The pay goes to $80,000 after 9 months and then increases semi-annually in $10,000 increments. After 2 years (and sometimes earlier) successful associates are promoted to “full associate” level, at which point the pay is equivalent to Cravath’s pay plus $10,000. The Adam Smith interview offers the back story on how the program came to be and how it’s working. Fascinating.

Steve Seckler of Counsel to Counsel reminds lawyers that “success in the legal profession means having the ability to generate work and the best place to look for work in the future is by keeping up the relationship with existing clients today.” Cultivate those relationships!

Current or recent job-seekers have no doubt dealt with the question of what constitutes an appropriate writing sample. Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy started an interesting conversation about the Ethics of Writing Samples recently, springing from a junior associate’s question about what can be used as a sample without requesting the firm’s permission (and thus tipping the job-search news). The comments touch on ethics, copyright law, opinions drafted by law clerks and their use as writing samples, and more. As one commenter observed, “what I find interesting is that people cling strongly to conflicting opinions. In practice, this seems to mean that whatever an applicant does is likely to result in a significant percentage of employers eliminating him for it, even though other employers would have eliminated him for not doing it. Wonderful!”

And Orin Kerr, also of The Volokh Conspiracy, posted Fewer Women Seeking Law Degrees,which cites an article from The National Law Journal reporting that the percentage of women in law school has declined each year since 2002. While the drop isn’t precipitous (46.9% this year as opposed to 49% in 2002), it is significant. The article speculates that “fewer women want a lawyer’s life.” The comments spin off into a discussion of legal “jerkiness,” including which gender exhibits more of it and who will and won’t tolerate it in others.

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The deadline is approaching! Please visit this post for information about joining a free teleclass titled Five Foundations of Time Management for Attorneys on Thursday, October 11, 2007. If you’d prefer, you can also sign up to attend and to receive the recording of the call (as well as a few other reasources, which all together comprise the Life at the Bar Survival Kit) by visiting this page of my website. I hope you’ll join us!

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.