I understand that newbies to the legal profession who have student debt and no client base often feel locked into jobs that they hate.
I do not understand mid-level and senior lawyers who are financially stable and have a client base who stay in law firms that make them sick. I should understand them because I was one of them, but that is another story. Do as I say, not what I did.
Here is my plan for reclaiming your life:
- Look at your client list. Choose the five clients who you hate working for the most. Be sure to include those for whom everything is urgent, the ones who argue about fees, and the slow payers. Fire them all within 30 days.
- List all of the activities that you do as part of your job. Rank them in order of how much you enjoy doing them. Include things such as marketing, drafting, court appearances, mentoring, training, helping organize firm events, community involvement, volunteer activities, serving on committees, speaking, etc. Develop a plan to extract yourself from the three activities which you hate the most within 60 days.
- If you commute to work and hate it, develop a plan to drastically cut back on it. Change your hours to drive before or after rush hour. Work from home. Move. Change jobs. But do something.
- If one of the partners of the firm is sucking up your energy with their arrogance, sarcasm, micro-aggressions, competitiveness, or narcissism, tell them that you are no longer going to put up with it. If you cannot get them to stop, decide how you are going to squeeze them out of the firm or get out yourself. If many of the partners are doing that, just take your client marbles and go to another firm or out on your own.
- Come to accept that your ability to change a firm culture is very limited. Your ability to escape a firm culture is pretty good as long as you have a portable client base.
Get on with it. Things rarely change for the better by doing nothing!
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.