Lawsagna

Do you speak (and write) in your authentic voice at work?

What does authenticity mean to your legal practice?  A few blog posts made me think about this question.  First, Guy Kawasaki’s post “The Top Ten (Sixteen) Lies of Lawyers” offers a client’s perspective on the true meaning of some of the phrases commonly used by attorneys.   Second, Joanna Young of Confident Writing has been focusing on the authentic quality in writing in several articles, including her recent post “Word power at work.”   So, what does authenticity mean to lawyers?  I’d love to read what you think.

LawSchoolExpert offers "I've taken the LSAT; Now What?" webinars

Ann Levine at LawSchoolExpert offers free webinars "I've taken the LSAT; Now What?" in October.   The dates are Monday, October 1st (8pm EST/5pm PST) and Saturday, October 6th (Noon EST/9a.m. PST).   Click here for details on how to register.

More on energy management

As synchronicity would have it, after I wrote my post on energy management, we received the October issue of the Harvard Business Review with an article on this topic.  In “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time,” Tony Schwartz, the president and founder of the Energy Project, describes some specific rituals that can help busy executives to gain more energy.  You can also take a short questionnaire “Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?” to evaluate your energy needs.

Orientation Series: 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner

Step 11:  Managing your energy

Energy is powerful.  Energy is also subtle.   We feel it, but we can’t always measure it easily.  We talk a lot about time management, and not enough about energy management.  You already know that your body needs a good diet, enough sleep and regular exercise to stay energetic.  What may not be so obvious is that our energy levels also correlate with what we do and how we feel about what we do.  Have you noticed how time flies when we engage in something that energizes us, and crawls when we do a task that drains us? Paying attention to the changes in your energy patterns throughout the day is a first step towards bringing more energy into your life.   

If you spend too much energy on things that you don’t enjoy, you are in danger of depleting your energy bank.   Can you identify five routine tasks that drain you most?  Is there a way to delegate them or eliminate them from your days completely?  If this is not possible, it helps to remember that energy comes with meaning, love, and purpose, so look for those qualities in what you do.  For example, I don’t like cleaning, but I can overcome the resentment if I think of it as creating and controlling my physical environment.  Such focus gives more meaning to a mundane task. 

While this type of reframing can work for some activities, use it only as the last resort because you are better off giving your energy to something that you truly love.   You can think of it as opening a channel:  when good energy flows form you, the Universe gives back, so you will replenish your energy fast. 

Energy needs to move.  You can’t conserve it by keeping it to yourself because it will dissipate, and you will feel lethargic without having done anything.  If you ever spent hours on the couch watching TV, you know what I mean. 

How do you make sure that your learning brings energy into your life?  Learning should be a source of joy and inspiration for you.  You have to find meaning and purpose in what you learn.  And finally, you must have a way to share the results of your learning with others and do it with love. 

Do you feel energized when you learn? 

Orientation Series:  21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner:
Step 1:  Setting your learning objectives
Step 2:  Taking an inventory of your skills
Step 3:  Taking an Inventory of Your Learning Tools
Step 4:  Finding opportunities for cognitive apprenticeship
Step 5:   Determining the "IIQ" of what you read
Step 6:  Choosing helpful books for law students
Step 7:  “The Three 'P's of Performance” in Action
Step 8:  Tapping into your social networks
Step 9:  Identifying your learning barriers
Step 10:  Finding your sources of motivation

 

What do lawyers really make?

The economic statistics of the legal market described in the Wall Street Journal article "Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers" by Amir Efrati shouldn't really come as a surprise, but it is a good reminder for law students to start their financial planning early:

Evidence of a squeezed market among the majority of private lawyers in the U.S., who work as sole practitioners or at small firms, is growing. A survey of about 650 Chicago lawyers published in the 2005 book "Urban Lawyers" found that between 1975 and 1995 the inflation-adjusted average income of the top 25% of earners, generally big-firm lawyers, grew by 22% -- while income for the other 75% actually dropped.

A BigLaw job is like a lottery - the chances are against you, so you owe it to yourself to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate the hyped-up talk about lawyers' salaries.   

Read Build A Solo Practice, LLC and Blawg for more discussion of this topic.   

A learning community in the works

I am working on a new idea right now and have a question for you.  Even though my posts often focus on the formal legal education, some of you may know that I also have a strong interest in informal learning and professional development that happens on the job and outside formal training programs.  It is a fascinating topic for me because that’s how we learn most of our adult life anyways.  I suppose, informal learning becomes even more important these days because:

• Things change fast, and it can be hard to keep up without feeling overwhelmed.
• People change their places of employment and careers more often, so they have to learn effectively and efficiently to be able to make a quick impact.
• Some of us are Renaissance souls who just like to learn new things.
• Many companies face knowledge transfer issues as baby-boomers retire. 
• In the legal world, law schools don’t teach all the practical skills lawyers need and at the same time law firms no longer have the time and capacity to train their young lawyers, so law graduates have to fend for themselves.  It is even more important for those who start their solo practices or join smaller firms, which is the majority of law graduates. 

With that in mind, I plan to start a free-membership community to have a conversation about how we learn informally and test-drive some of the approaches.  Perhaps, we could share our learning goals, aspirations and stories, talk about what works and what doesn’t work, offer tips and support for our individual learning journeys.  It would be nice to know how we can maximize our learning while doing what we would do anyways, but perhaps, with better approaches, structure and focus.  It can be similar to weight loss support groups, except instead of losing pounds, we will be gaining knowledge.  What do you think?  My other site, Buddy-In-Law, which allows forums, wikis and other neat social networking things, can probably accommodate this.

If you think you may be interested to join, please send me an email to ana (at) lawsagna.com, I just want to gauge the potential interest.  I’d also appreciate any suggestions you may have on categories and topics for discussions.

The brain of a leader

Thursday’s issue of The Wall Street Journal includes an interesting article entitled “This Is Your Brain on the Job” by Phred Dvorak and Jaclyne Badal.  It reports on the efforts of an Arizona State University management professor, Pierre Balthazard, and a neuroscientist and EEG expert, Robert Thatcher, to map the brain activity of visionary leaders.  They hope to use the data to train others in leadership skills:

Mr. Thatcher says preliminary analysis of 50 brain maps shows some big differences in activity between managers who rate high on a psychological test of visionary leadership, and those who rate low. The visionary leaders had more efficient left brains, which deal with logic and reasoning, and better connected right brains, which are responsible for social skills.

Maybe, the phrase “to think like a lawyer” will soon have its visual representation as well.  What do you think?

Foster your creativity

Many law students and lawyers have a creative bend, and it turns out, there are lots of good reasons to continue fostering your creativity.  Online Guide to Mediation offers an insightful review of the Boston Globe article "Art for our sake: School arts classes matter more than ever - but not for the reasons you think".   The article reports on a recent study indicating that art teaches a “specific set of thinking skills,” or what the researchers call the “studio habits of mind”: 

One of these habits was persistence: Students worked on projects over sustained periods of time and were expected to find meaningful problems and persevere through frustration. Another was expression: Students were urged to move beyond technical skill to create works rich in emotion, atmosphere, and their own personal voice or vision. A third was making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the classroom….

Each of these habits clearly has a role in life and learning, but we were particularly struck by the potentially broad value of four other kinds of thinking being taught in the art classes we documented: observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self-evaluation.

Art teaches us to look beyond our own expectations, which may cause inaccurate perceptions:

Seeing clearly by looking past one's preconceptions is central to a variety of professions, from medicine to law.

And for some, creativity can bring a big pay-off literally.   Just read the story of Scott Jordan, a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur who invented the Technology Enabled Clothing, designed to keep your favorite gadgets hidden but easily accessible when you need them.

The Complete Lawyer: "What Can Law Schools Do Better?"

The current issue of The Complete Lawyer focuses on the question “What Can Law Schools Do Better?” 

Larry Kramer, the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean at Stanford Law School, highlights a few areas where legal education is failing students in “Law School Innovations Result In Broader Students:”

This shouldn’t surprise anyone:  by the third year, students know the drill and are no longer getting as much from their classes….

The second problem with legal education is that it is too individually focused.  Students basically work alone. They study for class and for their exams, they write their papers.  But the work is all done individually, whereas lawyers in the real world invariably work in teams….

As the profession has evolved, the international or global dimension has become incredibly important, and we’re just starting to come to terms with what that means.  What should we teach students who are going to work with lawyers, clients, businesses, and regulators from other countries and across borders?

Last, like every other profession, legal practice has become more specialized, and as that has happened, law firms have changed.  They do not train young lawyers the way they used to:  they can’t, their clients won’t pay for it.  It’s not that law schools need to teach the nitty gritty of practicing law—new lawyers still learn this best by doing it, on the ground.  Rather, law schools must teach students to be reflective lawyers, must teach them how to think about what they are doing and the choices they’re making.  Clients will demand this of them, and rightly so.  And lawyers need to be trained to be problem solvers as well as problem spotters.

Donald Polden, Dean and Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, addresses the importance of building leadership skills in law students in the article “Educating Law Students For Professional And Community Leadership:”

Instead of serving as community models of professional excellence, discernment and good judgment, lawyers in contemporary America are perceived to be caught up in the commercial and business demands of their work and are not sufficiently attuned to their prudential roles and responsibilities to their communities, to the national polity, and to the legal profession.

Daisy Hurst Floyd, Dean and Professor of Law at Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law, talks about the importance of developing a healthy professional identity in the artcile "A Matter of Identity:"

During their time in law school ... many students experience a loss of purpose, which is harmful to individual students and has negative consequences for the profession and for those served by the profession. The loss of purpose results from students’ changing identities.

In the article “Critical Relationship Building Skills For Associates,” Arnie Herz, a practicing attorney, mediator, and the author of the Legal Sanity blog, reveals three core business relationship principles that you need to know to have a successful and satisfying career.

Professional life coach Anne H. Whitaker will help you “Create A Personal Vision And Change Your Life.” 

Paula Patton from the NALP Foundation discusses new insight on associate attrition in the article “Why Do Associates Leave Firms That Want Them To Stay?”

Among 2,225 associate departures reported by 118 law firms during 2006:

• 21% were characterized as “desired”
• 28% were characterized by law firms as being “neutral” departures (neither desired nor undesired)
• 51% were described as “undesired” or “unwanted” 

In the article “Six Key Pieces Of Advice Straight From Corporate Counsel,” Marcie Borgal Shunk, a principal with The BTI Consulting Group, talks about the key characteristics corporate clients look for in a law firm. 

And there are more interesting articles to read in The Complete Lawyer, so check it out.

Orientation Series: 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner

Step 10:  Finding your sources of motivation

I wish I could fly out of my bed each morning and embrace the day with unwavering enthusiasm.  The reality is that sometimes it happens, other times I need a push.  Law school is often a rollercoaster when it comes to emotions.  One day, you can look around your classroom in amazement that you have made it that far and be excited about your future.  Another day, self-doubt starts eating a hole in your shield of confidence.  When you feel down for whatever reason, it helps to look for internal sources of your motivation.   Here is how to begin:

• Focus on your long-term goals.  Remind yourself why you went to law school in the first place.  Visualize your legal career as you want it to unfold.  If you were to write a script for a movie about yourself, how would you tell your story?  Are you a struggling character right now? 
• Remember what you felt when you found out that you were accepted by the law school of your choice.  Re-live that joy and excitement. 
• Picture yourself five years from now.  What would “You From the Future” tell “You in the Present”? 
• Write down all the things you are grateful for at the moment.  Sometimes, we forget how good our lives are.
• Notice what demotivates you. 
• Talk to people who care about you.  We all need support from time to time.  Even if you are very busy, find time to connect with your family and friends.
• Remind yourself that you are in control of your ship. You have the power to decide where and how fast you go.  Take an action that shows that you are indeed in control. 
• Read autobiographies of people who inspire you. 
• Notice what you tend to do or say to yourself when you lack motivation.  We often choose a behavior because it benefits us in some way even if we are not consciously aware of the benefit.  So next time you procrastinate, identify the upside of your procrastination.  Does it give you a potential justification for failure?  “Had I studied more, I would have done better.”  But because you don’t study hard enough, you always have an excuse of why you don’t do so well.  Face your fears and find a way to deal with them.      
• Sometimes, just doing what must be done is the best way to overcome your blues.  Act your way to success.

What are your sources of motivation?

Orientation Series:  21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner:
Step 1:  Setting your learning objectives
Step 2:  Taking an inventory of your skills
Step 3:  Taking an Inventory of Your Learning Tools
Step 4:  Finding opportunities for cognitive apprenticeship
Step 5:   Determining the "IIQ" of what you read
Step 6:  Choosing helpful books for law students
Step 7:  “The Three 'P's of Performance” in Action
Step 8:  Tapping into your social networks
Step 9:  Identifying your learning barriers

 

Fortune Cookie

Gone Fishing

I am on vacation this week, so I won’t be able to post as frequently.   To make sure you  have enough to read (I know…couldn’t resist), here are a few links to various resources on learning skills.

How to manage time better:
Time Management Pretest:  How Efficiently Do I Manage My Time?
Time management tips and resources from Academic Skills Center at Dartmouth College
Time Management Schedules to download form Academic Skills Center at CalPoly
21 Ways to Add More Hours to the Day at Lifehack.org

How to process information better:
10 Essential Mind Mapping Links at Codswallop
Improving Note Taking with Concept Maps at Mind Tools
Memory Principles:  Quick Reference Guide for Brain Compatible Learning Principles

What resources help you study better?

Legal Offshoring Myths Dispelled

The Hindu article "Three myths about legal services offshoring"  by D. Murali and Goutam Ghosh addresses three concerns about offshoring. 

Myth number one: ‘Indian lawyers lack the skills and aptitude to handle high-end legal work for the West.’

Here is what they have to say about legal education in the US as compared to India:

Legal education in both India and the English-speaking West serves essentially the same purpose – to train its graduates to “think like lawyers” and to teach them how to conduct research in the British-based, common law system. Western law schools, however, do not train students to practise law. A recent study conducted by Harvard Law School and LexisNexis reveals that 75 per cent of US law graduates admit they do not have the necessary skills to practise law. Interestingly, when young lawyers were asked what is the one thing that they wish they had learned, the most frequent answer was “how to draft a motion.” Yet, motion practice is at the heart of litigation services provided to clients by law firms.

Since Western law schools are mostly litigation-oriented, their failure to train students in the most basic of litigation skills is disappointing. However, clients who pay high hourly fees for corporate and transactional work by US law graduates are short-changed even further. It is typical for Western law students to graduate from law school without ever having learned how to draft a contract.

So you would expect that these deficiencies would be met by rigorous training programs undertaken by Western law firms. Guess again! The Harvard-LexisNexis study reveals that 64 per cent of young lawyers receive no organised, on-the-job training. They learn as they go along, by trial and error, with their firms’ corporate clients footing the bill.

By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India provide rigorous training to their lawyers, and the hours spent on training do not appear on invoices to clients.

Writing skills are also a problem:

...at least in the US, law graduates for the most part are notoriously incapable of writing effectively in English. The problem is so severe that some large US law firms now assign a writing coach to each incoming associate. However, most lawyers in the West never receive this kind of training. By contrast, reputable legal services offshoring companies in India train all their attorneys in English writing.

There is much more to ponder in that artcile, so read it in full.

Meanwhile, what do you do to ensure you stay competitive?   

Anticipation

The air is filled with anticipation here today.  We are leaving for a week-long vacation tomorrow morning.  There is still a lot to be done, but it is also time to enjoy the excitement of something good to come.   How often do you notice this emotion of anticipation?  Interestingly, I see it play out daily in my toddler daughter and my dogs.  When the dogs see their food bowls, they start doing “laps” around the kitchen – you can tell they are excited.  And whenever I tell my daughter that it is time to put on her shoes (which means we are going out), she starts running around the house, laughing. 

It would be good to be able to recreate this positive emotion more often in learning.  It is linked to our expectations, and the expectations help to position us for success.  Do we learn better when we anticipate the learning to be fun, engaging and useful?  And if so, what can we do to create the environment of positive anticipation?   Perhaps, I should revisit these questions when I come back.  Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.   What good do you anticipate today?

A new networking site for attorneys

ABA Journal reports on the launch of a new social networking site for attorneys called LawLink.   It is a network exclusively for licensed attorneys, who can join free of charge.  The application form will ask for your bar number, and the applications are checked.  LawLink provides the following services: 

The Network: Acquire new clients, advance your career, build a network of trusted attorneys.

The Classifieds: Jobs, client referrals, atty to atty services, office space, announcements, personals and more.

The Forum: Discuss legal topics, share info with other attys working on similar matters, and discuss judges, experts and other attys.

The Brochure: Create a brochure with your bio, qualifications, colleagues, endorsements and photos.

Orientation Series: 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner

Step 9:  Identifying your learning barriers

We all have them.  They block our best learning efforts.  It is time to bring them to light, look at them carefully, and part with them decisively.  What are they?  They are learning barriers. 

Today, I suggest an exercise in self-awareness.  As you go about your day, take notice of all your good intentions:  all the things you want to learn and do.  Just get a small notebook and jot them down as they pop up in your head.  The next day, pull out your list, take another look at your intentions, and ask yourself what stops you from taking a step forward towards making them a reality.  Write down your justifications.  Repeat this exercise for a few days until you start seeing a pattern.  What prevents you from giving attention to your intentions?

Orientation Series:  21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner:
Step 1:  Setting your learning objectives
Step 2:  Taking an inventory of your skills
Step 3:  Taking an Inventory of Your Learning Tools
Step 4:  Finding opportunities for cognitive apprenticeship
Step 5:   Determining the "IIQ" of what you read
Step 6:  Choosing helpful books for law students
Step 7:  “The Three 'P's of Performance” in Action
Step 8:  Tapping into your social networks

Three kinds of empathy

If you are in the serving profession, you have probably wondered more than once how much you should be involved in your clients’ stories.  It can be challenging to find that perfect place where you can be caring and compassionate without jeopardizing the effectiveness of your service and your own emotional balance.  In his blog, Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, reports on his conversation with Paul Ekman, an expert in understanding facial expressions and emotions, about three kinds of empathy:  cognitive, emotional and compassionate. 

According to Paul Ekman’s classification, “cognitive empathy” is “simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a negotiation or in motivating people.”

“Emotional empathy” is described as a state “when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious.” 

Finally, with “compassionate empathy,” “we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.”

Paul Ekman believes that the three kinds of empathy are learnable, like other emotional intelligence skills. 

You can read Daniel Goleman’s post about the benefits and downsides of each kind of empathy here.

Orientation Series: 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner

Step 8:  Tapping into your social networks

Most important learning comes from people – from interactions, conversations, stories that help to create new meaning and new knowledge.  So it is only appropriate to think about people that can support and enhance your learning in various ways.  What are your most valuable sources of information? Who are you learning from?  Here is a process to help you develop and tap into your key social networks.

1. Pull out your list of learning goals that you created in Step 1.  For each goal, brainstorm personal and business contacts, organizations, associations, and social networks that have the potential to make your learning more compete and efficient.
2. Write down your thoughts on how these potential resources can help you. 
3. Now think about how you can contribute to these relationships.  Look for mutual benefits that can deepen and strengthen your interactions with others.  What can you give to other people?  Write down your observations.
4. Set up a system to manage your contact information.  You want something to make the relevant names, phone numbers, addresses, etc. always available and easy to update.   This can be a good practice for managing your future client database. 
5. Develop a plan to contact these resources.  Let’s say, you have three goals to focus on at the moment.  Prepare to engage the corresponding resources.  Decide how and when you will contact them.  Compile the initial set of questions or issues you want to discuss.
6. Just do it.  Get in touch, make a phone call, write a letter or an email, join, subscribe, enroll, invite somebody to lunch or for a cup of coffee.  Make a connection. 
7. The hardest part is to maintain the engagement.  It takes time, thought and effort, but the benefits can be huge and long-lasting.  So often we just scratch the surface and miss out on the opportunity to have deeper conversations and more profound insights.  If you were to take your conversation a step further, what would you say or do?  Get into a habit of thinking about the follow-up right after your initial contact.  If you want your relationship to grow, plan for it and commit to the path. 
8. Revisit your list of contacts and your networking plans periodically.  Weed out those that don’t work.  Focus your time and energy on productive relationships that enhance your learning. 

Your networks are like a garden.  You design and plant it.  You water it regularly and give it food to grow.  Some plants die, others flourish. But if you put attention to it, you will have a beautiful garden to enjoy.

Are you ready to grow your learning networks?

Orientation Series:  21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner:
Step 1:  Setting your learning objectives
Step 2:  Taking an inventory of your skills
Step 3:  Taking an Inventory of Your Learning Tools
Step 4:  Finding opportunities for cognitive apprenticeship
Step 5:   Determining the "IIQ" of what you read
Step 6:  Choosing helpful books for law students
Step 7:  “The Three 'P's of Performance” in Action 

A slice of "Lawsagna" with a "Cup of Chai"

I am brewing my own learning concoction as a guest blogger at Cup of Chai.  Inspired by the unique design of My Cuppa, a color-matching guide mug that allows you to mix milk with your coffee just the way you like it by matching the color guide on the inside of the mug, I wonder what kinds of ingredients I would choose for a learning potion.  You take a sip and turn into the best learner you can be.  Do you want to know the recipe?  Follow me all the way to Switzerland.