Preparing for Reentry: Beware the Lawyer Personality
Looking for legal work? Perhaps the best response at the moment is “Who isn’t?” Yet, every senior lawyer will tell you that lawyers have never known where their next piece of work was coming from. The best advice from those who have been in the practice for decades, who have seen the ups and downs of economies and clients from all sides, is not to let your lawyer’s personality get in your way. Let me explain.
Lawyers, from the most to the least successful, are professionally well served by developing their natural pessimistic tendencies. Research shows that lawyers are the only professional group that thrives on pessimism. Oversimplifying, successful lawyers tend to be skeptical, cynical, judgmental, argumentative, questioning and self-protective. We resist being told what to do and revel in our independence. These traits serve our clients very, very well. But they can too easily get in your way when your goal is personal success.
When The American Bar Association initially asked me to write Preparing for Reentry, the economy had not entered its meltdown. The book was aimed at lawyers who had taken a voluntary break from the practice and were considering a return in the future.
Since the book was initially planned, of course, the employment landscape for lawyers has changed dramatically, even though we have two lawyers occupying the White House and dozens more employed there.
Even litigation work, always considered recession proof in the past, has experienced a significant downturn. Finance sector legal jobs, some say, may never return. Venerable firms have paid their new hires to take a year or more before starting work, hoping the business will turn around.
If you are seeking to expand your practice, or to reenter the practice these days, chances are your reasons are economic more than personal fulfilment. Most lawyers need to work, as do most Americans, and every day the headlines tell us that unemployment numbers are at 25-year high points.
Lawyer Beware: In the face of these numbers, many lawyers will allow their lawyer personality to conclude their desire to practice is lunacy. They will incorrectly assume they cannot thrive in the current economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If your lawyer personality is getting in the way of your thriving law practice, get professional help. Hire a coach. Hire a consultant. Talk to someone who is thriving, preferrably not a lawyer.
Remember: the actual work of being a lawyer is the only place where pessimism serves you well. In the rest of your life, optimism rules.
