Good Lawyers Choose Great Careers
Do you see your opportunities clearly? Do you maximize them? Most lawyers do neither, but exceptional lawyers do both. Sometimes, professional help is needed. When opportunity knocks, it often pays to clarify the picture by working with good coaches and consultants.
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book describing the lives of the exceptionally successful, explains Secret [...]
We asked lawyers enjoying extraordinary careers through good and bad economic times to share their Top Ten Secrets. Developing a sense of what risks to take was Secret #3. We described it this way:
Don’t No everything. Your skills for risk assessment and avoidance can too easily lead you to “no” instead of “yes” [...]
Tired of all the bad news these days? I am. The incessant negative reports from every quarter of the economy and the world have been bombarding us for at least two years now. I, for one, am ready to declare a moratoriam. Aren’t you?
Maybe forewarned is forearmed, but after a while, these negative reports are [...]
Nothing happens instantly, in legal careers or in life. When we described the 10 Secrets of Extraordinary Legal Careers based on our interviews and experience with thousands of lawyers, one of the most significant secrets they shared was Secret #4 Eating apples requires attention. We shouldn’t eat an apple just to be finished [...]
Law careers are developed and created over time. Generally years, not months. A lawyer on the “fast track” may shave a year or so off her “metoric success,” but one rarely graduates from law school on Friday and becomes Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. Yes, Barack Obama is a young president. [...]
When there is only one choice, it’s the right choice. That’s what good lawyers with great careers often discover. Take John Arthur Jones, for example. He’s practiced law for 60 years. He said he’d planned to become a journalist, but that didn’t happen. He tried a few other things that didn’t pan out. And then, [...]
Law career development is a long and winding road, extending through decades of worthwhile experience, if we play our cards right. No one is a better example of that truth than Jeanne T. Tate. Jeanne is another good lawyer doing good in our world through her extraordinary law career.
This week, Jeanne received the 2009 Hillsborough Association for Women Lawyers Achievement Award. This is only the most recent in
Law career development, like personal development, never stops as long as we’re living. We’ve learned that law school teaches us to think like lawyers, a lesson that can’t (and shouldn’t) be undone. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, even if we take an extended break from active law practice.
Yet, as we gain experience, the primary secrets we learned in the early years expand, become more nuanced, flexible, complex, and rewarding. Just as computer code is a
M. Diane Vogt
Buy Now!
Publish & Practice