Wisconsin Lawyer
Vol. 79, No. 10, October
2006
Extricating Yourself From the Stress Trap
What you weren't taught in law school can - and may have - hurt you.
High stress can be a symptom of a poorly managed or undermanaged
practice. It doesn't mean you're incompetent. It's simply that you were
never taught practice management skills - or you haven't used the skills
you were taught.
by Dustin A. Cole
Stress takes a huge toll on the legal profession. Yet most attorneys
have a love-hate relationship with it. They deal with it substantively
only when serious problems with their health, relationships, or finances
force them to. Otherwise, most simply accept stress as "just how it
is."
Dustin A. Cole is president of
Attorneys Master Class, a company that helps firms maximize revenues by
enhancing attorney skills. Contact Cole.
Why? Because many attorneys believe, consciously or unconsciously,
that stress and money are directly linked. They believe that to reduce
stress one must reduce income. Benjamin Sells, Ph.D., author of The
Soul of the Law, says lawyers have a cope or quit syndrome: "That's
just how the practice is, and if you don't like it, get out." Of course,
reducing income is a frightening thought to struggling attorneys, and
even more so to those trapped in the golden handcuffs of high income
(and often high debt).
The stress/success link is one of the most pervasive myths of the
profession, and one that holds too many lawyers back from growing their
practices. Stress increases with volume only when the underlying
management infrastructure of the practice doesn't grow
proportionately.
To put it another way, high stress can be a symptom of a poorly
managed practice - or, more likely, an undermanaged one. This doesn't
mean you're incompetent, it's simply that you might not have been taught
practice management skills.
Think back to law school. Do you remember any classes in practice
management, marketing, financial management, project management, or team
management?
Unless your law school was truly unusual, the answer is probably
"No." In fact, law school might have given you some hindering messages,
such as "just be a great lawyer, and you'll be successful;" and "you're
a professional, not a business person." Law school gave you a disdain
for anything that smacked of business.
Law schools also foster the stress-success belief by placing students
in a constant state of stress with unreasonable demands, impossible
deadlines, and undoable assignments, to weed out the weak and toughen
the strong. After living in that environment for three years it's
natural to believe that the legal profession is inherently stressful and
demanding.
Lawyers go from law school into the real world and continue the
pattern. They focus on improving their legal skills, disdain management
skills, and live in stress, because stress equates to success (I'm busy,
so I must be successful!). Stress is what got most lawyers through law
school, and consequently many attorneys find they have trouble focusing
on a task without a deadline. So when stress decreases, many attorneys
tend to actually create it, for instance by delaying work until a
deadline forces them into hyperactive mode.
The reality of the legal world is that stress is the accepted
substitute for absent business management skills.
If you're not clear about this, answer three questions for
yourself:
1) Over the last five years, how many hours have you spent in CLE and
other legal skills development programs?
2) How many hours have you spent in business management, marketing,
or team leadership programs?
3) When do you do your best work, well in advance of deadlines, or
when they're close?
For younger attorneys, especially those in large firms, all this may
sound inane. Why do you need business or marketing skills? After all,
the firm handles all the business stuff and feeds you all the business
you can handle, right? Perhaps - and that makes you a fungible employee,
a "grinder," with no business to call your own. To become a "minder" or
a "finder" requires skills in leadership, team management, financial
management, and client management. The very best and most successful
attorneys have worked on building those skills actively and
consciously.
You Can Increase Revenues and Decrease Stress
Here's the bottom line: you can increase your revenues and actually
decrease your stress by shifting your perspective, and making studied,
conscious changes in how you practice law.
Start by committing to the concept that behind the practice of law is
the business of the law practice. Legal services are the product you
sell, and you must have an effective infrastructure around the product
to facilitate its delivery. Like any other business, yours requires its
owner - you - to master other skill sets beyond your substantive
lawyering skills.
Once you have truly accepted that premise, a new vista opens when you
start asking the logical question: So what do I need to learn in order
to manage my business successfully?
The answers and the skills won't come overnight. But so long as you
continue asking, searching, and learning, you're on the path to a more
successful and more satisfying practice.
Here's a hint on where to start. There actually are four
significantly different skill sets - and perspectives - required: the
Owner, the Marketer, the Manager, and the Technician.
The Owner is the person who created the business with an objective in
mind: financial success, personal fulfillment, and personal freedom. He
or she is the strategist, charged with building and keeping the vision,
and making sure that the practice has all the pieces in place to deliver
on that vision.
The Marketer serves as the wheels of the practice; the person
responsible for attracting business for the manager to manage, the
technician to crunch, and the owner to benefit from.
The Manager is the traffic cop, the caterer, and the street cleaner,
responsible for workflow, business details, and making sure there are
sufficient resources available in the business for the other three roles
to be successful.
The (Brilliant) Technician is the expert; the legal specialist who
makes the product that is delivered by the business.
The more you can consciously focus on these roles and master them -
or in some cases delegate them - the more successful your practice will
become.
Wisconsin
Lawyer