PART TWO:
A Path Out of the Misery
Okay, so let's get to it. I've developed a six-step formula for ending the misery. The approach starts with creating the right mindset, then offers a process, and finally helps develop the right long-term habits. Let's take a look at the list of steps, then elaborate on each:
Six-Step Your Way Out of the Funk
- Accept that it's time for change and admit that your life/practice has become unmanageable.
- Take a hard look at yourself and your practice. Admit and identify your personal flaws.
- Redefine success. It's about "pleasance."
- Accept that a mission greater than yourself can restore fulfillment to your career.
- Embark on a comprehensive plan of incremental change personally.
- Embark on a comprehensive plan of incremental change in your practice.
STEP ONE: Accept that it's time for change and admit that your life/practice has become unmanageable.
- Accept that the practice of law is never going to change.
The beginning of the MPH approach is the mindset. It starts with acceptance.
There are a couple of things you will have to accept in order for any of this to work. But before we get into that, let's take a moment to talk about what I mean when I say "accept." I'm not talking about accepting the fact that you are miserable. That's pretty much a given, seeing as how you're reading this book. I'm talking about accepting the fact that things are out of your control.
You need to accept that the things you most hate about the practice are not going to change. You can't reduce the amount of work. You can't make the administrative tasks go away. You can't change the assholes. You can't avoid dealing with staff issues, or other people, for that matter. Whether it's clients, judges, or your boss, you can't change them. Lawyers have been complaining about these miserable situations in the law forever and they're not going away. Not in our lifetime, at least.
While we're in the mode of accepting things we cannot change, let's address the billable hour. You hate the billable hour. I know.
Tough.
The billable hour is never going to end.
I laugh at all of the lawyers and consultants who periodically declare the end of the billable hour. They've been pushing that garbage for years. But the reality is that the billable hour won't ever go away. There are two reasons: (1) we can't get rid of it, and (2) we don't really want to get rid of it.
The billable hour will never go away because lawyers have to feed the beast. The beast is our overhead: employees cost a lot. Benefits cost a lot. Technology is expensive. All of that stuff cost a ton of money and the only way we can feed that beast is with the billable-hour model.
Oh, I know there are a bunch of you out there right now, shouting at the screen/page. "My firm got rid of the billable hour . you don't know what you're talking about!"
Garbage.
Yes, there are some firms who don't bill by the hour. They have flat fees. But how does that firm determine the flat fee? They look at all of the tasks they have to accomplish to deliver competent legal services to the client, they calculate the amount of time they have to spend to get that work done, and they set the flat fee based on the hours they expect to work. Trust me, if all of a sudden they noticed that the amount of time they were dedicating to those client files was increasing, they'll increase that flat fee. Why? Because they are spending more time doing the work. I mean, come on, this isn't rocket science.
Stop fooling yourself into thinking that the billable hour is going to vanish. We are lawyers. We bill for our time. Whether it's by counting the hours overtly or counting them when we set our flat fees, we are all ruled by the billable hour and it's not going to change.
About that second reason to argue against the demise of the billable hour. Lawyers don't really want to get rid of it.
I'm sure you remember your fellow law students who droned on about work-life balance. "The billable hour is ruining people's lives," they'd complain. "When I get out, I'm going to change things." And yet, that never happens.
It's not because they lack the power to change anything. Law students have been complaining about it for years, and many of those complaining students are now in partnership positions in law firms. They have the opportunity and the power to change the system. But they don't because they don't want to. That's because once they got into the practice, they realized that the billable-hour model is what brings in the big money. You want the big law lifestyle? You want millions of dollars in fees? Then you need to bill by the hour.
Nothing you hate about the practice is ever going to change. You need to accept that. You might have been waiting, hoping, that things would change. And yet here you are, years later, dealing with the same crap. The hard reality is this is the law. Accept the practice for what it is.
- Admit that your life/practice has become unmanageable.
Now it's time to admit that your life and practice have become unmanageable. You might need to read that again to make sure you saw the words correctly. I didn't say you had to "accept" that your life has become unmanageable. I wrote that you need to "admit" that it's become unmanageable. We're not talking about acceptance anymore. Now we're talking about admitting something to ourselves. There's a big difference.
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, "accepting" means "to endure without protest."4 On the other hand, "admitting" means "to make acknowledgment."5 Accepting something seems passive. You're allowing something to exist without putting up resistance. But there's an active element to admitting something. When you admit something, you make an affirmation. Well, now it's time for you to take that step. You need to admit that your professional life has become unmanageable.
A big indicator that your professional life has, indeed, become unmanageable is the fact that you're actually reading this book. But there are a host of other realities to consider:
- You're facing disciplinary action, or just narrowly avoided it.
- You have stacks of paper and files around your office, and those stacks are growing. Alternatively, if you have a paperless filing system, your unfiled electronic files are sitting in an ever-increasing virtual pile. Or, you have no virtual filing system and your digital office is scattered about.
- You are way behind in your billing and paying your own bills.
- You have multiple undeposited checks from clients.
- You are avoiding multiple client phone calls because you haven't done the work on their file. You might be avoiding lots of people at this point.
- You're consistently asking for extensions to court deadlines.
- You're dealing with mental health issues: feeling depression, having doubts about your self-worth, wondering how you're going to "keep it together."
- Your use of alcohol and drugs is getting progressively worse.
Individually these elements might not be enough to make you believe that your practice has become unmanageable. But when you look at them together, it could paint a picture. If that picture is coming into focus then there is something you must do.
Get help.
Maybe you need professional help. Go see a therapist. Get help with your mental health. This book is not a substitute for proper medical attention. In addition to proper medical help, you might need some support for making meaningful change in your professional life. That's what this book is all about.
It's time for you to admit that things have gotten out of hand. Admit that you are not strong enough to fix this on your own. That's not a flaw. That's not something to be ashamed of. It's just reality. For most of us, the reality is that you're not going to be able to change your life without help. It's time to admit that things have become unmanageable and that you need someone else's help if things are going to get any better.
That belief has got to be genuine. Once you have a genuine belief that your practice has become unmanageable and you need help, you've opened the door to the possibility of meaningful change.
- Admit that your life/practice has become unmanageable.
So you've accepted that the sucky practice of law will always be sucky. You've come to grips with the fact that your life and/or practice have become unmanageable. The final part of your mindset is to be willing.
Ending the misery will be a multi-faceted process. You're going to need to change a variety of things in your life and, together, they will conspire to brainwash you into a better place. But there isn't even the remotest chance that it could work if you don't believe it's possible. Why am I saying this? Because I know that some of you think the idea of brainwashing yourself is bull. If that belief closes off your mind to the possibility of change then there is no way anything can possibly get better.
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