Why Do You Do What You Do?
- For the uniqueness? There are 1,300,000 lawyers in the country, plus paralegals, lawyers in other countries, LegalZoom, AI, and more.
- For the money? ZipRecruiter reports the average income for solo lawyers in Florida is $62,099, or $29.86 per hour assuming a 40-hour work week.
- For the prestige? My dad finds it half sad and half funny that a lawyer in our state advertises car accidents on billboards and went to Harvard Law School. His thoughts on his children doing the same work without Harvard are unclear.
So why do you do what you do? There is a reason, and that is what we are talking about today. This might be sobering at first, but bear with me—I promise it has a happy ending, just like your story should.
Motivation
I am reading Daniel Pink’s Drive, and the research behind extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is fascinating:
- Kids who enjoy drawing stop drawing when told they will get a certificate.
- College students paid to solve puzzles skip them during breaks in the experiment. Monkeys show the same pattern with grapes.
- People paid to donate blood donate less than those who do it for free or donate the money to charity.
And yet, we all continue to get up, put on a suit (or Hawaiian shirt), and come to work every day.
Sure, maybe we hope to be happy when we make partner, or maybe we don’t want to be seen as a failure, or maybe we don’t want to let down our family counting on us to cover bills.
The faster you find a GREAT answer and live that answer, the faster you will be happy and successful.
For me, it goes back to my first seven years as a lawyer. Between my time as an ASA and then as a criminal defense lawyer, more colleagues died from suicide, stroke, heart attack, or overdose than retired. Eventually, that was a wake-up call to stop grinding 60-70 hours a week for little money and no life.
This led to drastic changes in my firm and inspired what I do with LegalEase: to help colleagues avoid common financial and marketing pitfalls in our industry.
Dark humor note: Googling “why do lawyers do what” suggested “why do lawyers do whatever they want.” Apparently, even Google doesn’t understand us.
How I Found My Why
Here is how I identified my purpose and how you can do the same:
1. Identify what you dislike:
- Long hours
- Shaking down clients for payment
- Driving long distances for short hearings
- Low pay
2. Identify what you like:
- Flexibility as the boss
- Clients you enjoy working with
- Networking
- Sharing helpful insights
3. Minimize what you dislike:
- Reducing driving cuts hours significantly, giving more time for work and clients
- Personal injury (PI) work allows clients to not pay upfront
4. Maximize what you enjoy:
- Focus on tasks and clients you love
- Spend more time with clients, less wasted effort
5. Craft a mission statement:
“I help blue-collar professionals who were injured through what will be one of the most difficult times of their life.”
For LegalEase and Lawyer with a Life:
“I help growth-minded law firm owners run a firm they can be proud of and live a life that is even better.”
Simon Sinek’s framework (Start With Why) is also helpful:
To [do something] so that [outcome].
- To help blue-collar professionals through their injury cases so that they can continue showing up for those they care about.
- To grow law firms the right way so owners can be there for those they care about.
Then What?
Then you have to act on it. Make the changes and live by your mission statement.
I could not close the criminal defense side immediately because of revenue needs. But I stopped marketing criminal cases and focused on PI. Criminal referrals decreased, but PI leads grew from 0 to 50 and beyond.
We also:
- Partnered with other PI lawyers to co-counsel cases
- Hired staff with PI experience (less successful, eventually let them go)
At every step, we asked ourselves:
- How would clients want to be treated during their cases?
- What information would they need?
- Who would they want to talk to when calling?
On tough days and lean months, we asked: Are we helping them as promised?
On great days and record months: Are these results aligned with our mission?
Progress, not perfection, is the goal. There will still be bad days, but fewer and farther between.
The Promise of Your Why
Finding your why and living it creates the potential for true fulfillment. Happiness and success are possible when your daily work aligns with your purpose.
Until then, have a great weekend. And may you avoid crossing paths with Natasha Lyonne—because in this hypothetical, she might find your killer before anyone else.