Finding Your 'Why': The Heartbeat of a Fulfilling Legal Career

Why do you do what you do?

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For the uniqueness? There are 1,300,000 lawyers in the country last I saw (and then paralegals, lawyers in other countries, legal zoom, ai, etc.)

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For the money? Zip recruiter puts the average income at $62,099 for solos in Florida (or $29.86 an hour assuming a 40-hour work week)

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For the prestige? My dad thinks it's half sad and half funny that a guy in our state has billboards advertising car accidents and that he went to Harvard law school...his thoughts on his son and daughter-in-law who didn't go to Harvard doing the same work are unclear...

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So why do you do what you do? Because there IS a reason. And that's what we are talking about today. This might be a sobering newsletter for at least the beginning but bear with me. I promise it has a happy ending (like I hope your story does too)

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Motivation

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I'm reading Daniel Pink's "Drive", and reading the research behind extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is pretty fascinating.

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Kids who like to draw when they have free time in class but then are told they will get a certificate for drawing in class stop drawing by choice two weeks later.

College kids paid to solve puzzles don't try the puzzles during a break in the "experiment" (the same goes for monkeys given grapes!)

People paid to donate blood give less blood than those who do it for free (or get to donate the money to charity)

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And yet, we all continue to get up, throw on the suit and tie (or Hawaiian shirt), and come to work every day.

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Sure, maybe we will eventually be happy when we make partner (unlikely), or maybe we don't want to be seen as a failure (when the failure is remaining miserable), or maybe we don't want to let down our spouse/children/household counting on us to cover bills (makes sense).

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But here's what I will say, the faster you find a GREAT answer and LIVE that answer, the faster you will be happy and successful.

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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, I had more colleagues die by suicide/stroke/heart attack/overdose than those who retired. Eventually, that was a wake-up call to stop getting ground into dust 60-70 hours a week while making no money and having no time to enjoy life.

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This led to me making DRASTIC changes at my firm and then what I do with LegalEase to try and give back as much helpful insight and wisdom as possible to help my colleagues avoid many of the financial and marketing pitfalls that we struggle with as an industry.

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Dark humor story - when I googled "why do lawyers do what (I was going to finish it with they do)," I got a recommended search of "why do lawyers do whatever they want," so google doesn't fucking understand us either apparently...

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How I Found my Why

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So I gave you a bit of the rundown on my catalyst for change, but how did that help me? What did I do from there, and how can I help you?

 I made a list of what I didn't like about my current firm - the hours, shaking down clients to pay bills, driving 2 hours to court for a 5-minute hearing, and the pay.

 I looked at what I DID like about the current firm - the flexibility of being the boss, I liked a lot of my clients (it's easy to root for an underdog story, and genuinely most criminal defendants aren't bad people), the networking, sharing my thoughts in a helpful manner.

I looked at options to have to do LESS from the first list - really losing the driving would fix a LOT of the hours, which would give me more time to do the work/get more cases/make more money, PI would mean the client didn't have to pay.

I looked at options to do MORE of the second list - I knew I wasn't going to close down and find a job. I could help the same clients on PI without needing them to pay. I could drive around the area less and hang out more, etc.

I put it all together into a mission statement - I help blue-collar professionals who were injured through what will be one of the most difficult times of their life.

BOOM! Hello, why!

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And if you want to know the same for Lawyer with a Life and LegalEase 

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I help growth-minded law firm owners run a firm they can be proud of and live a life that's even better!

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I would be remiss not to mention Simon Sinek (Start with Why AND Find Your Why)

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For him, the outline is To _______ so that _________

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To help blue-collar professionals through their injury cases so that they can continue showing up for those they care about

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or To grow law firms the right way so that the owners can be there for those they care about.

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(I don't think his outline fits ME as well... although the fact that both of my missions statements written that way go back to the same outcome probably proves something about how good his outline actually IS and maybe I just haven't put in the time to formulate it better)

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But Then What?

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Then you have to actually do it! Make the changes, and live by the mission statement.

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So I couldn't close down the criminal defense side of the firm ASAP because I needed the $$$ to cover for everyone. BUT, I stopped marketing for a criminal case and started marketing for PI. So yes, our criminal referrals tailed off some (we still get a chunk), BUT my PI leads went from 0 to 1, to 5, to 10, to 50 etc.

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We found a PI lawyer looking to cut back and get out of litigation and practice to co-counsel with Heather on the cases and help her learn presuit PI.

We partnered with other counsels to help during the litigation of cases.

We hired staff with experience in PI (to be fair, this was the least successful route as they never did it the way we wanted the client service to go, and we ended up letting all of them go).

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As we made the changes to the firm, we went back to that mission statement - to help blue-collar professionals who were injured through what will be one of the most difficult times of their life.

How would they want to be treated during their cases?

What would they want to know as the case played out?

Who would they want to talk to when they called?

And on tough days and lean months, we went back to that mission statement - how WERE we helping them?

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And on great days and record months, we still went back to that statement - how were these results in line with that plan to help these people?

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Because look, nothing will EVER be perfect. You want PROGRESS.

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There are still bad days. You just want fewer of them and a longer time between them.

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And when in doubt, go back to that mission. Are you on the right path? Are you honoring that mission statement? Are your decisions aligned with what you are doing?

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Because I promise you, there's the potential for all of us to be happy. It just takes finding that why and then living your why.

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That's all, folks! Next week we are talking about the BEST (and easiest) 1-Hour Content Generating Machine.

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Until then, may you not make friends with Natasha Lyonne because you WILL die horribly. Of course, she will eventually use her bullshit detector power to find your killer, but still...you died first.  

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In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Until Next Friday

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