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In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl writes, “One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.” We are daily bombarded with so much attention and focus on being happy, but I firmly believe this is a misguided […]

Where Law Firm Websites Go Wrong If you go to most law firm websites, they spend the majority of space telling you how great the firm is, how accomplished their lawyers are, and how extraordinary their results have been. There is a common misconception that by telling our clients and prospective clients how truly awesome […]

I have hobbies and interests that take away from time I could otherwise be working and billing clients. This blog is an example, as is my forthcoming book Building a Better Law Practice. It took me years to come to terms with it being okay to take time for myself. But now I understand that having […]

It isn’t often that a novel is capable of hurtling you decades into your own past and rekindling thoughts of people and feelings long since buried in the hubris of life. For me The Barrowfields was such a book. We meet book’s protagonist Henry as an adolescent North Carolina boy and journey with him into […]

Last week I interviewed Stacy Moon about what law firms are looking for from associates who they expect to transition from associate to partner. Today, we take a look at the other side of that coin – What are associates looking for from their law firms? Associates at law firms often have the difficult job […]

What makes for a good associate is not necessarily what makes for a good partner. The two have very different roles in a firm. I have written on this blog before about things you can do to be a better associate. Let me sum it up for you like this: a good associate works diligently, knows […]

Reinterpreting David and Goliath Just this morning, I began reading Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath which begins by telling the well-known story of, you guessed it, David and Goliath. But in the book, he reframes the story. Gladwell tells us that we have been misinterpreting it. This is not the story of a small shepherd […]

There are a disproportionate percentage of lawyers are technologically illiterate. The world around us is evolving with increasing rapidity, but many lawyers and law firms are behind the times and making no concerted effort to catch up. In this month’s article in the ABA Journal “Your Voice” feature, I offer three things you must not […]

I recently read The Barrowfields, which is not generally considered a funny book, although it made me laugh a couple of times. But it does have line in it that will be funny to lawyers (or at the very least, was funny to me). Midway through the book, the protagonist says something to this effect: […]

I would rather deal with a good lawyer than a bad lawyer, even a lawyer who is more experienced or I perceive as being better than me … every single time. I don’t think have a particularly high bar in want I want from opposing counsel. In fact I can break it down into two […]