idealawg

10 things the wealthy should leave their kids—besides money

The Wealth Report blog of The Wall Street Journal posted a list of 10 things parents should provide for their children. The list was created by ex-lawyer Peter A. White. From his story:

...White says he was discovering "a dissatisfaction with my life practicing law, a life focused on success and making money," even as the external accouterments compounded. "It wasn't fulfilling. After chasing success but not finding happiness, I took a step back. It was an evolutionary process but I made fairly radical changes in the way I was living."

White chose to employ his talents where his heart clearly lay. In 1986, while remaining of counsel to Fulbright and Jaworski, he founded International Skye Associates, Inc., a firm that provided personal counseling services and specializes in rendering services in the field of private wealth and philanthropy. White and his associates stressed "taking advantage of opportunities and solving problems according to the needs and goals of each family as defined by them, integrating modern thinking about business and finance with timeless wisdom from religion, philosophy, and the social sciences."

The WSJ post talks about the White's list of 10.

I met up with Peter at a wealth retreat in California last week. During his speech, he casually mentioned a list he created of the 10 things parents should provide for their children, which he called “The 10 Elements of Care.” The audience – mainly wealthy investors — wanted to know more, so Peter ticked off the list.

The list begins:

Lifestyle issues in a sister profession related to lawyer quality of life: What's up or down, Doc?

Does improving a physician's quality of life enhance patient care? The majority of those interviewed in this article from Medscape say yes. As I read the article, I kept wondering if the questions presented apply to the legal profession, too. I think they do. From "Improve Physician Quality of Life to Enhance Patient Care":

Doctors are under too much pressure, experts warn, and this is having a negative affect on patients. Physicians who are overworked, overburdened, and generally stressed out are less available to patients and not as effective. Disregard the basic needs of healthcare professionals and patients are soon neglected too.

Do overworked lawyers equal underserved clients?

A recent blog post on the medical profession (Brain Blogger) looks at both the doctor quality-of-life question, and also at the shortage of physicians in the US. Is the shortage because of the increase of women physicians and their working fewer hours, or because of a generation that wants a different kind of life?

Time are changing and the next generation of physicians are not going to stay up all night and take call at any hour of the day to maintain the physician-patient relationship.

Do female physicians work less than their

April, 2008 edition of LAW PRACTICE TODAY now online

Click to read the April edition of Law Practice Today. Some of the included articles:

• Beyond Diversity: Inclusion In the Legal Workforce by Janet Ellen Raasch

  Law firms are falling behind other professions in hiring diverse workforces. How can the legal community create an atmosphere of inclusiveness and attract diverse employees? Janet Allen Raasch outlines the steps law firms. Law schools, and universities must take to catch up.

• The Power of Storytelling in Your Legal Practice by Paramjit L. Mahli

  How do attorneys connect with their audience without losing themselves in legal-speak? The art of story telling can help lawyers communicate in a way that is captivating and easily understood.

• April-May Marketing Brief by Bob Weiss

  Your logo may be more important than you think. Bob Weiss explains how your company’s brand can make you stand out.

• Is the Check REALLY in the Mail? Only If You Bill the Right Way! by Edward Poll

  Don’t let worrying about payments stress you out. Here are some tips on how to manage billing so that you and your clients are happy.

New law allowing Wisconsin adults to plan their own funerals AND have their wishes honored: What's your state's law on your clients' funeral choices?

As of the beginning of this month, Wisconsin has a new law affecting funeral planning. Authorization for Final Disposition (a suggested form in pdf) gives Wisconsin adults more choice and control. As you may recall from prior idealawg musing, I am an advocate of people designing their own funerals or memorial services for reasons listed here. And I believe that estate planning lawyers serve their clients by being aware of this option and making the suggestion.

More about the Wisconsin law from "LEGAL MATTERS: New law provides choice in funerals, burials" (Onalaska Life), article by attorney Gregory S. Bonney:

Prior law held that next of kin made all arrangements, regardless of the wishes of the deceased. That created a number of problems for unmarried couples, siblings of deceased parents and the clergy and funeral directors who were trying to sort out to whom they should listen.

Effective April 1, 2008, the law says that anyone age 18 or older can appoint someone to handle these matters, including what happens to their body and what kind of memorial service, if any, occurs.

It comes as good news to anyone who has strong feelings about what should happen to them upon death. Unmarried couples — both opposite sex and same sex — can now ensure that their partners make funeral and burial arrangements rather than next of kin if they so desire. The law will also clarify funeral and burial issues that may arise in second marriages when one has surviving children from a first marriage and a surviving spouse from a second.

The law is very specific, allowing residents to specify backup designees and prescribe what happens in various scenarios, such as when children of the deceased disagree.

. . .

Used correctly, the Authorization for Final Disposition should become another of your standard estate planning documents, so you should review it when updating wills, durable powers of attorney or healthcare powers of attorney. Like other estate planning documents, the authorization provides one more way to assure your wishes are respected.

What is the law in your state? Please let me know and I will add your state to this post. Thanks.

Upcoming Colorado event: April 23, 2008

Click to read all about Networking for Skeptics and Procrastinators: Using Your Brain to Create More Business.

The way to wisdom? I don't know

Being fuzzy on the right explanation, seeking a healthy dose of ignorance, holding the questions instead of the answers with grace, can sometimes be the wisest path. This poem talks about another path, one often taken by some lawyers.

“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins:

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out if it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Ever know anyone who beats life with a hose, trying to torture meaning out of it? People who are prone to tying topics to chairs and analyzing, analyzing, analyzing? Analysis can be tiring, and deadly boring.

IMPALED ON THE POINT

I once spent a whole day at a week-long training participating in exercises designed to teach us that one cannot have a good “yes” until one has a good “no.” The trainers wanted us to see that a true and strong “yes” cannot be said by a person who has not developed the ability to say a true and strong “no.”

A valid point, certainly, but . . . The point was tied to a chair and those hoses came out in full force. The point was whacked and swatted and smacked until we all wanted to say, “We confess. Whatever it is, we confess. Let us out of here.” Don’t suppose any of you have ever attended a training like that?

A good “no" and a good “yes” are important. But so is a good “I don’t know.” Sometimes saying “I don’t know” feels like a release, a relief. We don’t always have to know the answer. But do we know we don't?

Some people feel compelled to answer all questions with some answer besides “I don’t know.” These people seem allergic to those three liberating words. They wrinkle their brow and their brain, strain with thought, and emit an answer from their mouth.

And sometimes their answer can seem sempiternal. (I so appreciate the word "sempiternity" because even though it means forever, sempiternity sounds longer than forever or eternity, don’t you think?)

I’M OK BECAUSE IDK

Thought and dialogue and analysis are, of course, very valuable and necessary. But so is IDK (I don't know). I say let’s respect IDK. IDK is an integral part of wisdom.

IDK is also a fun place. When you say IDK, you get to play

"I am just trying to save the world": How would you identify a toxic mediator?

I am writing an article on the legal profession's version of the helper syndrome. This syndrome results in a person helping others in order to ease his or her own pain or to ignore his or her own problems. Because of the lack of clarity or self-awareness on the part of the "helper," the results of the helping intervention can often be worse than nothing at all. The service professions frequently attract people who exhibit the helper syndrome. Even for the mentally healthy, the service relationship can be tricky.

A major consideration, and one that should be held steadfastly in the back of every professional's mind, is that the helping relationship is typically asymmetric: people are not on equal footing. Asymmetric relationships bring with them many potential problems, including dependence, resentment, and suspicion. A key antidote to those perils is the client or helpee maintaining autonomy and self-determination in as large a measure as appropriate and possible.

Another key is well-placed trust in the professional. Gerard Lulofs* writes:

[T]he professions are separate from other vocations because they require a relatively high level of systematic theoretical knowledge. This brings with it a market imbalance, because the information at the disposal of the exchange partners is asymmetrically distributed. . . . As a rule, it is the supplier who determines the needs of the recipient, whereas the latter is seldom in a position to assess the quality of the services provided. The most prominent characteristic, therefore, of the professional services market lies in the element of trust contained in the exchange relationship between provider and recipient.

Still another key to effective service relationships, perhaps the most essential, is the professional's mental

Seen any "fidgety, erratic and rash" lawyers lately? Or been one?

Seeing time as money—equating minutes with dollars—is probably not in the best interest of your health or your client's able representation. Your brain knows that. Do you?

From today's New York Times (in an article titled "Time Out of Mind"):

. . . Even the cleverest use of time-management techniques is powerless to augment the sum of minutes in our life . . . , so we squeeze as much as we can into each one.

Believing time is money to lose, we perceive our shortage of time as stressful. Thus, our fight-or-flight instinct is engaged, and the regions of the brain we use to calmly and sensibly plan our time get switched off. We become fidgety, erratic and rash.

Tasks take longer. We make mistakes — which take still more time to iron out.  . . .  The perceived lack of time becomes real: We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

The billable hour becomes like an automatic metronome in our brains, setting an habitual cadence that influences us even when we are not at work. Know that rhythm? You can change the beat of the drum to which you march. The first step is self-awareness. Carefully watch how you relate to time today. More next week on setting a new tone—which you control.

Image credit: click at morgueFile

New edition of ABA's LAW PRACTICE now online - with the debut of my new column

The March 2008 issue of Law Practice is now online. This edition includes the debut of my column "Reading Minds" in which I invite four people to choose their favorite books on a topic. In this column "Creating High-Touch Relationships," Dan Hull, Karen Glover, U.S. District Court Judge John Kane, and Susan Cartier Liebel tell us about their favorite books on building professional relationships. Take a look at what they each recommend; a good read!

This March edition is the ABA Techshow Technology Tips Issue. Click on over to read many informative articles, including:

• How to Carry Your Office in the Palm of Your Hand
• Judges’ Technology Tips: How to Impress (Not Annoy) the Court
• Seven Steps For Going Paper-Free: The Wonderful World of PDF Digital Work Flow
• Using Technology to Achieve Superlative Client Communications
• Hot Web Sites for Lawyers
• Tomorrow in Legal Technology: A Potpourri of Predictions

Enjoy the issue. Don't forget the articles are only available to non-subscribers until the next edition is posted so don't delay for too long.

People, Action, Content, or Time: Which is your preferred listening style?

Still another difference between cultures besides those already mentioned: Listening styles. Differences in listening styles also occur within cultures. These differences can create conflict in couples, in the workplace, in mediation, and in professional relationships, including that of attorney and client. Learning one's own preferred style and watching what others prefer can make a big difference in anyone's ability to communicate.

The listening styles I am about to describe were developed by James Weaver, Kittie Watson and Larry Barker. After each style, I have listed a few typical features of each.

The Listening Styles

People

• concerned for the other person’s feelings
• look for interests in common with the other
• likely to become engrossed in the other person’s problems

Action

• want accurate, brief, concise statements (A, B, C statements)
• get impatient with disorganized communication
• prone to finishing the thought of the other person

Content

• want to hear all the facts so can carefully make their own judgments and form their own opinions
• want complete facts, data and evidence so they can evaluate them
• like to solve complicated puzzles with complex pieces

Time

• prefer short, speedy, swift interactions (S, S, S statements)
• will often tell others how much time they have to meet
• if time feels pressing, or the other is taking too much time, may interrupt or look at their watch

You Can Negotiate the Differences in Styles

One problem with listening styles is that people use them out of habit, rather than choice. Even when another style would be more appropriate for the situation, they