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From YOUR ABA: "Unlocking authentic career satisfaction"

Michael Melcher, author of The Creative Lawyer: A Practical Guide to Authentic Professional Satisfaction, mentioned on his blog Michael Melcher Reports that he was recently interviewed by Your ABA. Click to read "Unlocking authentic career satisfaction." In the interview, Melcher answers eight questions about finding a career that fits and satisfies. A few of the questions and responses:

What unique challenges do lawyers face in finding satisfaction in their careers?

Excerpt from answer: The process of thinking like a lawyer tends to impede the processes of personal discovery and career exploration. Legal analysis involves a lot of issue spotting – finding potential problems, contradictions, holes in theories and so forth. It favors skepticism and detachment. But career development involves trying things out before you are sure they’ll work. When lawyers apply the process of thinking like a lawyer to their own careers, they habitually quash some of their best ideas before giving them a chance to develop.

What can young lawyers specifically do to assure a fulfilling long-term career?

In defense of depression: Perhaps it is a wise strategy

Medical News Today included an article about a new book with a novel take on depression: "a defence rather than a defect." From "Are There Benefits To Having Depression? Specialist In Neuroscience And Emotion Offers Radical New Approach To The Condition. New Book:"

In his new book "How Sadness Survived" Dr Keedwell, a specialist in depression at the section of Neuroscience and Emotion, Institute of Psychiatry, London, proposes that depression can lead to increased resilience, empathy and creativity of thought. Examples of brilliant and successful people who have suffered from the condition - from Michelangelo to Winston Churchill - are highlighted.

. . .

Paul Keedwell offers a new approach to the benefits of negative emotions, and how we might view depression in a more constructive way.

Maybe all those depressed lawyers about which we read and hear are exhibiting wisdom?

Links to Letters to a Young Lawyer

Below are links to Letters to a Young Lawyer posts. I will add to the list as I learn of more letters being written. As I am sure you will agree, these make great reading for lawyers, old and new alike. Have you written your letter yet?

[Note added January 12, 2008: Susan Cartier Liebel has put out her own call for Letters to a New Lawyer. I will add those to the ones we have posted here in the past months.]

Delany Dean

Victoria Pynchon (and Vickie Pynchon's post to her step-son Adam Goldberg who is beginning the practice of law)

Anastasia Pryanikova

An Open Letter to a Young Lawyer as She Enters the World of Oz: A Critical Look at the Child Custody System

Although not strictly a letter to a young lawyer, Adam Levin has compiled advice for a new criminal defense attorney from experienced criminal defense attorneys around the US

Letter to a younger lawyer (written in 1896) posted at Probative

Charles Reich

Eric Turkewitz

Kira Fonteneau

Carolyn Elefant

Allison Shields

Chuck Newton

Julie Fleming-Brown

William Quigley (pdf)

Susan Cartier Liebel

David Jacobson

Letters to a Young Lawyer

I have been reading Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Wisdom speaking to youth is often such a treasure. While reading, I had an idea I share with you now. I invite you to post on your blog your Letter to a Young Lawyer. What would you most like to tell a lawyer just beginning the practice of law?

The Internet is a fine place for such a project. Electronically these letters can be around for many years for each generation of new lawyers to read. I imagine in a few years we may have new letters to write as we grow and our world changes. But for today, what do you want to say? What will you write in your Letter to a Young Lawyer?

Links to Letters to a Young Lawyer.

I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost from "The Road Not Taken"

In the central place of every heart, there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty and hope, cheer and courage, you are young.
(Rest of "On Youth.")

The cold flame burns within him
'Til his skin's as cold as ice
And the dues he paid to get here
Are worth every sacrifice.
—Baxter Black

Hear "Try To Remember"
Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.
(Rest of the lyrics.)

The motley band of lawyers: Let's honor the diverse symphony of the profession

Categorical statements about lawyers are often puzzling. I wonder about their validity and their value. In a Law.com article "Law Firms Deal With the 'R' Word" . . .

"The No. 1 driver for what attracts lawyers to their profession is mental stimulation," said Larry Richard*, a psychologist and consultant on law firm leadership and organization with Hildebrandt International.

And

He added that the typical lawyer -- "in general," he stressed -- is not a social creature. That lack of social skills can lead to isolation, which, in turn, can cause physical and mental health problems.

Regarding the first observation, the reasons why lawyers entered the profession are diverse and often multiple. Take a look below at the reasons for attending law school given by ten Legal Highlights for a snapshot of that diversity. And the second statement . . . It's provocative. And oversimplified. And questionable. The typical lawyer is not a social creature? Lacks social skills?

I am guessing that these conclusions come from self-report assessments which for several reasons are often flimsy. 

First, what we report about ourselves varies according to mood, as well as the setting in which we are asked, how the question is phrased, and the impression we want to make on the assessor or ourselves.  We are not static individuals; we change.

Second, our memories also change. Memory is not like a tape recorder with an accurate replay. Memories change according to many factors, including mood, situation, purpose for recalling; when we look back we do not recall the same thing in the same way each day or hour or moment.

Third, self-report assessments often require us to choose to elevate one factor or cause when the accurate answer would list several reasons. For example, as I said above, the reasons for becoming a lawyer are typically multiple. I wonder how the conclusion was drawn that mental stimulation is the motivator that is "No. 1"? Were those assessed asked to choose just one?

Fourth, many self-assessments are ipsative. They require a forced choice. You must choose between "I am this" or "I am that." People, including lawyers, are too complex to be reduced to ipsative choices. And the results can be misleading.

We can probably safely say that one of the main reasons, among many, people become lawyers is for mental stimulation. And that some lawyers lack social skills in some situations. But then social skills are deficient in many people in all professions, in many situations.

Lawyers are not uniform. They are heterogeneous, assorted and motley. I wish the rich and varied symphony of the profession would not be so frequently reduced to one note. Is any purpose served by this reductionism?

Speaking of motley, here are the reasons ten Legal Highlights gave for attending law school  . . .

Seeking risk-taking lawyers: Those who like novelty, variety, intensity, change - and not too many rules

Last week I watched a 90-minute video of a white-water kayaking trip taken by two men in their early 30s. I saw them master many, many rough and wild rivers as they traveled through Chile and Peru. The kayaking looked more than a bit unnerving to me but the duo seemed exhilarated. At the end of the movie, when the credits rolled, those in the large audience read that both men are now dead; the event at which I saw this video was the memorial service for one of them. He died last summer in a motorcycle accident training for the Baja 500.

I thought about those men frequently in the past several days, about the human desire to take risks, and about risk-seeking people, particularly when I read the ABC News article "Fear Junkies" from which I quote.

Researchers say risk takers' brains are just different. They have higher arousal thresholds. It takes more danger to make them feel scared.

If you're one of them, [Dr. Frank] Farley says, you know who you are. "You like novelty, variety, intensity, change. You don't like too many rules."

Do you know of any lawyers described by those last two sentences? I would like to interview some lawyers who are extreme risk takers, whether on the job or off. If you are one, or know of one, please contact me.

Note (added March 4, 2007, 12:26 PM Mountain): More information about the Type-T personality (Thrill seeker). And the original article, from Time, "Looking for a Life of Thrills."

The profession of half-empty glasses: The unique personalities of lawyers and an antidote

Last week Robin Rolfe Resources issued a press release entitled "Studies Show Lawyers Really Do Have Unique Personalities."

According to Professor Martin Seligman, Fox Professor of Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the school of Positive Psychology, lawyers have distinctly different personalities. Among 104 careers, lawyers predictably score the highest in pessimism -- and the higher their pessimism, the higher their law school grades.

Myers-Briggs, one of the oldest personal style assessments, shows lawyers at the other end of the continuum from the rest of the population in three of the four major personality traits. The Caliper Personality Profile also shows lawyers to be different--whereas the average score on skepticism is 50, lawyers average 90.

David Maister, a preeminent consultant to professional services firms, who has historically claimed all these firms to be the same, has recently acknowledged that the personalities of lawyers pose special challenges to management.

Others also address the lawyer differences. Larry Bodine at his LawMarketing Blog wrote about the conclusions of Dr.Larry Richard regarding lawyer traits and how the profession differs from the general population. Richards used both Caliper and Myers-Briggs in making those conclusions.

In my article "Team-Building Frenzy Reaches Law Firms" , I talk about what I learned from Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (and later from the Highlands Assessment Battery) about the lawyer's need for autonomy, critical approach, and competitiveness.

Susan Daicoff, author of Lawyer, Know Thyself, has created a chart How Lawyers Differ from the General Population in which she lists lawyer traits in early childhood, as pre-law students, as law students, and as lawyers.

From many, many sources, we can learn lawyers' uniqueness. Do you think it might be a beneficial exercise to  ponder how lawyers are the same as most folks? Gerry Riskin at Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices has already mused along "lawyers are people" lines. I think there are more similarities than differences. Your thoughts?

And about that pessimism. An article in yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times describes the choice we have in keeping the traits that serve us and changing those that do not. The writer talks about people emphasizing traits they prefer and desire.

Can such an emphasis lead to more personal happiness? Certainly common sense, as well as the early research, seems to say ''yes.'' Neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz shows in his 2002 book, The Mind and the Brain, that while it has long been known that what we do can physically affect our brains, new research is actually showing that what we choose to think about can affect the physical wiring of our brains, too.

So, for instance, Schwartz found that people who only thought about carefully playing a piece of music on the piano over time had the exact same physical changes in their brains, as measured by CT scans, as people who physically practiced the same piano piece over time. Schwartz determined with similar studies that we can sometimes choose to think differently about things, change the physical wiring of our brain and, in doing so create, a kind of ''upward spiral'' for ourselves. [The piano research was actually done by Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone.]

"Lawyers Appreciate . . ." posts

I will add links to the "Lawyers Appreciate . . ." posts here. Let's watch the list grow. We appreciate each new addition.

December 22 (first day of the countdown)

1) Jamie Spencer at Austin Defense Lawyer (Lawyers appreciate discussing interesting issues in a collegial atmosphere.)

December 23

2) Gerry Riskin at Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices (Lawyers appreciate the same things other people do.)

3) Victoria Pynchon at Settle It Now Negotiation Blog (Lawyers appreciate integrity.)

4) Blaine Donais at Workplaces That Work (Lawyers appreciate fairness.)

December 24

5) Allison Wolf at The Lawyer Coach Blog (Lawyers appreciate other lawyers who work diligently in service to their clients.)

December 25

6) Steve Seckler at Counsel to Counsel (Lawyers appreciate the rule of law and separation of powers.)

December 26

7) Tom Collins at morepartnerincome (Lawyers appreciate being appreciated.)

8) Anastasia Pryanikova at Lawsagna (Lawyers appreciate their mentors.)

December 27

9) Matt Homann at the [non]billable hour ((Lawyers appreciate gifts.  Be sure to read the gifts that Matt wishes for his lawyer friends.)

10) Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch ((Lawyers appreciate their clients.)

11) Victoria Pynchon at  SETTLE IT NOW BL AR G (Lawyers appreciate legal bloggers.)

12) Susan Cartier Liebel at Build A Solo Practice, LLC (Lawyers appreciate the value of their education.)

December 28

10-day countdown: Lawyers Appreciate . . .

Julie Fleming Brown of Life at the Bar and I had an idea last month for a way to close out the year with a flurry of appreciation in the legal blogosphere. We hope many of you will join us. Here's how it works. We each will start out by sending an e-mail to three bloggers asking them to write a post to their blog beginning with these words: "Lawyers Appreciate . . ." That's the only rule; start a post with those words. And the second half of participation is to pass the LA (Lawyer's Appreciate . . .) baton on to three more bloggers. The countdown will last for 10 days, until the last day of the year. Today is the beginning of the appreciation storm. We look forward to reading what you post when the baton arrives at your inbox.

Can you hear it now? LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, Law, Law, Law!

Note (added December 22, 4:55 PM Mountain): Julie Fleming Brown also has now announced Lawyers Appreciate… A 10-day countdown.

Stephanie West Allen, the voice behind Idealawg and TrackKnacks, and I have been corresponding for some months now.  One of the many topics we’ve discussed is our shared desire to launch an appreciative look at the law, lawyers, and practice in the legal blogosphere.  And that’s how the “Lawyers Appreciate…” countdown was born.

Note (added December 23, 9:55 AM Mountain): Links to "Lawyers Appreciate . . ." posts.

Is something happening here? Has positive thinking hit the legal blogosphere?

Bulletin: A topic seems to be perking in the the e-land of legal bloggers. Or maybe it is an attitude, a skill, an intelligence, or the early spirit of Thankgiving. People are posting on the positive. David Maister's "Are we too negative?" sparked a rich discussion with 38 comments so far. Arnie Herz weighs in with "seeing the positive side of negativity in the legal profession." Julie Fleming Brown posted "Look for what’s right."

The Greatest American Lawyer in his "Wake Up and Make Your Wife Coffee" mentions the recent Larry King Live show on positive thought.

I was channel surfing last night and stopped on Larry King who had five guests on. I don’t know who they were but they each had a singular message. Life is what you make of it. You have the ability to see each situation either positive or negative. We have that choice at each and every moment of each and every day.

The transcript of that Larry King Live show on positive thought and the benefits of gratitude.
Added November 17, 2006: The transcript of Part 2 of Larry King Live show on positive thinking.
Added March 11, 2007: The transcript of Part 3 of Larry King Live show on positive thinking. (See note below.)

I am guardedly excited about this look at the affirmative, constructive, optimistic upside of practicing law. From the beginning here at idealawg, I have been a proponent of including a focus on "what's right?" in monologues and dialogs on the legal profession. My first interview was of Carol Metzker, co-author of Appreciative Intelligence. In September, I launched the Legal Highlights feature in which we hear from legal practitioners about what shines brightly in their legal career experiences.

I am not suggesting Pollyannas at Law. I am extolling the benefits of a balanced discussion, not just gloom, doom, and opprobrium. I will continue to mention the benefits of happiness to health, wealth, and excellent client service.

I close this quick bulletin with a message from Tojo Thatchenkery  (Metzker's co-author of Appreciative Intelligence) from his comment at the Maister discussion.

How do we change the deficit discourse? I like the Nike slogan here: “Just do it!” Some of us have written plenty about the genesis and dynamics of the deficit discourse (www.appreciativeintelligence.com). But when it comes to changing it, nothing is more practical than just doing it.

Note (added March 11, 2007, 3:09 PM Mountain): In Part 3 of the Larry King Live show (transcript linked to above), one of the panelists mentioned that there are more laws than merely the law of attraction. I believe he was referring to the seven principles described in The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy. They are the principles of mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender.