idealawg

September issue of ABA Journal online: Lead article is about midcareer malaise

Excerpt from "Midcareer Malaise: How to find a new path for your 40s":

Seventeen years into his career as a plaintiffs lawyer, Jeb Wait grew weary. He was tired of battling with the opposition, of court deadlines and of dealing with dishonest professionals.

For Wait it was something akin to a midlife crisis, and he decided to redirect his career into consulting for mass tort pharmaceutical litigation. The Houston lawyer, who also has a medical degree, says he is much happier after the shift.

“Midcareer,” he explains, “is when you wonder if what you’ve been doing was really what you wanted to do, while also wonder ing if you have enough time left to do something else that you really want to do.”

Call them the Jan Bradys of the legal profession—those lawyers in the middle. Typically, they’re 10 to 15 years out of law school and, if they’re practicing at law firms, are senior associates or junior partners.

A lingering identity crisis can present itself when these attorneys hit the proverbial fork in the road. This is the point at which they are either going to make partner or make a change, the point at which they have a command of their subject matter but need to bring in more cli ents, the point at which—like Wait—they’ve become bored or weary and need to shake things up.

These midcareer crises are occurring earlier because the practice of law, particularly at large law firms, has changed. ...

Read the rest of this edition's articles here.

Blog Glob: "Happiness And Satisfaction Might Lead To Better Health"

Excerpt from "Happiness And Satisfaction Might Lead To Better Health" (Science Daily):

“Everything else being equal, if you are happy and satisfied with your life now, you are more likely to be healthy in the future. Importantly, our results are independent of several factors that impact on health, such as smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption and age,” said lead author Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D.

Read the rest of the article here.

August edition of Law Practice Today Webzine online

This edition of Law Practice Today Webzine includes these articles:

Marketing Survey by Bob Weiss

Maximize your firms marketing potential. Legal networks and search engine marketing can help your firm get new clients.

Book Review of How to Build and Manage an Estate Practice by Robert A. Gazzola

Trusts and Estates practitioners need information sources they can trust. Robert A. Gazzola reviews the second edition of How to Build and Manage an Estate Practice and explains its usefulness to those practicing in Trusts and Estates.

Clearing Up Software Myths for Attorneys by Robert Ambrogi

Understanding your software can save you time and aggravation. In this article common software myths are explained.

"Situated Learning and the Role of Relationships: A Study of Mentoring in Law Firms"

Abstract:

This article examines the multiple workplace influences, including mentors and other developmental relationships, on the growth and development of young lawyers from law school through the first few years of practice. Eleven lawyers in six different large multi-service law firms located in a major Canadian city participated in the research. Three primary methods were used: an in-depth interview, brief questionnaires on mentoring behaviors and practices, and the Role Construct Repertory Test.

Learning occurred within a richly diverse field of influences, including mentors, supervisors, senior lawyers, peers, and clients. These relationships strongly affected the invitational qualities of the workplace in terms of access to work and support for learning. Learning was not separated from work, as these participants constructed a learning curriculum through mentors, supervisors, and friends. The dynamic tensions of support and challenge described throughout this article illustrate the critical distinctions between learning to be a lawyer in law school and learning to be a lawyer in practice. These participants were required to continually balance relationships, work, law firm culture and their own growth and development over a considerable period of time. This research illuminates the social world in which these participants learned to practice after law school.

Download the article here.

Hat tip: The Situationist.

Some articles on leadership

A few interesting articles among the offerings in the August edition of Integral Leadership Review. Click the title to see if the article is one you want to read.

• Leadership Coaching Tip: Aboodi Shabi, The Availability of a Leader
• A Fresh Perspective: Leadership Down Under—An Interview with Ron Cacioppe
• Dialogue: Andrew Campbell and Patric Roberts, The Horse, the Magpie, the Buffalo and the Hoop
• Kalman’s Kosmos: Sara Ross—Goldstein, J. A. (2007). “A New Model for Emergence and Its Leadership Implications.”
• Article: Raghu Ananthanarayan, Leadership in Indian Corporations Through the SDi Lens
• Integral for the Masses: Keith Bellamy, Leadership Lessons from Randy
• Article: Helen Titchen Beeth, The Both/And of Leadership in Living Systems Change
• Article: Barbara Crosby, Theoretical Foundations of Integrative Leadership
• Leadership Cartoon: Guest Cartoonist, Mark Hughes

More here.

Some lawyers chop, some lawyers hack, and some lawyers dance

Cutting Up An Ox

Prince Wen Hui’s cook
Was cutting up an ox.
Out went a hand,
Down went a shoulder,
He planted a foot,
He pressed with a knee,
The ox fell apart
With a whisper,
The bright cleaver murmured
Like a gentle wind.
Rhythm! Timing!
Like a sacred dance,
Like “The Mulberry Grove”
Like ancient harmonies!

“Good work!” the Prince exclaimed,
“Your method is faultless!”
“Method?” said the cook
Laying aside his cleaver,
“What I follow is Tao
Beyond all methods!

“When I first began
To cut up oxen
I would see before me
The whole ox
All in one mass.

“After three years
I no longer saw this mass.
I saw the distinctions.

“But now, I see nothing
With the eye. My whole being
Apprehends.
My senses are idle. The spirit
Free to work without plan
Follows its own instinct
Guided by natural line,
By the secret opening,
The hidden space,
My cleaver finds its own way.
I cut through no joint, chop no bone.

“A great cook needs a new chopper
Once a year - he cuts.
A poor cook needs a new one
Every month - he hacks!

“I have used this same cleaver
Nineteen years.
It has cut up
A thousand oxen.
Its edge is as keen
As if newly sharpened.

“There are spaces in the joints;
The blade is thin and keen:
When this thinness
Finds that space
There is all the room you need!
It goes like a breeze!
Hence I have this cleaver
Nineteen years
As if newly sharpened!

“True, there are sometimes
Tough joints. I feel them coming,
I slow down, I watch closely,
Hold back, barely move the blade,
And whump! the part falls away
Landing like a clod of earth.

“Then I withdraw the blade,
I stand still
And let the joy of the work
Sink in.
I clean the blade
And put it away.”

Prince Wen Hui said,
“This is it! My cook has shown me
How I ought to live
My own life!”

-Chuang-Tzu (translated by Thomas Merton)

Image credit: dsknighthawk.

Forbes: 100 Most Powerful Women

Click to read the list. Click to read the Special Report.

Bio of Sarah Palin only available in small number (so far)

An interesting story in today's Publisher's Weekly about the book Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down (first chapter below). Excerpt:

John McCain surprised most when he chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate—and the only book available on Palin is, unsurprisingly, from an equally dark horse publisher: Epicenter Press, which has its primary office in Kenmore, Wash., and publishes books about Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Epicenter published Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down by Kaylene Johnson in April as a $19.95 hardcover featuring 50 photographs.

Publisher Kent Sturgis said the book had been doing well before the announcement; Epicenter went through its 7,000-copy first printing in less than a month, and then reprinted 3,000 more copies. "Those will be gone today," Sturgis said. ...

Read the rest of the short article about the Sarah Palin bio here.

I wonder if a large publishing house will purchase the book from Epicenter. So far, the biography is not even available on Amazon. [Added: I was wrong. The book can be ordered on Amazon. It is #775 right now; wonder how high it will go.]

Note: A "crusty, longwinded trial lawyer" reviews the book here. The post includes several photos and excerpts.

More about the book here. Here (LA Times blog). Here (Wall Street Journal blog). Here (Associated Press).

Note (added August 29, 2008, 2:30 PM Mountain): The Sarah Palin book is now #164 at Amazon. Think it will hit the top 100 today? The answer is "yes." At 3:17 PM, the book is #40.

From the publisher's Web site: a pdf of the first chapter of Sarah.

Note (added August 31, 2008, 9:45 AM Mountain): NPR interview of Kaylene Johnson about Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is the Republican VP pick

Who is she? Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Palin's speech today. "Biography of Sarah Palin."

Note (added August 31, 2008, 9:47 AM Mountain): NPR interview of Kaylene Johnson about Sarah Palin.

Would there be more crime if we all thought we lacked free will? Different results in negotiatons?

A research study of free will and morality (linked to below) has been in my "To Blog About" file for a while. Scientific American just published "Free Will versus the Programmed Brain" in which this same research is discussed. I took that as a message from the e-Gods to quit procrastinating.

In the study, participants were given a passage to read from a science book. Half of the participants were given a passage that said there is no such thing as free will. The other half read a passage about the importance of studying consciousness, with no mention of free will. Participants then were asked to complete a survey about their belief in free will.

Now for the intriguing part of the research: Participants were given a task at which they could cheat.

The results were clear: those who read the anti-free will text cheated more often! ... Moreover, the researchers found that the amount a participant cheated correlated with the extent to which they rejected free will in their survey responses.

The author of the Scientific American article goes on to discuss some questions.

• How far does the effect go? "Presumably the experiment didn’t also lead to a rash of criminal activity among those who read the anti-free will passage."
• Is the effect permanent? "[W]hat would happen if those people were brought back to the lab two weeks later?"
• Are philosophers and scientists who reject free will less moral?

That third question leads to three other questions.

People who explicitly deny free will often continue to hold themselves responsible for their actions and feel guilty for doing wrong. Have such people managed to accommodate the rest of their attitudes to their rejection of free will? Have they adjusted their notion of guilt and responsibility so that it really doesn’t depend on the existence of free will? Or is it that when they are in the thick of things, trying to decide what to do, trying to do the right thing, they just fall back into the belief that they do have free will after all?

I urge you to read and think about the questions this short article poses. As I may have mentioned in the past, the prevailing opinion in neuroscience is that we do not have free will. (I am a firm believer in free will so it is fortunate that the neuroscientist with whom I work is of the same belief.) The existence or nonexistence of free will obviously is not just the concern of scientists; it has profound societal and cultural implications. Just one example of where the question is germane: Criminal law. Personal responsibility without free will is very different from with free will.  (See previous post.) In another arena, I'd like to see how belief/non-belief in free will would affect negotiations.

Do we have free will? What do you think?

Notes: If you are interested in this question of free will and the split in what neuroscientists believe, I urge you to read The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force.

Click to read the study "The Value of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating." [pdf]

Image credit: Alvimann.