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The Zen of Law School Success

In the fall 2013 edition of Phi Alpha Delta's The Reporter, I read on page 9 a short article titled "The Art of Zen in Law School." Excerpt:

Chad Noreuil is the author of The Zen of Law School Success and the website, lawschoolzen.com. On the site, Chad has written an article about perseverance and the struggles and frustration law students encounter in their studies.

"At its most fundamental level, like always boils down to two perspectives—"Get To" and "Have To." Everything you do can be compartmentalized into these two categories. The more you choose to place your perspective in the "get to" column, the better your attitude will be ... .

He further speaks on how perspective is a key to not only surviving trying situations in law school and life, but in putting forth our best effort and using situations to better our self and the self of others.

Click to go to lawschoolzen.com, learn more about Chad Noreuil, and read the article about perseverance mentioned above.

Keynote at this year's Purposeful Planning Institute Rendezvous: Are you a professional or an expert?

 

John A. Warnick and Jay Hughes talking yesterday at the PPI Rendezvous. The attendees were listening from many points of view.

Frequently and for years, I have been recommending Robert Kegan's In Over Our Heads so was delighted when Jay Hughes referred to the book in yesterday morning's keynote address. For that and other reasons, I appreciated the talk enough to go through the somewhat tedious task of typing up my notes so you too can perhaps benefit from his thoughts. His presentation began the first whole day at the third annual Purposeful Planning Institute Rendezvous and was titled "Will the Four Noble Professions Thrive? Survive? or Regenerate?  And What Will the Families They Serve Face in the Next Twenty Years." (His bio is about halfway down here.)

Here are most of my notes from the keynote address.

Jay began by asking us to imagine ourselves as secular priests, living with the virtue of magnanimity. He quoted Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" about two roads diverging in a wood and explained that it related to our professional journey.

In the 60s when he began the practice of law at Coudert Brothers, partners did not leave the firm and clients were also with the firm for life, which is not the current state of the profession. The four noble professions have changed since then.

He said that some professionals are pilgrims today and that being one necessarily brings with it loneliness: "If you are not lonely, you are not a pilgrim." He clarified that this is an existential loneliness. And he asked, "Who can we walk with?"

To partly answer his question, he described the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales who tell each other their stories as they travel.

The four noble professions according to Hughes are ministry, medicine, high academia, and law.* You can read his description of each here about three-fourths of the way down. He believes any functioning community needs all four of these roles.

Briefly, the function of medicine is to ease suffering and increase the physical and mental health of the

Atul Gawande on how professions produce top-level performers and the difference between coaching and teaching

I've been away for a bit due to the illness of a family member, and hope to be back blogging more often soon.

Today I am happy to post the link to a talk by Dr. Atul Gawande; his presentation, given to Harvard Graduate School of Education, is titled "The Difference Between Coaching and Teaching." From the School Web site:

On Wednesday, October 24, HMS and HSPH Professor Atul Gawande applie[d] his observations from the fields of sports, music, schools, and medicine, to a discussion of how different professions produce top-level performers.

Enjoy his talk. Click to learn about Dr. Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto.

H/T: Farnam Street.

Life after Law: UVA Law grad, litigator, now pursues visual artistry

When Corwin Levi was practicing law, he would use Post-It® Notes to remind himself of what else he wanted to do in life. At some point, the reminders were so numerous that he decided to pursue a different path and he quit full-time law. Click to listen to him talking about his career decisions (video from Bloomberg Law). View his art here. Here's a blog post about a charming workshop he did with kids showing them how to use both words and pictures in their art (A Second Look). And see more of his art here; aren't the drawings he created in the margins of his law school notes wonderful?

From "When the Image Is the Word" (University of Virginia Magazine):

Levi, who entered law school after completing an MFA in painting at Temple University, is the first to admit that the intersection of words and images in his own life has led him down an unorthodox career path.

Long before becoming a full-time visual artist, Levi was taking intricate, visually stunning law school notes at U.Va. Levi was awarded a solo show based in part on the artistic merit of his law school notes, though it was U.Va.’s law library that first exhibited his notes as artwork.

I have to say my law school notes were not "stunning." Yours?

Click here to see more stories about Life after Law.

Interview of Mark Baumann about law and mediation

The first time I spoke at the Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference, I very much enjoyed spending some time with Mark Baumann. Because I valued that time, I was happy to read a recent interview of Mark. You may read it too . . .

From "An Integrated approach to a law and mediation career" (Examiner.com):

Q: I understand you practice law and mediation with a different approach?

Right. For the first 10 years of my practice I approached cases involving interpersonal problems in a typical lawyer fashion: finding the “facts", identifying the legal issues and applying the relevant law with logic to solve what appeared to be the problems. Then I had a case that taught me why that doesn’t always provide good outcomes --or real justice-- and about the significance of the human part of the equation.

A lot of times we are not fully aware of what our real needs are. Lawyers can help find those needs by deeply, compassionately, and non-judgmentally listening, and by respecting individual choice. When clients “feel understood” and respected, solutions tend to come much easier, and they tend be better solutions. And, this is especially true in difficult high conflict cases.

Q: Is there a model you use?

Click to read the rest.

Her life after law? She became a rabbinic chaplain

Before I moved to Santa Fe, I met with many New Mexicans in the fields in which I practiced, including both law and mediation. One of the people I met with was Barbara Levy. She was a lovely person and we maintained contact until I left New Mexico. In the intervening years since I left, she (now calling herself Miryam) moved east and studied to become a rabbinic pastor!

Miryam is now back in New Mexico, Santa Fe to be exact, and working for the Jewish Family Service of New Mexico. From Abq Jew:

Miryam leads a monthly group in the art of sacred Hebrew chanting in the style of Rabbi Shefa Gold. Her personal meditation and chanting practices provide the foundation and strength for her compassionate caring for others. She loves making art - particularly collage and altered books, freestyle dancing, and visiting with the sandhill cranes that winter over in the fields along the Rio Grande corridor. Miryam will expand the chaplaincy work currently done in Santa Fe hospitals, and plans to start a Santa Fe Grief and Loss Group.

Click to read the rest. Much has changed since she and I left the Land of Enchantment to follow new paths, and recommit to some old ones, too.

Click to read other stories of Life after Law.

Another reason why a sense of control may be beneficial: If leaders feel in control, they may experience less stress

"...if leaders ... experience a heightened sense of control—a psychological factor known to have powerful stress-buffering effects—leadership should be associated with reduced stress levels."

That sentence is taken from the abstract of a new study of stress levels in leaders. Perhaps, instead of implementing stress reduction measures, organizations should be focusing on promoting the employee's sense of control?

The news release from Stanford University:

More authority means less stress, say Stanford and Harvard psychologists

In a study of high-ranking government and military officials, Stanford psychologist James Gross and a Harvard team found that a higher rank was associated with less anxiety and lower levels of a stress hormone.

BY MAX MCCLURE

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" is that rare thing – a Shakespearean quote embraced by the world of management. The high-powered but perpetually tense leader is a trope from Wall Street to the Pentagon. The idea of "executive burnout" has inspired a cottage industry of stress management directed toward government and corporate leaders.

But the top seat may be more comfortable than leaders have been suggesting. A study from Stanford psychology Professor James Gross and Jennifer Lerner, a professor of public policy and management at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, suggests that leadership positions are, in fact, associated with lower levels of stress.

The paper appeared today (Sept. 24) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Stress metrics

"We live as social beings in a stratified society," Gross said. "It's our relative status in a group that disproportionately influences our happiness and well-being."

Specifically, a growing literature suggests that more power is associated with less stress. The Whitehall studies of health in the British civil service showed that higher governmental rank was strongly correlated with lower mortality rates. Stanford biology professor Robert Sapolsky's measurements of the stress hormone cortisol in baboons showed lower levels of the hormone in high-ranking troop members.

The new Stanford-Harvard study looked at both cortisol measurements and self-reported anxiety levels within a rarely studied group: high-ranking government and military officials enrolled in a Harvard executive leadership program.

Although evaluating stress is itself complex – cortisol levels and reported anxiety are not necessarily correlated – the researchers found

Interview of Judith Fein: Increasing self-awareness through travel

Today I am talking with Judith Fein, international travel journalist and author of the book Life is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel. (Read her blog posts here.)

Judie, thanks very much for agreeing to participate in my series of interviews of thinkers and practitioners who have ideas that are valuable for the legal profession.

Let's start with your telling us the story of how you became a travel writer. What drew you to this profession?

I had no idea that travel writing was a profession, but I have always been a traveler and a writer. My last incarnation involved writing movies and TV in Hollywood--which everything thinks is very glamorous because you get to party, eat and hang with the Hollywood set, but trust me when I say that for me it was less glam than wearing a cardboard box to observe weeds growing. It sucked the soul out of me--whoosh-- and I rumbled around wondering why I was doing it for l3 years. The actual writing was fine, but the abuse, dysfunction, craziness, and head-banging frustration finally made me say, "Basta." And once I had really basta-ed, I had no idea what else to do for a living. I was, as they say in French, "entree deux chaises," between two chairs. My butt was hanging out uncomfortably, not sure where to sit in life.

One day my sister called and said there was a new travel show on national public radio--called "The Savvy Traveler."   I knew it was next-to-impossible to get a gig, but, at my sister's New York-style urging, I recorded a crazy story about what happened when I checked into a monastery for a silent retreat, and ending up having a food fight with a nun and almost getting arrested on a dark road. I sent in the piece, and four days later they called to invite me to be a regular contributor on the show.

Hmm, I thought, after a while. Maybe since i have a national presence I can ask a newspaper if they're interested in one of my travel stories. Bingo! Then I queried other newspapers, magazines, and pretty soon I was a real travel writer. I expanded to the web early on, and have never looked back.

Thanks, Judie. Your response made me think about how I define profession. Most of the readers of this blog are practitioners of the law, a traditional notion of profession. But, now that I think about it, I see the word as including the sense of calling, or the embodiment or product of something you are professing to the world. Of course, many lawyers don't feel called to the practice, and are unhappy. Many of these unhappy, stressed

Author wants to interview lawyers and others who are very satisfied in their work

Dr. Lynn Johnson is writing a book about people who have "discovered/developed a sense of mission and calling and whose passion is palpable." (Please see his email below.) He wants to interview people who fit that description. If you know of anyone, you may refer that person (or yourself) to Dr. Johnson by emailing him.


Dr. Johnson wrote (and I apologize that his message is not indented: TypePad is being temperamental again, today):

I am writing a book on transforming jobs into callings, inspired in part by Chris Peterson's Primer.

If you can refer someone to me whom I could interview for inclusion in the book, I'd be in your debt. I am looking for people who have discovered / developed a sense of mission and calling and whose passion is palpable.

Lynn

Stanford opens online career guide to public

Excerpt:

Stanford Law School is making a unique online career and curriculum guide available to the public, in hope that students at other schools can benefit from the technology.

SLSNavigator allows law students to learn about different careers in law and choose courses that will help prepare them for their chosen career.

Stanford spent the last three years designing the guide, based on feedback from faculty, alumni, practicing attorneys, and other legal professionals. It incorporates more than 1,500 courses from across the university and is designed to help students decide what kind of legal career suits them best and to make the most out of their three years of law school.

Click to read the rest of "Stanford opens online career guide to public" (National Jurist).