After years of long days and nights at the office many associates  are now finding themselves with regular office hours and the time to catch their breath after the marathon.  It’s been a long crazy trip – 17 years of unparalleled prosperity for law firms according to the Hildebrandt/Citi 2009 Client Advisory – and now it’s time to clean house, throw out the dead house plants and get back in touch with family and friends.

I recently spoke with an associate who had just spent the last three years billing over 2100 hours a year.  There was no time for thinking about work processes, about client development, or about how the work was being done.  Instead it was just one long marathon towards a finish line that forever hovered just beyond the horizon.   It was exciting, it was stressful and he and many others were approaching burn-out.

Now that he has caught up on his sleep he wants to take stock of his practice and invest his time in developing solid practice habits that will support him through the next marathon.
 
Follow his lead.  Take advantage of this period of calm to prepare for the opportunities that will arise when the economy improves.  Hone your practice habits.  Polish your business development skills.  And most importantly connect with your clients, contacts and friends to strengthen the relationships that may have frayed.

Here’s my list of things to do if you are an associate with more time on your hands then usual:

• First, allow yourself some time to reflect.   What goals do you have for your practice?   Who are the clients you like best?  What is the work you most enjoy?  Consult with a mentor, friend, or coach.  Write down your long term goals and what you would like to make happen this year.
• Clean up and update your contact list.  Review it and highlight those people you want to get back in touch with this year.  Every week write up a short connect with list of people you will touch base with by email or phone during the week.
• If you are at a stage of your practice where you have clients, reach out to them.  Visit their offices and make sure they know it is off the clock.  Learn about their priorities for 2009.  How can you or others at your firm help them during the challenging year ahead? 
• Do some internal networking.  Your relationships with the partners in your firm are important.  Initiate lunch or coffee meetings with the partners to learn about how they are meeting the current challenges.
• Expand your knowledge base.  Find the publications and associations associated with your practice area and/or industries you serve.  Catch up your reading.  If you come across a useful article, clip it and email it off to your contacts.  Undertake to write an article, present or both.   Look for opportunities to write or present for industry or professional associations, or for legal publications and conferences.
• Get involved with the professional or industry associations associated with your practice.  By attending the meetings consistently and getting involved on boards and committees you will increase your professional network and lay the foundation for business development in the years to come.  I was recently speaking with an entertainment lawyer who as a young associate got involved in one of the key industry associations for women filmmakers.  The contacts she made back in the early days of her practice were a critical component of her success in the years that followed.
• Assess your current legal skills.  What are your strengths?  What are your deficits?  Take advantage of your time to take some courses and hone your skills. 
   

There are so many options to consider.  Just remember to start with your goals and choose the actions that will best support you in moving forward.

After a long hiatus this lawyer coach is returning to her blog!  Some of you may be wondering what happened?  Why the long break?  The answer is simple.   I never developed the vital habit of writing short blog posts.  The time commitment was considerable.  With a busy coaching practice and limited time available I placed my priority on my clients and let the blogging go. 

When I started this blog in December 2006 I was wrapping up my work as the Marketing Director at a large Canadian litigation firm and launching my lawyer coaching practice.  I was busy right from the start but in the spring of 2008 I initiated my BASE CAMP Business Development Training Program for associates and got even busier.  In addition to my one-on-one coaching clients I now was working with large groups of associates as well.   With all my time spent in boardrooms and on the phone meeting with clients there was little time left for other pursuits!

As the months passed I found I missed the blog.  I enjoy writing and exchanging ideas with other bloggers and a large community of readers.  This New Year’s I determined to get back to blogging.  I will focus on posting shorter entries more frequently.  There sure is a lot to blog about!  Since I stopped writing in August 2008 the legal market has transformed.  I look forward to sharing my ideas and top strategies about how to maximise the opportunities in this challenging economic environment.  If you have any topics or questions you would like me to address in my blog just send me an email or a comment.

It’s good to be back!

Many times lawyers tell me they want to hire a coach to be sure they are making the right investments of time and energy to build their practice.  Should they be writing articles?  Presenting?  Taking contacts out for lunch?  Attending networking events? 

It all comes down to the central question:  What activities are going to be the most effective?

The answer to that question is going to be different for every lawyer.  One of the first steps I do when I begin working with a new coaching client is to conduct a strength analysis. 

Why the focus on strengths? Because by focusing on what we are good at we start ahead of the game. We all come into this world with a unique set of talents, and over our lifetime with the addition of experience and learning we establish a foundation of knowledge, skill, and ability. The winning strategy is on maximising your strengths. Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week puts it this way:

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre.

If you have never done a strength analysis then think of it as a detailed answer to the question: What am I good at and what have I got going for me? I have an article posted on the cooperative Canadian weblog Slaw.ca with a short list of questions that can guide you in conducting your own strength inventory. Who do you know? Do you enjoy writing or presenting? The answers to these and other questions begin to form your inventory of strengths.

In addition you can try taking the free VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire found on the Authentic Happiness Web site. You have to register (free) on the web site in order to access the test. This test will indicate your top 5 strengths. It was developed by Professor of Positive Psychology Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks to Alexander Kjerulf and his blog Chief Happiness Officer for passing on this tip!

Your goals provide the directions and your strengths (and values!) make up the foundation for your business development efforts. The right moves so often take advantage of the resources you have at hand, the people and contacts you have in your life, and your natural abilities, drive, and motivation.

A new study on coaching prepared by the American Management Association has some valuable information for law firms planning to launch coaching programs and for individual lawyers who are thinking of hiring a coach.

The study is very well researched and provides an up to date report on what’s working for coaching in organizations.  You can download the report from the Canadian Management Centre website here:  http://www.cmctraining.org/whitepapers/?wp_id=22

One highlight from the study looked into the most important factors in determining the success of a coaching engagement: 

“The strongest correlations were found between coaching expertise and coaching success and between personality and coaching success. In general, this suggests that companies that match based on the coach’s expertise or based on complementary personalities are more likely to report successful coaching programs.” 

In other words, retain coaches with experience that matches your needs and interview the candidates to ensure you find a coach who fits your personality. This just seems like common sense.  If you are a lawyer looking for practice development coaching then you are best retaining a coach with experience in the legal field and practice development and interviewing them to find out if they are a good “fit” for your personality. 

Don’t feel like downloading the report?  Here is an excerpt of the some of the other key findings from the study:

Finding One: Coaching is used by only about half of today’s companies. In the
North American sample, 52% report having such programs in place, and, in the
international sample, the proportion is 55%.

Finding Two: Coaching continues to gain in popularity. Among respondents
who say their organizations don’t yet have coaching programs, a sizable proportion
(37% in the North American sample and 56% in the international sample) say such
programs will be implemented in the future.

Finding Three: Coaching is associated with higher performance. Correlations do
not necessarily imply causation, but respondents from organizations that use coaching
more than in the past are also more likely to report two kinds of advantages:
1. They’re more likely to report that their organizations have higher levels of
success in the area of coaching.
2. They’re more likely to say that their organizations are performing well in the
market, as determined by self-reports in the combined areas of revenue
growth, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Finding Four: Coaching is primarily aimed at boosting individual performance.
The desire to improve individual performance/productivity is the most widely cited
purpose of coaching.

Finding Five: Clarity of purpose counts. The more a company has a clear reason
for using a coach, the more likely that its coaching process will be viewed as successful.

Finding Six: Evaluating coaching’s performance may help boost success rates. The
more frequently respondents reported using a measurement method, the more likely
they were to report success in their coaching programs.

Finding Seven: It pays to interview. Having an interview with the prospective
coach has the strongest relationship with reporting a successful coaching program.

Finding Eight: It pays to match the right coach with the right client.Matching
people according to expertise and personality seems to be the best strategies.

Finding Nine: External training seems to work best. Externally based methods of
providing training on coaching are most strongly correlated with overall coaching
success, though they are less often used.

Finding Ten: Coaching’s international future looks bright. Compared with the
North American sample, organizations in the international group have not had
coaching programs in place for as long, but more in this group plan to implement
coaching programs in the future.

Finding Eleven: Peer coaching needs to become more effective. Although a little
over half of responding organizations use peer coaching, only about a third of
respondents who use it consider it to be very effective or extremely effective.

This is a message for all my law firm readers in British Columbia.

The British Columbia Courthouse Library Society (BCCLS) is currently planning the redevelopment of the Courthouse Library Website and they would appreciate your help. 

An online survey has been launched for practicing B.C. lawyers.  This survey will help the BCCLS to obtain better insight into your current technology and online usage patterns as one aspect of the development process.

The short 13 question web-based survey takes approximately three minutes to complete.  Please help out by taking a few moments to complete the survey and/or encourage the lawyers in your organization to take part.  Your participantion will help create a more effective resource that benefits everyone in B.C.’s legal community.

Launch Survey!

Survey respondents will also be entered into a draw for one of two 8G iPod Touch music player/portable internet devices.

On behalf of the Courthouse Library Society I’d like to thank you in advance for your anticipated assistance.

In this crazy world of competing deadlines, priorities, sound bites and instant communication technology it sometimes seems harder than ever to nurture the important relationships in our lives. We are all under such pressure to perform and to achieve there is little time left in the day to reach out and show someone that we care.  For a list of tips on how to keep in touch with the important people in our lives check out my article on Slaw.ca this week.  And please, if you have some additional tips to share with the readers post a comment here or on the Slaw site.