Most of us don’t start designing a legal career around life — it’s just the opposite. In the latest installment of her creative practice series, Karen Skinner poses the question: What would you do with a day to yourself, every week?
Designing a Legal Career That Supports Work-Life Balance
Ask a law firm owner what kind of law the practice is built around, and she can tell you in a sentence. Ask what kind of life it was built to support and you may get a long pause. Most of us designed our firms around the clients, the practice area and the market. Someone needed a lawyer who did a particular thing; we were good at it, and the firm grew to meet the demand.
The thing is, a firm that grows around demand alone will keep growing around demand. Your hours and your energy will stretch to meet that demand.
And your life outside the firm will get whatever time is left.
What If You Started With the Life You Wanted?
One coaching client came to us wanting to build a business around his hobby, flying. He wasn’t asking for a few extra hours on the weekend. He wanted one full weekday, every week, to do the thing he loved. It was an interesting starting point because it flipped the usual order. He started with the life he wanted and asked what the firm would need to look like to support it. Once he put it that way, the questions got practical quickly: What was the work only he could do, what decisions actually required his input, and what did his team need to operate every Wednesday without him?
Most of us don’t start designing our business around life, and I think it’s because we’ve lost track of what we’d put on the life side of the ledger. When your identity has been “lawyer” for 20 years, it’s hard to say what you’d do with a free Wednesday.
This Is Where a Creative Practice Comes into Play (Pun Intended)
Painting, writing, cooking or learning an instrument is a way to reconnect with a version of yourself that exists outside of the profession. It’s an hour of your day where nobody’s tracking your billables, nobody needs a decision, and you aren’t expected to be good at anything. There’s relief in that.
There’s a leadership payoff too. A painting, for example, is a very small, very safe lesson in the habits leaders struggle with most. You look at your painting and immediately want to fix the corner you just finished. Maybe add a bit of color or a shadow. It’s really hard to stop making tiny “improvements,” but you have to decide when something is good enough and then put the brush down.
It’s the same decision you need to make when you get a draft back from an associate or opposing counsel. When do you put down the proverbial red pen?
Curiosity, tolerance for imperfect first drafts, and the ability to let go of perfection are skills we can practice on a canvas and then use in the conference room. As my partner likes to tell me, perfect is the enemy of done.
I’d go further and say that stepping back far enough to see your firm and your life together is itself a leadership act.
Most of the law firm owners we work with spend their days in execution mode: responding to demands, making decisions, solving problems. Nobody sets aside time to ask what all the work is for.
Finding Room to Think, and People to Think With
When we ran a small survey of women who lead law firms, the things they said they wanted most were connection with peers who understand the job, fresh perspective, and clarity about what to do differently. Nobody asked for another system. They asked for room to think and people to think with.
That’s the idea I keep coming back to: room to think and people to think with.
To that end, I’m putting something special together for 2027: a small, in-person gathering for women who lead law firms, built around leadership, creativity, and time to step back and see the big picture (pun intended again).
I’ll share more soon.
For now, here’s a question for you:
If you could have one weekday to yourself, every week, what would you do with it?
Then ask what your firm would have to look like to make that possible.
Images © iStockPhoto.com
For more tips on achieving law firm owner work-life balance, read Jamie Spannhake’s three-part guide on Attorney at Work, here.
Catch up on Karen Skinner’s Creativity and Productivity Series
“The Law Firm Productivity Myth That’s Burning Lawyers Out”
“Why Your Brain Needs Creative Rest (and What That Actually Looks Like)”
“Did You Know Being a Terrible Guitar Player Could Make You a Better Lawyer?”
“Restore Your Energy and Productivity — Five Minutes at a Time”
“Why Creativity Is a Leadership Skill, Not a Hobby”
More Healthy Lawyer Productivity Tips
- Micro-Recovery: 5 Small, Realistic Ways to Reduce Stress During a Busy Workday
- How Doodling Makes You a Better Listener (and 3 More Benefits)
- Delegation Isn’t Just a Work Hack, It’s a Life Hack: 5 Personal Tasks to Delegate Now
- Got a Process for Your Processes? Create Law Firm SOPs in 5 Easy Steps
- Why Lawyers Need Boredom
- Indoor Fitness Tips for Attorneys With Busy Schedules
- Why Are You at the Office Until 10 p.m.?
- Top-Rated Mindfulness and Meditation Apps
- How to Be Productive When You’re Depressed
Get the Power Zone Playbook for Lawyers
By Karen Dunn Skinner and David Skinner
Get out of the grind and into your power zone! Learn to align the work you do with the work you love, finding the sweet spot where your expertise, passion, and client needs intersect. It’s here, in your Power Zone, that you will discover the secret to a thriving practice.
Everything you need is in your Playbook.
