Professional Development

When it was all over, I took a few days off. When I returned, the managing partner wanted to see me. I entered his office ready to be fired. It was the first big case I had led, and there had been quite a few problems.

You know the feeling. You aren’t unhappy, but you aren’t ecstatic. You don’t dread going to work, but you linger longer than usual on that second (or third) cup of coffee before you head to the office. You wouldn’t say you are bored, but ...

Question: From a firm administrator’s perspective, what could a lawyer do to be a better boss? Supervising staff can be a challenge, but any lawyer can be a good boss with a little conscious effort. In this edition ...

Contrary to what some social media pundits would say, conferences where people show up and interact in person have not gone away. Not only are they around to stay, but most legal marketing pundits (including yours truly) agree that attending ...

Feedback is constructive information you can use to identify problems you need to correct and strengths you can build on. It can also give you new ideas that will revitalize your practice. But getting feedback, even when you asked for it, can ...

If you’ve ever had someone say to you, “Come in here and shut the door," because you "need some feedback" on that project you just finished, you may have an instant aversion to the word “feedback.” For many of us, it’s a synonym for “criticism” ...

The associate walked into my office clearly upset and asked if we could talk. She closed the door and let loose: “George is such an asshole! He makes my life miserable and now he's given me a bad review!” She checked off the details of this ...

Lawyers can easily find themselves, very early in their careers, in a predicament of epic proportions. It happens when you don’t know what to do next, and end up in a rut — a long, deep track made by the repeated passage of the lawyers (um, ...

Question: I'm an inexperienced lawyer, and naturally timid. How can I be expected to thrive in a networking environment? What's the best way to follow up after meeting someone? When should I ask for their business? In this ...

The wait to hear about an online job application is often too long, and the process is often discouraging. If you don’t have a personal connection to the employer, it will be difficult to get through the screening process without matching most ...