Practicing Law Without the MISERY | Jenn Deal

Feeling stuck between work and life? This episode explores how to find fulfillment in your career. We chat with Jenn Deal, a former BigLaw Attorney who became a life and career coach.

Burnout in the legal world is real. Jenn shares her own story of long hours and the toll it took on her. Sound familiar? We delve into the pressure of billable hours and how to find a career that aligns with your passions.

Imagine law school with a "survival skills" class! Jenn and I discuss how coaching can empower young lawyers. We explore the challenges lawyers face, where success can feel confusing and undefined. We'll also talk about the positive impact coaching can have on your legal career.

Mentorship matters in law firms. We discuss how to build trust and grow as a lawyer, both at large firms and smaller practices. By the end, you'll see how coaching can revolutionize the legal industry, creating a place where lawyers not only work hard, but also thrive.

Want to learn more? Jenn invites you to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast! Check out her Website and Connect with her in LinkedIn for more insightful and practical tips on thriving in the Legal Industry!

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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.

Want to connect with Brian?

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

There are some things we can't change about the legal industry. There are things that we can't change about the jobs that we're in, but so much of what we are suffering with is happening in our own head, of our own creation.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Hey guys, welcome back to the show. Today's guest is Jen Deal. Jen is a life and career coach who specializes in working with female lawyers. She's herself a lawyer and a former big law partner, and she helps lawyers who are experiencing stress, anxiety, overwhelm and feelings of unfulfillment in their careers and lives and guiding them towards creating careers and lives that they love. Jen is also an IP and a trademark lawyer and a former big law partner. So, jen, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Did ChatGPT get that introduction pretty well.

Speaker 1: 0:56

It did. Actually I was wondering. I was like it sounds like something I wrote, but not quite like something I wrote. Nice job.

Speaker 2: 1:04

So I never worked in big law and every time I get a chance to talk to some of you especially somebody like you who was in there for 10 years I just have to ask a couple of inside baseball questions. So if you'll indulge me just a couple of questions. I'm really curious about how many hours you were working on an average week or an average month.

Speaker 1: 1:26

I mean, like any litigation, you know there's some significant swings. Trial month could be 300 hours, but also federal court litigation that's not like that's a huge was a huge portion of my practice At my firm. I actually felt like I could keep a pretty reasonable amount of hours annually. So like my biggest year was probably a 2150, close to 2200 hours, but otherwise I was able to keep it to 18, 1900. And that felt manageable sometimes.

Speaker 2: 1:58

And if you're billing 18 or 1900, like, how many hours are you actually putting in you?

Speaker 1: 2:02

know it's interesting. Yale did this study where they looked at those that exact question Like if you're billing 1850, and I think they predicted it somewhere like 2400. Um, I think it would vary. Like as a junior associate it was a lot of billable work and not that much of the non-billable stuff. But obviously the more senior I got, the more business development I was doing, the more conferences, retreats, all those sorts of things. So I would say probably 50 hours a week would have been pretty average.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Right, so 50 hours a week, that's like 10 hours a day, monday through Friday. What was your life like outside of the office and how were you able, at least in the early part of your career, to manage vacations, nights with friends, weekends, things like that?

Speaker 1: 2:51

Yeah, I don't know how I did it. Honestly, I've kind of lamented the energy I had early in my career, like I maybe had a specific amount for my time in in this world and I used a lot of it in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Um, like I used am workout classes just so that I could get a workout in. I worked most vacations Like I did not find it easy, at least before I found coaching and started to make some changes to my practice. I found it very difficult to maintain any kind of semblance of regularity and the types of things that I was doing, and if I made it to things, I often wasn't very present at the things that. I made it to.

Speaker 2: 3:29

And then, what is it that drew you to working at a big firm in the first place?

Speaker 1: 3:33

I honestly didn't think about it, so law school had never been my plan. Um, I got to the end of college and was kind of looking around at things I might do, saw how much money lawyers make, and it was a lot more than anything in the industry that I was contemplating going into, and so decided to go to law school. Uh, my goal was to like not be in the bottom, very bottom of the class, ended up doing better than expected, and the second you get those grades everyone tells you the big law is the place to be.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Um, so I just kind of got on that path and kept going, and I don't regret it. I absolutely loved the firm that I was at. I love the people that I worked with, but I did not put a lot of thought into it.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Yeah. So that's what I was going to ask you, because you know, looking at your resume, you you really are one of those people that did everything right. Right, graduated into the worst economic or maybe second worst economic year. I graduated in 08. So I think I had it a little bit worse to be a law school graduate, but then you went and clerked for a judge, federal judge, for two years and then were big law and partnership track within seven years, but now have pivoted and working at a smaller firm and life coaching, and so something must have happened along that track to make you say this path maybe is not for me. So tell me what that was.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Yeah, I don't think it was any one thing. It was like this gradual sort of feeling that my life was not what I wanted it to be. There were parts of it that I really liked, but because I got on that sort of big lot track really early and I am definitely achievement oriented, I never, ever stopped to question is this what I want? Is this what I want my life to look like? And so, as I made my way towards partner, I think that question really started coming up for me.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Then the pandemic hit and I had one of my busiest years ever. A lot of the stuff that I loved outside of work was no longer available to me. So it was a lot of work and a lot of being at home and I think that really gave me an insight into the fact that I was tolerating a lot about my career, that other things were making up for, including some of it, like the being in the office with my colleagues who I loved and who were wonderful. Like once all that went away and it was stripped down to the career piece of it. So like I don't know that I can do this for another 30 years.

Speaker 2: 5:46

You must have been receiving coaching or some kind of therapy or something at that time to have the realization that, okay, this is not fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Yeah, I have done it all, the time.

Speaker 2: 5:55

So what did that look like for you back in 2019?

Speaker 1: 5:58

So I probably started therapy in 2014.

Speaker 1: 6:01

I'm going to blame it on this one case that I had that um shall remain nameless, but definitely started me on that journey and I really I got a lot out of therapy, but for me it wasn't action oriented, it was a lot of talk and understanding why I got where I got, why I was anxious a lot, but nothing I could do about it right, no action to take, um.

Speaker 1: 6:21

And then I came across a coaching podcast by a former lawyer, um, and started listening to it. And then I came across a coaching podcast by a former lawyer and started listening to it, and the way that she talked about what was happening in my brain and all of the issues that lawyers face was the first thing that resonated with me in a way that I felt like I could make some changes. And so once I found that I joined her program, did that and just saw huge shifts in the way that I thought about myself, the way that I thought about my career, the way that I felt day to day, and there was just no turning back. Once I realized that, you know, there are some things we can't change about the legal industry. There are things that we can't change about the jobs that we're in. But so much of what we are suffering with is happening in our own head of our own creation, and so getting clear on where I was adding to my own suffering, I think really changed things for me.

Speaker 2: 7:07

And so you know, one of the questions that comes up for me is the difference between life coaching and counseling and therapy and and on the other side of that, like just listening to podcasts and reading books. So can you kind of walk, walk me through, walk listeners through what it is about a life coach? That's different than therapist, executive coach or DIY.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah, I think you're going to find a lot of different opinions on this, because there is certainly some overlap. To me where therapy helped me the most just from my personal experiences, when I was below my minimum baseline so when I was so anxious I wasn't functioning, or so depressed I wasn't functioning very well Therapy was great for that, medication was great for that. To me, coaching really I think it can help in conjunction with those things at the same time. I've done both at the same time when I've had serious periods of anxiety and it's been super helpful. But for me, coaching is when you are in a place where you can use your prefrontal cortex, you can take action, you can make changes. Then it's really going to help you get to that next level or get to those steps that you want.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Um, and if we're thinking about podcasts, I'm a chronic consumer and for me I will listen and be like that is the most brilliant thing I've ever heard, and then I will promptly forget it. So the thing that I liked about both therapy and coaching is that there's some level of accountability. Um, not that the coaches ever.

Speaker 1: 8:26

You're not given homework and not getting graded on it, but just having someone help you. All right, this is the thing that you should focus on. This is the thing that you should think about. Yes, there's a million different things you could be trying, but let's pick one that's going to have an impact and for me, that helped me. Sort of constrain, because I'll learn all day long and never implement anything.

Speaker 2: 8:44

I think there's really two components of that, because you know number one, the coach, you're right, they're not giving you homework but in a way they are. But number two, like, you're paying them Right. And it's very different than listening passively, listening to a podcast running or in your car, like I. I just hired a fitness coach at the beginning of this year because since the pandemic I put on three to five pounds every single year and it hasn't come off, even though I have all of the information, like I know eat less calories, work out more, get more steps Right and what I. What I said to him cause he said well, you can either pay a monthly or you can pay it all up front. I said let's pay it all up front because that way, when I stopped, decided I want to stop working with you. Three weeks in, I've already bought the first six months of the program. So I think there is something to just that accountability aspect of having a coach who you're paying, because when you pay you pay attention right.

Speaker 1: 9:37

For sure. I also think there's something about having someone that has a lot of belief in you. So I, like I think that a lot of people that I work with or that are hesitant to work with a coach are afraid it's not going to work because they've been doing it on their own for so long, and when you're going at things on your own, it's almost always harder. But when you have someone there to encourage and support you and who fully believes that you can make whatever change you want to make, you can borrow a little bit of that, and I think that's so true. I do orange theory a lot and I would love to work out on my own. I would love to not pay, but I just can't. I need to be in a place where other people are going to see me, where I'm going to have a coach, where someone is going to tell me what I need to be doing, and I just know that's the way that my brain works, and I think coaching is very similar.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Well, you're back to that achievement-oriented mindset that you have, which is like I got to look up at the board in orange here and see what I'm ranking.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Oh, I actually don't, so I don't use the counter I did for my first couple years.

Speaker 2: 10:30

You don't do the flat plates.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Yeah, I don't do the splat points. I did it for the first couple of years. I've been doing orange theory, probably since 2016 or 2017. So back then pre-coaching, I used it all the time, beat myself up, really overdo it to try and get those splat points. I don't even I don't track it anymore, I just go.

Speaker 2: 10:48

It's interesting. I did this. I did the same thing with CrossFit. I used to log my score every day and then I just kind of stopped my score every day and then I just kind of stopped. I don't know if I got any better or worse or happier or less happy, but I just kind of got out of the routine of logging it every day. And now this is a new thing. So you initially found coaching through a podcast and then you contacted the I think it was a woman who was running the podcast and then was it one-on-one or was it one-to-many, or was it group cohorts, or what did that look like?

Speaker 1: 11:22

At that time she did a small group program, so there were about 20 of us. She was a former lawyer, so there were a lot of lawyers in there. There were some other professionals, some accountants, if I recall, doctors, but it was a group of about 20. And what I learned is that I don't do group coaching. Well, I am like, if you take me and put me in a classroom, I'm at the back of the class, I'm never going to raise my hand unless you call on me.

Speaker 1: 11:44

Um, I am again, I'm going to sit and I'm going to observe. So for me, the one-on-one which I finally did, probably about three years ago um, the one-on-one is right for me. For some people, I think the group is amazing and it works really well for them, and I learned a lot in that group and I was able to implement some stuff. But it wasn't until I had that one-on-one accountability, where I was forced to talk about my own issues, that I was able to see those real changes.

Speaker 2: 13:06

And now, with your program, are you exclusively coaching lawyers, or are you drawing from other professions as well?

Speaker 1: 13:11

program? Are you exclusively coaching lawyers or are you drawing from other profession as well? So you know, I market to women lawyers, but I have had women from other industries. I coach men, anyone that feels like they resonate. What I find is that all of us who are in the professional world, no matter what corporate industry you're in, we all have very similar issues that we face and very similar thought patterns that we're dealing with. But lawyers, as a microcosm, have very specific ones that I think the other people just don't understand. Like I will tell my husband something that someone said or someone did and his mind is just blown that something like that happens. I'm like that's pretty common in our neck of the woods.

Speaker 2: 13:49

Do you have an opinion about whether that's cause or effect, with lawyers Like the lawyers act like that because, um, because they're lawyers, or do they go into being lawyers because we have that personality type?

Speaker 1: 14:03

I think it's a little of both. So I definitely think that we find people who are high achieving and perfectionist, and you know that achievement oriented oriented. But I also think there are some things about the legal industry, for instance. If you are in a job where you have to build your time like that just completely warps your mindset. So I think there's a little bit of both.

Speaker 1: 14:23

I do think there's some self-selection, and then the way the legal industry is perpetuates that, not necessarily in the best way, and also introduces some new things that you never would have dealt with had you not been in part of this industry.

Speaker 2: 14:38

I hadn't thought about that. With the billing, I was a contingency fee lawyer who has never in his life had to bill any hours. I hadn't really thought about that. But the parallel that I draw is medical school, right, because it's the same competitive environment, it's the same lengthy process, and then you get to the end of the residency rainbow or the associate rainbow and you're a partner or you're a full-blown doctor and but I think that there are fewer people, especially in specialties and subspecialties, that then wind up uh leaving if not unhappy leaving medicine than there are with lawyers. Like I did a search on LinkedIn for recovering lawyer and there's a number of people that just identify in their LinkedIn profiles as a recovering lawyer, and I don't really think that that's true of many other professions, but for us it's like there's so many of us that get to the end of the rainbow and you go shit, this isn't actually what I wanted.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Yeah, this isn't great, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:34

And so how do you help people who who get there and, like you, have achieved in big law and gotten the partnership rainbow and go this isn't what I was told it was going to be. How do you help them navigate to the next thing in their life, whatever that is?

Speaker 1: 15:47

So I think one of the things that really changed for me was wrapping my head around the idea that there aren't really any rules like all of the rules that we have for the way that we have to show up, what our life has to look like, what we have to do, how much money we have. All of that is all made up, and the more that you start to see that it is made up, the more you can start to question do I want to buy into it? And if I do, how do I want to show up now that I am buying into it?

Speaker 1: 16:16

Right Cause, for I coach people who are looking to potentially leave careers completely leave lawyer and completely, some people who are interested in changing jobs, some people who just want to stay and make things better, and I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. I absolutely think that you can thrive in this industry. You just have to be willing to ask questions and challenge any rules or assumptions that you are making and any rules anyone else sets for you.

Speaker 2: 16:44

It's like waking up and finding yourself in the matrix and deciding whether you want to continue to play by the rules or exit the matrix. I hadn't thought about it that way, but it. But when you do, it's a big. It can really cause an existential crisis. It's like all right, do I? If I decide that these rules are all bullshit? Do I just continue to play by them anyway?

Speaker 1: 17:08

Yeah, and I think some of the sometimes the answer is yes, and that's totally fine. For some people it's just that doing that intentionally, versus assuming that you have to or that you should, feels entirely different. Even if nothing outside of you changes the way that you approach things, the way that you feel, is all going to be completely different for you.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Um, and so you're running an online uh, once a month, a free program called survival school for associates, where I guess you teach young lawyers all of the things that the partners at their firm aren't teaching them about how to set boundaries, how to manage your time, how to I saw, how to manage your inbox, things like that Um, so what? What kind of feedback have you gotten from people on that program?

Speaker 1: 17:50

Yeah, it's been really good. I really wanted to create the thing that I wish that I had had, because there was so much like I was a really good associate, because I'm a really good rule follower. So I ended up doing things quote unquote right a lot of the times in ways that serve me, but not without a lot of heartache and a lot of strife. And I saw people who were just as good as me at the lawyering piece of it struggling just because they didn't naturally follow the rules the same way that I did or understand the rules the same way that I did. So I really wanted to put together something that teaches you just those basic things that most of us learn the hard way and, or, you know, make it to partner, make it to wherever we are in our career now and still haven't really figured that stuff out. So it's been really fun.

Speaker 1: 18:33

I've been surprised by the number of people that showed up. People are really engaged. You know I've gotten a few speaking gigs at firms out of it who do want to help their associates learn some of these skills. So I've been really pleased with it. And associates have such a special spot in my heart because I think this industry is so hard in the beginning spot in my heart. Because I think this industry is so hard in the beginning Like now that I'm 15 years in, I can see where things were so much harder than they needed to be, but there was no way I could have known that at the time and so, providing that to people early on in their career, I hope that it helps change the legal industry. I hope that it keeps more people in it, because I do think this is an important industry and I want people to stay in it if they want to and survive and thrive in it.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Is there somebody who's kind of an intuitive learner where you picked all of those things up along the way, or did somebody teach you and then on the back end of that, were you keeping I don't know like a Word document or um, you know, now it would be like a notion page, some kind of knowledge management document for here's. Here's Jen's best practices for how I manage all my stuff and how this partner likes it or how this senior associate likes it.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Yeah, I think it's. It's both of those things. So when it comes to the more substantive I don't want to say hard skills, but like time management, that sort of thing, I'm naturally good at that and naturally good at developing processes, and while I was at my big law firm, a huge part of my job, my favorite part of my job, was mentoring younger associates, and so I did do a lot of that work with them, showing that these are the systems that.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I use. This is the way these partners like this, this is how the firm politics go, all those sorts of things, and so um some of it I did have to go back and recreate and like how did I do this as an associate?

Speaker 1: 20:18

But for the most part I had been teaching it all along the stuff that I had to learn later, like as a senior associate and even as a partner, was the boundaries work, all of that stuff, um, the wellbeing kind of work that is, and it's stuff that I'm still learning. So some of it I just did and did naturally, and then some of it I've just had to learn and implement those skills over the last, you know, five, six years.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Let me ask you about the mentoring piece, because I think a lot of people either are looking for a mentor or they think that they would be a good mentor and they're looking for mentees right, but the conversation of will you be my mentor, do you want to learn from me? Is awkward, and so how did you approach that with people at your firm or outside of your firm and kind of take them under your wing?

Speaker 1: 21:05

Yeah, that's a great question. I never really thought about it because I think my best mentorships, where I was a mentee, just developed naturally from working with people. I was not as intentional about it as I should have or could have been. What I found for me is that I am very candid, very authentic about my experience, and so I think that the associates that worked with me felt like they could trust me if they needed to cry in an office, if they wanted the real scoop on something.

Speaker 1: 21:33

I'm not super filtered, which big law firms really love, but I do think that it instills that kind of trust. And so, if you want to have more people come to you, have more people work with you, I think it is being authentic, about being candid about your experience and not sugarcoating it. And also, I don't think of mentorship as here's my advice you should do what I do. I think mentorship should have a lot of coaching aspect to it, because what is right for them is not necessarily the same thing that was right for you. The right, the path that you took isn't maybe the path they want to take or the one that feels the best to them, and so, really keeping in mind that it's their goals, it's their career and you want to support that.

Speaker 2: 22:18

But you're not trying to create this carbon copy of you, nor can you, right? I mean, so many people are willing to give advice and instruction to somebody else about what they should do with their career or with their life, without ever considering what that person's end goal is. And that's assuming that that person has actually even thought about what the end goal will be. And you know, I think that one of the difficulties being in a operating in a small firm is like I think we are often afraid to have those conversations because the answer might be I don't want to work here anymore. Right, and at a big firm, at least. The answer is I don't want to work here anymore, and in a big firm, at least. If the answer is I don't want to work here anymore, there's a whole bunch of people behind you.

Speaker 2: 22:58

But, my friends, in small law firms, we go a long time without having conversations with people about okay, you want to be a partner? What does that actually mean to you? What things do you actually want? Because I think a lot of times we just don't want to know the answer yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 23:17

So what advice do you have to somebody who's in, who's in that situation where you know um, where, where they might have limited options. Right, because there might not and I hate to use kind of the um, the cog, uh, cog in the machine example, but it strikes me that at a bigger place it's easier to replace the piece if somebody leaves. And so if somebody is at a place where you know it's either more difficult to replace piece or there may have fewer options of places to go, right, like I don't know, if you're a prosecutor in a county, it's kind of difficult to go anywhere. That's not criminal defense or the next county over to be a prosecutor maybe. So what advice do you have for people like that who are thinking about how do I have a conversation with somebody in my firm or my work chart, who you know who, or my work chart, about aligning my vision of where I want to go with my life with is there a place for me here?

Speaker 1: 24:21

Yeah, that's such a great question, and I don't think there's any easy solution because of what you mentioned, right. Who knows what the outcome is going to be? And sometimes, when you have that mentor-mentee relationship, what's good for the mentor is not good for the mentee, and vice versa, and so it can be a difficult conversation to have. If I'm thinking about it from the management side of things, even though you may not like the answer, I'd rather have it now, right?

Speaker 1: 24:41

If your business is based on this person, like I would rather know that this isn't their long-term goal, because, one, I can start planning for the future and, two, can I keep them around longer or in a way that serves me more, knowing that's their end goal. Can I change what I'm doing? Can I change what my expectations are so that it works for both of us? And I think that if you can have that conversation candidly, you're going to inspire some loyalty, you're going to inspire some trust, and so the person that you get is going to show up more for you, and so the end result may be the same, but the way that you get there is going to feel and it's going to look so much different.

Speaker 1: 25:19

If you're on the other side of that, I do think that and I saw this in the big law firm like it is hard to have a true, candid, authentic relationship with someone who has power over your career or someone who may have a difference of opinion or has a. You know they want a certain outcome, right, like if they want you to stay and be partner, then maybe you can't be as candid with them, and so in that instance I might look outside of the firm, like you can have multiple mentors. Maybe one in the firm serves a certain purpose and then you find someone outside of the firm Like you can have multiple mentors. Maybe one in the firm serves a certain purpose and then you find someone outside of the firm whether that's a coach or a mentor or a colleague that can serve this other purpose of. Can I candidly walk through what I'm thinking about my career and what my options are for how that looks?

Speaker 2: 26:05

Yeah, and all of that really starts at the beginning of the relationship, because it's hard to have a three-year relationship as employee employer and then all of a sudden want to show up and have an authentic conversation about. You know, what do we think your future looks like here when we haven't had that conversation in the first couple of years? So you know, that's one of these things that if you don't discover it early on, you might have to just unplug and go plug in somewhere else and start over. How have you found firms and management structure to be receptive or not to the kinds of coaching that you're doing for lawyers?

Speaker 1: 26:43

You know it's interesting. I didn't do it long enough in big law to get too much of an opinion there. Although it's obviously hard to navigate running your own business and being in that space. At the smaller firms it's been really well received, both at the firm I went to when I left, which just merged with a bigger firm you know they love it because I think that one it brings in business on the lawyering side of things.

Speaker 1: 27:08

But also I do think that firms or maybe not firms, but people within firms are really recognizing that this newer generation of lawyers want something different. They're not showing up the same way, they're not willing to accept and tolerate the same things, and so change is required and I think people want to do that. And I've found that the smaller firms that I've been at they have the bandwidth, they have more leeway to do that, because there's not all of this red tape that they're having to go through. There's not as much of the politics as there might've been at a bigger law firm, and so they get to invest in things like this. They get to make this part of their brand, which is really fun to see.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Yeah, so have you seen firms that are bringing in people who are, like you, either in-house or fractionally in-house to talk to their associates?

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yeah, I've seen a little bit of it, but I think the problem and I kind of wrestled with this whene mentor relationship, like who are we loyal to in this situation? Because if I am talking to an associate about a rainmaker partner and I know that partner is not going to change and the firm's not going to do anything about it, then how can I best help that person? Or if that person wants to leave and that's against the firm's best interest, then how do I?

Speaker 2: 28:29

how do.

Speaker 1: 28:29

I serve both and I think that's tricky. I'm sure that someone can do it, um, but I like this separation of the outside, the firm coaching. But I think that firms can certainly invest in it right, just the same way you would invest in like a trial training or deposition training, like firms can allocate funds for their associates to find their own coaches, or they could have a list of coaches that they suggest or recommend. So I think there are ways to work it and maybe the in-house thing will work. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, I'm not aware of it existing, um, but I think if someone could make it work, it could be really amazing.

Speaker 2: 29:07

Outside of windy on the billions, yes, but you know, I think you're right. And again, that's the scary thing for law firm owners is sending your people to coaching like this, because it might turn out that they discover that they don't actually like working for you, and then it's like all right, cool. All I've got to do is create a place that's actually fun and interesting and valuable for people to work, for some fulfillment. And so how do we create firms that people actually want to work at, instead of just want to put in the 9 to 5 and then log out at 5 or 1 and go do whatever it is that fulfills them, and that's fine too. 501 and go do whatever it is that fulfills them, and that's fine too. But I think most of us who are building smaller firms are trying to build something that attracts people and holds their interest until the evening.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Yeah, that's for sure, and that is one risk that you always run when people start to examine what they want out of their life. But I think what I tend to see in a lot of my clients is they actually do want to stay and they do want to make it work, and the things that we work on are not leaving. But how do you make this work for you when you can't change the external circumstances that you're dealing with? And so I think that in part, in part like if you're thinking about building a place, building a culture where people do want to stay, being willing to invest in something like coaching, even if sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly for your business, is part of a way that you can create a great culture like that.

Speaker 2: 31:05

As somebody who's talked to a number of associates and partners from a number of different firms, have you seen some kind of interesting best practices or cool programs that firms are doing?

Speaker 1: 31:16

You know I am seeing a lot more. I am actually seeing a lot more associate training, which has been really interesting over the last few years. So not only the substantive stuff but business development and practice development, and also seeing more and more firms who are willing to let their associates invest in outside things like coaching.

Speaker 1: 31:37

So I have really been enjoying seeing those pieces. I was at a retreat for a firm recently where it was a whole weekend associates and partners but the associates broke off and got some of I did some training and then they got some other training and so I love seeing more and more of that because I think associates want to do well, they want to be good at their job, they want to be successful, and often they're just not given the tools to do that.

Speaker 1: 32:03

So the more that we can do that, the better off everyone is.

Speaker 2: 32:07

Yeah, and the skillset that makes you a great lawyer is not the same skill set that allows you to teach other people how to thrive often, and so bringing in outside people is really, really helpful, and it's something smart that a lot of good, good, smart firms are doing. So, jen, this has been really fun. Where can people find out more about you?

Speaker 1: 32:25

um. You can go to my website, jindeal coachingcom. I am also on linkedin too often probably, but you can find me on LinkedIn. It's a really great space to be if you're not over there. There's a lot of great content from lawyers and folks in the legal industry.

Speaker 2: 32:40

Yeah, Well cool. Thanks for coming on today and I'll see you around LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Yeah, thanks for having me.