Leadership for Lawyers

Climbing Blind

It was one of those "you know you live in Colorado when..." moments.  My family and I had just moved to a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  We visited a small church on Lookout Mountain overlooking the continental divide.  The time came when people prayed aloud and we heard, "... and please keep my husband safe.  He's climbing Mount Everest and might summit this week if the weather holds out.  Please help the whole team, especially Erik, who is blind.  Amen."

Blind?  Mt. Everest?  You've got to be kidding. 

Nope.

I had a chance to meet Erik Weihenmayer and see his slide show last month.  Here's a guy who won't let convention, common sense or genuine concern discourage him.  John Krakauer wrote to Erik, ""I am not at all enthusiastic about your trip to Everest next spring," he wrote. "It's not that I doubt you have what it takes to reach the summit.... It's just that I don't think you can get to the top of that particular hill without subjecting yourself to horrendous risk, the same horrendous risk all Everest climbers face, and then some."  Mountaineer Ed Viesturs and others also called to talk Erik out of the trip.   On May 25, 2001 Erik and his entire climbing team summited Everest - the first and only blind climber to reach the world's tallest peak.

Not only has Erik climbed Everest, but he can claim the elusive "Seven Summits" - the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. 

What struck me about Erik was his attitude.  I expected him to be egotistical, arrogant and defiant.  Maybe even careless.  Instead, I found him to be highly self-aware, a fast learner, humble, and very adaptable.  He learned to climb as a child, and knows his boundaries and how to work around them.  He recognizes that his accomplishments are not only the result of individual skill and strength, but equally the collaboration of a team.

Erik's web sites are ClimbingBlind.org  and  Touch the Top.  Here's a great article in Outside Magazine.  Click more for an interview with Fast Company.

National Poetry Month

Happy National Poetry Month! OK, April is poetry month, but I'm behind in nearly everything and for something like poetry, I'll take a few months to celebrate.  I've been listening to audio CD's of David Whyte.  Whyte is a poet who writes and speaks on personal identity, challenges, life transitions and transformations, and work.  While I've enjoyed his books, such as The Heart Aroused, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgramage of Identity, and Midlife and the Great Unknown, hearing David read his, and others, poetry is an eye-opening experience.

Read David's poem, The Opening of Eyes or House of Belonging or Revelation Must Be Terrible, as well as other articles on his web site at www.davidwhyte.com.  Watch for an opportunity to see and hear David at a future ABA Law Practice Management section meeting!

How Lawyers Lose Their Way

Unhappy lawyers.  Ever meet one?  I wonder why unhappy lawyers continue to do what they do.  What makes them unhappy?  Grouchy clients?  Unrealized expectations of becoming Atticus Finch? 

In this book, Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado use historical investigation and critical analysis to diagnose the cause of the pervasive unhappiness among practicing lawyers. Most previous writers have blamed the high rate of burnout, depression, divorce, and drug and alcohol dependency among these highly paid professionals on the narrow specialization, long hours, and intense pressures of modern legal practice. Stefancic and Delgado argue that these professional demands are only symptoms of a deeper problem: the way lawyers are taught to think and reason.  Read the review, or go to buy the book on Amazon.

Thanks to Stephanie West Allen, a former marketing director, and current consultant, career coach, and brilliant mind, for this book tip, and many other ideas for this blog.  If you want to get in touch with Stephanie, drop me a note at mark@beese.org. 

The Ultimate Women Lawyer's Retreat

The web site asks the question, "Do you sometimes feel like you want to be doing something else with your life? Are you so busy that you don’t even know what you want?"

"Reconnecting with your Self and Discovering the Work You were Meant to Do:  The Ultimate Women Lawyer's Retreat" is a four-day, three-night retreat with "all-inclusive meals, morning yoga, and massage" as well as career coaching.  Led by Tama Kieves and J. Kim Wright, the 2005 Labor Day Retreat (appropriately planned) is aimed at helping women lawyers find their career calling.  For more information, visit the site at http://www.transformationallaw.com/jkimwright/ultimateretreat.htm. 

Wright is founder of the Renaissance Law Society, a group of lawyers that takes a non-traditional (some might say, however, very traditional) and alternative approach to lawyering, emphasizing "transformational law", restorative justice, and collaborative law.  In an time where AmLaw 200 firms are racing to bill the highest rate, work associates and partners longer hours, and be at the top of the profits-per-equity-partner chart, RLS paints a very different, and refreshing, mosaic of being a lawyer.

Clients for Life

Is it enough for lawyers to be an expert in a particular area of law, or do clients want more?  Authors Jagdish Sheth, PhD and Andrew Sobel describe their ideas what lawyers and other professionals can, and should, do to build strong relationships. 

Clients for Life began from the authors’ observation that some professional advisers are constantly sought after by clients, while others are treated like mere commodities, constantly challenged on price and struggling to obtain new business. In their search to find the reasons for this paradox, Sheth and Sobel set about interpreting a range of personal experiences (their own and those of others) within a broad framework of historical references and current business practices.  Read the review, or buy the book.   Go right to the Amazon page here.

Gerry Riskin

Edge Group's has launched a new blog at http://www.gerryriskin.com/.  Gerry is one of the few legal bloggers that tackles leadership and strategy issues, as well as having an interesting set of legal blog links.  Riskin is a Canadian lawyer who has been consulting with law firms around the world for more than 20 years.  His blog reflects Gerry's humor, sarcasm, and insight into the typical dysfunction of law firm management. 

Change or Die

So, you think it is hard for lawyers to change marketing behavior?  Try saving a life.  Dr. Edward Miller, CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University claims,  "If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle," Miller said. "And that's been studied over and over and over again. And so we're missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can't."

So, if people won't change their behavior to save their own life, what's going to make them visit clients, participate in client teams, and learn "consultative selling"? 

This article by Alan Deutschman in Fast Company gives some clues.

Leadership for Lawyers CLE Program

Here is an event, totally unrelated to this site or author, but referred by a friend.    It is being led by Herb Rubenstein (photo).  You can find his bio here.  The course sounds theoretical in nature.

Leadership for Lawyers

Saturday, June 11, 2005 9 am – 4 pm
6 CLE credits – 3 Ethics, 3 General
Cost – $195
University of Denver – Daniels College of Business
2101 S. University Boulevard, Room 240

The Leadership for Lawyers course combines discussions of ethics and leadership development theories and proven methods to improve your leadership skills. Specially designed and delivered by lawyers, this course takes into account what lawyers need as they are called upon to serve as leaders in their communities, with their clients, with their adversaries, in their government agencies and in their law firms. By learning some of the practical tips and theoretical foundations of leadership development as it has evolved over the past several decades from its roots in antiquity, this course is designed to help participants become more effective lawyers and improve their law practices.