Does being an attorney make you unhappy? Could the legal profession be the root cause of your stress? Join host Donna DiMaggio Berger and guest Professor Marcia Narine Weldon for Part ll of a two-part series as they pull back the curtain on the high-pressure legal industry, exploring its impact on mental health and offering several strategies for coping. Throughout their conversation, they explore the surprisingly common traits shared by lawyers, questioning whether the profession attracts a particular personality type or creates certain mental health challenges.
As they navigate the cut-throat competitiveness of many law firm environments, Professor Weldon and Donna share their personal experiences of the pressures, struggles, and victories their legal careers involved. They highlight how a growth mindset and the ability to learn new skills can drive job satisfaction, despite the profession's inherent challenges. They discuss the art of setting boundaries - a crucial skill in protecting one's mental health and ensuring values are not compromised.
The future is here already! Donna and Professor Weldon discuss how AI technology is reshaping the legal profession and its implications on mental health. As daunting as it may sound, they believe AI brings an opportunity to reinvent oneself and cultivate new skills. To wrap up, they emphasize the importance of vulnerability, openness, and grace – as not every loss spells disaster. Tune in for an insightful conversation on fostering well-being amidst the demanding landscape of the legal profession.
Conversation highlights include:
Does being an attorney make you unhappy? Could the legal profession be the root cause of your stress? Join host Donna DiMaggio Berger and guest Professor Marcia Narine Weldon for Part ll of a two-part series as they pull back the curtain on the high-pressure legal industry, exploring its impact on mental health and offering several strategies for coping. Throughout their conversation, they explore the surprisingly common traits shared by lawyers, questioning whether the profession attracts a particular personality type or creates certain mental health challenges.
As they navigate the cut-throat competitiveness of many law firm environments, Professor Weldon and Donna share their personal experiences of the pressures, struggles, and victories their legal careers involved. They highlight how a growth mindset and the ability to learn new skills can drive job satisfaction, despite the profession's inherent challenges. They discuss the art of setting boundaries - a crucial skill in protecting one's mental health and ensuring values are not compromised.
The future is here already! Donna and Professor Weldon discuss how AI technology is reshaping the legal profession and its implications on mental health. As daunting as it may sound, they believe AI brings an opportunity to reinvent oneself and cultivate new skills. To wrap up, they emphasize the importance of vulnerability, openness, and grace – as not every loss spells disaster. Tune in for an insightful conversation on fostering well-being amidst the demanding landscape of the legal profession.
Conversation highlights include:
Hi everyone. I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Burger and this is Take it to the Board where we speak Kondo and HOA. Thanks for joining us for the second part of my episode with Professor Marcia Narine Weldon. You won't want to miss what else she has to say about how you can protect your mental well-being as both an association attorney or a board member or manager, while navigating the daily challenges of serving your community association. So, speaking of shared characteristics, I had read a report years ago that attorneys have a lot of shared characteristics in terms of their mindset, their perspective. My question is this does the legal profession attract a certain type of perhaps unhappy person, or does the profession create a certain amount of unhappiness or pessimism?
Speaker 2:So I have strong views on this because I deal with people before they become lawyers, all the way until the time to say I will never practice law again, and I always ask my law students why they choose to go to law school. There's a whole group of people who have no idea. Right, they're just hiding out because there's a recession. They figure for three years, by the time I get on my job market, it's going to be better. There's a bunch of people whose family members are lawyers so they've got to do it. But the most people and some people do it for their money and then they realize it's not that much money. I mean it's a lot of money compared to everybody else, but not compared to law school debt. Most people that go to they really want to help people. They want to make the world better.
Speaker 2:I think the profession attracts hopeful people and the reason that people are so unhappy, so despondent, so disengaged in the profession is that they don't feel significance and they don't feel a sense of purpose. So you can find somebody who's working really, really hard. I have some coaching class I work in like they're billing 80, 90 hours a week consistently. They love what they do. They're not the ones that are saying I just want to get away from my kids and my wife, so I'm going to work all day long in a team. They love it. It energizes them. If you were to say please go on vacation, they would rather stick a needle in their eye.
Speaker 2:There's that people, but most of the people are not like that.
Speaker 2:First of all, law school doesn't really prepare you for what the practice is going to be like. My classes do, but most classes don't. And then when they get to, like I didn't think it was going to be like this. I thought it was going to be like what I saw on suits or what I saw on all these other shows, and it's a completely different view. So I think the profession itself is broken with things like the billable hour, which, of course, if you do and I say not because I say that, but because the American lawyer media they do a survey every year on lawyer unhappiness and mental health and I think 70 something percent of the statistics said that part of the reason for their unhappiness and their misery and their stress is because of the billable hour. So that's, I think, one of the big issues. The profession is what changes people and 76% of lawyers blame their work environment for their emotional, emotional mental health problems, and that's the biggest percentage of the lawyers 68% cited billable hour pressures.
Speaker 1:I also think it's an uneasy fit If you take somebody who's creative and now put them in the legal industry. You know, I look at and I've got you know my, my sisters and artists. We've got creatives in the family and Pete and friends who are creatives. Those people, like you said, they could be working 90, 120 hours a week but they're so engaged and they're in the flow when they're working they're in flow state Exactly.
Speaker 1:You may have already guessed through our conversation today that this is my outlet as an attorney having this podcast, having non-guests where I'm just curious and I have such a great time talking to people. But what a rank and file attorneys do when they're looking for that kind of outlet. You know they're creative people but they're expected, as you said, to comply with the billing pad and everything else. Where do they find that outlet?
Speaker 2:It's so funny you mentioned this because I have three other lawyer friends who recently started podcasts like how do you have the time? They said this is my happiest time of the week and what it means is you have to find what makes you happy. One of my I have 20 adjunct professors that report to me at University of Miami in their transactional skills program. One of them is the chief legal officer for a major company and the chief administrative officer. Right, they're buying things, they're acquiring things, and she volunteered to teach over the summer. I said don't you want to break this? This is my happiest because I'm giving back, right? So, whatever it is, for some people it might be playing the piano that's. For some people it might be becoming yoga instructors. For other lawyers, like this.
Speaker 2:So what I'm finding is good is that people are less lawyers, are less afraid to show a side in the self that they didn't show before.
Speaker 2:So I started my podcast because you know I have little time, but I love talking to people, I love learning, I love exposing people to that. Right, you're finding more lawyers becoming kind of quote content creators where they're doing things on TikTok or Instagram or there that kind of stuff, and probably because it allows them to be creative. And we need creative lawyers because you have to have that creative outlet so that your brain could give creative solutions to the business problems that you're dealing with. So you may not think there's a connection, right, but there's a reason that some of my friends who play music, when they're playing the piano for the solution comes to them right, because music, by the way, has lots of logic and math to it.
Speaker 2:So, whatever it is maybe it's painting If we get away and I tell my students and my coaching classes all the time you have a really big, thorny problem you're really struggling with and you're just whatever, get away from it, do something totally different, something that you love, and then sometimes that's when the idea will come. So everybody should find an outlet.
Speaker 1:Do you think the legal consumers are open to seeing us as real people who have real lives, as opposed to just their counselor when they call us, when they have a problem?
Speaker 2:You know I started posting what I call like more who content on LinkedIn, but I last year, a couple years ago, and it was striking. So sometimes I would post something about some important legal development. I thought my audience should know crickets. I'd post something about like I got a tattoo and whatever. Like a hundred likes plus comments, right, I posted one of my coaching classes, a mark to the marketer right today work with her company, and I was said you know I did, I was gonna Peru what I went to do, my Machu Picchu, right, which is plant medicine, and it was part of my doing something scary, because there's nothing scarier for a lawyer that Having shamans yell at you for hours when there's bats flying around in a hut in Peru in the Amazon and you don't know if you're gonna ever come back saying, right, that was my scariest thing I ever did, but it's all I said. I've got a post about it on LinkedIn. She said, no, it will destroy your brand, and so I posted about it.
Speaker 2:Talking about you know, my brand is being authentic, all this kind of stuff, the amount of lawyers who reached out to me in my direct messages oh, have you also tried peyote? Have you done this? How me. So I was like who are you people? Right, and these are partners and major law firms that you would know. These are general councils and they say I said why don't you comment? Oh, I could never put that out there. And I understand that, right, because not everybody's gonna be like a renegade. You know, right, be authentic, be yourself.
Speaker 2:People like I don't think my board memoirs to know about this, but I think people want to work with people they know, like and trust Legal consumers as well. If I am a regular layperson, I want to make sure that my lawyer is gonna speak to me in a way that I don't feel stupid. I want to feel like some connection. By definition, they assume you already know the legal stuff, but can you relate to me? Because if I feel like my lawyer is way up here, none of your listeners can't see my hand, but way up here above me, it's above my head, it's above my head and I'm to feel too stupid to ask my lawyer a question. I'm not gonna ask, which means I'm not gonna comply with whatever the rule is.
Speaker 2:So Everybody we get, we need that level of connection. We need to know this. Lawyers are human beings, you know this lawyer makes mistakes. So even for your lawyers who are on the listening to the podcast, let your associates know when you've made a mistake. Let your associates know that you've been scared, because the only way that they can come to you when they're scared, they make a mistake, is they feel it's okay, because otherwise they're gonna have that crippling fear, they're gonna cut corners. They're not gonna tell you when something is wrong because they don't see you as a person they can relate to when I started out it's great advice.
Speaker 1:I had a mentor. He was a 90 year old attorney in a little boutique firm in downtown Miami, the banking law firm, and His name is Morris, and he told me, listen, 99% of mistakes could be corrected if you fess up early on. But if you don't and we bury it, we're not gonna be able to fix it. And we've all made those mistakes and I've told associates here you know, don't feel stupid, we've all made those mistakes and let us know and we can. We can certainly correct it, but turns that in. That actually is a great segue into my next question, which is Listen, most law firms you know we're in the business of making money as well correct, and it's an inherently competitive Environment. It may be changing we'd like to think it's a collaborative environment but it can be very competitive. It could be competitive in terms of who's building the most hours, who's gonna make partner, who's originating the most work. Do you think, then, just the even the very nature of law as a business Creates unhappiness, or the potential for unhappiness, I think?
Speaker 2:so right, because every profession is competitive. But I don't know if it's a competition because, by the way, lawyers are. Most lawyers are competitive in general. They're the people and I think this is a terrible reason to go to law school. But the other people whose parents said oh my gosh, you argue so much, you should be a great lawyer, right, that's not the definition of you can argue with people and you can convince people. Anything is not the qualification to be a lawyer, right, but there is that competition, there is that winning, because they were often in the debate thing when they're in law school. You have to go through moot court or oral argument, even if you do transactional stuff, and your first legal writing then you have to have. So we get used to being competitive. You know the deal. Lawyers it's more collaborative, but they still have to represent their clients. There's still a little bit of a competition and litigators, of course, by definition, is competitive. I don't know that.
Speaker 2:That's the part that leads the unhappiness. To be honest, I really think it's the, the lack of a connection to the work. I really think that many lawyers, I think a lot of law is just not that interesting. To be perfectly honest, it really isn't a lot of lawyers. I, by the way, I'm 31 years practicing. I have been a happy lawyer for 31 years, all 31 years. I am a unicorn and I have loved every little job I ever had. I am the exception and I can find something interesting in anything.
Speaker 2:I'm that person that and I recommend this to young lawyers all the time, especially in economic times like this to be the I'll do that person right, to have that growth mindset. When you listen up all those jobs in the beginning, it's because somebody's speech to privacy officer I'll do that. So many to learn this, I'll do that. So I never got bored and I always felt so lovely because I was always learning a new skill which has stood me in great stead because it's hard to fire me like, alright, she's the only one that could do these 15 things, so we'll keep her. She's cheaper than hiring 14 more people right.
Speaker 2:So when we feel if you're a lifelong learner, if you have that growth mindset of I don't know how to do this now, I don't know how to do this yet, but I can learn it, that can add more satisfaction Because if you're an M&A lawyer right now you're kind of bored and some even there's this mergers and acquisitions work going on, but not as much. But if you have that plus a, you know something. I'd like to learn about privacy or I want to learn about community associations. If you have that chance in the firm, even if you don't build for that time, if you're building at those skills for the intrinsic desire to be a better lawyer, that can help again with your level of job satisfaction and also can prepare you for the next job if that's what you choose to do or the next role.
Speaker 1:It's a great advice. You know it's funny for many years I never did mediations. Okay, so I represent community associations. I said you know what I'd actually like to do a little bit of that. So you know, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:I had a conversation with an associate today and and he asked me don't we have an expert in the firm who does this? And I said we do and you should work with her, but you should also dig into this yourself. Okay, you're not, you're an associate. You're gonna want to build up your skills across a variety of different areas and then later you can delegate. And he said you know what that makes sense. And I said well, we'll work with you. You got another great piece of advice which was to tell to ask associates on a scale of 1 to 10 how uncomfortable are you with this task? Be honest, if it's I'm a 10 uncomfortable, then you know, maybe, maybe you're, that's not we, we're not gonna give you that task right now. But if you were two or three uncomfortable or four, you know, I think maybe you should tackle that. But it is good to know how uncomfortable they really are with a specific task.
Speaker 2:That is so great and I hope that ever and I'm gonna start doing that too right, because I think we assume All right, you're graduating from law school, you're at the firm, your third year, you can do this or you can learn this. And people out there, some people you know, who really struggle with anything new. There's some people that all that advice that is gave a few minutes ago was completely Never gonna follow it. They're like no, I know how to do this law. I doing it for 20 years. It ain't broke. Why would I do anything different about it?
Speaker 2:I am an expert. I don't want to learn anything new, and that can be very and that can be very comforting to people, because the idea of trying to learn a Whole new area of law or expand and possibly quote, fail Right or not be an expert at it right away, it's terrifying to some people. Right, and that's why you have that code of fixed mindset versus the growth mindset, the fixed mindset of I know how to do this and I don't have to do any, I don't have to put a lot of effort and I could do this. It comes so naturally to me. I'm not gonna change. Those are people who are terrified to fail, not gonna try new things. And as some companies and law firms become more lean and you need to do more with less, you need to have people who are willing to expand and do things that they aren't comfortable with.
Speaker 2:But I think asking the comfort level and what might help get you more comfortable, it might be I'm uncomfortable because I just never did this before, right. It might be I'm uncomfortable because, donna, I love working with you because you're a really great lawyer and mentor. But if I got to work with this guy I don't care if I know it backwards or forwards, he just makes me uncomfortable, right? So the next question I would ask is why are you uncomfortable? Is it a skill level, a knowledge level, a personal thing? And then, what can make us get more comfortable? And again, that goes back to what we talked about in the beginning People just want to be heard, they want to know that their voices matter, and just by asking those kinds of questions you're going to go so long in the retention and the engagement of your associates, because that's what firms are worried about right now.
Speaker 1:And I never even thought to do that until the coach mentioned it In the past. You would just say, oh, this is what I went through as an associate. So yeah, here's your file. Here's what you're doing. Let me know if you have any questions, as opposed to saying here's what the work request is. How comfortable do you feel? If I'm hearing you correctly, marcia fixed mindset is pretty much somebody with a comfort zone. Here's my comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a thought of that it's like that your intelligence is fixed, like your eye color, like you can't do that. I grew up the whole time I thought I was terrible at math. I was like I don't do math Literally, that's why I'm in law school. There was no math on the LSAT. That's why I went to Columbia undergrad. There was no math requirement to graduate Literally. Because I grew up my whole life like I can't let my parents from the Caribbean like you could do anything you want. So that was the growth mindset. But I went in class my teacher's like well, math just isn't your thing, you're everything else but math.
Speaker 1:And that happens to a lot of women. That happens to a lot of women. Math is not your thing.
Speaker 2:So then you start to believe it. So the growth mindset is all right. I just don't know how to do this yet. I'll learn and if I fail I'll just take what I've learned, what I've learned from the quote failure and continue.
Speaker 2:The brain scans of people with growth and fixed mindsets, when they're asked certain questions, actually looks different on an MRI Because they can actually see different parts of the brain light up. When you tell the person with the growth mindset you didn't do well, this is what you could do to get better, that person's that part of brain lights up the person with the fixed mindset and they deterrence by asking them a series of questions. And people can be fixed mindset on one thing and growth mindset on another. It's not stuck, but the fixed mindset, their brains don't lie up in that certain way. In that same way that's really important for businesses. If you have somebody with the fixed mindset. Fixed mindset, people tend to believe that they don't, that they're naturally good at it, so they don't have to put any effort toward it and they don't respect effort. So they will say math is my thing, I'm going to be an engineer. Oh, you need somebody to learn this, that's not me. The growth mindset person might say not really is never my thing, but I'm going to keep learning and I'm going to keep learning till I get it. That's the employee you want, because that's the person that when you have to change roles, or somebody's got to be a pinch hitter, or somebody goes on and family leave and need somebody else to deal with that person, that person is the one that's more likely to say, oh, I've never met that client before, but you need to do it. Ok, I need to learn this new area, or that's good, that's what you want.
Speaker 2:You don't want to reward the person who says I'm good at this, this is all I'm doing. Which is why, for parents that are listening every parent has done this You're a genius, you're amazing, you don't even have to try. And so I am a genius, I don't have to try that person is not going to try a lot. If you reward your kids and same thing with your associates based on effort, I can see how much effort you put into that. That again is going to train the brain. That effort is the reward and those people are going to end up doing better because they're going to keep trying till they get it right.
Speaker 2:The person who thinks they are a natural genius at this. If they don't get it right, they're like that's just not my thing and I'm not going to try any harder. So parenting tip which of course, I learned this my kid's 27,. I should have known this a long time ago. That is like art is my thing. I don't do anything else Like oh no, but focus on the effort. You know something? Actually your deliverables X, you didn't quite meet it, but I can see how much effort you put into it. Let's go ahead and try again. That growth mindset person like all right, that fixed mindset person is traumatized. That's the person that gets the B plus when they're a straight A student and they cannot function and you don't want that in your firm.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of firms, how many firms and I'm talking about firms, let's say, not talking about sole proprietors, we're talking about firms, let's say 10 lawyers and up how many of them do you think have a real balance in terms of their attorneys with growth mindsets versus fixed mindsets? From what I'm hearing you say and I'm thinking of the firms I've worked at I think there's more fixed mindsets in the industry than growth. Am I right in that?
Speaker 2:The law will attract fixed mindset people because, again, the whole time you're growing up, you're so smart, you're so bright, you're so talented, you know that kind of thing which, again, as parents, like, oh, of course, I want them to have great self-esteem, we do that. But if we don't say and you try so hard, I love to see how you work. So organizations can have a fixed mindset. The organization that has a fixed mindset is going to not promote from within it, because it's going to focus on promoting only the same kind of people and not expanding. They may not be amenable to outside voices or outside opinions, because this is the way it's got to be, this is how we've always done it. Why would we change? And as this profession is changing at the speed of light well, the speed of molasses in some areas and the speed of light in other areas that doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Are law schools turning out students, graduates with a growth mindset?
Speaker 2:It's not that your job, it's something that's law students.
Speaker 2:It is our job. It is our job because by the time they get to the firm, nobody's training them right, so they expect us to train on everything and that doesn't always happen. I think it's. I don't think we put enough attention to this, of focusing on mindset in terms of and I try to do with my students right, and I have these conversations with them like this is not a failure, this is you know, what can we learn from this? Right, tell people to keep a failure file. Something didn't work out well, what did I do? Right and how can I learn from it? Right, athletes, when they don't win the game, they watch over and over again, they watch the tape to see how they can improve.
Speaker 2:You can't be an elite athlete with a fixed mindset. By definition, you're not going to win all the time and you have to continue to try. Right, so a lot of times, I think people who play sports, who know that at some point somebody has to lose you know it might be 0.001 of a second, but you still somebody's got to come in second that's a good thing, right, because you learn like all right, I'm going to pick myself up, I'm going to try again.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about shedding stress We've got a few minutes left and I want to give you a snapshot into the typical community association Lawyer's Life, which is a lot of times. We're now in the summer, but come fall and winter is election season, where you've got your annual membership meeting. You've got a lot more board meetings. Of course, down here now we also have a lot of communities that are accelerating repair projects and replacement projects to meet those deadlines I talked about with the new law. So we go out to these meetings at night.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've been in the office. Now you might miss dinner or you grab something down the road. You head over to the client's community, you're sitting in the board meeting or it could be on Zoom, but it could be in person and you're just bombarded with a toxic stew of people yelling at each other and making accusations and you're trying to navigate this and as counsel you're being asked to weigh in on a variety of issues. You leave the meeting and you just feel completely depleted and sometimes it starts all over again the next day. Any recommendations on how to kind of walk out of that meeting and shed it a little bit?
Speaker 2:So your listeners may not want to hear this, right? The number one thing that has helped me with this issue is developing a mindfulness practice which does not mean that they have to sit on a cushion with lotus flowers and chant which I do, okay, but they don't have to do that, but develop. You can develop, and there's apps and those kinds of things, because here's what it helps you do. It helps you, number one, stay in the present. Number two it helps you detach from the outcome, not in a callous I don't care, do what you want, but okay, that's not going to affect me in the same kind of way, right? And it also, again, helps you respond versus react.
Speaker 2:So I used to be an employment lawyer on the defense side dealing with some pretty schlocky, unethical plaintiff's counsel, and I would have high blood pressure migraines up to every conversation. I'd have to sit there and send a note. This is to confirm that you agreed to an enlargement of like. We just got the phone. Why do I? You know, like, aren't you an honorable human being? And I got so. But then I was like, let me detach from this, right? What is the worst thing that's going to happen? And when we deal with and I know that this mindfulness, the attaching from the outcome, the breathing, all the different things work because, you know, in the human rights field I deal with people whose family members have been killed and I can't say you know, and you know, or disappeared by governments or you know their family members were shot by special security forces protecting corporations. You can't leave that and not have it stick to you.
Speaker 1:You're human.
Speaker 2:But you could be compassionate and you could be empathetic without it becoming your life. Another thing in terms of just to not keep that whole toxic anger kind of thing is tell people, think about you know, the five tests, right, is it going to matter? Five hours from now, five weeks from now, five months from now, five years from now, I can be agitated and angry but if, like tomorrow, I'm not even going to remember it, why am I going to stress about it? Now, if it's a huge thing, like you know, you know this law is going to change and wipe out my livelihood, then, yes, I shouldn't really be focused on it. And then, you know, just really think about. You know what is holding onto this bringing to me.
Speaker 2:We don't want to get so tied up that we are a less effective lawyer. There is a reason that lawyers have among the highest rates of suicide, addiction, depression, those kinds of things, and we don't need to exacerbate it, which comes just from the way the profession is structured. We don't need to make it worse by bringing on our clients' toxicity to us. So there are things that people can do. It takes work, but I know it works. I don't ever recommend anything that I haven't done.
Speaker 1:Can we ask ourselves, marcio, what's the easiest thing I can do in this situation, or is that?
Speaker 2:cut in corners? Absolutely no, I don't think it's cut in corners. I think people have to do whatever works for them, right? So, lawyers, by definition, our job is to think of all the terrible things that can happen. At some point we need to think about okay, what's the best thing that can happen? Right? Or also thinking, you know, we have sometimes these negative thoughts that come and flood us, right? You know there's a great Byron Katie has this thing called the work and you ask yourself, you know, is this true? Right? How do I know this is true? And what's my evidence? Because sometimes we will sit there and catastrophize when something is not really going to happen, you know. Another thing is I was just like I'm going to fail the bar exam. I don't ever say no, you won't, because you know they could, right?
Speaker 1:So by saying so, I.
Speaker 2:I said I want you to go through this. Is it possible? Yes, it is possible. You're going to fail the bar exam. Is it likely? Probably not. Is it probable? No, and if you do that, whatever it is, you know whatever kind of thing that's coming and flooding you that's keeping you kind of like stuck in this level of these things, what they call the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that we are hardwired to have to protect ourselves, asking ourselves the questions is it true? What's our evidence? Is it likely? Is it possible? It's a probable, right, but always, what is the evidence that when you continue to do that day after day, like exercising like you, like you do your sit-ups Again is training your brain so that when those things happen, when that toxicity, when that argument happens, when that catastrophizing happens, your brain says our default is the other thing, our default is the what's the best that can happen? Now, of course, we have to think of the worst that can happen, otherwise people wouldn't pay us but we can't dwell on that.
Speaker 1:I wish I'd talked to you back when my husband and I both went to university at Miami Law School. We were engaged our third year and when we were taking the bar we hadn't really thought about the fact that we had planned our wedding in February. We were taking the bar in July and we said you know what, if one of us doesn't pass, or both of us, we'll be honeymooning in Tampa, not in Hawaii. Fortunately, actually, he wound up getting the number one score on the bar in the third DCA Congratulations, and I did pretty well. So you had done so much. What has been, if you don't mind me asking, your most stressful job?
Speaker 2:I worked in Macy's, harold Square, 34th Street, which is the largest Macy's in the world, I know it. And I worked selling handbags on the first floor when I was in college, when I was also taking summer classes, because I wanted to graduate early and every lawyer should work in customer service in retail, because you really learned to do and talk about toxicity and obnoxious people, so just. And then I had the backstabbing with people at the commission. The second day I was there I got the highest commission they had seen for the month. I was like how hard is this? And then I let it cut. So it was really helpful for life in a firm life, every place else.
Speaker 2:But it was hard because you deal with customers. You got to make sure no money goes missing. You got to look for the shoplifters. It was like too much stuff and I wasn't passionate about it. I wanted to make money. So anything that I am super passionate about I will love. Do what you love, the money will follow, because some people have a job, some people have a career and some people have a calling. I'm lucky that every single thing I do is part of my calling. Most people don't have that. Then selling handbags at Macy's was a job and it was stressful because I didn't feel I didn't. You know I did really well and that brought out a lot of jealousy.
Speaker 1:I could sell a handbag. I was not expecting that answer Newfound respect to the people working in the handbag department at Macy's and every other department store. Part of the stress and anxiety I'm feeling and I talked to my colleagues about it as well is that we're expected to be available 24-7 now 24-7,. I've had clients actually text me because I give them my cell number and most clients do not abuse it Text me to say there's an email in your inbox I sent you 10 minutes ago. I'm waiting for a reply. How do we, how do we, marcia, kind of navigate that, especially when we know our competitors? So sometimes clients will say well, you know my other lawyer, you know I can reach him or her 24-7. Are we entitled to take a vacation? Are we entitled to have doctor appointments and lives and have to pick up our kids and other issues, or are we tethered to our devices? Is it creating a level of insecurity in our profession?
Speaker 2:So I believe that in working in life, people treat us the way we train them. And I have been that in-house lawyer who has had to work on Christmas Eve and trying to reach people in Latin America and they act like I'm insane, like under what circumstance would you think it's appropriate to reach out to me? Like we got to close, we got to be done, right. I've also had the outside counsel, that that's that what. I've sent an email saying hey, marcia, my wife is in labor. As soon as she's in, I'll give you a call back Like, no, what's wrong with you? Right, that is not how I? But so, and I have been that 24 seven person that took a business call in the great wall of China where I got better reception than I do in Miami. However, right, we have to set the boundaries and I know it's easier said than done, but we have to sit there and I think, when it goes to the values, right, as a lawyer, you have to think about what is really important to you. Some people, family time is not important to them, right, we should not assume that people will spend time with their families. Some people hate their families. Some people would refer to work all day long, but most people would like to have some kind of personal life and I think we have to think about like a quadrant. Some things are important, it has to be done, but it may not be urgent, which has to be done now, and you may not have to do it. I was like I alone can do it. Now your client might say but I hired you, donna, and you alone can do it. That's true, but sometimes if it's a new client relationship, it kind of set out some of the parameters and if it's an existing client saying you know something, I am at my best when I'm rested and refreshed and I'm happy to be there for you. If there's an emergency, if there's a raid of your offices, call me right now. If you are on death row and are waiting for a pardon from the governor, I am there 24 seven, but very few legal things Right, and I say this as somebody who has been that lawyer.
Speaker 2:I got trained in New York law firms where I would be answering emails from partners at three in the morning and I now have to tell people, because that's in my conditioning. I now have to tell people if I send you an email three in the morning because I'm up. That's just what I'm thinking about. I don't expect a response, because some clients, other than the one that called you and said you know, xyz, some clients will just send things when they're busy because they have so many things going on. So, like I happen to be up, let me just send this down and we'll respond when she can.
Speaker 2:We as lawyers, though, in our zest to please and be a zealous advocate, we'll respond right away. The more you respond to the email on the Sunday from church or you know, and from your kids' birthday party, then they'll be like I guess it's okay because Donna keeps responding. So you know, make sure that you think of that, that quadrant Is it important, is it urgent and do I have to do it? And when you start doing that, it's hard. First time you push back on a client, they may not like it, but I guarantee they'll respect it, and if they don't, that may not be the client you want. I say this now. You're like, really, because we need that client and so, but you have to, everybody's gonna. You know, I don't want your listeners think like I'm completely crazy, right?
Speaker 2:I also practice law, I also have bills to pay, right, but at some point let's think about the profession. Why does 71% of lawyers think there's a mental health crisis? Because we don't have the boundaries, because we give everything to our clients, everything to the law, we don't always get that return that we want emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally and then we burn out. We have that chronic stress, we're burnt out, we don't want to get out of bed, we don't want to function or we do anything and we can't meet our ethical duty of competence if we are not at our best.
Speaker 2:So when you don't have those boundaries, when you allow clients to run all over you, right, and associates, when you allow the partners to run all over you with unreasonable deadlines I have a coaching client, who's the partner calls her right after her grandfather's funeral and you said the funeral is at 12, right, it's three. I just have a question. The first one I said why did you answer the phone? Well, the partner was coming, but she's a second-year associate, so of course she's gonna answer that phone, right, yeah, but some point we have to tell people. That's not cool.
Speaker 2:To the top yeah you got to set that boundary.
Speaker 1:You know you've just said so many things that resonate with me. First of all, not every loss is a bad loss. So, in my opinion, attorneys need to know if this relationship with this client's not working out, if they're not listening, if you have concerns about their ethics, if you don't think they're, you know, following your advice, but also if they're not respecting your boundaries. My husband a few weeks ago had an emergency appendectomy. I was, you know, dealing with him not only in the hospital but then for some aftercare, and a client called it was actually the client's manager and said we haven't had a response in three days and it wasn't an emergency, it was, it was nothing to do with an emergency. They said we're not feeling value and I said we've been working together for a decade and if you're gonna define the relationship on the basis of a three-day delay that was caused by an, you know, a family emergency I had and I don't think we should continue working together and that's the type of, so I can say that at my level, okay, I'm a partner, right seasons, I'm right same thing. I'm 31 years. In practice it's a lot different than an associate who creates those boundaries. So that that really landed with me that those expectations with the clients are sometimes incredibly Unreasonable and not every loss of a client's a bad loss.
Speaker 1:But I'm also laughing because one of my colleagues you know the way I may interact with my clients can have a negative impact on a colleagues interaction with that same client. I'm a night out so I will be sending emails at 2 30 in the morning and then when I have to hand off a little because I'm not a litigator, hand it off to a litigator. One of my litigation colleagues. And Donna, you are creating very bad habits. You need to tee up. You need to tee up the email and then schedule it to go out during normal hours.
Speaker 1:Because they would say to him what you know, donna, sending us responses at 2 in the morning why we haven't heard. We only hear from you between 8 and 5 30. So you know that was eye-opening for me as well, because maybe the way I'm relating and being 24 7 Can have a negative impact when one of my colleagues now has to step in and do work with that client.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I want to also add something you said about the family emergency. Let's, let's flip it to the other side. I think people are generally much more understanding than we would think if we just tell them what's going on. I have had two very ill parents for the past year my mom and dad's in hospice. My mother just finished chemotherapy and I missed a lot of deadlines and, without fail, what I would tell somebody hey, I'm not gonna be able to do this commitment or I have to cancel this appearance. I have to do XYZ. Without fail, people were understanding and they would literally say things like oh, I know my dad was in hospice to last year. I get it, you'd be not again. Some people are totally unreasonable, but you'd be surprised.
Speaker 2:And as lawyers, we don't want to be vulnerable. Right, we are the ones we solve the problems here. I am to save the day, right, it doesn't matter what's happening, I am impermeable, but that's a problem. Right, we sometimes put this on ourselves. What if we just said you know something? I need two extra days, I've got some stuff going on and I don't tell people that they had to be super explicit.
Speaker 2:I was, and I post on LinkedIn because I want to give people the ability to say what's happening, and I have had so many students or young lawyers come up to me and say thank you so much for being open and vulnerable, because, again, they will never trust you when something is wrong if you don't let them know you have struggled to. I'm gonna miss this deadline, or I have to change this deadline because I've been, you know, dealing with my mom's oncologist, so, xyz, then they can come to me if it's not time sensitive and, you know, then give an extension. We have to give each other grace. We started doing that during COVID. Now we're like, I think, worse than we were before. Right, you know, and that's something we should think about.
Speaker 1:There's such good advice and you know the example I gave. I did tell that client. I said look, here's what I was dealing with. And then they said oh, you know, we're sorry and it's not not an issue, but you're right. By the way, I have a 90, my dad's going to be 94 on August 1. Wow, and my mom's 90. Good luck to your parents. I, I'm right Again. We're on parallel paths here. I'm right there with you. So I would say I want to wrap up and you've been so generous with your time, on top of all the things we have to worry about, how far up the list should artificial intelligence being and is that to?
Speaker 2:be the subject of another podcast number of the things that is that you that that lawyers should be thinking about?
Speaker 2:the mental health and the progression of the profession is number one, and AI is a strong number two. I just came back from Lisbon talking about artificial intelligence. That's what I'm doing my summer research on is artificial intelligence, test business issues and legal issues with generative AI and other kinds of things, and it is they are going to be the lawyers that use AI as a tool and the lawyers who get left in the dust. But please don't use it as a tool. I get fined $5,000 like that lawyer that use chat.
Speaker 1:GP to decide prices that don't exist.
Speaker 2:Please don't do that. But you know, and which is why DLA, piper and other major firms are building their own, you know, their own programs. But for lawyers, I want you guys to think about. Your clients are going to ask you well, if you can use AI and be much more efficient, then why don't you do that? But, by the way, don't train the data sets with any of my privilege data right, so you're going to have. So law lawyers and law firms really have to think about how will they use artificial intelligence, how will they deal with the privilege issues, the privacy issues and the accuracy issues?
Speaker 1:and how does it impact the bill? How do you impact, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:The billable hours get at some points. You know we talked about the death of the billable hours before I went to law school. I think this is what's going to actually be the trigger because, no, if I'm an in-house lawyer, first of all, when I was in-house I didn't pay for the work of a first year associate and, like they can't do anything right, you train them on your dime. My outside counsel guidelines are going to be I want to know that you have, you know, appropriate, protected, encrypted, supersonic, galactic artificial intelligence that's going to and I want my bills to go down dramatically Because I'm thinking about how am I going to teach my students about drafting contracts in? You know, world Economic Forum? The number two job they say is going to be affected by AI is legal. Wow, legal is number two. What's?
Speaker 2:number one oh, I can't remember, like office administrator, banking tellers.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering about medical too, because you know, if you got it, I'm talking about this tomorrow to a healthcare company.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about AI and corporate governance and what it means to them tomorrow. So it is a big time. But I would say this again like I said literally the subject for a whole other podcast you know, it is not the time to stick your head in the sand and it is not the time to be terrified. It is a time to get educated, to understand what the risks and benefits are to your business. But if you don't start to learn how to understand generative AI and the other things that are coming out, we will be left behind. There isn't a doubt.
Speaker 2:Well, we contribute to that On that happy note.
Speaker 1:I'm going to you know, I'm going to track you down for a follow up podcast episode devoted to artificial intelligence. Last question we mentioned you to have a podcast. Can you tell us where?
Speaker 2:people can find you. Sure, it's called Illuminating Wisdom, which is also the name of my coaching and corporate training firm, and I interview lawyers, I interview business people, I interview spiritual seekers. I just interview a hodge podge of people. So the one that's going to come out today is actually by a lawyer who uses artificial intelligence, metaverse and that kind of stuff. The name is Mitch Jackson. So that's the one that's going to come out today. So it's lawyers talking about the profession, but the future of the profession, but it's also just generally interesting, fascinating people. I created a podcast that I'd want to listen to.
Speaker 1:You're a Kindred Spirit, you can find on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, everywhere. You got a Kindred Spirit here and you got a new. You got a new follower and subscriber in me. Again, I want to thank you so much, Marcia, for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform, or visit TicketToTheBoardcom for more ways to connect.