So July has passed, and we’re in those final days of summer, and there’s a lot that can be done now. If you do have a little bit of a lull, certainly enjoy it on a personal basis. Appreciate the time and the season. For both work and play, it's a really magical time of the year. But once you have done your refreshing and revitalizing…What sort of things on a professional level can you do to help the rest of your year go smoothly? In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her experience both in practice and as a mediator to discuss the value of doing a mid-year review of your cases/workload and why you should revisit your yearly goals. Episode highlights include:
To connect with Jean Lawler, follow her on LinkedIn or find her at LawlerADR.com.
To read the full episode transcript please see the Podcast Website.
So July has passed, and we’re in those final days of summer, and there’s a lot that can be done now. If you do have a little bit of a lull, certainly enjoy it on a personal basis. Appreciate the time and the season. For both work and play, it's a really magical time of the year. But once you have done your refreshing and revitalizing…What sort of things on a professional level can you do to help the rest of your year go smoothly? In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her experience both in practice and as a mediator to discuss the value of doing a mid-year review of your cases/workload and why you should revisit your yearly goals. Episode highlights include:
To connect with Jean Lawler, follow her on LinkedIn or find her at LawlerADR.com.
To read the full episode transcript please see the Podcast Website.
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JEAN LAWLER:
Hello, and I hope you’re having a nice day today. Thanks for joining me. I’m Jean Lawler and I’m the host of the podcast: ROADS TO Resolution ~Closure and ~Certainty. You know, as a mediator--you know by now I’m a mediator--I really am honored to be invited into other people’s lives for a few hours, hours to meet them, to share the “roads” upon which they have traveled, and hopefully clear the roads for their future–the future “roads” that we all travel, I guess, just in our own way.
And some of those “roads” now have led to summer, and I would really…I love summer and I would say with the “lazy days of summer”–I love that phrase. As I’m talking to you, it's just turned the calendar into August. I personally have an August birthday, and I learned as a child, maybe about, I don't know, a 10, 11, 12-year old, somewhere in there, that people travel during August. Trying to have a birthday party when you’re in elementary school in August—not very many people around to come, and so I keep that in mind. That and another circumstance when I was a young associate at my former law firm, and it was July, we used to have salary reviews twice a year, actually--once in July and once at the end of the year. And, anyway, it was like… Where’s my work? I need more work!
And I really began to worry about it, and had never been short on work before. At least I didn’t feel short on work, and of course maybe what it was is: I just wasn't buried in the work and I wasn’t used to the feeling of not being buried in work. But be that as it may, I thought to myself “Oh my gosh, where’s the work?”. And then, I don’t know, I talked to somebody or I learned for myself, that you know what, it comes right back, roaring back, come the fall, come the end of August.
People's children get back in school and people get back to their offices, and I always have kept that in mind as well. So July has passed, and we’re in those final days of summer, and you know I think there’s a lot that can be done now. If you do have a little bit of a lull, certainly enjoy it on a personal basis. Appreciate the time and the season. For both work and play, it's a really magical time of the year. Being that we’ve come out of COVID now. The summer of 2022 is meant to be a travel time and I hear the pundits on TV talk about whether flights are down or they’re up, or not. Baggage is getting lost in Heathrow and all sorts of other airports around the world, and it doesn’t really look like a great time to travel. But do, you know, if you’re able to do that. It's a wonderful time to rest up, and get ready for the onslaught that’s coming in the Fall and once everything else gets started.
So that said, once you have done your refreshing and revitalizing. What sort of things on a professional level can you do? So these are a couple of thoughts and ideas that I have for things that I typically do do in the summer. I did them when I was in practice, and I do them now when I have my mediation practice.
So I do a mid-year review of whatever the cases are or the workload might be. I plan out my calendar ahead, both for work and personal. When am I going to be taking off or not? Which cases, for example, in your office can be settled? Look ahead to year-end, because it's going to be here so fast. It's going to be here before you know it. Which cases do you want to get settled? Do you think can be settled?
Knowing that your clients would really love to get settled probably rather than having to wait for another year or two or however long it is before the courts can actually have that case be tried, and knowing that most cases settle. They don’t go to trial, but identify which one should be tried and which one should be settled. And then for those that should be settled, get going on getting that in process. Start the wheels rolling for that. Get a date. Do whatever work in advance you need to do to prepare.
Maybe actually you need to file a summary judgment motion or something to have the case be in a posture that you would like then to be able to talk settlement. Maybe there is certain discovery that needs to be done. Anyway, plan now so that you can have a mediation on calendar for, maybe October, November, recognizing that December would be the outside chance if you are going to settle it today. And you know cases settle late year-end. Plaintiffs want cases to be done, they want to get on with their lives come the first of the year. Insurance companies like closing files. Companies, businesses, whoever it is you’re dealing with, everybody likes–I think–to start fresh come January, and part of that is looking now to see what you have and what can be put into a position to be resolved before year-end.
The next thing that I do like to do is revisit my goals. I’m a very goal-oriented person. My husband would laugh at me because I would write down goals at different times and every now and then I happen to stumble across where I’d written some down. You know, find a piece of paper with those on. At times they were: watch more movies, read more books, do this, do that, more time for working out or not, whatever. But goals, whether they’re your personal goals or your professional goals…
In terms of professional goals. What is it that you want to do the last half of the year? Plan it now. Maybe you planned it in January or in December for this year when you were looking ahead on a full year basis. Well now is the time to go back and revisit those goals, or if you never did them, then make the goals. But, you know, a lot of conferences happen in the Fall, Spring and Fall, Summer even, are big for conferences, professional conferences. Which ones do you want to attend? Get registered during the early-bird time period for payment. Make sure you get your hotel while there are still hotel rooms.
From a business development standpoint, which clients or customers, or whatever it might be in your world...Who do you need to reach out to? Who do you need to go see? (I suppose would be another question.) Who do you need to go visit and how and when are you going to do that?
I was talking to a lawyer the other day, probably within the last week or so, and she was telling me she’s finally going to be able to go back to London and see the various people that she works with in connection to the London insurance market. She’s so excited. I could sense that excitement as well, if it were me going back there at this point in time, but it's not. Anyway, these kinds of things, they take planning. Go back, revisit those goals and then make them happen.
Another thing to then is once you’ve revisited those goals, then get a head start on your year-end admin work, and your year-end things. Maybe, such a simple thing as updating your contact list would be a wonderful thing to have done. What is your year-end holiday greeting going to be? Paper? Online? Both? I would recommend both online and paper. I actually, a few weeks ago, when I had some down-time, ended up signing all those holiday cards and stuffing the envelopes. I haven’t addressed them yet or stamped them, but I do have them signed and stuffed with some notes on them–some of them are particularly personal, who they would go to.
So, plan. Plan your marketing, your business development, and plan how you’re going to use your time. My husband, his first job out of college was in sales with the Gallo Winery, the Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery. Great training program, and they always had a phrase that they taught him that I used in practice all the time, and I’m sure any partner or associate of mine could repeat it verbatim. It could go one of two ways, and it's basically–”plan your work and work your plan”, or else if you don’t plan your work, then you can’t work your plan. So plan your work and work your plan. Plan for the end of your year, and then it should hopefully go as smoothly as you would want it to be. And time won’t get away from you, and you will have those trips, those meetings, those contacts that work, the results that your clients want. You’ll have all those happen in the next…Well let’s see what are we talking about here… August is the eighth month of the year so you’ve got four-and-a-half months left of this year. Make it happen.
Thanks so much. It's a pleasure as always. It's nice to have you here for ROADS TO Resolution ~Closure and ~Certainty. I’m Jean Lawler. Please feel free to follow me on LinkedIn, find me on my website, send me an email: jlawler@lawleradr.com. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, or follow my podcast. So, thanks a lot. Take care. We’ll see you again next time. Bye.
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