The 6 Biggest Mistakes Women Lawyers Make on the Pathway to Partnership

In this episode, Cecilia walks listeners through the ideas behind her free guide “How to Make Partner in a Law Firm.”

Many women lawyers treat partnership as the natural next step in their career — but becoming a partner changes the nature of your role in profound ways. It requires new skills, new visibility and a much more proactive approach to your career.

In this episode, Cecilia explains the six biggest mistakes she sees women lawyers make on the pathway to partnership and how you can start addressing them today.

You can download the guide and follow along here:
www.ceciliapoullain.com

Transcript

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My name is Cecilia Poulain. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, where we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. Often when I coach women lawyers, I ask them how they're feeling, and they respond, I think. They've actually lost touch with their feelings. But feelings are critical information when you're making important decisions like whether to go for partnership. Because going for partnership, especially in the bigger firms, can require such enormous sacrifices. It's worth thinking these things through before making that effort. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, the podcast where we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. My name is Cecilia Poulain, and I'm a former finance lawyer. Today I help women lawyers make it to partnership and thrive when they get there. In this podcast, you'll learn about what it really takes to become a partner. You will hear tips about how to develop your client base, and you will learn how to handle those difficult, conflictual conversations with ease, whether they are internally or with clients or with opposing counsel. So let's get you walking into the office every morning, confident in your ability to become a partner and thriving once you get there. Okay, let's jump in. I want to do something a little bit different in this episode. You may have seen that I have a guide on my website called How to Make Partner in your Law Firm. In this episode, I want to talk you through the guide and elaborate on some of the themes I touch on. If you'd like to, please feel free to download it and follow along as you're listening. And you can find it on the homepage of my website, which is www.ceciliapoulin.com. In the guide, I walk through the six biggest mistakes that women lawyers make on their pathway to partnership. I've actually dealt with many of those mistakes in detail in some of the other episodes of the podcast. And if you're interested, you might might like to go back and listen to the relevant episode. I'll give you the name and number of the episode as I talk through each of the mistakes. Just to give you a very quick overview before we get into the details, here are the six mistakes I cover in the guide. Firstly, I see women lawyers treating partnership as just the next step without thinking through sufficiently what it means. Second, they don't define what they want in a law firm. Third, they don't build a support network or at least a robust support network. Fourth, they fail to plan to develop the non-legal skills they require. Fifth they rely too much on the firm's support. And finally, and in the mistake that is perhaps the most damaging, they stay invisible. Okay, let's look at each of those mistakes in more detail. Mistake number one. The first mistake is treating partnership as just the next step without thinking it through sufficiently. I go into this in a lot more detail in episode one, which is called Why Do You Want to Be a Partner? There are actually a couple of issues that come up here. The first issue is not sufficiently understanding that when you become a partner, you also become a business owner. Some lawyers absolutely love the law. And I'm sure there are lawyers around you that correspond to that description. Or maybe that's you. And the sweet spot for those lawyers is being a lawyer all day, every day. Whether that means being in court or in arbitration proceedings, maybe it means a lot of contract drafting, maybe it means thinking through strategies, negotiating or researching. Lawyers like that, lawyers that love being lawyers, can sometimes hate all the obligations that come with running a business because it takes them away from what they really love to do. So if you're that type of lawyer, you might just hesitate for a second before going for partnership. But there are other lawyers who enjoy being a lawyer and enjoy the law, but they're all also curious and interested in developing the skills that go with owning a business. I'll talk more about exactly what those skills are when we get to mistake number four. The second issue that comes up in relation to treating partnership as just the next step is that women lawyers, and in fact, women in general, can be so used to living their lives in ways that are dictated by others that they've forgotten to listen to themselves and what they really want. And those others might be their parents, they might be their families, they might be their friends, maybe it's just society in general. Often when I coach women lawyers, I ask them how they're feeling, and they respond, I think. They have lost touch with their feelings. But feelings are critical information when you're making important decisions like whether to go for partnership. Because going for partnership, especially in the larger firms, can require such enormous sacrifices. It's worth thinking these things through before making the effort. So that's the first make. So that's the first mistake. Just thinking that partnership is just the next step. Here's the second mistake. Many women lawyers make the mistake of assuming they need to adapt to a firm's culture instead of taking the time to identify what they want. It's not about finding or creating a firm that fits a hundred percent of your criteria. It's about working out what really matters to you. It means getting clear on your values and your long-term goals. As you think about this, you might realize that there are actually certain things that are completely non-negotiables. So it might be working in a firm where people treat each other with respect, where partners don't shout at associates. It might be identifying which values of the firm you would like to align with your own. It might be having the ability to take maternity leave without it damaging your career, or having enough flexibility to see your children in the evening. There may also be certain things that you're able to negotiate with the firm, such as the types of clients you work with, whether you're able to spend time building a niche practice, or the amount of time you're expected to spend on internal firm activities. And then there might be certain things that, yeah, sure, they're nice to have, but they're not absolutely critical. So it might be how prestigious the firm's name is, it might be the size of your office, the view from your desk, or whether you're in a very top-paying firm in the market. So this second mistake is all about defining your values and getting clear on what you want. The third mistake is not to build a support network, or not to build a support network that is robust. When I launched this podcast, I had a lunch, a launch lunch. And at the launch lunch, I invited three partners from top firms to speak. So there was Sharon Lewis from Hergen Lovels, Sonia Sisset from Linklators, and Nathalie Nguyen from Gide, which you may or may not know is the largest French law firm. And all three of them emphasized just how important it is to create support networks around you when you're going for partnership. And that includes your family and your life partner. So for example, Sharon told us a very sad story about how her first husband didn't support her career ambitions and how that led to the breakdown of the marriage. I had lunch a little while ago with Rebecca Major, who partnered in the Paris Office of Herbert Smith Free Hills Kramer. And she said to me that younger lawyers needed a partner at home who is flexible, but who is not too flexible. And that the best thing is to have someone who at times is able to say, hang on, no, this is more important than work. In episode two of this podcast, which is called Who Can Help You on Your Partnership Journey, you can find more detail of the types of support networks you need. So they include emotional support, technical and practical support, mentors, sponsors, coaches. And for many lawyers, they include that critical group who refer business to you, and that can be other lawyers or other professionals. So the third mistake is all about building a robust support system. The fourth mistake is failing to plan for non-legal skill development. As I said when I was talking about the first mistake, just the next step, partners are expected to have a number of non-legal skills. Those non legal skills include how to bring in client work, finances, managing a team, recruiting and developing talent, handling difficult conversations and conflicts, making strategic decisions about the future of the firm. Some firms have fabulous training programs which cover all those skills. Many don't. If you're in a firm that doesn't give you that training or not sufficiently, you need to think strategically about which skills you need to develop, when you should develop which skill, and how you're going to go about doing that. So that's the fourth mistake, all about non-legal skill development. The fifth mistake is related, which is about relying too much on the firm's support. As I just said, some firms have fabulous programs to develop their lawyers for partnership, and some don't. But even if you're in a firm that does have a program, you need to be proactive in managing your career, your network, and your skill development. I speak to far too many women lawyers who are passive, who expect the firm to do it all. But the firm can't. You need to work out what you want and how you're going to get it. Here's an example of what I mean. I recently met a law student who is passing the French bar exams this year, and she really impressed me. So here's just one example of what she'd worked out. She'd worked out that for her oral exams she needed to have more confidence when speaking in public. So what did she do? She enrolled herself in theatre lessons. That's what I mean about being proactive. So that is the fifth mistake. And now let's turn to the last mistake, which is perhaps the most damaging of all. And that mistake is staying invisible. I talk about this in far more detail in episode six, which is all about confidence. Staying invisible shows up for women lawyers in so many different ways. Just to take a few examples, women lawyers are often afraid to speak up in meetings or on client calls. They shy away from public speaking opportunities. They don't say anything when partners are rude to them. When they're on the partnership track, they don't reach out to people on the partnership committee. They don't proactively create and leverage their networks or client relationships. I want to be really clear about this. This is not in any way women's fault, because women are often being interrupted or shut down. But unfortunately, in the society we live in today, women lawyers are really the only ones who can do anything about it. If you think this might apply to you, could I suggest that you identify the areas in which you are staying invisible? Then you give yourself small, incremental, achievable challenges in order to develop your confidence and your visibility. So there are the six mistakes. Treating partnership as just the next step, not defining what you want in a law firm, not building a robust support network, not planning for non legal skill development, relying too much on the firm's support, and finally staying invisible. Before you go, here's a very short exercise you might like to try. Grab a piece of paper and write down the six mistakes we've talked about, or even easier, just print out the guide from the homepage of my website. Then for each mistake, ask yourself where am I today on this particular issue? Then choose one area where one tiny action could move you forward. It might be speaking up in a meeting. It might be taking up more space on a client call. It might be reaching out to someone in your network, or it might be working out which next skill you would like to develop on your pathway to partnership. So that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Just a quick reminder that you can find the guide on the homepage of my website, which is www.ceciliapoulin.com. And if you found this conversation or the guide useful, please feel free to share them with another woman lawyer who might be thinking about partnership. And don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating or a comment. It really helps others to find the podcast. So until next time, remember, you don't have to do this on your own. And you get to define success as a woman lawyer on your own terms. Thanks for listening.