Why Smart Women Lawyers Still Feel Overwhelmed

Mastering Time and Boundaries as a Woman Lawyer

This episode is part of a mini-series on time management and dives into the real obstacles women lawyers face when managing their time and setting boundaries. Cecilia Poullain shares insights from a workshop with women lawyers, revealing how interruptions and societal expectations impact productivity and well-being. Whether you’re early in your career or aspiring partner, these strategies can help you reclaim your time and define success on your own terms.

You can download the free guide on How to Make Partner in a Law Firm on  www.ceciliapoullain.com/free-guide

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. So the women around the table were all brilliant at writing their to-do lists. They knew exactly what they wanted to achieve when they walked into the office every morning. But the problem was they were being interrupted so much by bosses, by colleagues, by clients, by opposing counsel, that they could only manage to get to their to-do lists after 4 p.m. once the interruptions and the phone calls had finally slowed down. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast. On this podcast, we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. My name is Cecilia Poulain. 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 get clarity on whether partnership is truly what you want, you'll build your confidence, and you will master client development in a way that feels sustainable. So let's get you walking into the office every morning clear on why you're aiming for partnership, free of imposter syndrome, and confident in your ability to bring in clients without burning out. Okay, let's jump in. A couple of weeks ago I ran a session for a group of women lawyers in Paris. I ran the session because I wanted to test out some of the ideas from the chapter in my book about time management with a real live audience. And I'm really glad I did, because their reactions were completely different from what I expected. It turned out to be a really interesting evening, which is why I wanted to share some of the insights with you. My chapter on time management is all about goals and planning. But it turns out that the real issue that women lawyers are facing is availability and interruptions. They're being worn down day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, because they were always available. I started the evening talking about things I've covered in previous episodes, which is how I set my long-term goals, my medium-term goals, and my short term goals. But the longer I talked, the more I could see the women around the table, I could see them getting more and more worried. So I stopped and I said, Well, how do you guys set your long-term goals? And then there was a long silence. And then finally somebody said, Well, I don't actually have any long-term goals. I'm just really happy as I am. And she then told us that she's the mother of twins and she is a partner in a partnership of two in a tax firm. She explained that she loves her work, that she's able to work hours that allow her to be there for her family, she's happy at home. And I was just absolutely thrilled for her. And it turned out that even though she didn't have long-term goals, that other people around the table did, but not in the way I had framed them. So one woman explained, for example, that setting long-term objectives just didn't work for her because her priorities were always changing. So what she does is she sets an objective, she achieves it, and then she sets the next objectives. Milena is not yet a lawyer and she's passing the bar exams this year. And like Sabine, she set a clear objective and then she works out exactly what she needs to be able to achieve it. So her objective this year is to pass the bar exams, and she's focused on doing everything necessary to make sure that she does. For example, when she realized that she needed more confidence for her oral exams, she decided to take theatre classes. So none of these women lacked ambition, but they each defined their long-term goals in very different ways. Then we moved on to how we actually organize ourselves day to day. Now, this might sound really boring, but actually we ended up talking about struggles that many of us have but don't ever have the opportunity to talk about. And the issue that came up over and over again was interruptions. So the women around the table were all brilliant at writing their to-do lists. They knew exactly what they wanted to achieve when they walked into the office every morning. But the problem was they were being interrupted so much by bosses, by colleagues, by clients, by opposing counsel, that they could only manage to get to their to-do lists after 4 p.m. Once the interruptions and the phone calls finally slowed down. And many of them said that the only time they could really concentrate was by working late. So that was the first real life problem that came up. The second problem that came up was an issue with clients or bosses who sent an email, then two minutes later sent a WhatsApp saying, Have you seen my email? Then two minutes later sent an SMS saying, Have you seen my email in my WhatsApp? And as you can imagine, this really started to make them feel harassed and under pressure. And perhaps that was the point. So in order to avoid that feeling, they tended to respond immediately, even though it completely fragmented their attention. When I heard those stories, I was reminded of my father, and he used to tell us a story of when he was a young solicitor in Sydney, and everybody would gather around the conference room first thing in the morning. The senior lawyer would open the letters one by one and physically hand them to the relevant person. Imagine that. Imagine being interrupted once in the day and having the rest of the day to concentrate. The third real life issue that the women around the table brought up, surprisingly, was telephones. And apparently telephones are a huge issue, not just because they ring all the time, but because they're addictive. So Sabine, for example, noticed that whenever she had to think deeply or do something uncomfortable, she would automatically reach for her phone. And Lucy compared it to smoking. She told us that once she went on holidays to Lapland and before she left, she threw away her cigarettes and decided that she would never smoke again. And she never did. So when she realized that she was addicted to her phone, she decided to try the same technique. She went on holidays, she hardly used it, and when she came back, initially she was far more disciplined. But it turned out that for her, telephones were more difficult to manage than cigarettes. She has more control around her telephone, but she still finds it a struggle. Millener, the law student, is known as the anti-social one among her friends. Because when she needs to work, she turns her phone off completely. She's actually really proud of that label. Because she studies digital law, she knows exactly how addictive those tools are. And she knows that if she's to get anything done, she has to give herself time to concentrate. So she puts her telephone away and turns it off. So telephones was the third real life issue. And finally, Caterina talked about how when she got around to drafting her to-do list, it felt absolutely terrifying. Because she couldn't imagine how she could possibly get it all done. I realized that across these four different issues, a pattern was starting to emerge. And the pattern was that the reality of these amazing women who were around the table, their reality was being dictated by other people. So except for Miliner, the law student, these women were available all day, every day for their clients, for their colleagues, for their partners. And I started wondering what it would look like if they became okay with not being available all the time. I started wondering how it would be if a lawyer could say to a client, It's actually really important for me and for my clients to be able to concentrate. So I only look at my emails and I only answer the phone between 2 and 4 p.m. every afternoon. If something is really urgent outside those times, send me an email marked urgent and someone will notify me of it. One of the lawyers had worked for a partner who did something similar. He regularly asked his secretary to hold all calls and visitors for two hours so he could close his office door and work on a difficult matter. Another of the women said she checks her emails only once an hour. I've actually tried it, but I found it I needed to open it up again all the time. But it works really well for her. Of course, only being available for interruptions a couple of hours a day won't work for everybody. If you're a litigator or an arbitrator, if you're often in hearings, you may not have much control over your schedule. And the same if you're attending lots and lots of meetings, or if you're in the middle of a deal where you're speaking to the client, the deal team, opposing counsel multiple times a day. And it's very difficult for junior lawyers to have any control over their time. But the deeper question is this: how much of your day is truly inevitable, and how much is simply assumed? Because as a lawyer, you're being paid for your brain, and your brain needs uninterrupted time to work best. So, how would it be if you gave yourself permission to shut your door, turn off your phone, and just concentrate for an hour or so? On the second issue, which was receiving messages via multiple channels, I wondered whether the most effective response would be to reset expectations by sending messages saying, I will get back to you at 4 p.m. this afternoon without actually dealing with the substance of the message immediately. And finally, coming back to Caterina and her terrifying to-do lists, she realized herself as she was speaking that she needed to accept that she couldn't do 100% of everything. She couldn't physically do a hundred percent of her client work. She couldn't physically attend every single professional event. She couldn't do everything she wanted in her personal life. Instead, she realized that she could just do enough of each. She realized that some things will never get done, and that has to be okay. So let's sum up. What I took away from that evening, apart from having met a ton of wonderful women and having had a great time, is that time management isn't really about systems at all. It's about working out what we want and giving ourselves the permission to have it. It's about giving ourselves the permission to focus. It's about giving ourselves the permission to do enough of everything, but no more. And it's about giving ourselves the permission to not be available for everyone all the time. And before you go, you might want to grab a piece of paper and answer three questions for yourself. And those questions are firstly, what is one task this week where I really need to concentrate? Secondly, when do I concentrate best? Is it first thing in the morning or late at night? Is it early in the week or on Fridays as things are winding down? And thirdly, how could I protect that time just to get that task done? You might want to think about it as an experiment, and if it works, extend the experiment to other tasks in the days and weeks to come. So, that's it for this episode, and that's the last of this mini-series of episodes on time management. Thank you so much for joining me on the Pathway to Partnership Podcast. I really, really appreciate it. I hope that this and the last few episodes have given you some tools about how to better manage your time and your life. If you found this conversation useful, please subscribe, please share it with a colleague, please leave a review. And let's together help more women make it to partnership and thrive when they get there. And if you'd like to stay in touch, head over to www.ceciliapoulin.com and you'll find a free guide with some ideas about what it takes to become a partner. 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.