Strategic Planning for Women Lawyers: Thriving in Quiet Times

Cecilia Poullain shares practical strategies for managing irregular workloads in law firms, focusing on goal setting, productivity, and client development to thrive on the pathway to partnership.

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

Key Topics:

• Managing workload fluctuations in law firms
• Implementing OKRs for legal professionals
• Strategic goal setting for lawyers
• Building client relationships during slow periods

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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. I had periods where the days were extraordinarily quiet. Then at 5 p.m. something urgent would come in that had to be done by the next morning. Or I would have quiet weeks, so I need to have to work over the weekend. I found that rhythm incredibly stressful. There was the stress of wondering what to put on my time sheets during the quiet periods, and the stress of having to move directly from first gear into fifth just as I was starting to wind down for the day or for the week. Hi, 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, using the tools and insights I've developed in my program. 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. In this episode, I want to talk about how to manage irregular schedules and in particular how to achieve medium-term goals when you have very little visibility on your workload. I last worked in a law firm in the early 2000s. And for those of you who've been around for that long, you may remember that there was an economic slowdown at the beginning of the century. And that had a direct impact on me because my working life was very much boom and bust. I had weeks on end in which I was working late in all weekend, and other times in which there was literally nothing to do. I had periods where the days were extraordinarily quiet, then at 5 PM something urgent would come in that had to be done by the next morning. Or I would have quiet weeks only to have to work over the weekend. I found that rhythm incredibly stressful. There was the stress of wondering what to put on my timesheets during the quiet periods, and the stress of having to move directly from first gear into fifth just as I was starting to wind down for the day or for the week. As I've mentioned in earlier episodes, some people thrive on unpredictability. The happiest when they organise things at the last moment. That definitely isn't me. As you may have realized by now, I need structure and I need planning. In this episode, I want to talk to you about how to make the most of the quiet periods so that when they do hit, you already know what you should be concentrating on. In most organizations and in most law firms, there's an annual review process. And during that process, we set objectives for the next year. And by the end of the next month, everyone's forgotten all about them. The reason is that annual goals are actually way too long for most people. In his book, which is called Measure What Matters, John Doer sets out the OKR system. And OKRs have driven success in many of the world's top companies, and I'll explain what they are in a minute. In John Doer's experience, it's not enough to set annual goals. We need to break them down into quarterly or even shorter goals. In the book, he writes, a three-month horizon curbs procrastination and leads to real performance gains. So, what's an OKR? OKR stands for objective and key results and is one of the most powerful tools behind Google and many of the other successful organizations in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Now the idea is really simple. In order to make real progress, a company needs to focus on a small number of objectives. The objectives are the what that is to be achieved. And for each objective, there are two or three key results. The key results measure how we intend to reach each objective. Key results must be drafted as SMART goals, and you probably already know that SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. The key results need to be a number. Either you make the number or you don't. Now the best way to achieve your goals is to have two or three major objectives per quarter. But the problem for lawyers is that most of the time you're doing client work. You're not just building a business, as may be the case for Google or some of the other Silicon Valley companies. So how can you possibly fit OKRs into your busy schedule? Now this is where the quiet times come in. If you have already defined your long-term goals and two or three objectives for the quarter, then when the client work slows up a little bit, you're all ready to go. You know exactly what you need to be working on. Because the truth is, as a lawyer, you are also building a business. So let's take a concrete example. Say it's the middle of January and you work like crazy up to Christmas. You've taken a few days off to rest and recover, and now you're sitting at your desk and you're worrying because the client work has completely dried up and your timesheet is empty. But then, boom, you remember that you've already defined your goals for the quarter. You already know that by the 31st of March, you would like to achieve the following objectives. You would like to start building a client base. You would like to start showing that you're ready to lead and manage your team. And you would like to build relationships with members of the partnership selection board. And you've already defined the key results for each of those objectives. The key results for the first objective, which is to start building a client base, are firstly holding two BD meetings a week with new clients, so either lunch or drinks. It's presenting your practice to five people in other practice groups across the firm so that you can nurture cross-referrals. And it's organizing and running a conference and inviting at least 20 new potential clients. For the second objective, which was demonstrating readiness to lead and manage a manager team, you have the following key results. Firstly, research and decide on a leadership or management program. Then asked to take formal responsibility for supervising the two trainees in the team. And thirdly, conducting fortnightly coaching conversations with each trainee. And then for the third objective, which was building relationships with members of the Partnership Selection Board, the key results are organizing one-to-one coffee meetings with at least 20% of the board members, identifying and securing at least one active sponsor in your bid for partnership, and presenting or co-presenting at two internal partner meetings. So you can see how once you've defined your concrete actions, when you hit a quiet patch, you know exactly what you need to do. Now, could I suggest that you take a few minute moments after listening to this podcast to think about at least one thing you would love to achieve by the end of this year? And then for that goal, define an objective for the next quarter and two or three relevant key results that will help you meet that objective. Could I suggest that you start with just one objective and then perhaps as you get used to the system, build up to three. But I wouldn't recommend having any more than that at any one time. It's far better to start small and achieve your goals than to stretch yourself too far. So let's recap. In this episode, we've looked at how lawyers' lives can be stressful, not only because of the volume of work, but also because the workflow can be so irregular and go so quickly from nothing to emergency. I've shared how to use that reality to your advantage by defining clear and quarterly objectives and a few concrete actions for each objective. So when things slow down, you don't lose momentum. You know exactly what to focus on. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining me on the Pathway to Partnership podcast. I hope that today's episode has helped you think about your goals and how you might achieve them. And if you're enjoying this episode and you're on the pathway to partnership, but you'd like to know more about some of the mistakes women lawyers make in their career, head over to www.ceciliapoulan.com and you'll find six of the biggest mistakes listed in my guide, How to Make Partner. And until next time, remember, you don't have to do this alone, and you get to define success as a woman lawyer on your own terms. Thanks for listening.