Advocacy-Matters-Fall-2022

understanding of my situation. Now, many months removed from the situation, I do wonder if
there is a lot of truth to it.
Mid-career advocates are in a difficult stage. Our practices are growing after years of marketing
and networking efforts. We are becoming the go-to person for clients. We are responsible for
mentoring younger lawyers, students and new staff. We often do not have the same dedicated
firm resources or influence as the senior partners. Many of us have young children plus aging
parents, and have to manage the associated time constraints and burdens those realities have on
a person. We may be new partners in a law firm, or still grinding away chasing partnership or the
next level within a partnership. None of this is easy. And it can happen all at once. So, what can
mid-career advocates do to navigate this challenging stage? I have some thoughts:
Delegate, delegate, delegate.
You do not have to do everything,
and probably shouldn’t.
One thing that even the largest firms are bad at teaching lawyers is how to delegate. As a result,
many of us hang on to too many small tasks that could easily be handled by someone else. My
quality of life has improved significantly since founding Durant Barristers and I attribute much
of it to having hired support staff and lawyers who I trust and who I delegate to relentlessly. I
now have the time, and space, to focus on the files that I most enjoy and to focus on building the
practice that I want. You cannot get to that space if you are doing everything yourself.
Many of us grew up as lawyers in a “never say no” culture. Every new file was a chance to learn and to
grow. Eventually, and likely sooner than later, you need to know when to turn away work and other
non-billable commitments. I am terrible at this skill and so are most others in my firm. One way to combat
this has been to create an incentive program. Every time we say no to a potential new mandate, a
committee or a speaking appearance we get a stamp on a card towards free ice cream. It takes 5 “no’s”
to get an ice cream. It may be silly (especially since I pay for the ice cream), but it works for me.
Advocate for yourself.
Put your own oxygen mask on first.
It can be very hard to find time to care for yourself. As advocates, we give so much of ourselves to others.
As parents, caring friends and family members, the mid-level advocate is often the fortress that protects
everyone from the ills of the world. That may be the case in your life but know that if you do not do standard
maintenance to your walls, even you will crumble. You cannot and do not give the best service to
others if you are not well. Build in time for relaxation, vacation, therapy, and to do what you need to do
to relax.
As good an advocate as I am for others, I was a terrible advocate for myself in a large firm environment.
I was not good at the politics or how to explain my deteriorating mental health to
others. Perhaps I did not want them to know. If I were to go through my situation again, the
number one thing I would have changed was to carefully make a plan when asking for additional
resources to assist with my practice. I would have assembled the statistics about my value to the
firm and volume of new work and I would have better communicated the impact that the work
was having on me. Instead of just communicating that “I have too much work” and “I cannot keep
up”, I would have added that “I am not getting any sleep at night”, “I am too anxious to focus” and
“I am crying frequently.” If I had the courage to utter those additional descriptors, I am certain
that a lot of decisions would have been made differently.
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