From one mom to another, you may feel like you’re losing, but let’s discuss all that you have gained from motherhood. Here are five ways that being a mother has enhanced your skills as a lawyer.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have a law school class on networking, business development or client service. Even during my time as a law firm associate, training on these professional skills was informal (at best) but mostly observational as I listened on speakerphone or sat quietly at a client lunch while the partner carried the conversations. There was no structured training in these essential business skills.
As a law professor, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping students navigate their burgeoning legal careers and find positions that bring professional satisfaction and success. I am always delighted when students appear in my office with an offer in hand or a story about an amazing case that they worked on over the summer.
“It’s never going to go well,” Arizona attorney Lynda C. Shely says about the prospect of representing anyone you are close to, including family members and friends. Shely, the immediate past chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, works in private practice and has advised more than 2,500 law firms around the country on legal ethics matters.
As lawyers, whether we practice in a corporate legal office, a global law firm or an independent firm, we are all trying to position ourselves for success in a changing and more globalized legal landscape. We are also all facing challenges in recruiting and retaining the young lawyers who will help us get there. Lawyer exchanges are one tool that can be effective on both fronts.
The film Killers of the Flower Moon “underscores the critical importance of the rule of law and the pursuit of justice,” said ABA President Mary Smith, who interviewed director Martin Scorsese and Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear of the Osage Nation in the latest installment of the ABA Presidential Speaker Series.
Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Lydia Flocchini, the chief marketing officer at SurePoint Technologies, Debbie Foster, the CEO at Affinity Consulting, and Laura Wenzel, the global director of product marketing at iManage.
My grandfather used to say, “Life is a movie, and we’re all just actors in that story.” And just as all good stories have heroes, understanding who they are and what they want can help lawyers learn to become what I call a “Rainstar.” A Rainstar is a lawyer with a tremendous ability to generate significant revenue for their firm while excelling at client satisfaction and retention.
In this year’s Members Who Inspire series, the ABA Journal featured 12 extraordinary ABA members who go to great lengths to embolden their clients, colleagues and members of the communities around them. Their work includes helping immigrants with tax issues, advocating for individuals living with HIV/AIDS and addressing racial injustice and inequality.
Diversity and inclusion, stress management, mental health and practice management are some of the major areas of focus among legal professionals today. And contributors to the ABA Journal’s Your Voice column certainly brought these concepts front and center in 2022.
An intrepid cavalier King Charles spaniel inspired a microincubator program aimed at giving associates room to develop leadership skills, foster creative thinking and facilitate collaboration with colleagues in different locations and practice areas.
Revenue growth for law firms was “a modest” 4.1% for the first nine months of 2022, compared to growth of 14.7% in the same period last year, according to a client advisory by Citi Private Bank’s law firm group and Hildebrandt Consulting.
The ABA Commission on Women in the Profession is launching a new survey to assess how the motherhood penalty and other caregiver bias impacts the careers of female lawyers.
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.
