A Social Network for Lawyers

I recently saw a posting on LinkedIn for "A Social Network for the Lawyers." 

I took some time to peruse the main page of the website and thought it may be of some interest to you.  In order to use the entirety of the site, one must be willing to "sign up" with a valid email and password.  Although many of the resources found on this site can be found elsewhere, it is sometimes nice to have these types of resources all on one page.

 

http://litigationprofessionals.org/

ABA Business Law Section Opportunities!!!

The ABA Business Law Section offers two outstanding initiatives specifically for law students: 

 1. In its 27th year, theMendes Hershman Student Writing Contest is a highly regarded legal writing competition that encourages and rewards outstanding writing on business law topics. Application deadline: January 11, 2013

2. TheDiversity Clerkship program promotes diversity in the profession by placing outstanding law students from diverse backgrounds into clerkships in business courts across the country. Application deadline: December 28, 2012

Detailed information and application processes are outlined below. Apply today for one or both of these initiatives that can help to advance your career in Business Law!

A Major Career Mistake Capable People Make

Below is a very interesting article by Greg McKeown, a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum who also writes a blog for Harvard Business Review.  In the article, The #1 Career Mistake Capable People Make, he illustrates something I think many high achievers (like law students and lawyers) struggle with throughout their career.  I'm not sure if it is the #1 mistake, but it can definitely have its consequences.  This article is a great read and something to consider before you take on multiple tasks at a time...

I recently reviewed a resume for a colleague who was trying to define a clearer career strategy. She has terrific experience. And yet, as I looked through it I could see the problem she was concerned about: she had done so many good things in so many different fields it was hard to know what was distinctive about her.

As we talked it became clear the resume was only the symptom of a deeper issue. In an attempt to be useful and adaptable she has said yes to too many good projects and opportunities. She has ended up feeling overworked and underutilized. It is easy to see how people end up in her situation:

 

Step 1: Capable people are driven to achieve.

Step 2: Other people see they are capable and give them assignments.

Step 3: Capable people gain a reputation as "go to" people. They become "good old [insert name] who is always there when you need him." There is lots right with this, unless or until...

Step 4: Capable people end up doing lots of projects well but are distracted from what would otherwise be their highest point of contribution which I define as the intersection of talent, passion and market (see more on this in the Harvard Business Review article The Disciplined Pursuit of Less). Then, both the company and the employee lose out.

When this happens, some of the responsibility lies with out-of-touch managers who are too busy or distracted to notice the very best use of their people. But some of the responsibility lies with us. Perhaps we need to be more deliberate and discerning in navigating our own careers.

 

In the conversation above, we spent some time to identify my colleague's Highest Point of Contribution and develop a plan of action for a more focused career strategy.

 

We followed a simple process similar to one I write about here: If You Don’t Design Your Career, Someone Else Will. My friend is not alone. Indeed, in coaching and teaching managers and executives around the world it strikes me that failure to be conscientious about this represents the #1 mistake, in frequency, I see capable people make in their careers.

 

Using a camping metaphor, capable people often add additional poles of the same height to their career tent. We end up with 10, 20 or 30 poles of the same height, somehow hoping the tent will go higher. I don't just mean higher on the career ladder either. I mean higher in terms of our ability to contribute.

 

The slightly painful truth is, at any one time there is only one piece of real estate we can "own" in another person’s mind. People can't think of us as a project manager, professor, attorney, insurance agent, editor and entrepreneur all at exactly the same time. They may all be true about us but people can only think of us as one thing first. At any one time there is only one phrase that can follow our name. Might we be better served by asking, at least occasionally, whether the various projects we have add up to a longer pole?

 

I saw this illustrated recently in one of the more distinctive resumes I had seen in a while. It belonged to a Stanford Law School Professor [there it is: the single phrase that follows his name, the longest pole in his career tent]. His resume was clean and concise. For each entry there was one, impressive title/role/company and a single line description of what he had achieved. Each one sentence said more than ten bullet points in many resumes I have seen. When he was at university his single line described how he had been the student body president, under "teaching" he was teacher of the year and so on.

 

Being able to do many things is important in many jobs today. Broad understanding also is a must. But developing greater discernment about what is distinctive about us can be a great advantage. Instead of simply doing more things we need to find, at every phase in our careers, our highest point of contribution.

 

I look forward to your thoughts below and @gregorymckeown.