Introduction

Mission Lost

“The path to salvation is narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor’s edge.”

—W. Somerset Maugham

“Is there an N-word for Jews?”

I was shocked when I discovered this question written in an email that an African American employee (who had since left my firm) wrote to a coworker. I was the Jew she wanted to insult.

I was devastated. What was I doing to cause so much anger and vitriol? How had I made an employee feel so alienated? Why didn’t my staff like me when I worked so damn hard? It felt soul-destroying. I was exhausted, miserable, and out of touch with my mission and the people around me.

I was working incredibly hard to grow my law firm. I was showing up and doing the work when no one else would. I was canceling on family to spend more hours slaving at my desk. I was marketing, serving clients, doing payroll, worrying about making rent, scrubbing the office kitchen, and locking up at the end of the day.

If you’re like most lawyers, you probably don’t look at your job as a mission—or, at least, not anymore. You’re just trying to do some legal work and earn some money. But consider why most lawyers get into law in the first place. We want to see justice happen. We’re driven to speak for people who can’t speak for themselves and serve justice to those who would not find it alone. We want to help create the just society our country’s founders envisioned.

Over time, lawyers become removed from the ideal of serving justice to clients. We start our own practice to avoid getting sucked into the eighty-hour-a-week treadmill of Big Law, but end up buried in mounds of paperwork, fighting over things that don’t matter, and managing people we don’t like or respect. We begin to drown under the weight of chasing down clients, struggling to make payroll, and worrying about where next month’s rent will come from. When you are drowning and running in scarcity, there isn’t time to think about your mission.

We don’t have the time or energy to sit back and consider the ways in which we can serve our clients better. How can we bring more justice to the world? How can we be Erin Brockovich? When you are running your own firm, too many hours are dedicated to long, lonely work and wrestling with problems you don’t know how to manage. The mission recedes for the sake of survival.

It’s no wonder so many lawyers feel unfulfilled, depressed, and isolated. Many of the professional interactions they do have, whether in the course of litigation or negotiation, are highly combative. A huge percentage of lawyers—a rate much higher than that of other professions—battles addictions and mental health issues.

This was the finding in a landmark study in 2016 of more than 10,000 lawyers, conducted by the ABA and Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. They found that 36 percent of practicing lawyers screened positive for problem drinking, which they defined as “hazardous, harmful, or potentially alcohol dependent.” By comparison, only 12 percent of educated workers showed problem drinking, and 15 percent of doctors. The study also identified other issues. Among attorneys, it found significant levels of depression, at 28 percent; anxiety, at 19 percent; and stress, at 23 percent. So many lawyers have lost their north star and look to drugs and alcohol for the fulfillment that work does not bring.

The American Bar Association has begun to address these issues. It now encourages law firms, law schools, and corporate legal departments to pledge to address the mental well-being of lawyers. It suggests having less alcohol at events and talking openly about mental health. This is a start, but it still doesn’t take the conversation far enough—or even in the right direction. It doesn’t address the culture of billing hours, the isolation and winning without caring about the people behind the work.

I spent most of my career feeling unfulfilled, incredibly lonely, and in constant financial struggle. I found myself battling severe depression. I was never a big drinker; I thought that with my depression, I’d easily become addicted. In struggling to survive, I’d created a toxic culture at my practice, and I had no understanding of how it was all impacting me—let alone the staff who thought their boss was a Jewish N-word.

When I finally figured out how to create a great place to work, not just for my team but for myself, I felt more fulfilled. I became a much, much better boss. My team and I developed a mission to accomplish together. There was no time for depression. Instead of waking up in the night worrying about cash flow, I awoke every morning eager to work. I haven’t struggled with depression—or name-calling—in years now. I don’t have it all figured out and I stumble often, but our mission always pulls me back to my feet.

Stakeholders, Not Shareholders

In this book, I’ll show you how I accomplished all of this while simultaneously growing my firm’s profits in the process. This transformation involved shifting my focus from shareholders to stakeholders.

In a law firm, shareholders are the owners. The stakeholders include all of the people the company touches: the owners, attorneys, staff, clients, vendors and suppliers, their families, and fellow community members. Everybody. Not until recently has there been a shift among business analysts to understand that a company—and a law practice is a business—serves not just its shareholders, but all of its stakeholders.

Our law firm employs almost fifty people but serves hundreds of stakeholders. Each employee, as well as my partner and I, goes home at the end of most days with enough strength and vitality to spend time with our families, be good friends, hit the gym, play a great round of golf, and actually enjoy life. Does that mean we don’t have hard days? Of course not. They still exist, but now I have the tools to cope with them, and we have created a firm that supports our stakeholders every day. That is incredibly energizing.

More than that, creating this type of environment is essential to success. It is debilitating to work in an environment that leaves you feeling as if the life force has been sucked out of you, leaving you devoid of energy at the end of the day. When you’re too drained to do anything other than go home, grab a beer, sit down on the couch, and watch escapist television, there’s nothing left for the great little minds you’re raising at home or the aging family members you care for. You find yourself stifling your basic human need for connection, society, and safety because you’re too tired to tend to them.

I know that as a business owner and leader, it can feel overwhelming to consider all of the stakeholders I’ve mentioned. In his best-selling book The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle reminds us that the word culture comes from the Latin cultus, which means care. When you begin to see that leading a great company culture is caring, you start to see what your job truly is and frankly, it’s simple. A leader takes care of their employees. The employees take care of the clients. The clients take care of all of us.

A More Humane Workplace

The best way to care for these human beings is to create a more humane workplace—which is the essence of great company culture. In this book, you’ll discover what company culture looks like in a law firm, and why it must embrace humanity. Naturally, humanity encompasses basic human needs, so you’ll learn how to handle—and go beyond—those to create a fulfilling workplace for every employee, not just the attorneys. You’ll discover the importance of defining your firm’s existing culture (because you do have one, whether or not you’re aware of it)—and why, as the leader of your law firm, you must be willing to change before you create a more humane workplace.

You’ll learn how to get the right people—those who are already motivated—into the right seats so you can stop managing and start coaching. This will allow you to focus on strong processes that develop strong culture, which in turn enables business growth—without more work and stress. When all this comes together, your staff will be unbelievably happy, and, hopefully, un-poachable. Turnover of good people will plummet, productivity will increase, and you will no longer be a slave to your law firm. Your practice will grow with ease, and you will be free to choose the type of law firm—and life—you want.

Many lawyers want to be just that: a lawyer. Owning a business is not their life’s goal, but simply a path to the courtroom. If this is you, then building a firm that essentially runs itself will create more time for you to actually practice law. A successful, autonomous firm is possible when you focus on culture first. Then, if you dream of getting back into the courtroom, you can. If you want to spend twenty days a month on the golf course, you can do so without the unrelenting ping of emails every time you tee off. I want to spend my life building a...