Biglaw, Partner Issues, Small Law Firms

Reinventing The Law Business: A Little Thing That Is Everything – Defining Your Job

If you define your job properly, you will almost always have a great time at work, look forward to coming to work, and view your job as just a sweet thing and a labor of love.

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I am really not exaggerating when I say that there really is nothing more important than how you define your job.

If you are an associate, you could easily define your job as doing a great job on the legal work that is assigned to you and trying to hit the hours target that your firm sets, and once that’s done you could expect to go home. You could also keep your iPhone on at home in case someone calls to ask you to do something. And that could be the way you define your job, and there’s nothing wrong with the foregoing, right?

Or, you could define your job differently. You could say that your job is to enhance the firm you work at and to make everyone’s life around you better. You are at work to learn everything about your area of practice; to become an expert; to learn how to generate business; to volunteer all the time for both the cool and the uncool assignments; to be the guy that your boss always turns to as you never let your boss down; to be the person who goes way beyond what is assigned and really thinks of other ideas and angles; to be someone who not only shows up at firm events but eagerly participates in building the culture; to be someone who takes the billable-hours goals very seriously and does everything possible to hit them, rather than using the excuse that there just wasn’t much work around and that is why the hours aren’t there; to be someone who when they see someone else struggling is there to help; to be someone who thinks of ideas about how to improve the firm; to be someone who becomes the heart of the firm.

If you are a partner, you could define your job as doing a great job on legal work assigned to you, attending partnership meetings and listening attentively, following your firm’s values scrupulously, billing the requisite number of hours, making enough rain to keep yourself busy, and not objecting when people other than you come up with innovative ideas to improve the firm.

Or you could define your job as being a true “owner” of the business; as someone who is going to do everything in your power to help the firm succeed; as someone who is constantly thinking about how to bring in new clients and expand relationships with existing clients (and no amount of rain is “enough” unless the entire firm is busy); as someone who doesn’t rest until the entire team is busy and doing well (as opposed to only thinking of himself); as someone who supports innovative ideas with the theory that you have to take some chances to succeed; as someone who throws himself into the culture and actively supports it; as someone who recognizes that it is not someone else’s job to make the firm a great place to work; as someone who takes the time to hang out with his partners and get to know them and be friends; as someone who actively thinks about business strategies to help the firm succeed; as someone who takes the odd associate out for lunch or drinks and is a true mentor who takes an interest in their careers; as someone who really believes in the firm’s mission and realizes that achieving that mission is not someone else’s job; as someone who becomes the heart of the firm.

I can tell you this with complete certainty: those who define their jobs in the latter way almost always have a great time at work, they look forward to coming to work, and their jobs are just a sweet thing and a labor of love. They absolutely love being lawyers and working in law firms. These are the people who realize they are spending somewhere between a third and a half of their lives doing their “jobs,” and it is an amazing thing that they can define their jobs in such a positive way.

I myself am the managing partner of my firm. I could easily define my job as being essentially a caretaker. I could take no real risks, try my best to make sure that nothing goes wrong, try to keep my partners happy, and look out for my clients.

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Or, I could define my job such that I am here to take my firm to the next level; to help my firm become the top player in the world in our niche; to inspire my partners; to help my clients take their businesses to the next level; to build relationships; to truly “reinvent the law business,” and in the process make it so that my firm is completely different from every other law firm in the world; to make my firm a fun and exciting and cool place to work; to make sure every single one of my assets (i.e., my lawyers), who goes down the elevator at night with numerous opportunities for other employment, picks my firm as first choice and comes back up the elevator the next day.

Ultimately, we all have a lot more freedom than we might realize to shape and define our jobs. I will end with a quote from that Eagles song: “Often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.”

Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 65-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at thehedgehoglawyer@gmail.com.

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