Boutique Law Firms, Small Law Firms

Stop And Smell The Holly

Now is the perfect time for lawyers to think back to all the difference we made throughout the year.

By Stefan Savic  
on

Christmas holly holiday seasonAccording the song, it is finally “the most wonderful time of the year.” This may not seem so as you are racing to get your annual billables over the required mark or if you just found out that your bonus falls below the Cravath scale. With already too many stress-causing factors particular to our industry paired with the general seasonal depression, the holiday season can push many lawyers over the edge. This is why this may be the perfect time to think back to all the difference we made throughout the year, something that we so seldom do.

Here we are again; the holiday-party season has ended as the actual holiday season is reaching its pinnacle. We are going from schmoozing with other lawyers and pitching our services about a dozen times per night to spending time with friends and family, where you only have to repeat the spiel three or four times a day (as a side note, last time I went home to Serbia I was told that asking everyone right away about how things are going at work was an “American thing”). So this, indeed, should then be the most wonderful time of the year. Not necessarily. The end of the year can be a very stressful period in the legal world.

The stigma of stress and depression in the legal industry is one that is unfortunately way too familiar to all of us. Just as entering a new year can represent a new opportunity to get things going the way you always hoped, it can also remind us of the goals that we set for ourselves the previous year and that, unachieved, will once again make it to the list of resolutions. Whether you didn’t bring in as much business as you planned, didn’t publish the articles that you wanted, or didn’t reduce your student loan debt enough, the end of the year is an easy reminder of the things that we failed to accomplish over the preceding 12-month period. The consequences of it are more far-reaching than just affecting lawyers’ mood; they are the common source of cases that my colleagues and I see when representing clients before The Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection and its other equivalents in other states.

What we need to do is stop and smell the roses every now and then, and there is no better time to think back to all the good that we did over the year than in the midst of the holidays. Regardless of the particular practice, our contribution to the public is often significantly greater that we, and certainly society in general, might realize. What we do helps people on many levels.

One maxim that applies to the legal profession as well as it does to everyday life is that people don’t just want to be listened to, they want to be heard. Often, it is only their legal counsel that provides the outlet they seek, which can lead to frequent emails and lengthy phone calls with our clients, the importance of which should not be underestimated by people in or outside of our profession.  Although it can be easy to overlook the significant services that we provide as quasi-therapists because the result is not as obvious as winning a motion or a trial, it is often that exact aspect of our work that helps our clients sleep at night—an opportunity to be heard about the particular injustice done to them.

Additionally, the partnership agreement that we drafted for a start-up may save them from a doomsday down the road, just like that prenuptial agreement could keep the children from watching their parents fight over their assets in court. And the settlement that we negotiate can allow a client to set a difficult time behind them so they may move on with their life or regain what they unfairly lost, even if only their peace of mind.

Whether it be because we are too busy to look back or for fear of stressful memories, we generally tend to focus only on what is ahead of us. It is easy for us to forget to look back on everything that we have accomplished. Whether our work achieved immediately tangible results or acted as important preventative measures, we should not discount all the ways in which we helped people navigate life’s difficult situations.

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Stefan Savic was an attorney at Balestriere Fariello, a trial and investigations law firm which represents clients in all aspects of complex commercial litigation and arbitration from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach firm partner John Balestriere at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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