Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners

How To Make Your Lawyer Life More Exciting

We only get one go-around, so we might as well make it exciting (or at least a little bit exciting).

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excited female lawyerLast night I saw Rogue One again. (Warning: **SPOILERS AHEAD**. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, well geez, I don’t know what to tell you, other than you clearly need to reexamine your priorities.) It’s even better the second time, and I highly recommend seeing it again while it’s in the theaters. The second time you already know the music and intro scroll aren’t coming, so it’s easier to pay attention to the first scenes, plus there’s so much going on that it really does need a second viewing. I seriously thought about staying in the theater afterwards and seeing it a third time, but I had to run home and write this column.

There was a thought, though, that did not go away upon the second viewing. I kept asking myself, why can’t my life be more like these people’s? Their lives are exciting. They’re planet-hopping, chanting mantras, rebelling against their own rebellion and volunteering for suicide missions, while I’m at my desk looking up FINRA regs. Why can’t I have a wisecracking droid? Why can’t I be placed in a prison with Big Slimy, having him (or her?) run his tentacles all over me? (I know, it was gross, but you have to admit it’s more exciting than marking up docs all day.) Why can’t I be holding my work spouse while the earth around me disintegrates? What a way to go. More exciting than croaking at your desk.

But wait. There is hope.

If you’re like me and thinking about living a more exciting life, here are some ways to make your life more exciting, yes, even as a lawyer.

  1. Play classical music at work. Maybe your average day doesn’t involve hurtling through space in a stolen spaceship, but you can at least play the same music, or same type of music. Today, when you’re marking up that partnership agreement, try playing some Wagner or Brahms in the background. It’ll ratchet up the intensity level, believe me.
  2. Get new hobbies. Reading is great. I read a lot, so I won’t knock it too hard. But if you read all day at work and then go home and sit in a chair and read (or watch TV), maybe you should consider picking up some more exciting hobbies. Taxidermy, for instance. Or mountaineering. Or chess with the people in the park. Do something. Something that doesn’t involve sitting indoors in a chair.
  3. Do some international work. Ask anyone who does international work if it’ll make your work life exciting. They’ll say yes, of course! For about two weeks. Maybe one. Then you’ll start complaining about the time zones. What’s worse is when you have deals that have both European and Asian components and you have to talk to both sets of people each day. After a few weeks of daily 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. calls, a day or two with Big Slimy doesn’t seem so bad. But at least you’ll have that one week when things seemed exciting.
  4. Drink more. Both alcohol and drugs have a way of ratcheting up the drama. I once had a crazy date that caused me to stay up all night — and not in a good way — and then the next day at an afternoon all-hands attorney meeting a partner called on me to give a talk, with no warning whatsoever. It was… well, exciting isn’t the word, but I couldn’t call it dull.
  5. Redo your office to fit a theme. Do you either have your own practice or are a partner? Then you have some control over the design of your office. If you have the same boring set-up as everyone else, it’s not going to inject any excitement into your life. Try making your office into a German beer hall. Or import some sand and have a tropical island theme. Or design it with shooting range targets on the wall that you can hit with a nerf gun. Sounds fun, right? People will be scared to knock on your door.
  6. Eat something weird. Stop asking the waiter what something is and just order it. If it’s after 7 p.m., the client is paying for it anyway, right? Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy the Cerveaux de Singe.
  7. Get more exciting clients. Is it your clients? Get a client like the Empire. They’ll track you down on distant planets, won’t take no for an answer, will do unfortunate things to your family, and then execute your team without batting an eye. And there you thought untimely calls on your cell phone were bad.
  8. Spend more time with your kids. What are they doing? Maybe they’re doing something exciting. Whatever they’re doing, go bother them.
  9. Do something sinister. This always causes a bit of excitement. That co-worker who’s always making snide comments to you? Set up a dating profile for him on a truly bizarre site like Diaper Mates or Clown Dating. Have your teenager or someone else in the office monitor the profiles and interact with potential mates, then when the time is right, move the account over to the person’s work email and wait for the sparks to fly!
  10. Have a purpose. In Rogue One, all these people had a purpose. They didn’t always know what they had to do — they had to figure it out — but they knew their purpose. They believed in something. Maybe there’s something out there for you. Realistic options are forswearing the Biglaw money and joining the government or academia, or perhaps a religious or political movement. Only you really know what is out there that you’re willing to devote your life to. One of my friends told me recently — with a straight face — that he had joined “The Resistance.” I figured the less I knew, the better. (Part of being a lawyer is knowing when not to ask questions.)

We only get one go-around, so we might as well make it exciting (or at least a little bit exciting).  May the force be with you.

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gary-rossGary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and securities matters for startups, large and small businesses, private equity funds, and investors in each, and also has a number of non-profit clients. You can reach Gary by email at Gary.Ross@JacksonRossLaw.com.

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