Does Competition Make You A Better Lawyer?

Whether you’re representing a client in litigation or in a transaction, you’re tasked with making sure that your arguments for your clients’ interests are more compelling than those of the other side.

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You might read that question and say, “Duh. Of course competition makes me a better lawyer.”

But does it really?

Whether you’re representing a client in litigation or in a transaction, you’re tasked with making sure that your arguments for your clients’ interests are more compelling than those of the other side. You need to understand their strategies, anticipate their next steps, and, ideally, squash them like bugs when you win with your unmatchable intellect and supernatural powers of persuasion. All of that is part and parcel of being a good attorney, yes.

But that’s not really competing. That’s just doing your job to the best of your ability and zealously representing your client.

What about when you compete against your colleagues? Or other law firms? Does that make you a better lawyer?

When you compete with other attorneys, you have to create a persona to make yourself better than you perceive them to be. You have to make yourself and your work shine brighter than their work because you have to prove that you do everything better than they do and that you are in every way superior to them.

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It’s a bit of a mental prison that you create for yourself, where you have to constantly strive toward being the best (as measured against someone else), and where you constantly have to maintain that status in order to feel adequate.  And if you don’t measure up, stress abounds.

You might be surprised to learn that there is competition in the yoga world, too.  Some yoga studios try to poach students from other studios. Some yoga teachers badmouth other yoga teachers in an attempt to win students over to their classes. But yoga students can see through this stuff because competition doesn’t breed connection; it just breeds fear and dislike and nastiness. And, similarly, partners and clients can just as clearly see through your efforts to win them over with false means, rather than through good intentions and hard work.

When you spend your time constantly competing with other attorneys, you miss the opportunity to focus your attention on your work. To build a better case for your client. To draft more secure language for that contract. To research an area of the law that interests you and that can help a client start something new and exciting. Instead of spending half the day wondering what Ted Down the Hall is doing for Big Client, spend your day doing the best job you can for Little Client.

Create connections, create relationships, and create, good, solid work.  That’s what will make you a better attorney, not whether you work on the best deals or have the most prestigious clients.  And that’s what will keep clients coming back to you, time and time again–your work, your connections, your reputation.

I once saw a sign outside a flower shop that said “A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it.  It just blossoms.”  It’s a true statement about flowers, for sure, but I’ve found that in the moments when I’ve been the best version of myself, whether in my capacity as lawyer, coach, or teacher, it’s because I’m not at all focused on what anyone else in my field is doing. I’m just being the best version of me I can be in that moment, in that role.

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Stop stressing about what can make you a better attorney than Ted Down the Hall. It’s not worth it because, at bottom, you’ll be a much better lawyer when you bring your attention back to where it belongs: your work and your clients.

Megan Grandinetti is an attorney, a wellness and life coach, and a yoga teacher. If you’d like to learn more about Megan, visit www.thelawyershealthcoach.com or email her to set up a free 30-minute coaching consultation (megan.grandinetti@gmail.com).