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Summer’s Over, Get To Work, And Make Positive Changes

Fall is a great time to turn over a new leaf.

By Matthew W. Schmidt  
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Summer’s over, and leaves are changing and so forth. Maybe you got some time off and enjoyed traditional summer activities like kayaking and base jumping. But now that you’re well rested, it’s time to buckle down, get to work, and make those changes that you’ve been putting off.

Fall is both metaphorically and practically a time for change. Metaphorically, the autumnal equinox approaches, bringing with it the traditional wiccan festival of Mabon, a time to reflect on the previous year and celebrate the harvest. Practically, you’re back from vacation and have a clean four-month sprint until the winter holidays.

YOU CAN WORK HARDER

For the junior attorneys out there, this is a great time to commit to working harder to round out the year. As I’ve written about before, junior attorneys have the advantage that, due to both age and the nature of junior-level lawyer work, they can generally grind out their work on pure energy and inertia. And due to miracles of modern science, they can often work for days on end with little to no sleep.

As you get older, you’ll find that the one thing that you’ll regret more than anything is not working hard enough. You never want to look back and see that you didn’t fully apply yourself, that you didn’t leave blood on the floor in whatever you did. During my best year as a junior, I broke 3,300 hours, and it was glorious and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. If I have any regret about that year, in which I also studied for and passed the California bar, it’s that I didn’t work more.

The Gladwellian 10,000-hours rule may have been discredited, but at the end of the day, as I’ve written, you get out what you put in. Even if you completely phone in your legal career, you’re still going to spend a third of your waking life doing it. Do you really want to just muddle through in pathetic mediocrity, rather than lay it all out there for a chance at greatness?

So to the junior attorneys out there, my advice to you for the fall is this: Work as hard as you possibly can the rest of this year. Set yourself an ambitious goal, like 400 hours a month, to round out the year. You can easily maintain that for four months. Never complain about it, just go out there and do it. Because you are a machine. Nothing can stop you. You are the Vanilla Ice of law.

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YOU CAN WORK BETTER: TAKE THE CHANCE TO MAKE CHANGES

Fall can also be a time to commit to working better and to making positive changes in your work life. After a break is a great time to start whatever it is you were putting off. This can be anything: Maybe you have a new management technique you want to try; a new commitment to doing something differently; or maybe you want to work on an auxiliary to your work life, such as working out more so you’ll feel healthier and more focused in the office.

Whatever it is that you’ve been putting off, just do it now. Invoke the spirit of Mabon and the harvest, or Thanksgiving and the pilgrims, or whatever metaphor you like. As the great philosopher Nike teaches us, just do it.

Matthew W Schmidt Balestriere FarielloMatthew W. Schmidt has represented and counseled clients at all stages of litigation and in numerous matters including insider trading, fiduciary duty, antitrust law, and civil RICO. He is a partner at the trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at matthew.w.schmidt@balestrierefariello.com.

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