Spark: Tips for Maintaining Your Passion for the Practice of Law, Part 3

04.28.2017 by Stacey Romberg //

Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association GPSolo eReport.

This article is the third of four installments exploring ways to keep the spark of enthusiasm alive in your law practice.

In my first article in this series, I discussed the dissatisfaction that seems to permeate the legal profession, and the stressful nature of, and long hours associated with, the dual responsibilities of practicing law and running a small business. The questions posed at the end of my article were: “If you [knew that you] had six months left to live, or perhaps more practically as a long-term approach, six years to live, would you continue to work just as you are doing right now? Or would you make some changes?” My second article added the following queries: “If changes are needed, what would those changes be? How could the changes be identified and implemented so as to have a lasting and favorable impact?” The article went on to explore various approaches for self-examination, with the goal of identifying three areas for improvement. Here in the third installment of the series, I will offer suggestions for implementing these changes.

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Game, Set, Match: A ‘Virtual’ Strategy

04.05.2017 by Sherry Lueders //

Reprinted with the permission of the King County Bar Association.

Stacey Romberg doesn’t just want to know whether you play tennis — she wants to know whether you have a tennis ranking. And, if you do, what that ranking is. Tennis and the law are two driving passions in Stacey’s life. She has a theory that many of the same skills necessary to succeed in tennis — grit, tenacity, meticulous preparation, and hours of practice — are also critical to success in the practice of law.

Stacey grew up in Boise, where she competed in her first tennis tournament in the fifth grade. After winning the tournament, held in a neighborhood park, she was hooked on the sport. Stacey went on to compete as one half of a formidable doubles team through junior high and high school. She was an Idaho high school state champion in tennis, as well as a ranked junior player in the Intermountain Section, which included players from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. Her former doubles partner from junior tennis is also an attorney today, practicing in Idaho.

Stacey knew that she wanted to be a lawyer before she attended college. Tennis beckoned, and she seriously considered a career in tennis as a coach. But upon learning that a tennis coach whom she admired as both a coach and a player was unable to support himself without significant help from his parents, she solidified her decision to pursue a career in law. She has never regretted choosing law over tennis, although she has certainly played a good bit of tennis over the years.

While attending Idaho State University in Pocatello on a tennis scholarship, Stacey majored in political science, with a history minor. There, Stacey developed an interest in politics, serving as an intern with the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as interning with then-Idaho Lt. Gov. David H. Leroy, formerly the state’s attorney general.

Her experience working for Leroy, including serving on his paid gubernatorial campaign staff while a law student, has had a significant influence on her career. One of the many things she learned from him was that part of being an effective lawyer is devoting significant time and attention to speaking and writing.

After graduating from ISU with high honors, Stacey attended the University of Idaho College of Law in Moscow. Throughout law school, she continued to play tennis and worked as a tennis instructor. She served on the law review and graduated from law school a semester early by taking courses through the summers (while giving tennis lessons).

Once she had taken the Idaho bar exam, Stacey loaded up everything she owned into her two-door Chevrolet Sprint and left Idaho in the rearview mirror for the other Washington. In D.C., she worked on Capitol Hill and earned an LL.M. in international law from Georgetown University Law Center. As an attorney working in the nonpartisan Senate Office of Legislative Counsel, she helped draft legislation that included the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Organic Foods Production Act.

During that time, Stacey’s work on the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act gained the most visibility. While her writing has been published in numerous publications, including the Puget Sound Business Journal, the American Bar Association’s GPSolo eReport, and this esteemed publication, by far her most widely reproduced work has been the alcohol warning label she helped draft in her work as Senate legislative counsel:

GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.

Stacey later moved from Capitol Hill to private practice at the D.C. law firm of Fort & Schlefer, reviewing government contracts and working as a registered foreign lobbyist representing the interests of German shipbuilders.

By 1993, Stacey yearned to be closer to home and left the beltway to return to her Pacific Northwest roots, landing in Seattle. She has practiced in Washington ever since. In the beginning, she used skills developed in D.C. to leverage a position as a legislative attorney for the state Senate. During her early years here, she also worked at the Williams & Williams firm, and as a pro tem judicial magistrate.

In 1999, Stacey made an aggressive move, charging the net and starting her own firm, Stacey L. Romberg, Attorney at Law, where she practices in the areas of business law, estate planning and probate. She hasn’t looked back.

She has been innovative from day one, operating her practice as a virtual law firm. In the beginning, Stacey went virtual for the most practical of business reasons: She couldn’t justify paying rent for space she didn’t need. As a result, her firm has never had a physical office. The decision to operate “virtually” in the late ’90s has become an aspect of her brand that carries her firm forward today.

Stacey makes no apologies and has no regrets for “going virtual.” She recalls one instance where she was representing a party in an estate dispute. In the process of hammering out the details for a non-judicial dispute resolution agreement, opposing counsel visited her home office to review the details. He noticed a drip in the adjacent bathroom. Before Stacey knew it, he had paused the negotiations to fix the toilet. (As his skills as an attorney surpassed even his highly competent plumbing acumen, she assumes he didn’t charge his client for the time spent dabbling as an amateur plumber.)

Stacey is a positive person, and she is quick to enumerate the many upsides of a virtual firm: lower overhead, fewer distractions, no time wasted on a daily commute, and the pleasant company of her officemate, Roger (i.e., Federer), a male tabby cat. Stacey is nearly as passionate about animals as she is about tennis. Roger is a vital member of her office team, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of her practice is helping clients provide for their pets in their estate plans.

Tennis remains a passion. While a knee injury has kept her off the court in recent years, Stacey continues to be involved in the sport through her work as a board member with Tennis Outreach Programs (TOPs), a nonprofit organization that aims to “empower youth for lifetime success through tennis, education, fitness, and character development regardless of economic circumstance.” Its mission of tennis and community outreach was a match point for Stacey, who emphasizes community involvement in both her practice and life.

Stacey joined the TOPs board in 2011. A year later, TOPs opened the Eastside Tennis Center in Kirkland to fulfill its mission of providing “tennis for everyone.” In Stacey’s view, the skills developed playing tennis help to set kids up for a lifetime of success. She analogizes tennis to boxing, where the player is in a one-on-one battle of wits, skill and strength with an opponent, requiring an extra dose of mental toughness, plus the ability to fully accept personal responsibility for all of one’s results — both the happy wins and the embarrassing losses.

Like a good rally at the net, the practice of law continues to challenge her. Stacey notes that while practicing law is different for a mid-career attorney than for one just starting out, she enjoys how her practice continues to evolve and include new issues and challenges.

She continues to find joy and vigor in her practice through speaking engagements and writing about the practice of law. Stacey frequently speaks on topics ranging from legal ethics in social media to substantive areas of law for her practice, such as business formation and the Trust and Estate Dispute Resolution Act. She particularly enjoys talking and writing about how it is possible to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct and thrive as a modern attorney.

In her more than 25 years of practice, Stacey has seen numerous changes in the practice of law: sometimes for the better — maintaining a virtual law practice for more than 15 years — and sometimes for the worse, such as an apparent decline in civility among attorneys. Other challenges among attorneys include increases in substance abuse, failed relationships and mental health issues.

She believes many attorneys could alleviate such problems, as well as improve their practices, by paying more attention to their mental and physical health. While it may seem counterintuitive to prioritize taking time away from a law practice in which the billable hours define the day, dead attorneys don’t bill, and neither do attorneys who become too burned out to practice.

Physical fitness is a defining part of Stacey’s life and her practice. She heartily approves of 84-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg‘s workouts with a personal trainer. Stacey’s own fitness routine includes spin, yoga and other group classes that involve weight training. Rain or shine (or snow), she wakes up every day at 5 a.m. to be at the gym by 6.

Her advice to attorneys who have recently started their own firms is to devote as much attention to the practice as a business endeavor as to the substantive areas of law. One element of her success is her willingness to constantly examine her practice, evaluate what she doesn’t like about it, and then fix the problem. For Stacey, success is derived from the ability to recognize and adapt to new challenges — not unlike a well-played game of tennis. 

Sherry Bosse Lueders is an of counsel attorney with Stacey Romberg’s firm, where she practices in the areas of business law, estate planning and probate. More information can be found at www.staceyromberg.com.

Spark: Tips for Maintaining Your Passion for the Practice of Law, Part 2

02.24.2017 by Stacey Romberg //

Reprinted with permission from the American Bar Association GPSolo eReport.

This article is the second of four installments exploring ways to keep the spark of enthusiasm alive in your law practice.

In my first article in this series in the December issue, I discussed the dissatisfaction that seems to permeate the legal profession, and the stressful nature and long hours associated with the dual responsibilities of practicing law and running a small business. If you are in the middle or the later stages of your career, do you find that you don’t feel as passionate about the law as you did in those initial years of practice? If your enthusiasm for your law practice has diminished as the years have passed, I encourage you to not simply accept that change as an unpleasant but necessary byproduct of a long career. Instead, self-examination is in order. The questions posed at the end of my article were: “If you [knew that you] had six months left to live, or perhaps more practically as a long-term approach, six years to live, would you continue to work just as you are doing right now? Or would you make some changes?” To those I add: If change is needed, what would those changes be? How could the changes be identified and implemented so as to have a lasting and favorable impact?

As you undergo a process of self-reflection, a perhaps difficult, but critical, initial question to ask is: Are my circumstances such that I am able to do that process justice? Taking an honest look at your life and your law practice, identifying areas of dissatisfaction and then creating a roadmap for change involves time, hard work, and critical thinking. I submit that, before initiating this process, you need to assess your current physical health and state of mind. When was the last time you slept for the recommended seven to nine hours per night for a week straight?¹ How about your diet? Did you eat breakfast this morning? Do you consistently follow healthy eating patterns?² Let’s not forget about exercise. Are you working out on a consistent basis? Are you following the recommended guidelines for physical fitness?³ And how do you feel mentally? Clear and focused? Or frazzled and distracted? Starting with these core questions about your physical and mental well-being may be unpleasant, but it’s best not to underestimate the importance of the answers.

If something is out of sync, you may have already identified the primary reason for your lack of enthusiasm toward your law practice. If you sleep five or six hours a night, eat fast food for lunch, or your exercise regime consists of an occasional walk on the weekends, you may not be in a place in which you can successfully undergo a thorough process of self-examination. It would be the equivalent of taking your car in for detailing when the engine is so corroded that it needs to be towed to the auto detail shop. Put first things first. Focus on getting healthy, both mentally and physically. Keep in mind that sufficient exercise, sleep, and a good diet have been shown to improve your ability to think.⁴ You may find that, as your health improves, your energy level and mood will improve as well. Your attitude towards your law practice may become more positive. “There’s a strong link between good mental health and good physical health, and vice versa.”⁵Finding the time to address primary health concerns may not come easily for some lawyers, particularly because of the typically long work hours as discussed in my first article. In viewing the alternatives, however, which are, at a minimum, a loss of luster for your life and law practice and, in the worst case scenario, a shortened life span, I believe you will conclude that carving out the time to address these fundamental issues simply must happen.⁶ If you’re not feeling well, how can you confidently and successfully meet the challenges of self-reflection?

When you’re ready to begin, one practical way to approach it might be to carve out an hour every weekend for four weeks in a row. Solo and small firm lawyers are busy, and it’s likely you lack the time to block off an entire day. Additionally, if you spread the process out a bit, you may be able to identify certain questions that create uncertainty, ponder those questions a bit during the week, and then come back to it again the following weekend with fresh ideas. Some questions to consider, using the six-years-to-live scenario, might include:

Would you choose to keep doing exactly what you are doing? If so, you can stop reading now—you are exactly where you need to be!
Would you choose to not work at all? Work less? Work more? Would you seek to offload more of the responsibilities of law firm management? Or perhaps the other way around, would you spend a bit more time developing your business model while delegating some of your client-related responsibilities? Would you choose to abandon one or more of your practice areas? Would you fire some of your more toxic clients? Would you take on more pro bono? Perhaps take on some bar leadership responsibilities?
Would you choose to stretch yourself a bit? Do you feel like you’ve hit your comfort zone as an attorney, working on similar, and increasingly unchallenging and uninteresting, cases over and over again? If so, what could you do to change that, so you could continue to enhance your skill level and increase your sense of challenge and adventure throughout your career?
Would you change anything about the business side of your practice to make it more enjoyable? Hire someone? Or maybe fire someone? If you were to adjust some of the backend systems and processes related to your practice, could that result in more ease and enjoyment?
Are you fairly compensated for the work you perform? Or do you believe you are earning less than you truly deserve, which contributes to your overall sense of dissatisfaction? If you believe your compensation is not what it should be, how could that issue be successfully addressed?
And, in doing this analysis, would you make some changes to aspects of your personal life that fall outside of your law practice, but nonetheless impact your passion toward your work? Would you adjust your work hours so you are better able to get more exercise? More sleep? More leisure and vacation time? More time with your friends or significant other? Or perhaps, end your relationship with your significant other? If you think all of those factors don’t impact your career, think again. When you get the right mix, you will tend to bring a clear, energetic, and, dare I say, enthusiastic mindset to your work.

As you go through this process, be imaginative in how you proceed! Choose the method that works best for your personality type. Maybe you need to lock yourself in a quiet room and journal on your tablet or with an old-fashioned legal pad and pen? Maybe a whiteboard would help, so you can map out some ideas and see it visually? Perhaps you should start by chatting with some friends, family members, or other attorneys to gain their perspective? If you first take a short hike, practice yoga, meditate, or even take a nap, would that help clear your mind so you are better able to engage in self-reflection? Working with a coach might be a terrific option for you, so that you could receive the benefits of professional assistance in identifying and improving the areas of dissatisfaction. Or perhaps engaging in therapy would be the right way to start. I invite you to try one or more of these methods to see which approach sparks the highest level of self-reflection and creative thought.

What’s the desired outcome? I suggest that, through your examination of these questions and others that are pertinent to your situation, you identify no more than three areas for improvement. If you could achieve the desired results in these three aspects of your life and your career, would your enthusiasm for your legal career be strengthened? You may find a dozen areas that could be improved upon. If so, that’s great! Hold that thought. Then prioritize your list by choosing your top three goals. Once you are able to successfully accomplish your initial goals, nothing is stopping you from picking out your next three objectives. In order to make a lasting impact, the implementation process has to be reasonably achievable for a busy professional. I recommend taking small realizable steps rather than taking on too much, becoming frustrated, and abandoning the process.

In my next article I will offer suggestions for implementing necessary changes, and then I will complete the series by exploring the idea of legacy—a motivating concept for keeping the spark alive.

Notes

1. National Sleep Foundation Recommends New Sleep Times (Feb. 2, 2015), https://sleepfoundation.org/press-release/national-sleep-foundation-recommends-new-sleep-times.

2. See Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015–2020 (8th ed.), https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/.

3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/. Attorneys tend to work in high-stress environments, and also tend to sit more than is recommended. I believe that lawyers should not simply meet the lowest standard of these guidelines, but should instead consistently follow the requirements set forth for “additional and more extensive health benefits” in order to help counter the health challenges that are often an integral part of our professional lives.

4. Heidi Godman, Regular Exercise Changes the Brain to Improve Memory, Thinking Skills, Harv. Health Blog (Apr. 9. 2014), http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-201404097110. See also Stephanie Watson, Caffeine and a Healthy Diet May Boost Memory, Thinking Skills; Alcohol’s Effect Uncertain, Harv. Health Blog (June 18, 2014), http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/caffeine-healthy-diet-may-boost-memory-thinking-skills-alcohols-effect-uncertain-201406187219; Sharpen Thinking Skills with a Better Night’s Sleep, Harv. Health Letter (Mar. 2015), http://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/sharpen-thinking-skills-with-a-better-nights-sleep.

5. Mind and Mood, Harv. Health Publications, Harvard Medical School, http://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/mind-and-mood.

6. Please make sure, in assessing and addressing your overall mental and physical well-being, that you first seek the advice of physicians and mental health professionals as appropriate.