My niece, a history professor, posted an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education by Professor Robert Talbert on four things he planned to mindfully focus on in the upcoming semester. She said his goals could work for everyone, not just educators. Here are how these four things might apply to a Michigan attorney.
Balance. Here, Professor Talbert’s focus is not just on work-life balance, but also balance within work. Balance within work as a college professor means to balance teaching and learning. Sometimes teaching is overshadowed by research and scholarship, and sometimes teaching overshadows scholarship. As lawyers, we can get caught up in responding to the immediate needs of clients and neglect our scholarship (keeping abreast of new developments in our practice area or learning new areas) or our law practice itself. Balance within work will help lawyers be more effective, successful lawyers.
Simplicity. This one was inspired by the tiny house movement: “I’d like to take a tiny-house approach to my work, decluttering both my physical and intellectual spaces—as well as my courses—so that what matters is always front and center, there’s no wasted space or effort, and I manage to take the tiny amount of time I sometimes have and turn it into a whole habitable space.” Communication is an important part of being an effective lawyer. If you write a contract, will your client be able to understand and administer it going forward? If you send a letter to your client explaining how to fund his or her trust, will your client be able to do it with confidence or be able to do it period? Albert Einstein’s observation is something to keep in mind when working on your next communication: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Relationships. Professor Talbert believes that education is about relationships and that there is no education without relationships. In her TED talk, Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, said, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Education and relationships are core to the practice of law. Without good relationships with your client, opposing counsel, the judge, the clerk, and others, how effectively will you be able to provide legal services?
Kindness. “The more I explore relationships, and the more I look at students through the lens of their own humanity, the more I think that kindness is simply the act of remembering that other people are human beings just like you—warts and all—and acting in the light of that fact.” According to the Kindness Foundation: “kindness naturally leads itself to cooperation, support and team-work that brings people together as a unified whole.” Lawyers are dealing with their own staff, clients, opposing counsel, judges, witnesses and more. Treating all of these people in your professional life with kindness seems like a goal that should naturally lead to collaboration and achievement of a unified goal of quality legal services and outcomes.