Tips For Lawyers Podcast

It would be easy to convince ourselves that lawyers just need to know laws, statues and cases right? But it’s far from the truth. And, for most young lawyers, focusing on simply learning more law is probably a bad idea.It would be easy to convince ourselves that lawyers just need to know laws, statues and […]

If you’ve been around for long here, you know that it’s all about legal skills. Time to up the ante – we’re going for 30 skills in 30 days. Each day an actionable tip, hint or some homework to build your legal skills significantly across a month. Are you going to play along?If you’ve been […]

How do you view your opportunities for continuing legal education? As a necessary evil? Or as an amazing chance to do something better? Let’s chat about the attitude we have to learning, and how we might make the most of the chances we have.How do you view your opportunities for continuing legal education? As a […]

You’ve got a large job that’s made up of lots of different pieces. If you listened to the last episode then you know how to figure out what to do. The next question is: when do you do each thing? That’s what we’ll find out in this episode!You’ve got a large job that’s made up […]

If the task you’ve been given is more complicated than you’ve done before, or perhaps in a novel area, then it can get a bit overwhelming trying to come up with the right solution to the issue. However, much like building a house, larger tasks are almost always just made up of a series of […]

Yep, it’s happened again. I’ve written about it but nothing quite makes you feel as good as having a decent rant about a topic. So here’s the gist – the Prime Minister of Australia says that people shouldn’t study law unless they want to be a lawyer. The legal education institutions around the Country didn’t […]

No matter what you do, at some point in your legal career you’re likely going to have a boss. They might be fantastic. But they might not be. And if you’ve got a boss who has a few deficiencies (which, let’s be honest, all of us do) then the best thing you can do if […]

It wasn’t too long ago where someone wanting to learn would apprentice themselves to a master of the craft in question. But what about lawyers? How are you honing your craft, and have you considered how you will seek to attain mastery in your field? Let’s have a talk about the process of honing, a […]

You already know that law school hasn’t got you “practice ready”. But the next question you should be asking is: what do I need to focus on from day 1? In this episode we’re going to discuss the two biggest holes in law school education from a big picture perspective.You already know that law school […]

We keeping talking about it – and everyone just nods, smiles and says “yep – I want that some more”. GIVE ME MORE WORK/LIFE BALANCE! But what is it that you actually want? Tell me! (Yes – tell me what you want, what you really really want). Because work/life balance is a meaningless catch phrase. […]

Lawyers have a curious relationship with risk. On the one hand we are trained (and sometimes paid) to identify risk to our clients. But what’s the upshot of that advice? Should we be telling our clients which contracts to sign, what deals to do, or that the risk is unacceptable? And how does our approach […]

No productivity hacks today – just some solid advice on how to execute faster. If you want to get things done in record time you’ve got to have some kind of system that lets you do it. Not just random activity – but productive focus. Let’s get into it – and happy lawyering!No productivity hacks […]

Law school teaches you many useful things, but ultimately it takes place inside a fictitious vacuum. Specifically, it ignores the commercial aspects of legal practice and the human element of legal practice. If you’re going to thrive as a lawyer then you will need to understand, embrace and demonstrate that you hold people in high […]

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but lawyers have a bit of an obsession with sounding professional. We use words that other people don’t use. We develop arguments in a clinical and structured way. We have a form and style to our writing and speaking that other people simply don’t. The question of the day […]

You already know that focus is important, right? Me too. But so is flexibility if you’re going to manage to function in real life. How are you going to manage the tension between the two? Focus requires you to keep going on task A, but tasks B and C have started to become a problem […]

Talking about how artificial intelligence and robots are going to replace big parts of the legal profession is all the rage – so I thought I should have an opinion about it. In this podcast we’ll discuss: how technology is already replacing some lawyers; which lawyers need to worry most about robots disrupting their practice; […]

So many firms have failing mentoring programs for young lawyers. There’s a reason, and you can’t pin it entirely on the firms or the mentors – it’s often YOU who don’t know how to make the most of the mentoring relationship. Let’s stop that right now – and learn how to leverage this extremely valuable […]

Some people actually shouldn’t be lawyers. That’s not an indictment on them, nor on the profession – they just shouldn’t be here. The danger comes when people try to force themselves into something where they don’t belong. Don’t do it. Beyond that, we need to explore WHY people leave the profession – not just why […]

It’s not like your legal career is a static thing where you simply start, do stuff, then finish. It’s a vibrant living creature where your role from day to day is going to change, adjust and shift depending on how senior you are, your experience and your level of self-awareness. Let’s take a look today […]

If you’re not functioning as a person, then you’re not functioning as a lawyer either. In this episode we take a look at: why I don’t like the phrase “work/life balance” what we should be talking about instead the importance of self-awareness the categories of your life that need to matter how you can start […]