“We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”
David Mamet
We all live with stress. In most situations, stress levels are similar from person to person, regardless of their chosen profession or activity. That assumes we measure stress by outside pressures. Internal stress varies substantially from individual to individual for complex physiological and psychological reasons far beyond the focus of this writing. Regardless, finding a balance in handling external and internal stress proved challenging.
First, let me deal with external stress.
In practicing law, clients and colleagues have expectations that build over the years as they become more experienced and deal with more complex issues. Eventually, if you are successful as a lawyer, you rise to a point where clients and colleagues come to you because they appreciate your years of experience and the wisdom that comes with it. While that is a beautiful feeling, it comes with stress—your clients and colleagues expect you to solve their problems quickly and efficiently. To make it more stressful, clients and sometimes colleagues come to you at the last minute with a significant issue that could have been addressed more constructively had you been involved earlier. This increases time pressures and stress, often exponentially. As you climb the hierarchical ladder of a law firm, your billing rate also rises. That results in an exciting imbalance between efficiency and cost. Clients want lawyers with lower billing rates working on matters to save money. That can often result in less efficiency than a more experienced lawyer brings. In the end, it may even cost the client more to hire less experienced lawyers. Do not get me wrong. The quality of the work is consistent. It just takes more time and may cost more money. If I were to move my practice fully, I had to accept that whatever efficiencies moving brought to the table, stepping out of the day-to-day practice was necessary.
In moving a practice, this external stress comes from two directions. Foremost, the colleagues to whom you will move clients and the firm’s management want the process to happen as quickly as possible. That is understandable. Drawing the process out serves little purpose except where a client expresses concerns (which, in my case, rarely occurred). The colleague wants to get the credit and build the relationship. You are under stress to get that done.
On the other hand, it takes time and requires a commitment from everyone involved to be faithful to the process. I was lucky that all those to whom I moved the work understood and were patient. Likewise, the firm’s management remained patient. That is why my plan’s execution took nearly three years. The goal was to keep a 40-plus-year practice intact for the next generation. It did precisely that.
The second source of external stress comes from clients. After all the years I have practiced, many of my clients have been with me for decades. With some, I have developed a strong friendship (although I have rarely socialized with clients beyond occasional and obligatory lunches, dinners, and other events). They always knew I had their back and came to depend upon me for more than legal advice. When they learned I was moving my practice, they expressed their stress with change and pushed it to me. That was predictable. They feared losing their consigliere and wondered if someone less experienced could bring the same wisdom to the relationship. In those situations, I aimed to ensure I instilled in clients an adequate confidence level in my chosen colleagues they could rely upon. That, too, takes time. It meant putting the colleague in a leadership position with the client that, over time, created the confidence level needed.
I assured them I was not retiring to relieve the client’s stress. Instead, I was simply taking a less active role but fully intended to continue practicing law. I will continue to be available. That worked because it was the truth. I fully intend to continue practicing law for as long as I feel rewarded, just not at the same level of intensity. That meant identifying those few clients for whom I would still be available consistently. Those clients fell into two categories: The first were ones who simply would not let go. That is very flattering and difficult at the same time because those clients are also among the most demanding of time and energy. However, they are also essential and need secure relationships with the firm. For them, moving them to others takes longer. For most, two years of planning worked fine.
The second group of clients is those with whom I particularly enjoyed working. They were clients who came to me for high-impact issues—the “bet the farm” stuff. Advising them keeps my brain synapses running, and I need to maintain them. There were a couple of clients who fell into that category. That does not mean, however, that they will not be moved. It simply means that I remain a prime, but not the sole, advisor for some discrete issues.
Apart from the external stress, however, was the internal stress. As the next blog will explain, dealing with my internal stress was far more complex.
