Two Axioms

After five years of solo practice, these are the elemental lessons I’ve learned: serve with respect, and practice with your whole mind.

You are always in service to someone else when you practice law. As a lawyer you have to be okay with whom you serve, or you can’t be satisfied with your work. If you’re thinking about changing your practice or your job, think first about the people you are meant to serve.

It’s also been important for me, in the service role, to be myself, to practice law in my own skin. Working in law firms was good in some ways but to the extent my professional persona and cultural expectations were mediated by the persona of the firm I happened to be with, it was like having a pebble in my shoe all the time. Now though I can listen at work with both ears and engage in my work with my whole mind.