Searching for the Silver Lining

The last two weeks have been unbelievably stressful at work, and next week looks to be even worse than the last two combined.  I have to drive to Toledo tomorrow for depositions.  Yes, tomorrow is Sunday.  I don’t like having to work on Sundays.  I will get home sometime on Monday, only to spend about 7 hours in the car on Tuesday and 5 on Wednesday.  Wednesday involves mediating a case that has become contentious for no reason other than I think the Plaintiffs’ counsel just likes being a jerk.  The judge has made some rulings in blatant disregard for the trial rules and has made borderline unethical comments in his orders.  I am having to deal with all of the things that I despise about litigation and that cause me the most stress and anxiety.

On top of that, my assistant out-and-out ignores my instructions.  I’m not sure whether this is intentional or he’s just super bad at his job.  Truthfully, I think it’s a combo deal.  I was assigned a new liability case even though I keep saying I don’t want any more liability cases.  It’s for the carrier that I really hate working for, and the attorney who had it before me left the firm about 5 weeks ago.  The file has been sitting on his office floor that entire time, languishing, missing deadlines.  More things that cause me anxiety.

What this means is that I haven’t had as much time to devote to photography.  I haven’t taken any new pictures since Tuesday.  That is sad.  But I’m trying to find a silver lining in all of this stress and chaos.  I haven’t found it yet.  I think my hotel in Toledo is near a river, so perhaps there will be some photographic opportunities there.  It may also provide scenic running routes.  As for Tuesday and Wednesday, I’m going to have to do a little more digging  Maybe inspiration will strike during the eight hours in the car over Sunday and Monday.

I guess there is one more silver lining.  I have never been more sure that I want to be a photographer and that I have to get out of the legal profession.  Perhaps this sounds cheesy, but photography is the only thing I have ever done that I have actually felt passionate about.  Is it too much to ask to feel that every day?  To actually do something that I love as a living?  I firmly believe that the way I have been feeling the last two weeks is no way to live.  And so I continue my quest to find a new way of living, where work and personal values not only co-exist but foster each other.  I’m not sure I’m any closer, but I’m not giving up.

A New Outlook

As I (thought) I mentioned yesterday, I attended the state bar’s women’s bench/bar retreat.  This is the fifth time I have attended.  Usually I leave the retreat not planning on attending the next year.  It tends to remind me of all the things I dislike about the practice of law and other lawyers in particular.  However, as the year passes, I tend to forget that aspect and focus only on the fun I have with my friends.  This year there were not many seminars that were very interesting to me (including my own).  However, this year there seemed to be a lot of attendees who were solo practitioners.  I asked lots of questions about the make-up of practice areas, office space, billing, accounting, email programs, networks, etc. etc.  Everyone talked about how scary it can be out there on your own with no safety net, but they also talked about how much they loved it.

While I was out of the office attending the conference, I was receiving emails asking me to prepare status reports reporting on a hearing date.  Literally, that is all the status report will include.  A hearing date.  And to top it off, I won’t even be able to sign or send the “status report”.  I was frustrated.  As I spoke to these other women practitioners and thought about having my own practice, I felt scared, but I also felt hopeful.  I’m not saying I’m going to run out tomorrow and hang out my shingle, but I do plan to make some calls about office space, malpractice insurance, and marketing.

I also checked out some of the upcoming seminars being put on by one of the continuing education groups in town.  There are a lot of basic, crash-course seminars coming up in the next few months.  I really think I could do this.  So, again, I am going to put together a written plan.  If you can’t tell, I like plans.  The idea of having an exit plan, so to speak, makes me feel like I can make it through another six months or so at my current firm.

One of my friends who was also attending the retreat sent me a link to an article about how many solo practitioners also have side businesses.  The article was very interesting.  It wasn’t that the solos needed the extra income (although some did).  The point was that attorneys in a solo setting had the opportunity and the skills to break into other career areas.  That spoke directly to me.  I don’t know that photography will every be lucrative enough to replace my attorney income, but to do some of both, and be in complete control of each, could make the law more tolerable.

Nothing is set in stone, yet, but after being away from the office for four days, I’m not feeling sick to my stomach as Sunday comes to a close and Monday approaches.  I can only attribute that to trying to change my outlook on my career path.

A Busy Friday

I agreed to judge a couple of sessions of my alma mater’s trial competition team try-outs this weekend. As a trial team alum, I have been asked the past few years to judge but my schedule never allowed me. I decided to do it this year.

I did one session this afternoon and was quite impressed with everyone. I look forward to tomorrow’s rounds. Being at the law school and dealing with the team brought back a lot of memories. Boy, was I naieve when I was at that point in life. I saw some of that in the students.

Little did I know when I was in their shoes that litigation is nothing like trial team. I always felt so confident during mock trials. That confidence all but disappeared the first time I questioned a witness for real. That was probably the point at which I realized I did not like “real” litigation. That was about 7 years ago!

Visiting the law school is bitter-sweet. I enjoy seeing my former professors, but I always question whether the choice to go was a mistake. In general, education is never a bad thing, but student loans hang around for a while.

Regardless, I’m always looking for a good excuse to visit my college town. My husband and I had our first “date” here (though we were not in college). I plan to stop at the local bakery on my way to campus. I’m already hungry thinking about it! We start early and there is a formal dance taking place at the hotel. The bass is thumping so it may take a while to fall asleep. I should probably turn in shortly. I apologize for any spelling errors. I can’t seem to find the spell-check on this mobile app! I’m so reliant on technology!

Death to the Billable Hour

Is there anything worse than keeping track of your life in six-minute increments?  Putting off eating lunch or even going to the bathroom because you don’t want to miss out on precious minutes?  Ugh!  I hate the billable hour.  You would think it would be a great thing.  You can track your productivity and efficiency every minute of the day, right?  Wrong!  Because no one is productive and efficient all day every day.  And those off days really throw a wrench in my system.

Don’t get me wrong – the Type-A part of my personality loves documenting what I do during the day.  When I have a high billable day, I feel great.  But big billable days don’t necessarily equate to highly productive days.  I have found that some days I might cross seven things off my to-do list, which also feels great, but those seven things only took me two hours.  I still have 5.4 more hours to bill.  That feels terrible!

On the days that I am both productive and efficient, I find that I then have to spend anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour at the end of the day actually entering my time into our timekeeping software.  I’m not able to keep up with time entry as the work gets done, and having to stay extra just ruins my good feelings.

I have no fix for the billable hour.  I understand its purpose.  I just long for a job that focuses on results, and not how much or how little time it took me to complete the work.  If it’s good and it’s right, shouldn’t that be enough?

Ironically, I have been seriously thinking about starting my own practice.  I think I must be crazy, and I fear I just have a bad case of “the grass is greener on the other side.”  But then I think, if I have to continue doing this, shouldn’t I get to be my own boss, choose my own clients, actually have interaction with other humans during the day, and yes, reap the monetary rewards?  I think this is just a different manifestation of my frustration with my current path.  Clearly I have no idea what I want to do!  We’ll have to see what develops.

Sunday Night Blues

Sigh.  I am trying to keep a positive outlook for the upcoming week, but I’m already feeling trepidation.  It was really hard to drag myself out of bed last Monday and I am fearing the same thing in about 12 hours.  I received a handful of work emails over the weekend, which just increases my anxiety level (including one from an opposing counsel’s paralegal at 8:30 this morning).  If other people in my office want to work 24/7, good for them.  I don’t want that.  I want my work life separate from my personal life, and I don’t want to have to fret over whether my phone is notifying my in a timely fashion that I have work emails (which it did not do from about Friday evening on).

I have never understood those people who become so consumed by work that it permeates everything they do.  It’s as if they forgot (or perhaps never knew) how to relax.  My husband is also an attorney and we toss about the idea all the time of having our own practices.  He practices in areas conducive to hanging out your own shingle.  Me, not so much.  I think it would make the practice of law much less stressful.  I know that seems counterintuitive.  However, my sources of stress are two and contribute equally – the people I work for and my actual cases.  The attitude and approach of the people I work for are just as stressful as my actual practice (which is fueled by the people I work for…viscious cycle).  I keep telling myself if I worked for myself and selected my own cases I wouldn’t mind being a lawyer.  Then part of my brain keeps responding by reminding me that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

So, I sit here on the couch and watch the seconds click by as the clock swiftly approaches Monday.  I can’t slow down or stop time.  I don’t feel any better about the approaching week, but I’m going to give last week’s suggestion of identifying all the good things I have to look forward to this week another try.  I get to order our new laptop (which should be awesome for editing photos with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB hard drive), I should get the book on my new Speedlite flash, I have  lunch plans with a friend on Friday, and I will be out of the office Friday afternoon for a deposition.  I also found out last Friday that the wife of one of the attorneys on the case is a photographer.  There’s another connection to the photography profession and I’m hoping she’d be open to giving some advice to an aspiring photographer.

I Survived Hump Day

I’m going to borrow the suggested topic from The Daily Post today.  It’s kind of in line with what I was feeling anyway.  When I first saw the topic, “Are you stressed?”, my immediate response was, “YES!!!”  (Deep breath).  I thought about putting aside the status report I was working on and writing my post right then.  I had so many stressors to blather on about!  As is typical for me, I decided I would finish what I was working on before I moved on to something else (be it my next status report or blogging).  I think that was the best choice because much to my surprise, my day turned around!  I would have wasted my daily post complaining about trivial nonsense that no one really wants to read about.

Instead, I get to write about how a five-minute phone call made a significant impact on my attitude towards my career.  It really irks me when people underestimate me or make wrong assumptions about me.  Yet today I realized that I do the same thing.  I was expecting a negative and angry reaction from opposing counsel when I asked to extend certain case management deadlines.  As it turned out, he was completely reasonable and understanding when I explained why I thought it needed to be extended.  Guess what?  Underestimating people and making assumptions can cause unneeded and unwarranted stress.

This case has seriously been the single largest source of stress for me since the beginning of December.  Some of it was warranted.  The majority of it was not.  Because I was too afraid of the reaction I would get if I was honest about my analysis of the case, I just sat and let my stress level rise rather than just pick up the phone.  I know what you are thinking.  How did you become a litigator if this is your attitude towards conflict?  Trust me.  I am aware of the irony.  That story, in conjunction with how I made it to law school in the first place, is best left for another day.

What I learned today is that it is still possible for people on opposite sides of a situation to behave amicably and, more importantly, reasonably, while still advocating for their clients.  It is so rare to find someone reasonable and open to dialog that I always expect the worst from my opponents.  I always expect someone to try to take advantage of candor, so I in turn end up acting like those I complain about.

My stress level seriously subsided after that phone call.  What also happened is that my faith in the profession was lifted just a tiny bit.  And that tiny lift was just the first step in embracing where I am right now in life, accepting what I do, and appreciating that it gives me the opportunity to pursue the interests that I love.

I’m glad I answered the phone instead of letting it go straight to voice mail.

Back to the Daily Grind

I’ve had a wonderful four days off, five days out of the office, and about a month of no full weeks in the office.  I am not looking forward to tomorrow.  I know I have plenty to do to keep me busy and make the day go by quickly (requirements for a Monday, right?), but extended time out of the office always makes feel sad when I have to go back.    I try to take the approach that it’s just a job, just a means to an end.  I mean, how many people really like what they do?  I should just suck it up and put on a happy face.

Then I think about the people I know who do like or even (gasp!) love their jobs. (Shockingly, none of them are my attorney colleagues).  Why can’t that be me?  Why is that too much to ask for?  For the longest time I didn’t know how to answer those questions because I didn’t know what job I could or wanted to do that would fit my happiness criteria.  Instead of lamenting, I started thinking about the things I could do over lunch or after work that would further my goal of finding a job I love.

I know such a huge life change doesn’t happen overnight.  I know I have to deal with contentious opposing counsel for a while longer.  I know I have to deal with the stress of litigation for a while longer.  Despite that, this week I have the following to look forward to: using my new work coffee pot, three new cases that will provide me with lots of billable time, a Friday trip out of the office that requires me merely to observe, and pay day!  Coming up with a list of things to look forward to each week should make the daily grind more bearable (I’m hoping!).

For the rest of you who have had some time off and feel the same way towards going back to work tomorrow, what are three things you have to look forward to this week?  Keep those in mind as you struggle to make it through the day, and before you know it, Friday will be here!