You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast episode number seven - To Make Partner Or Not To Make Partner?
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Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Lawyer Life Podcast. I am your host Autumn Noble. I am a practicing attorney as well as the founder of The Lawyer Life Collective: Life And Career Coaching For Lawyers. During my career, I worked at firms of various shapes and sizes, and I built and shared my very own practice group from the ground up. I've taught in business schools and law schools and eventually transitioned my practice in house with a Fortune 300 Company, before leaving to build my own firm. Now I teach all of my clients how to do the same thing. If you want to learn how to build your practice and client base, establish some independence, find more time get more done, or generally just find more happiness and balance in your life, welcome, you are in the right spot.
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If you're new here, thank you for joining us, be sure to check out the first few episodes as well as the show notes to get access to some additional information about this episode and the work we're doing in the Collective. If you've been here all along, I appreciate you and welcome back.
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Today in this episode, we are talking about making decisions and specifically whether or not to pursue partnership. We talk a lot about making decisions in coaching sessions, and today's topic is one that many of us grapple with, at some point in our careers as we wonder, do I want to do this forever? What would that look like?
In every moment of every day, we're making decisions, we decide where to direct our attention, we decide when or if we should take a break. We decide whether to answer a phone calls or to respond to our emails. Most of us make those decisions automatically and without much thought. But what about those decisions that really feel like decisions, the types of decisions that keep you up at night with anxiety? Or they rob your afternoon of several hours spent fretting over all of the options. When it comes to big decisions? What is the best approach? That's what we're going to unpack today.
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As women and as attorneys, we are really good at following instructions. We received a guidebook on how to become a successful attorney and we executed all of the steps, the LSAT law school the bar exam, clerkship summer associate programs, the first big job, all of that stuff. The next ingredient in this perceived recipe for success is a pretty big one, and that's: to make partner or to not make partner. It's really rare that I meet an attorney who is not plagued by this question. Once you get to a certain point in your practice, you can't help but wonder what is next. Whether or not to make partner often looms large on the horizon as we struggle with the demands of practicing law.
The wondering often sounds something like this: If we're not here to make partner, then what is all of this for? But if we do make partner what does that even mean? And what does that look like? In coaching we often talk about decision making in several contexts. But today, I want to focus on the actual steps to evaluating and making a decision. So here we go.
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Step number one, take the decision off of the pedestal. Many of us have struggled with decision paralysis from time to time because we put these decisions on a pedestal, we allow them to loom ahead of us like these giant crossroads in our lives, we first have to recognize that we're making this decision way too powerful. One decision will not make or break your entire life. In order to move forward, you have to separate the facts from your primitive brain thinking and kind of fear-based worries about the importance of this decision. So first, we have to recognize the thoughts that we're choosing. They're just that - they're just thoughts. When we focus on the facts of the situation, the facts around the decision, and examine how else we could be thinking about them. It allows that decision to become a little bit simpler and come down from the pedestal.
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So for example, consider if you're thinking some of these thoughts, I need to decide if I'm going to make partner because that will change everything. I'm running out of time to make partner. If I leave this firm before making partner, no one will hire me. I can't make partner and then leave right away so I need to know if I can stay here for another 10 years. They all sound like really logical and self protecting. But when we really scour those sentences for cold hard facts, there's really not a lot there. Those sentences reflect our internal catastrophizing and dramatizations, neither of which are helpful, and partly why this decision is on this pedestal. Those thoughts, I'll make it seem like this decision is critical to our long term happiness and success. But when we can get clear on the facts, the frenzy in your brain will calm down considerably. So what we might be left with is we move from, I need to decide if I'm going to make partner because that will change everything. When we distill that down to kind of simply what's going on, it might be I want to decide whether or not to make partner, I've been practicing for X amount of years, very simple, much less dramatic, it causes no sort of energetic emotional response in me. Another one that I hear often is I'm running out of time to make partner. The facts behind that might simply be I've been practicing for this many years, and I'm not a partner yet. I would like to decide if I'm going to make partner or not, again, very simple, much less dramatic and sexy than those other thoughts that have been kind of running the show.
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Here's another good one. If I leave before making partner, no one will hire me. The real facts underneath that are: I can quit whenever I want and I can look for more jobs, other jobs and see who will hire me. That's the truth, kind of underlying that worried thinking. You can quit whenever you want, you can look for another job, whenever you want, you will always be a lawyer, you'll always have that degree. And you'll never know if people won't hire you until you actually try. So we kind of back out of that drama, and leave it to the facts. The last one: I can't make partner and then leave right away so I need to know if I can stay here for another 10 years. This one is very similar to the last scenario where the facts behind it are, I can make partner and quit anytime I want to. All true. All really found it in our own agency and freedom to choose how we want our life to go. The other thinking is really ripe with victim mentality and like kind of this stuckness, and when we distill it down to the facts, we really are left with our own power and authority and ability to choose to do whatever we want to do.
There is no one saying that we can't make partner and then quit right away. There are no rules about that. We have a tendency to make up all these unwritten rules about partnership and marketability of marketability, when you can leave when you can't leave, and when you can find another job, and when you're just too long in practice, and no one's going to hire you, right. These are not real rules. They're just stories that we tell ourselves. The one thing that I can say for certain based upon my experience coaching hundreds of attorneys over the years, is that there are no rules about how your career can or should evolve.
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All of those rules that I just said, I have seen them broken time and time again. People leave late in their practice before making partner and are able to find more success elsewhere. Every rule that I was told as a young associate, I have found to not be true through my own experience watching other women break down those same barriers. All of those thoughts, all of those rules, they are choices available to you. And you can decide if you just want to let them be stories and opinions or if you want to make your own path and write your own story based upon your experiences. When it comes to decisions. There are choices available to us and then there are stories and opinions that people will offer you about those choices. Stories and opinions are not facts and we don't have to believe them.
We have to look at all those rules and pressures that make this such a momentous decision, and just cut out the drama. Because when we leave that that decision on the pedestal, we rarely take any action at all. There are very few career decisions in this world that cannot later be changed. And there are no such things as perfect choices. At some point we have to recognize that indulging in worry, and indecision is keeping you stuck. If you want to move forward, you simply have to make that decision. What if you just decided not to believe that there was only one right answer, right? Take that decision off of the pedestal. Treat it as a simple everyday decision. There is no right or wrong and we just move forward. What if all the roads lead to the same place? That also can make that decision feel much less momentous. Isn't that a better place to be mentally than imagining that you're at a crossroads? One road leads to sudden death and one road leads to rivers of gold. That's essentially what we do and we put the decision on a pedestal and indulge in worry, fear, doubt and indecision about that option.
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You are believing that one choice is perfect and one choice will destroy you. The pressure we put on that one decision will make taking any action nearly impossible. So we have to focus on the facts of the situation, take the decision off of the pedestal and leave the drama behind.
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Next, step two, we have to take a hard look at our worst case scenarios that are also kind of floating around in the background, making it really easy to keep this decision on the pedestal pedestal. Whenever we put decisions on a pedestal, we usually just stay put. It paralyzes us with inaction because we've made the idea of making the wrong decision so incredibly terrifying. We have convinced ourselves that there is a right or wrong path ahead of us and if we choose the wrong one, our whole world will fall apart. So in order to take some action, get that decision off the pedestal, we have to take a closer look at those worst case scenarios.
What is that fear bubbling around in the background that's making it really hard to just treat this decision as any other and move forward. Some of those worst case scenarios might be like, If I leave this firm, and I don't make partner I won't be able to make partner anywhere else. If I don't make partner before I have kids, I'll never be able to make it work. If I don't make partner, no one will respect me. If I don't make partner my career this firm is over. If I leave without making partner, no one will hire me. When we look at those worst case scenarios, we can see that at the root of all of them is fear of failure, that if we make the wrong choice, that mistake proves that we aren't good enough, we aren't smart enough, we can't do this and that our career is a total failure. But what if we looked at all of those worst case scenarios as simply a combination of two things: obstacles that we can navigate and negative self talk that we can address?
We don't have to allow our brains to tell us that if we make the wrong decision, not only will everything fall apart, but that mistake then proves something negative about ourselves, we aren't good enough, we aren't smart enough, this is never going to work. Instead, we can take a long, hard look at the worst case scenario, and decide how you would handle it and what you would make it mean if it happened. In doing so we rob the worries of all of their power and we turn those worst case scenarios into obstacles that simply need to be overcome.
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For instance, if you left the firm without making partner, how could you go about seeking partnership elsewhere? How could you make that an inevitability for yourself? It becomes a problem to be solved, rather than a reason not to act. Similarly, what if you decided to just have kids when it works for you and then make partner if you decide to? What would you do to make that work? Could you figure that out? What could that look like? Again, we're switching over into strategizing rather than letting that worst case scenario fear be an obstacle and a dead stop.
That worry about Well, if I don't make partner, no one's gonna respect me, as a good lawyer, someone who knows what I'm doing. That becomes How can I Garner respect amongst my peers, even if I'm not a partner? Again, something to be solved something to be navigated, rather than a reason not to act. All of those worried thoughts, all of those worst case scenarios, you know, I'm going to be a failure, no one's going to hire me all of those things can simply be converted into. These are nasty things I'm not gonna say to myself anymore, and the rest of it is just an obstacle that I can strategize around. It makes it no longer a reason not to act. When we turn them all into questions and simple obstacles, they seem a lot less scary.
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And if our worst case scenarios are no longer scary, we no longer have a reason to fear taking action. Which brings us to step number three: get clear about why you are acting or not acting. In any choice that we make. There's going to be pros and cons. There will be consequences of many varieties, even when the opportunity seems too good to be true. In all instances, we have to consider what we gain by acting. And when we have clarity about what is at stake with every new decision that clarity will help light the path when things get murky because they will and that clarity, your why, your reasoning for acting that will allow you to keep moving when things start to get a little hairy. Why do you want to make partner? Why don't you want to make partner? Why is it important to you either path? What does that decision get you? There are no right or wrong answers to these questions but the only thing that matters is whether or not reasoning resonates with you. This is the part of the process that can be really helpful in distilling out our justifications, to the meat of the issue.
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For a lot of my clients, they want to make partner so that they can be an example of what's possible to other women around them and all the young girls who will come after them. For others, it's simply the culmination of this journey, this recipe for success, they want to check it off their list before moving on to other things. Whatever your reasoning may be, the only thing that matters is that we keep it front and center to carry us through the inevitable hardships that will come in pursuit of this goal as with any goal, when we know our reason for acting or not acting, it will help us do the hard things that can be asked of us as we move on to the next leg of the trek. As you explore those questions and get to the root of your why, if you don't like your reasoning, that can be incredibly powerful and enlightening.
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For instance, if you're really finding that your reasoning is I want to make partner because I feel like I should. I don't want to disappoint my parents, I don't want to let down my mentors that want me to make partner, you might realize that those rationales don't resonate with you, and that they won't be enough to push you through the attendant hardships. From there, you may recognize I don't really want to make partner, but I'm allowing myself to be guilted into it by all of these other factors. Maybe that's good enough for you, maybe it's not, but the goal is to focus on being honest with yourself about why you are doing the thing, because that is going to be really important, as I said, as you continue to move forward and keep you grounded in that decision.
Usually, justification surrounding difficult decisions are rooted in the avoidance of some negative emotion, we don't want to feel bad, if others are hurt or sad or disappointed and our fear around how we will feel if others are upset by our decision that can keep us totally paralyzed. And that is why this exercise is so critical. It allows you to observe whether your rationale for making partner or not pursuing partnership are rooted in worries about what others would think or feel about it.
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And from there, you can simply decide if that reasoning is good enough for you or not. Once we are clear about our justification for acting, we can just execute on the decision. But first step number four, we embrace all the fear that goes along with it. Taking action is not always going to feel good. Even when we're connected with our true intentions and we know our why it doesn't mean it's going to be smooth sailing. Fear, self doubt and guilt are all part of the bargain when we choose to make changes. Those feelings don't mean that you're making a wrong decision. Choosing to make partner or not is always going to come with some second guessing and judgment from those around you. Know that that is just going to be part of the deal and the discomfort that comes from their responses is also part of the deal. That's what we sign up for when we choose to honor what we want and take action toward that goal. It's not fun to tell your firm No, I don't want to pursue partnership at this time. I don't think it's the right fit for me or Yes, I want to make partner. Both conversations are going to be challenging in their own way. That is why we have to be connected with our truest motivations and remember our why we have chosen that particular path.
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Next, step five, we commit to having our own backs. Part of the reason that we avoid making decisions is because of how terrible we are to ourselves when a decision doesn't work out how we imagined. We beat ourselves up, we judge our past actions, we rewrite history to make ourselves feel even worse. If you can commit to making a decision and having your own back no matter how it plays out. What is there to be afraid of? We've already tackled the worst case scenarios. Now we just have to decide how we'll treat ourselves, if it doesn't go the way we wanted it to. At this point, we've made a choice and we're moving forward. This step requires us to commit that no matter what happens, we will not judge our decision. We trust that we make decisions with the best information available to us and for reasons that resonate with us and that is enough. If you decide to change your mind in the future, that's okay. Just commit to having your own back. That means that if your choice doesn't pan out the way you wanted it to, you aren't going to indulge in guilt or self judgment. You aren't going to wade through the past shoulda, coulda woulda, -ing yourself to death. We just have our own back. We're going to be a good partner to ourselves. And we trust that we made the right decision for ourselves at the time based upon all the information available to us, and we're not going to judge it or second guess it.
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We have no idea how any of those other options would have panned out if we had decided differently in the past. So we can't use any future surprises as an opportunity to soothe say, don't pretend that you knew this wasn't going to work out and start beating yourself up. We just commit to having our own back and trusting ourselves.
Part of the reason that we avoid making decisions is because of how terrible we are to ourselves when a decision doesn't work out how we imagined. We beat ourselves up, we judge ourselves, we rewrite history, and we just feel terrible. So if you can commit to making a decision, having your own back no matter how it plays out, there's nothing left to be afraid of. We know that this may simply be another obstacle to navigate another challenge to be resolved, and nothing more.
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Why is this so important? As I mentioned, in episode four, one of the reasons that we struggle and law is that we don't have any clear direction. We don't know what we want. And that kind of eats away at us. We judge ourselves for not knowing the answers about where we want to be in five years. And that judgment just boils below the surface. Part of the reason that we use these tools to get some clarity around what's next, whether that is partnership or any other decision, is to release some of that pressure around what's next. It allows you to constrain your focus and free up your energy to exploring your path and your current choices without all the pressure to have it planned out 100 years down the road. What this means is that no decision has to be forever. But there is freedom and release that comes from making a commitment for a specified period of time, and then releasing your energy around the decision. If you find yourself feeling pressured to make a decision about your future, I really encourage you to work through these steps, make a decision, and then commit to revisiting the decision in the future - six months 12 months, might be a good place to start. But once that decision is made, we can allow ourselves to move on, focus our minds elsewhere for that stated period of time.
Imagine what it would be like to free yourself from obsessing about a decision during that time. Where else could you focus your energies? It allows us to be present with the decisions that we are making every day and let that other decision just float for a while knowing that we will come back to it and revisit it in the future.
Decision-making is truly a huge part of my coaching practice. I work with all of my clients to examine and execute on big decisions, including whether to file for divorce, quit the job, fire the paralegal or make partner. If you are contemplating a big decision, I encourage you to schedule a consultation. There's a link in the show notes and get some time with me to find some support and some clarity.
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So to recap, take that decision off of the pedestal, cut out the drama and get it very clean and simple. Step two, we look at that worst case scenario and start seeing it as simply obstacles to be navigated. Step three, get really clear about why you are acting or not acting, what is at the root of the decision that you're making. Step four, embrace the fear. Just know that it's going to be rocky, it's going to be uncomfortable and that's part of the deal and not a sign that you've made the wrong choice. Step five, and this is my most favorite and I think the most important part of decision making is to have your own damn back. And know that no matter how the decision plays out, you're not going to beat yourself up for it. You're going to trust in the decision that you made and see this next upcoming decision as simply another obstacle that needs to be overcome and it's nothing to fret about.
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That concludes our episode for today, my friends. Thanks so much for joining us again this week. And remember, if you liked this content, be sure to rate this podcast and consider leaving us a review I would truly appreciate it.
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Next week, we continue our exploration of career paths and it's a very common question: How do I know when it is time to leave? We hope you'll join us there. In the meantime, be sure to check out the show notes for additional resources on this week's topic and to sign up for a free coaching consultation before they're all gone. And as always, thanks for listening and thanks for sharing with your friends.