Have you ever received a pay rise that you weren’t happy with? What did you do about it? Complain? Whine? Drink heavily? Well let’s stop just whining about it, and do something about it! Happy lawyering! Have you ever received a pay rise that you weren’t happy with? What did you do about it? Complain? Whine? Drink heavily? Well let’s stop just whining about it, and do something about it! Happy lawyering!

Are you implementing this crucial element of legal practice in your day to day operations? I hope so. Let’s see how it works in practice, with an example of how clients are going to view two different scenarios. Happy lawyering! Are you implementing this crucial element of legal practice in your day to day operations? I hope so. Let’s see how it works in practice, with an example of how clients are going to view two different scenarios. Happy lawyering!

Lots of lawyers are introverted.  We like quiet, solitary tasks where we can focus, analyse and distill answers. And yet, the noise of the community, the pressure of networking, and the need to market our services sometimes tells us that we are at a disadvantage.  Is it true? Lots of lawyers are introverted.  We like quiet, solitary tasks where we can focus, analyse and distill answers. And yet, the noise of the community, the pressure of networking, and the need to market our services sometimes tells us that we are at a disadvantage.  Is it true?

I hear a lot of people asking how to get noticed in a big, noisy, and highly competitive firm. And I can’t help but wonder – what are you doing now to get noticed? Are you actually willing to try anything, or are you cowering, terrified of the risks that come with sticking your neck out? Let’s talk – nonbillable. Happy Lawyering! I hear a lot of people asking how to get noticed in a big, noisy, and highly competitive firm. And I can’t help but wonder – what are you doing now to get noticed? Are you actually willing to try anything, or are you cowering, terrified of the risks that come with sticking your neck out? Let’s talk – nonbillable. Happy Lawyering!

I get this question fairly often – should young lawyers (or law students) do a masters degree, and is it worthwhile? Well – as is often the case, the answer is either yes with a but, or no with an unless. Enjoy! I get this question fairly often – should young lawyers (or law students) do a masters degree, and is it worthwhile? Well – as is often the case, the answer is either yes with a but, or no with an unless. Enjoy!

I hear a lot of complaints about lack of time.  Can’t get this done, had to put that to one side. And it could all be true, but the reality is that if you want something enough you can get it done. You just need to shift your priorities. That’s what today’s episode of NonBillable is about. Happy Lawyering! I hear a lot of complaints about lack of time.  Can’t get this done, had to put that to one side. And it could all be true, but the reality is that if you want something enough you can get it done. You just need to shift your priorities. That’s what today’s episode of NonBillable is about. Happy Lawyering!

It does come up, and the full podcast on it is here. But still, it’s worth considering how we should approach our daily life.  Should we be capitalising on our strengths, or working to smooth out our weaknesses? That’s what we have today in NonBillable. Transcript – The Strengths and Weaknesses of Lawyers It’s an interesting thing as lawyers, we’re not very well prepared to accept that there might be some things we’re not good at. My name is Chris Hargreaves, this is non billable where I spend three minutes answering some questions, offering some advice, or occasionally having a bit of a rant. In the corner behind me just here, you can see a globe, despite the fact that I’ve got a globe in the background, I am terrible – terrible at geography. I couldn’t tell you where anything was, I barely know where Australia is, and I’m sitting here right now, I cannot tell you the states of America, I can not tell you the countries of an particular continent. I am terrible at geography. The question comes up, should I be learning more about geography? Should I be filling up that weakness or should I be focusing on my strengths and forgetting about the thing I’m rubbish at. Well that all depends, do I need to be good at geography? Not really. Fortunately my wife if very good at geography and she can fill in the blanks when I need it. That becomes the question, if you need to be able to execute on something then, perhaps you need to work on it even if it’s a weakness of yours. I’m not talking about necessarily things that are “Googleable”. Of course if I need to know where a country is, I can use Google. I can look up a map, I can figure out where it is, but I am talking about inherent traits, I’m talking about things that naturally know your talented adverses, things that you’re not necessarily talented at. Maybe you’re good at speaking, maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re a talented communicator, maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re talented writer, maybe you’re not. These things are things that are in one sense inherent, they can be worked on, they can be developed, they can be improved, but you shouldn’t necessarily be focusing too much energy and effort on that unless it is a critical skill for the execution of your job. What’s my view, focus on your strengths, execute there, build a team around you who can fill up your weaknesses, and they can execute in those areas and between you all, you will be a strong compelling dynamic team and you will be able to bring home the bacon as it were. This has been non billable and my name is Chris Hargreaves.  Head over to tipsforlawyers.com for more tips like this. I’ll see you next time. It does come up, and the full podcast on it is here. But still, it’s worth considering how we should approach our daily life.  Should we be capitalising on our strengths, or working to smooth out our weaknesses? That’s what we have today in NonBillable. Transcript – The Strengths and Weaknesses of Lawyers It’s an interesting thing as lawyers, we’re not very well prepared to accept that there might be some things we’re not good at. My name is Chris Hargreaves, this is non billable where I spend three minutes answering some questions, offering some advice, or occasionally having a bit of a rant. In the corner behind me just here, you can see a globe, despite the fact that I’ve got a globe in the background, I am terrible – terrible at geography. I couldn’t tell you where anything was, I barely know where Australia is, and I’m sitting here right now, I cannot tell you the states of America, I can not tell you the countries of an particular continent. I am terrible at geography. The question comes up, should I be learning more about geography? Should I be filling up that weakness or should I be focusing on my...

It comes up a lot – should you work hard, or smart? I know the easy answer is “work smart” but that’s not what I’ve got for you today. You know what it takes? Find out in today’s episode of nonbillable. Transcript – Should Lawyers Work Hard or Work Smart? Hey there, this is another episode of Non-Billable. My name is Chris Hargreaves from tipsforlawyers.com and Non-Billable is where I give you three or so minutes of some advice, a rant or answering a question. Anything you might want, send me an email or get in touch with me if you need to do that. What are we going to talk about today? Today we’re going to talk about working hard. It’s a bit of an old dog. Working hard versus working smart. Should you be working 12, 16, 18, and 20 hours a day getting four hours sleep, sleeping in the office in your sleeping bag and getting up the next morning having a very, very strong coffee and getting back to it? Or should you be working sort of six to eight hours a day, get plenty of sleep, back at home at 5:00 with some time to spend with your kids and your family? Or is it a bit of both or is it a bit of everything? Look, the reality is every single one of your peers works hard. Every single lawyer works hard. Some work longer hours, some work more efficiently, some work more productively. The reality is you need to do both. You need to work hard and you need to work smart. That might mean you need to work long hours. That might mean you need to do extracurricular activities. That might mean you need to do some things that are not paid for by your firm, that are not encouraged by your firm. If you think they are in the best interest of your career then perhaps you need to be doing them either way, and that’s where the problem lies. A lot of young lawyers think that their firms should be delivering up to them their career progression, their client development, their business and marketing skills, and all the other sorts of things that you should be focusing on. The reality is this, law firms aren’t doing that. Perhaps they don’t want to, perhaps they can’t do it, perhaps they’re not interested, and perhaps they’re not providing the kinds of opportunities that you need because they can’t afford it. Either way, you need to do both. You need to work hard at your job, you need to provide value to your firm, but you need to be looking at the bigger picture. You need to be executing on the important things not just the urgent things that you have day to day. That might mean you extend your day by half an hour, that might mean you extend your day by two hours, but either way it is work hard and work smart. That’s what you need to if you’re going to distinguish yourself. That’s what you need to do if you’re going to get ahead in a very, very noisy world. You need to do both. This has been Non-Billable. My name is Chris Hargreaves and I’ll see you next time. Happy Lawyering! It comes up a lot – should you work hard, or smart? I know the easy answer is “work smart” but that’s not what I’ve got for you today. You know what it takes? Find out in today’s episode of nonbillable. Transcript – Should Lawyers Work Hard or Work Smart? Hey there, this is another episode of Non-Billable. My name is Chris Hargreaves from tipsforlawyers.com and Non-Billable is where I give you three or so minutes of some advice, a rant or answering a question. Anything you might want, send me an email or get in touch with me if you need to do that. What are we going to talk about today? Today we’re going to talk about working hard. It’s a bit of an old dog. Working hard versus working smart. Should you be working 12, 16, 18, and 20 hours a day getting four hours sleep, sleeping in the office in your sleeping bag and getting up the next morning having a very, very strong coffee and getting back to

You might have heard the long version, but here’s the snapshot – some clever people decided to announce that young lawyers should get their skills (somehow) BEFORE they got a job. Apparently clients don’t want to pay for that. Which is fine. After all – not training young lawyers isn’t at all a short term view of things. Our business will run just fine after we retire if we haven’t invested in our new lawyers – right? Bah! Check out the Full Podcast Here on the same topic. Transcript – Training for Young Lawyers – Who is Responsible? Okay guys this is another episode of Non-Billable. My name is Chris Hargreaves and I’m from tipsforlawyers.com and Non-Billable is where I give you three minutes of either a rant, answer to a question, maybe some advice, a few bits and pieces. Today I wanted to talk about training of young lawyers. Recently an article came to my attention and it kind of annoyed me, to be perfectly honest. I did in fact do a full podcast on it, you can find that at www.tipsforlawyers.com/podcast/28 but here is the Cliff Notes version. Some people, particularly high ranking people in law firms, have decided that it’s not the law firms problem to actually train young lawyers. Which I found a remarkable assertion. So who’s problem is it? They were saying that the lawyers should skill themselves up because clients don’t want to pay for it. I don’t think perhaps the clients don’t want to pay for it as much as the law firms can’t be bothered doing it properly and they want to get back to what they were trained for which is being a lawyer. What is the answer to the conundrum? Who should be responsible for training young lawyers in their professions. If it’s not the law firms, then maybe it’s the universities. The universities don’t want to do it, they just want to educate people about how they should actually go about working in legal practice so far as they think and that involves research, that involves academic papers. Not very helpful. Who is going to skill up the young lawyers? There’s not many people left so according to these individuals it is the young lawyers themselves. That’s right. In order to be employable young lawyers apparently you need to go and you need to skill yourself up. What the skills are, who knows? They weren’t mentioned in the article, I’m not sure what skills they were talking about. I know what I think. I don’t know what they think and that’s part of the problem. No one knows in fact what they’re talking about. What is the answer? The answer is everybody’s wrong. Nobody wants to take responsibility and in reality, everyone should take responsibility. Law students, young lawyers, you are responsible for what you do. You are responsible for what you learn, you are responsible for how far you can get in your careers. Universities are responsible for training young lawyers appropriately so that they are useful, functional contributors, adding value to firms and being useful in the workplace. Law firms? Guess what. You are responsible too. There is at no point in legal practice where you should be able to stop learning where you should not have a mentor available to you in your practice or at least in the broader legal community. So far as everyone saying it shouldn’t be our problem it should be someone else’s problem, it’s everyone’s problem. You all have the problem, you all need to take responsibility. Everyone should be getting involved in this at that is my view on this. Go to tipsforlawyers.com/podcast/28 if you want more information. That is Non-Billable for today, the Cliff Notes version of a much longer rant that I got involved in recently. Thank you, have a good day. Happy Lawyering!   You might have heard the long version, but here’s the snapshot – some clever people decided to...

Listen folks, if you can’t sound like a human being then you’re in the wrong business. Get rid of redundant words that only lawyers use, start sounding like a person, and be a legal writer that brings humanity into the profession, not one that distances us. Transcript – Legal Writing Tips Hey there, it’s Chris again from tipsforlawyers.com with another episode of Non-Billable, where I give you 3 minutes of questions and answers, rants, or advice to help young lawyers in day-to-day practice. Today a bit of a rant about redundant words. If you are going to write letters, if you are going be a wordsmith, if you are going to be a communicator – and as a lawyer, you should be – then for the love of everything, would you stop using redundant words. Starting every single sentence of a paragraph with “We note that” doesn’t make you clever, it doesn’t make you sound sophisticated; it makes it sounds like you can’t think of a way to actually start the sentence. “We note this,” “We note that,” “We note the other thing.” Guess what? Try harder. You can cross those words out almost every single time without changing the meaning anyway whatsoever. Just get rid of them. More redundant words, “We advise that”. That’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Try crossing that out. Watch how nothing changes in the sentence. You’re just wasting words, you’re sounding like people think lawyers should sound rather than writing like a human being. Have you ever written an e-mail to your mom saying, “Mom, I note that it was your birthday recently. I would like to advise that I’m going to wish you a happy birthday.” No. You know why? Because you’d sound like a moron. Don’t do it. Sound like a real person, write like a real person, not like you think a lawyer is supposed to sound. End rant. That’s Non-Billable.   Listen folks, if you can’t sound like a human being then you’re in the wrong business. Get rid of redundant words that only lawyers use, start sounding like a person, and be a legal writer that brings humanity into the profession, not one that distances us. Transcript – Legal Writing Tips Hey there, it’s Chris again from tipsforlawyers.com with another episode of Non-Billable, where I give you 3 minutes of questions and answers, rants, or advice to help young lawyers in day-to-day practice. Today a bit of a rant about redundant words. If you are going to write letters, if you are going be a wordsmith, if you are going to be a communicator – and as a lawyer, you should be – then for the love of everything, would you stop using redundant words. Starting every single sentence of a paragraph with “We note that” doesn’t make you clever, it doesn’t make you sound sophisticated; it makes it sounds like you can’t think of a way to actually start the sentence. “We note this,” “We note that,” “We note the other thing.” Guess what? Try harder. You can cross those words out almost every single time without changing the meaning anyway whatsoever. Just get rid of them. More redundant words, “We advise that”. That’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Try crossing that out. Watch how nothing changes in the sentence. You’re just wasting words, you’re sounding like people think lawyers should sound rather than writing like a human being. Have you ever written an e-mail to your mom saying, “Mom, I note that it was your birthday recently. I would like to advise that I’m going to wish you a happy birthday.” No. You know why? Because you’d sound like a moron. Don’t do it. Sound like a real person, write like a real person, not like you think a lawyer is supposed to sound. End rant. That’s Non-Billable.