I had a professor in law school who, at the end of the semester, gave our section a short speech. I will paraphrase here:

I know that most of you have taken this class seriously and are taking law school seriously. I want to encourage you to continue to do that…because after you graduate and pass the bar and are working out there in the world as attorneys, people will come to you with their lives in a shambles. They will come to you seeking assistance and guidance and counsel. You will be in a unique position to help them. Please do.

It was clear from the delivery, halting and with her voice quaking a bit at times, that this was something she had thought about a great deal. It helped, of course, that she was an exceptional professor. Still, as we left the classroom afterward, there were students giggling a bit about her speech.

Having once been a teacher, I was not among them. I always wondered — and worked hard at — what I should say to my students on their last day in my class. It usually amounted to something like, “It’s been fun, gentlemen. Don’t be strangers. See you around.” Not nearly as good as I usually anticipated and not nearly as meaningful as the speech from my professor. Yet I console myself with the fact that my students were all teenagers who were either moving up a grade or champing at the bit to get out of high school.

My professor’s words were brought home fairly recently at a time when I failed to live up to the ideal she outlined. I was sitting on a bench outside the courtroom on a landlord-tenant docket talking to tenants and otherwise hurrying along to get finished with my cases so that I could get back to the office. I was not at my most attentive.

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It’s been one of those insanely stressful weeks at work where nothing can be easy. It didn’t help that I also started significant home renovations this week. No question that I’m burning the candle from both ends.

I looked at the to-do’s on my desk last night and realized that I could be working all night. I could literally feel the stress and fatigue wash over me, my shoulders tighten and my jaw clench.

Then I made the impulsive and seemingly irresponsible decision to stop, put on my workout clothes and hit the gym for a 5:30 p.m. BodyPump class. I knew the work would wait but that my sanity probably wouldn’t.

It was the best decision I could have made. I worked out hard and every time my arms wobbled or my quads felt like they were going to give out, I thought about all of my stresses this week. I put all of that energy into the workout and I kept going. It was quite possibly the best workout of my life.

It’s amazing how much energy we put into being frustrated and stressed — and even more so how amazing it feels to release it through exercise.

I got home and was a new person. I ate dinner, got through my emails and finished up some of that to-do list. I sang along to the music I had turned on in my office. My entire outlook and mood had shifted.

I woke up this morning in an equally sunny mood — which wasn’t even affected by finding out that I need a new oil tank on top of everything else!

Next time you’re at that point of no return, stop, get up, and go exercise.

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I have been fairly lucky with surrounding myself with “mentors” to help guide me through my legal career. (I put mentors in quotes because I never really had a designated mentor through some type of program, but I essentially just glommed onto more mature attorneys and jurists until they were forced to give me advice). Younger attorneys are often told to find mentors to provide advice on work-related matters, work-life balance or sticky ethical issues.

In the past few years, as I have transformed from a “young” young attorney to an “older” young attorney (and soon to be a middle-aged attorney), the mentoring roles have reversed and I’m now mentoring. Think of Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s light saber fight on the flight deck of the Death Star and Darth saying, “The circle is now complete” and you will understand what I am saying.

Mentoring is not easy. It requires patience and an understanding of your mentee’s station in life. I forget how difficult it was to be a first-year associate, trying to learn both the practice of law and the actual law. After years of depositions and trials, older attorneys forget their first time in court or meeting with a client or arbitration. When I was a “young” young attorney, nothing annoyed me more than when I would ask for advice and get a somewhat dismissive response by a more mature (i.e. older) attorney.

When our younger associates come to ask me questions about a case or something related to the practice of law, I find that I must stop what I am doing, face them and actually respond to their questions. It sounds simple enough (and falls within the basic tenants of courteousness) but I sometimes find myself too busy to look up from computer or provide them undivided attention unless I really try. In addition to being somewhat rude, this does not validate any of their concerns or help them with their issues. Essentially, it’s bad mentoring.

Mentoring occurs in many different forms — it could be a younger associate simply asking for advice or you could be assigned a mentor through mentoring programs, such as the Maryland Court of Appeals mentoring program for new admittees. Whatever and whenever it occurs, below are a few tips that I picked up from Lori L. Keating’s  article,  “How to Mentor Another Lawyer” in an ABA’s Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division.

The article provides six tips to become an effective mentor, which include:

1. Share expectations
2. Don’t undermine the process
3. Bring food (or sports or art) to the conversation
4. Follow up
5. Promote networking
6. Enjoy the rewards

If you have any advice you would like to share (or complaints) about being a mentor, please share in the comments section below.

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A good friend sent an email this morning to her “hard working ladies” with a link to an opinion article written by Erin Callan, the former chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers.

Callan wrote about the work-life balance — and the lack thereof — in her life prior to resigning from Lehman Brothers in 2008. She observed that she probably could have been just as successful, even if she had maintained work-life boundaries. She explained that the lack of balance in her life happened over time.

If ever there was a perfect time for me to read this piece, this morning was probably it.

Over the last two weeks or so, I’ve been leaving the office by 6:30 p.m. at the latest. It’s been amazing. I asked myself yesterday if this is how the rest of the world works. Do they get home when it’s still light out? Do they have time to catch up with their family and friends? Do they take the dog for a long walk? Do they get their chores and errands done during the week, instead of cramming everything in on the weekends?

Yet with all of this awareness, I’m also fighting against the urge to put a few more hours in at the end of the day. I feel guilty about a 6 p.m. departure or if I’m not checking my email at all hours. It’s been a real challenge getting that balance back!

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I still have Ravens fever and I don’t want a cure. So I thought it was great when I stumbled across an article about “Why John Harbaugh would ace a job interview.”

The article praises Harbaugh for his smarts, as well as a humble and cool demeanor that, the author claims, would help him navigate the interview, which I find to be the terrifying portion of the job-search process.

The author claims Harbaugh could land any interview and I can take this claim seriously. Not all interview(ing) articles are written with a field as competitive as the legal field in mind, but I think it’s safe to say that NFL head coaching positions are hard to come by.

I have always gotten fairly nervous on interviews; now, after changing jobs a few times and mostly because of the economy being what it is, I have felt even more pressure and nerves. With so few attorney positions available I think it’s easy to feel real pressure to stand out, be perfect and out-shine the other candidates interviewing.

Because there are so many candidates applying for each job, I feel that it’s an accomplishment just to get invited to an interview by an employer. I think it can be really tough to be yourself at the interviews because if it doesn’t go well for whatever reason, there’s not necessarily going to be another opportunity you can scoop up right away. There’s a lot riding on that conversation.

I think interviews can be especially tough for young attorneys because your ability to stand out is limited to an extent. Most young attorneys aren’t going to have work experience that sets them apart from the crowd. We’ve taken our classes, passed the bar and maybe have some work experience during law school or after college, but for the most part a lot of us look fairly similar. We know what we think we are interested in to the best of our ability but many of us aren’t going to be the right fit in our first job and there’s not much of a way to prevent that.

I do think pro bono work (if a possibility) is one way to stand out, as is showing your interest in certain types of law. I know there isn’t a magic answer here but I would love to hear thoughts from you readers. Does anyone have any tips for me and others out there about how to navigate the interview process? Any thoughts that you might have about how to make interviewing less nerve wracking or your experiences in general are very welcome

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Photo: NPR via Washington University in St. Louis

I heard a story on NPR last month about an ex-felon named Clark Porter that caught my attention. When Porter was 17, he was charged and convicted as an adult for robbing a post office at gunpoint in St. Louis. He was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison.

The story grabbed my attention because Porter is now a probation counselor for the U.S. Probation Office in St. Louis. The thought that an ex-convict could get a federal government job was intriguing and I wanted to know more — so I Googled him.

Initially, I thought that it was great to hear about someone giving an ex-felon a chance. Recidivism is a major issue in the criminal system and I thought Porter’s story was a breath of fresh air. But as I learned more about Porter, I realized that there was more to his story. Porter was not simply given a chance; he had worked hard to overcome his negative past and had proven to others that he was qualified for his job with the probation office.

Porter was not the model inmate at first, as his behavior put him in a couple of super-maximum facilities. At some point after receiving his GED while in prison, he started taking college classes. In 2001, Porter was released on parole after serving 15 years. He attended community college and then received a scholarship to Washington University of St. Louis where he earned his degree in psychology. He then earned his master’s degree in social work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Porter now works with groups of ex-offenders in a strenuous seven-month program that he helped develop. The participants of the program have to do things like community service, participate in therapy and look for employment.

Porter’s story is inspiring. He is one of many ex-felons that are trying to make a difference in the way ex-convicts transition back into society. The news is saturated so many negative stories that it’s nice listen to segment with a positive ending.

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