How to know when your AI plan needs to be revisited
*A response from someone who watched these fault lines converge from the inside.*
While I read Gina Rubel‘s recent piece, Warning Signs Mid-Market Firms Ignore at Their Peril Before a Forced ‘Combination’ or Collapse, I couldn’t help but see
Confession time (again). My head is busy. Always busy. I am thinking. Always thinking. The Sports Dude can see when I am thinking. Deeply thinking.
When I am over-stimulated with ideas, caffeine, and people, it can be overwhelming, and I end up processing externally.
As you can imagine, it is difficult to hear when you’re
Lawyers, by nature, are risk averse. They lack resilience. Don’t take my word for it, Dr. Larry Richard has done the research. So it comes to no surprise that lawyers and law firms have been unnervingly silent regarding the administration’s recent actions against lawyers, law firms, the First Amendment, as well as the rule of law.
I was very heartened to see the American Bar Association (ABA) take a public stance yesterday in their statement, The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession. I know most people won’t click through to read their statement, so I will post the full text at the end of this post. But first, I need to explain why I stand with the ABA and why I have signed onto a petition asking the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), where I had the pleasure of serving on its International Board of Directors, twice, to also speak up boldly and loudly in support of rule of law.
My family fled Eastern Europe during the Pogroms. If you’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof, that was loosely based on the Kishinev Pogrom that my great-grandparents and their children survived (my grandfather was born soon after), and what drove them to America. I only know this because of researching my family’s ancestry. Silent generation and all.
Continue Reading What’s stopping you from standing up for the rule of law?
We live in interesting times. That is just a factual statement.
Right now, many people feel insecure, scared, and confused, while others feel just fine, perhaps elated and emboldened. That isn’t anything other than a factual statement as well.
In our leadership roles, we often talk about bringing our authentic selves to work, but does
For those who follow me, you know I am not big on New Year’s resolutions. I prefer daily resolutions or intentions.
But this year, I’d like to introduce a new concept: Why not set aside everything you think you know?
Stay with me here.
I was in a meditation meeting on Friday, where we
Is it time to wake up to what Twitter has become?
Continue Reading Has Twitter become a “neighborhood with broken windows”?
Environment. Social. Governance. Three simple words that are easy to define. But put together they mean something different and powerful.
ESG for short is about our standards of operation. It can mean different things to different companies and law firms, but it is important, a wave of the future. It’s also on-trend on websites, as practice groups, and in RFPs.
ESG is not Y2K; it’s not a fad or just a trend to ignore.
ESG is something that needs to be seriously contemplated in a law firm. It’s not something you can copy/paste onto your website and say, “Yeah, we can help you on this.”
ESG is more akin to a DEI or even CyberSecurity practice. You will be hard-pressed to lead if you are not living these ideals.
Continue Reading Law Firms, Get Thy ESG in Order
I’ve been meaning to write on this event for years but wanted to give enough time between the conversation and now for anonymity. I share about this conversation often because it is something most women relate to and it has nothing to do with people who sat around the conference room table that day.
Sitting in the conference room on a bright, sunny day were a group of law firm leaders, all men, save for myself and the woman partner to my left. We were discussing an upcoming firm event to be held at the home of one of the partners later that evening. When asked if he was good with the event scheduled to begin just hours from then, the partner responded, “My wife is handling all the details” and then went casually back to his conversation unconcerned about caterers, menus, table linens, what time was he going to sneak out of the office, decorations, were the toilets cleaned, music, and what would the neighbors say about all the cars.
The conversation around the table then turned to who picks up the dry cleaning (the wives). Who takes/took the kids to the doctor’s appointments (the wives). Who coordinates the after-school activities (the wives). Who handles the shopping, the cooking, the household (the wives). Vacations (the wives). His parents (the wives).
After much discussion around the table, I leaned to my left and whispered to the only other woman in the room, “I am the wife.” And she looked at me with exuberance, understanding, connectedness, and whispered, “Me too!” A secret bond between us born.
But back to the conversation around the table, and it was unanimously decided to make sure the firm sent the partner’s wife flowers to thank her for all her hard work.
Forget never letting them (whoever “them” or “they” are) see us sweat. We can never let them see us “wife.” But those days, I hope, are nearing their end.
(end scene)
When we discuss women in law, and why women leave the law, and why women do not achieve partnership in law firms (which is very nuanced, but THIS topic is PART of the issue, not the whole of it), we cannot do so without discussing the “hidden load,” as described in this BBC article: The hidden load: How ‘thinking of everything’ holds mums back.
Continue Reading “I am the wife,” I said.
Whew. I am putting fingers to keyboard for the first time in what feels like forever. It was at least a pandemic, a new liver (for the Sports Dude), and an insurrection ago. I don’t even remember when (although I could easily look it up).
Are you still there, dear readers? How are you? How is your family? Are you thriving, surviving, or just hanging on?
Did 2020 make you stronger? Find a new you? Make changes for the better?
Did it overwhelm you? Knock you off balance? Kick your ass? Or a combination of it all?
Was there a right way or a wrong way to do 2020?
I feel as if I am coming out of a haze. Just prior to the pandemic’s beginning the Sports Dude’s health took a bad turn. As you may or may not know, he suffers from acute ulcerative colitis and had to have his colon removed about 15 years ago. There was a chance that he would develop primary sclerosing cholangitis, which he did, and that it could go acute, which it did, necessitating a liver transplant, which he had on October 10, 2020.
As we met with the Liver Transplant team at Oschner Medical Center and spoke with his liver doctor back in Los Angeles, we discovered we were in the right place.
Continue Reading Are you there blog? It’s me, Heather
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Gina Rubel for her new podcast On Record. My topic: How to Differentiate Yourself and Your Law Firm.
The program was recorded at the end of March 2020 when we were deep in the COVID-19 pandemic, so we could not not discuss how firms and