Hey, Y'all

I learned very early in my legal career that:

1. My mediator mentality means that I am NOT a litigator,

2. Great lawyers aren't generally great managers, and

3. Good lord law firms are rife with conflict.

[And the years have confirmed this.]

Back it up a bit...

I was that rare breed of child who decided at the age of 12 that I would be a lawyer. In high school, a friend of mine suggested that I should look into mediation and becoming a mediator. And the more I looked into dispute resolution, the more in love I fell with it. So, when I was applying to law school, my standard became: what’s the best dispute resolution program?

As planned, I earned a Master of Dispute Resolution at the same time as I was earning my J.D. degree. While studying for my degrees, I mediated small claims cases filed in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. Mediating those cases provided not only the opportunity to hone my conflict management skills in a wide variety of disputes, but also to gain immense insight into human behavior as it relates to conflict.

After graduating, in addition to practicing law for over 15 years, I have continued to cultivate my conflict management skills and knowledge, and volunteered locally mediating civil cases, and taught negotiation and mediation as an adjunct professor at the local law school for about 10 years.

Let's be honest...

Law school prepares us to be legal technicians; it doesn’t teach us how to manage employees or the day-to-day of running a business.

Historically this makes sense...

Practicing law is first and foremost a profession, and like accountants and doctors, we are trained in the technical aspects of our area of expertise. The "business of law" is a relatively new concept.

My first lawyer job was with a personal injury firm, and I knew very quickly that it was not a good fit for me. As I was giving my resignation at that first job, I was reflecting on the amount of conflict within the firm and how it affected employee turnover and was affected by the various management styles of the leadership.

I couldn’t help but wonder why there aren’t resources available to help lawyers and law firm managers deal with the conflict that inevitably arises when strong personalities come together.

...And I tucked that thought away for another day.

One thing held true at each firm I joined:

I could tell within a week or so where the kinks in the chain were, and what changes could be implemented to vastly decrease inter-office conflict, and improve productivity and revenue.

Y'all, I have heard some STORIES over the years...

Lawyers Throwing coffee cups at other lawyers
Yelling and cussing at attorneys and employees
Attorneys getting into screaming matches
Lawyers refusing to speak to other lawyers in the firm
Weekly memos designating new "fireable offenses"

These, of course, are the sensational stories that get passed around Bar group...

...But by no means is this where the conflict began.

After a very frustrating day at work, I was thinking about my love of mediation, and my mind flashed back to that first job and the lack of resources for smaller firms to handle internal conflict. Then I thought:

"Why am I not offering this service?!"

(and immediately wondered why I hadn't thought of this before...)

At that moment I started speaking other lawyers about their experiences, paying specific attention to where the conflicts bubbled up from.

Through those conversations, it became very clear that not only could lawyers and small law firms benefit from conflict management services after conflict erupts, but also tools to catch it early or even prevent it in the first place.

And I pulled out that tucked-away thought

If you are ready to finally manage conflict instead of surrendering to it, let's set up a call to see how best we can work together.