How would you answer these interview questions?

March 12, 2012 by
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I’ve hired a lot of people over the years. I always tried to go beyond the standard interview questions so I could gain some insight into the real person sitting across the desk from me.

But I didn’t have any “sure-fire” questions to get them to reveal themselves. I played it by ear.

Today, I think I would have a few additional questions ready to ask. This morning, I read a collection of unique interview questions and I was fascinated by them, for two reasons.

First, there’s no way a job candidate could prepare for questions like, “Here’s a roll of duct tape. What are ten things you can do with it?”, “Why is a manhole cover round?” or “How many cars are there in the US?”

Answers to questions like these will show how creative they are but also how they handle the pressure of trying not to sound like an idiot. Do they have fun with the question or do they fall apart? Are they willing to admit they don’t know or will they try to fake it? Will they respond to the question with a question (e.g., “Why do you ask?”)?

The second reason I was fascinated by these questions is they made me wonder how I would answer them. There were several questions I knew I’d bomb. What does this mean? What if I was interviewing myself for the job, would I be unqualified to work for me?! And is it fair for me to ask questions like these if I wouldn’t have good answers?

What say you? How would you answer these questions? And will you use any of them with the next job candidate you interview?

Okay, here are my ten ways you could use duct tape: (1) Get your client to keep quiet in court; (2) dip in sugar water to make an ant trap; (3) fix a book with a broken binding; (4) seal a perforated air hose; (5) tape index cards to the wall when you don’t have push pins; (6) keep statues from falling over on your desk; (7) emergency rain gear; (8) fake suicide bomber vest for Halloween (!!); (9) slap a “Kick Me” sign on your friend’s back; (10) emergency handcuffs.

Now I know I wouldn’t hire me. . .

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Filed Under: Law office management, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What are you focused on right now?

March 7, 2012 by
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We all have problems. Some people dwell on their problems, some focus on solutions. Guess what? We get what we focus on.

Focus on the mess you’re in and you get more mess. Focus on what you can do, how you want things to turn out, and you can work your way out of that mess.

I have a mantra, something I say to myself every day. It keeps me focused on solutions, not problems. It helps me move forward with a positive expectancy, instead of being held back by concerns and regret. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do my best work when I’m worried about something. I’m at my best when I’m hopeful and excited and looking forward to a positive outcome.

What do I say to myself? I remind myself to, “Think about what you want, not what you don’t want.”

When I do this, I feel better about the situation. Instead of worrying and shutting down, I stimulate my creativity and attract the resources, people, and ideas I need. Thinking about what I want brings me closer to getting it.

Why does this work? I’m not sure. Some say it’s the “Law of Attraction” or quantum physics doing it’s thing. Others say it’s your subconscious mind which understands your thoughts as a command which it then executes. Some say it’s the hand of God.

Whatever the reason, it does work. Try it and see for yourself.

When you think about what you want, you feel better, more in control, more creative. Your mind comes up with ideas instead of being mired in negative emotion. You are inspired to take action, guided to the next step and the step after that.

Because we get what we focus on.

I do have a caveat. Sometimes, when you think about what you want you’re really thinking about the absence of what you want–why you don’t have it, why things went wrong, why you’re not able to find a solution. All that does is attract more negative outcomes. When you focus on “not having” you get more “not having”.

I know, crazy, right?

How can you tell you’re doing it right? If you think about what you want and that thought doesn’t feel better than your previous thought, you know you are focused on “not having”. If the thought feels better, if there’s an emotional uptick, however small, it means you’re moving in the right direction.

Think about something you want but don’t have. How does it feel? If you feel frustrated or angry or disappointed, change the thought to something that feels a little bit better. From there, you can reach for an even better feeling thought.

The better you feel, the closer you are to getting what you want. When you feel excited and joyous and positive about what you want, what you want is just around the corner.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Inspiration, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

If Goldilocks went to law school

February 27, 2012 by
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You can’t blame us for feeling the stress of our jobs as attorneys. After all, we deal with other people’s problems all day long. Some problems have life or death consequences. Others hold us accountable for every word in a fifty page document. A single omission could cost millions.

There are unrelenting demands on our time and we are under tremendous pressure to perform. Some attorneys find it difficult to cope with the stress. We read about them in the back pages of our bar journals. Most attorneys find acceptable ways to handle the pressure, however, and some even thrive on it.

What about you? Do you have too much stress in your life?

When Goldilocks ate the first bowl of porridge, it was too hot. The second bowl was too cold. She found the third bowl was just right and “ate it all up.” I think stress is like that. Too much stress can lead to burn out. There are warning signs and ways to cope, but while there may be ways to handle the stress you have to ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” If not, it’s time to make some fundamental changes in what you’re doing.

If you have no stress in your life, however, if the porridge is too cold, it’s likely that you’re not growing. If you never try anything new, never get outside your comfort zone, at best your routine will become boring. At worst it will lead to stagnation and eventually, the death of your spirit.

Your challenge is to find a level of stress in your life that is “just right”. Not too hot, not too cold. You don’t need to read books or go to therapy to figure this out. All you have to do is regularly ask yourself a simple question: “Am I happy?”

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Dealing with stress, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , ,

Two questions to ask yourself every day

February 24, 2012 by
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Every day we accomplish things. Most of them are trivial. A few are important, advancing us towards our goals.

If you want to accomplish more of the important things, there are two questions to ask yourself every single day.

The first question should be asked the night before, about the following day: “What are my three ‘most important tasks’ for today?” I’ve talked about the concept of “MITs” before. They are a key to effectiveness, making sure you’re not just getting things done but that you are getting the right things done.

You may have ten things you need to do today. Only some of them move you forward and bring you closer to your goals. Those are your MITs.

Most people let their circumstances dictate their actions. They do whatever shows up for the day. Successful people, people who know what they want to be, do, or have in the future, let their vision of that future pull them forward. Your day may be busy, filled with many tasks, but “busy” isn’t the same thing as “effective”. If you want your day to be effective, you must do your MITs.

The second question to ask yourself each day is a reality check: “What did I do today that brought me closer to my goals?” Did you do your MITs? Did you start something and not finish it? Did you do other things that weren’t on your list of MITs but which advanced you towards your goals?

Being honest with yourself about what you did today will help you choose your MITs for tomorrow.

Ask and answer these two questions every day. They will help you create your own future.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Want to bring in some new clients? What are you DOING about it?

February 16, 2012 by
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I got an email this morning from a junior associate at a law firm in southeast Asia, thanking me for my blog and newsletter. He said that as a result of reading my posts over the last two months, he brought in one big client and three small clients.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

He said he “loved” yesterday’s post and I can see why. He’s been regularly attending networking events and I could tell from his letter that he is very enthusiastic about what he does and the value he (his firm) is able to deliver. I suspect that the new clients he talked about were attracted to his passion more than anything.

I wrote back and told him that while I gave him some ideas and encouragement, all the credit goes to him. He’s the one who took those ideas and did something with them.

Many lawyers know a lot of information and could wax endlessly about what they know. Unfortunately, they often don’t benefit from what they know because they never apply it.

General George S. Patton once said, “A good plan vigorously executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ve received many ideas for bringing in new clients. Have you used any of them or are you waiting for a “perfect plan”? Two months from now, you will have read many more ideas. I challenge you use them to bring in one big client and three small clients.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Networking, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We’re putting our lives on a diet

February 7, 2012 by
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After decades of acquiring and complicating, I’m going in the opposite direction. I’m downsizing. Uncomplicating. Uncluttering.

This week, my wife and I started a major spring cleaning. (You can do that in February in California.) We’re going through closets and storage cabinets, file boxes and dresser drawers.

It’s astounding to see how much we have collected. We’re not pack rats. We’re pretty good about “not buying too much” and “not keeping too much”. And yet we’ve already gone through and disposed of (trash, re-cycle, give-away) more than I thought we even owned.

Simple. Clean. Minimal. Relaxing. That’s the feeling I want to achieve.

I donated over thirty boxes of books to my library bookstore. They were taking up room in storage. If I want to read any of them again, I’ll replace them with an ebook version.

Lean. Light. Uncomplicated.

We’re getting rid of TVs we no longer watch. (We cancelled cable two years ago. If there’s anything we want to see, we watch it online.) And furniture we no longer use. We’re going through everything, drawing hard lines about what we will keep and what we won’t.

Less. Fewer. Modern. Efficient.

One of my goals is to become paperless this year. We’ve already converted most of our billing accounts to online. We no longer carry subscriptions to newspapers or magazines. We print very few documents anymore. We prefer to save them to Evernote where they are searchable and safely stored in the cloud.

I work from home. My wife and I agree, we want to live and work in an environment that is simple and uncluttered. Sometimes it’s difficult to get rid of possessions we’ve had in our lives for many years, but once you begin, it gets easier. And since we began, I can tell you it feels great.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,

Why attorneys need to drink more booze

January 24, 2012 by
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My wife once told me I needed to drink more alcohol. She said I was too uptight and needed to loosen up.

She wasn’t serious (about the alcohol part) but I had to admit she had a point. Attorneys can be pretty serious folks at times.

You and I know a lot of attorneys. As a group, what are they like? Most of the ones I know are intelligent, hard working, responsible, and professional. They have families and hobbies and a life outside of the office. They are successful and well-rounded.

At the same time, most of the attorneys I know are very analytical and a bit uptight.

Like me.

No matter what kind of law we practice, we are all in the people business. People hire (and employ) lawyers they like and if you’re not likable, you’re making things harder on yourself.

So, if you’re a stick in the mud, or have a stick where the sun doesn’t shine, if people don’t “get” you, if you are completely unable to win friends and influence people, you might want to work on that.

I use humor to overcome my natural tendencies. I like to make people laugh. It’s a great ice breaker and helps when I’m speaking to a group.

If you need to loosen up, consider doing something different:

  • Acting classes
  • Public speaking classes
  • Stand up comedy
  • Music/art
  • Exercise
  • Sky diving/race car driving/fire walking
  • Personal development courses
  • Therapy

If you want more people to like you, you don’t have to become the life of the party. You do need to have that stick removed.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

When you’re not the best lawyer in town

January 16, 2012 by
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So you’re not the best attorney in your field. You didn’t finish first in your class. You’re not the best presenter, writer, or negotiator.

You’re just you, someone who loves being a lawyer and helping people.

And you know what? That’s enough.

You don’t have to be the best to have a very satisfying and rewarding career. In the long run, your passion for what you do will attract everything you need. You can learn what you need to know and get better at what you do.

But you must be willing to grow.

Unfortunately, many lawyers stop growing the day they receive their license. The got school “out of the way” and then switched gears to focus on building a career.

Oh they go through the motions of continuing their education but mostly because they have to, not because they want to. Soon they find themselves in a rut, a career rut where billable hours and overhead and moving up the ladder are job one. In time, many such lawyers find themselves dissatisfied with their careers, but often they don’t know why.

It’s because they’ve stopped growing.

Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Lawyers who stop learning stop adapting to the changes around them. If they’re not careful, they’ll find themselves on the endangered species list.

Learning and growth aren’t limited to the law, however. There is much more to being a lawyer. You need to learn marketing. You need to understand human psychology. You should be able to read a balance sheet. And much more.

I heard someone say (on LinkedIn, I think) that it’s no longer acceptable for an attorney to say they are “computer illiterate”. Yet many attorneys are functionally so. Yes, you can hire people to do what you don’t want to do, but in the wired world we live in today, someone who refuses to learn some basic computer skills might as well waive a white flag and call it a day.

Never stop learning. Never stop growing. Never stop adapting to the changes around you. That’s how you will survive in this jungle.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Continuing Legal Education, Inspiration, Personal development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to create a more successful law practice

January 13, 2012 by
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I read another thoughtful post by Leo Babauta on the Zen Habits blog about the subject of practice. No, he wasn’t writing about a law practice, but I thought his message of “practicing” to effect improvement applied as much to a law practice as to anything else. Plus, I like the play on words.

We are what we repeatedly do. We are the sum of our habits. If we want to change who we are, we have to change what we do.

Change begins with awareness. If you didn’t say “thank you” to the new client who just hired you (you’d be surprised at how many attorneys don’t), reading this sentence made you aware that you didn’t and also aware of how important it is. (Your mother will tell you, it’s one of the most important things you can do.) If you usually say thank you, but for some reason didn’t do it last time, there is room for improvement. The standard of excellence isn’t saying thank you most of the time, but every time.

Now that you are aware, make a decision to change. Then, practice your new habit. With something as simple as saying thank you, you might only need to be reminded. Write it down on your intake sheet, use a post it note, put it on your calendar, whatever you need to do to remember to always say thank you.

Also be aware of what happens when you get it right. Watch your new client’s face as you look him in the eye, shake his hand, and sincerely tell him how much you appreciate having him as a client. Tell him you’ll take good care of him. Let the handshake linger a few seconds longer. Give him your full attention. Say thank you, and mean it. You’ll see some of the tension leave his face as he comes to realize that you really do care.

Your law practice is a collection of habits. What you (and your staff) regularly do and how well you do it defines you, distinguishes you from other lawyers, and plays a big role in determining your success. There are big habits and many small ones and they all matter.

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Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Image, Marketing legal services, Personal development, success Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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