Taking Control of Your Career

I provide support and guidance in individual confidential sessions primarily in person for those who live in New England or New York and over the telephone for those living in other parts of the country. I work with lawyers actively seeking new positions as well as those simply interested in exploring their options. This enables clients to make informed decisions by giving them the information they need to overcome the barriers, including false assumptions and outside pressures, that keep them from making positive career moves.

What Do I Charge?

Many clients learn that they do not have to choose between staying in the law or leaving it. They begin to see themselves not simply as lawyers but as individuals each with unique goals, values, skills and abilities. By focusing on settings, fields and roles that appeal to them, rather than on "legal positions", they discover worlds where not only their legal training, but many of their other experiences, interests and talents are relevant qualifications.

I would also like to acknowledge here that much of the material you will read on various pages of this website were developed in collaboration with Mark L. Byers, Ph.D., a friend, colleague and former partner who I had the privilege of working closely with from 1983-2004. Among other joint efforts such as designing and drafting surveys, he and I co-authored online articles for FindLaw’s Find Satisfaction in the Law Column. Dr. Byers is currently in private practice in psychotherapy  (including a specialty in work-related stress)  and continues to do vocational counseling for lawyers and other professionals. He can be reached at mark.byers@post.harvard.edu tel. (617) 899-4654.

While most of my time from 1984-1994 was devoted to advising law students, I have not had much of an opportunity to work with them since. As a favor to friends, I have also on some occasions been asked to talk to their sons and daughters (and grandchildren) considering attending law school. I strongly encourage both those in law school and those contemplating being thereto read Overcoming Law School's Defects..

THE CAREER SEARCH

My approach requires that clients take control over the process and make all important decisions relating to their careers. There are two phases - the first, the Career Search, is followed by the Search for a Satisfying Position. During the Career Search, clients

  • analyze and evaluate their present position
  • review their past decisions
  • recognize what is important
  • become aware of goals, values and needs
  • learn about and consider a range of options, and
  • choose a setting consistent with their goals.
Quotes from “The Reinvention of Work” by Matthew Fox(no relation),a defrocked Catholic priest:

"If there is no bliss in our work, no passion or ecstasy, we have not yet found our work. We may have a job, but we do not yet have work. We have a right to and a need for joy in our work. There can be no joy in living without joy in our work." Page 95

"Here we come face-to-face with the mystery of vocation, or calling. …we find our calling by our natural inclinations, by that which we enjoy doing, are equipped to do, and feel joy in doing. …. In our times, we workers are being called to reexamine out work: how we do it; whom it is helping or hurting; what it is we do; and what we might be doing if we were to let go of our present work and follow a deeper calling." Page 103

"I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people." Page 104

"If our work is small it is not revelatory; it contains no mystery, no deep passion …no wisdom, no real truth. It is drudgery without meaning; it is sweat without purpose; it is duty without play; it is toil alone that bears no fruit. It lacks newness, energy and hope for the future. It is not an adventure. It is not bigger than we are, calling us to expand as the universe is expanding. When our work is too small it lacks Spirit." Page 122

THE SEARCH FOR A SATISFYING OPPORTUNITY

When, and only when, clients know what they want to do, are they prepared to begin the Search for a Satisfying Opportunity. During this second phase clients

  • develop an action plan
  • draft targeted resumes
  • build databases of contacts and potential employers
  • make contact and promote themselves
  • prepare for interviews, and
  • consider and accept offers.

Once you have entered the search phase, I suggest that you read How to Search for a Position

FOR MORE INFORMATION

If you would like more details about how I work, please write or call me at (781) 639-2322.Here is some advice about contracting with career planners and my fee structure. There is no cost to you or any obligation for the time I spend responding to specific questions about my services.

Lawyer Satisfaction Blog - Law Students