#374: How to Be a Happier (and More Profitable) Attorney

Dina Cataldo (00:00):
Do you feel happier today than you did eight months ago?

Kara Brinster (00:03):
Yes.

Kara Brinster (00:06):
Calmer, which certainly leaves room for, for happier. Uh, when you don't feel like your hair's on fire every single day, it definitely leaves room for, for a happier, calmer life.

Dina Cataldo (00:22):
Hi, I'm Dina Cataldo, a master coach and ex criminal prosecutor. I created. Be a Better Lawyer Podcast for driven lawyers like you who want more from life than sitting behind a desk. You've been playing by other people's rules. Those rules have left you overwhelmed. Unfulfilled, and feeling like a hamster on a wheel. I've been there. I was doing everything people told me to do to be successful, working late nights, weekends, and trying to make everyone happy. So why wasn't I happy and I wanted more in life? When was I going to find time to find and pursue that? Well, I did. And I'm sharing with you my secrets to living a happier and more fulfilling life. This podcast gives you a lifetime of wisdom, mindset, principles, and bedrock strategies to give you unshakeable confidence, more time to pursue your goals, a powerful sense of purpose to uplevel your life and law practice and so much more. These are things we, we were never taught in law school. This podcast bridges the gap between law, school and life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.

Dina Cataldo (01:26):
Hello. Hello. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. I have a very special guest that I want to introduce you to. Kara Brister. She is born and raised, North Dakota. She is an attorney who does everything within the family law arena, divorce, custody, adoption. She does mediations, parenting evaluations, and she is also the elected state's attorney for her county. So she has quite a full plate. She also is a mother. She is a wife. She is now, she's able to be an avid crafter again and an avid quilter again. And she goes camping. She loves all the things, camping and quilting. We have fun conversations about that. And when she first came to me, her life was very different than it is now in terms of how she feels. And one of the big things I remember talking to you about Kara, is how you wanted to be happier.

Kara Brinster (02:27):
Yes.

Dina Cataldo (02:27):
. Do you feel like you're happier today than you were? I think we've been working together. What, like 10 months?

Kara Brinster (02:34):
Mm-hmm .

Dina Cataldo (02:35):
So do you feel happier today than you did eight months ago?

Kara Brinster (02:38):
Yes.

Kara Brinster (02:40):
Calmer, which it certainly leaves room for for happier. Uh, when you don't feel like your hair's on fire every single day. It definitely leaves room for, for a happier, calmer life.

Dina Cataldo (02:56):
Yeah. And I just want people listening to this know that it's not like we cut work out of what we're doing, .

Kara Brinster (03:08):
I don't have time to cut work out of what I'm doing. I have, well, two full-time jobs I guess. I mean, technically they're part-time, but there's nothing part-time about being a lawyer.

Dina Cataldo (03:19):
No. And then when you're also a mom Yep. Have responsibilities that are not always gonna be in sync with your law practice in the way that it works. You're gonna need to leave early on days. And we worked on that together around things that you were doing that you weren't creating boundaries so that you could go pick up your daughter Ella, when you wanted to just leave and you weren't putting work until the very last, split second before you had to leave to pick her up.

Kara Brinster (03:51):
Yes. Yeah. I now have an hour at the end of the day. That's just for like, cleanup, whatever. Little things need to be finished before the end of the, before the next day. I, I don't take do scheduling anything after four o'clock.

Dina Cataldo (04:06):
Hmm. I wanted to bring you onto the podcast because one, I think it's really difficult for people to understand what coaching is in the impact that it can have until you actually experience it.

Kara Brinster (04:18):
Yes.

Dina Cataldo (04:19):
. And I'm curious for you, is there anything that really surprised you about the work we did together?

Kara Brinster (04:29):
Probably how much I really got out of it. Like I didn't, I, I don't know that I expected as much as what I got. Cool. Um, how much calmer I feel about, I mean, there can be a hundred bombs going off and we just take a deep breath and keep pushing forward. And I don't know that I could do that before. Interesting. Um, I, I think before I started coaching, it was a constant thought of there has to be a better way to do this, but never really knowing how to find that. And through coaching, I, I got there. Like, I found a way to function and manage and breathe. 'cause there were, there are days that don't feel like you can breathe. Um, and now I know how to, I know how to manage all of that even though the workload didn't change. I mean, I still have as much work to do now as I ever did. Um, but now I, I manage it better than I ever did. Um, and so I I I can breathe. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't feel like I'm constantly hitting a panic button.

Dina Cataldo (05:42):
Yeah. And it's interesting because when we're hitting that panic button and we think we have to do everything now, then what happens is, is our nervous system gets really activated and it makes it impossible for us to think. And that makes it impossible for us to problem solve calmly. And sometimes we're creating problems we have to go back and fix. But when you calm your nervous system like we work together to do, you were able to have more brain power, more energy so that you could address the things that were happening in your practice that felt like fires and do it in a way that was a lot cleaner, creating good boundaries for yourself. You, you, you were releasing any resentment around anything. 'cause it was, and correct me if I'm wrong, you, it was like you felt more control over the situations.

Kara Brinster (06:32):
Yeah. It, it definitely was. And, um, certainly a lot less like thinking about work outside of work because I, I was tracking things better. We, we found solutions for some of the things that kept driving me crazy because I, I couldn't figure out how to get past an issue because I couldn't get my brain to get outta my own way.

Dina Cataldo (06:56):
. That's right. .

Kara Brinster (07:00):
And so it, we, we found ways to put solutions into place to have my assistance help with things that I was otherwise taking ownership of that I didn't necessarily need to take ownership of. Um, and so it, it created a calm that I didn't otherwise have. Um, because we could put some, put work on the people that we pay to do, do work

Dina Cataldo (07:25):
Revolutionary. Right.

Kara Brinster (07:27):
And, and I don't have to own it all. I I have people that I can trust to do some of those tasks. And it meant that I didn't have to be thinking about everything at every minute of every day.

Dina Cataldo (07:40):
You know, this also brings me to something that we talked about, which was you weren't just doing that at the office, like keeping everything stored in your head, wanting to do the things. You were also doing that at home and it was creating some resentment towards your husband because you felt like you had to keep everything in your head. Right. Tell me how that played out for you and how you resolved that. I,

Kara Brinster (08:05):
I think finding a way to calm my nervous system down and, and get my brain outta my way allowed me to figure out how to tell my husband what I needed. I need you to do this, that, and the other thing. And, and he could hear me because I, I, I wasn't approaching it in a way that made it harder for him to hear because I sounded more complaining than, you know, asking for help. And, and now we have, we found different ways that he knows what, what the things are. Like what, what, what does drive me crazy? What,

Dina Cataldo (08:46):
Right.

Kara Brinster (08:47):
There are still things that drive me a little bit crazy, don't get me wrong. Um, but we have found ways to get around some of that. Um, and to solve, to problem solve for it without having to get mad or, or angry about how things were going.

Dina Cataldo (09:03):
Can you talk a little bit more to this? Because I think just about every single attorney I talk to has issues with their significant other and how things are getting done in their household, and they're very angry about it, and they, they feel resentful about it and they're holding onto it and they don't know how to communicate it, or they try to communicate it, but then their partner doesn't understand them and then they get frustrated. So I'm curious, how do you handle those moments when you have something you wanna ask of your husband and you wanna communicate it, but it doesn't seem like they can hear you?

Kara Brinster (09:44):
Well, first of all, I have to stop talking like a lawyer be, because I am so used to being directive

Dina Cataldo (09:53):
Mm-hmm .

Kara Brinster (09:54):
Um, I have to take that that hat off for a minute. And, and remember that this, this isn't a lawyer client relationship with my husband . It's not me telling him what to do. Um, sometimes he reminds me to quit lawyering him. Um, because it, it's hard to, to get out of that role sometimes. Um, and, and to move into a more, like, I, I don't have to be directive with you. I, I can, we can ask and we can talk and we can have conversations. Um, and so a lot of times I have to remind myself of that, but we've found, um, a, an app that works for sharing information because we can keep, like, if I'm thinking about something, I can just like sort of brain dump it onto, um, this, it's a, like a note taking type app, um, that allows me to put everything down that I'm thinking about. Um, and then he can check it.

Dina Cataldo (10:51):
Do you know the name of it?

Kara Brinster (10:53):
Um, it's Google Keep.

Dina Cataldo (10:54):
Okay. I'll put it in. It

Kara Brinster (10:55):
Lets you just make like to-do list type notes or, um, calendars and different things like that. And it lets us, I can just dump it all out because sometimes my brain randomly pulls these things up out of nowhere random, and then I can write it down in someplace where he can see it and I don't have to try to remember to tell him about it later. Um, and then he'll go into the, the shared note and, um, find whatever it is we're looking for. Um, and so then he can do the things too. And it's not just me holding onto all that information mm-hmm . Um, which sometimes is the problem is he doesn't even know what he doesn't know.

Dina Cataldo (11:36):
Yeah. I mean, so many of us expect people to read our minds, which it would be sometimes it would be wonderful if they could do that, but I think it would also be very, um, confused. No, . I don't want people to know what's in my head. .

Kara Brinster (11:49):
No, that would be bad.

Dina Cataldo (11:52):
. Um, but that also brings me to keeping it from keeping everything in your head and having these conversations with your husband, but also creating a relationship with your calendar so you're not keeping everything in your head when it comes to what you need to do. Can you talk about your ? Can you talk about your experience with the calendar and maybe kind of give us a snapshot of before you and I started working together and then after we started working together?

Kara Brinster (12:20):
So before my calendar was just appointments, what, what appointments were coming up that day? Um, or hearings. Uh, it never had any, anything else on it. I maybe had a random to-do list on an, in a notebook page that was probably three weeks old and everything else was in my head. Hmm. If there was a deadline or a due date, it was all floating around in my brain. Um, I was the only one that knew when anything was due. Um, and that was it. Like, that was, that was my, my method of keeping track. I mean, there, there was maybe a deadline put on a calendar, um, if it was like a trial deadline where we got a, a scheduling order on a hearing, like those kind of things got put on a calendar. Um, but if, if a motion was filed and there was a response due in two weeks, yeah. That was in my head.

Dina Cataldo (13:11):
Oh my gosh.

Kara Brinster (13:12):
How was that, that that didn't make it on a calendar? , what

Dina Cataldo (13:15):
Was that impacting your practice?

Kara Brinster (13:18):
Uh, well, I never missed a deadline, but I'm pretty sure I probably missed some sleep because I kept, those things would just like pop in my head at random days and times. Oh yeah, I gotta get that one thing done. And so when are you doing it at 10 59 on the night that it's due and it's due by midnight.

Dina Cataldo (13:39):
Hmm.

Kara Brinster (13:39):
And you're, you're cramming it out. Well, um, with your help, I, I started weekly, um, going through my digital calendar and moving it onto my paper calendar, um, like the week before, and then doing a brain dump like 20 ish minutes of time just writing out everything that was in my head and, and then building space into my calendar to do all of the things that needed to be done. Um, and so all the little, the gaps in the calendar, you know, you have an appointment at one and another one at four, well, you've got a few hours in between. What are you gonna do? I that got calendared, what was I gonna do during that time? Um, and all of those extra deadlines that I was probably holding onto in my head, um, my assistants now put on the calendar so that I can see them coming. Mm. Yeah. And so I, we, we worked out a method in our office to get all that stuff on the calendar so I didn't have to hold onto it.

Dina Cataldo (14:42):
Yeah. I think that's what lawyers don't understand is that once they start figuring this stuff out for themselves, that then it, it keeps compounding how much easier it gets. So you figure out how to use your time and then you realize, oh, wait a minute. I can ask my assistant to do things in the system that I like, because now I know what I like and I know what I want. 'cause I've been trying it, I've been figuring it out myself, and then my assistant can take over some things and it, it keeps compounding. So you might notice something cleaning up, you know, having more time now that you've cleaned up some things, but then you make more time because now you've systematized it and you pass that on to your assistant and then she takes care of it.

Kara Brinster (15:25):
Yeah. Um, Amanda goes through at the, I don't, I don't even know how often she does this because it just magically appears on my calendar. It's great. Um, but she puts in blocks of time every, every week has so many blocks of time to do actual work. And it's blocked out ahead of time so that nobody can calendar over the top of it With including me. I can't calendar over the top of it. Uh, I'm really bad at screwing myself up, you know, I'm supposed to have a block of time to work, so instead I let somebody have an appointment there mm-hmm . Except I can't because she put it on the calendar. And so it looks like it's blocked out, so I'm less likely to calendar over the top of it.

Dina Cataldo (16:10):
That's

Kara Brinster (16:10):
A pro. And so yeah, block it out, make time, put time on the calendar in advance for time to do actual work. Um, and then you can go home at five o'clock if you want to. Yeah. Or in my case, three 30 on Mondays, because we have dance class an hour away,

Dina Cataldo (16:32):
Gotta make sure that you set things up for the life that you want to have. And that brings me to helping you create the time that you wanted and you helping yourself create the time that you wanted to do the things you enjoyed. So one thing you do enjoy is spending time with Bella. Yep. But you also love spending time in your craft room. Mm-hmm . And it took some time to get in there, but now you're in there, right? Yep. What, what helped you do that? What did you do differently? Because, and I want anyone listening to know like, okay, maybe you're not a crafter, but what kind of hobbies have you been putting to the wayside that you absolutely loved? Maybe you stopped hiking once you became a lawyer. Maybe you stopped reading for free time. You know, those kinds of things because there was no such thing as free time anymore. Maybe you enjoyed playing an instrument and you just stopped, but you really wish you could do it. Well, car tells how you did it.

Kara Brinster (17:28):
Well, I, I worked backwards. I put that on the calendar first. Um, I wanna leave at noon on Friday so that I have, this works better in the school year than it does in the summer, by the way. Um, because then Ella's in school on Friday afternoon, not at home, but I believe at noon on Friday, I put it on the calendar. That's what I do. Yeah. And then that noon to three or four o'clock till she's outta school, I can do what I want to do. And that's spend time working on different projects, whether it's a quilt or a craft project. Um, I have a good friend and I go on quilt trips and we put, we calendar those out like six months just to make sure neither one of us get anything booked over the top of it. 'cause she too is a lawyer. Um, and I highly recommend getting a, a lawyer friend who does your hobby because that is a person you can vent to, because they absolutely know with no back, with no backfill what you're going through. Um,

Dina Cataldo (18:35):
Yeah. And,

Kara Brinster (18:37):
Uh, it, it, it's great that way be just, 'cause then I don't have to try to explain what is the problem or what's funny about that story. I can, we, we can visit without, um, having to explain why it's

Dina Cataldo (18:53):
Less fun than you have to explain the joke.

Kara Brinster (18:56):
Yeah. It, it's a whole lot easier if, if they already understand. Um, but we put those weekends on the calendar way in advance so that we have time, so we make time to do it. Yeah. Because

Dina Cataldo (19:09):
You make time for what's important to you. I think a lot of us are, we're hoping that more time's gonna open up or we think, well, if I just work a little harder, if I just push a little harder, more time is gonna open up. Has that been your experience?

Kara Brinster (19:22):
No.

Dina Cataldo (19:23):
. I don't know why so many people think that. I think we just forget, or we're, we're not accustomed to thinking about it in terms of we create time versus feeling like we're at the victim of everybody else's assignment that we're getting. And, you know, once you begin taking control, when you start feeling more power in your life to say, yes, I will do this. No, I'm not gonna do this. No, I'm leaving at this time. I will figure out a solution to this because I don't want this frustration or this this thing going on in my practice anymore. Once you start taking that power back, you start to make that time. It's, it's, it's not magic. It is decision making from clarity.

Kara Brinster (20:09):
It is. Um, it's absolutely a, a like I said, it's a backfill. I, I put the important thing on the calendar first mm-hmm . And then I fill in everything else around it.

Dina Cataldo (20:20):
Yeah. And

Kara Brinster (20:21):
Then, and then I, I say no to the things that aren't going to serve making that happen. Mm-hmm

Dina Cataldo (20:27):
.

Kara Brinster (20:28):
So, you know, that new client who clearly you can tell from the get go is a little too needy. Nope. Don't have time for that. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm . We're, we're just gonna say no to that. There's no amount of money that is going to make that worth giving up the other time.

Dina Cataldo (20:47):
Yeah. And

Kara Brinster (20:48):
That, that important time,

Dina Cataldo (20:50):
That really comes down to one of the things that I, I teach here on the podcast or with any lawyer I talk to, is put yourself on the calendar first. But what will happen is that you will feel guilty, especially if you are . I love the face. If you, you're, if you're not watching this, there's a YouTube video of it and Kara has these wonderful reactive faces, , that's, so you're gonna feel guilty because you've put yourself on the calendar and you know, something comes up, a client walks in the door and says, Hey, please, please, please, you're amazing at this. Please, please, please. Versus you having the resilience to say, what I want matters. This is what I have decided ahead of time. What's coming up for you? 'cause I see you nodding.

Kara Brinster (21:38):
It took some time and, and a little, a whole lot of coaching to, to keep that time on the calendar. That was important for me. Um, to, and probably the other thing that, and this just popped in my head, is I also have a two hour time block on my calendar for doing like, office billing stuff because I own the firm. Um, somebody has to pay the bills, and that's me. And I have a two hour block of time on my calendar for that. And I spent a lot of time walking over the top of that. Yeah. Um, and it, it's, it takes a little re little bit of work to, to convince yourself that it's okay to say no because it's not gonna feel okay at first. Right. It's, it's okay to say no to the client that walked in the door. Um, it's okay to do that because I, I think we all maybe come from a place of, of feast or famine where you're always afraid that there's not gonna be the next client walking in the door. If you say no to this one, there won't be another one to take their place. And that's highly untrue. Um, if if this client thinks you're that good, they'll wait till next week. Yeah. Um, and if they don't, there'll be somebody to fill their place. Um, and it's reminding yourself of that. And that sometimes is hard to do. And coaching got me through, through how to say no

Kara Brinster (23:08):
As much as anything else, how to create that space and call it important and not let anybody walk over the top of it. Um, and I needed that. I mean, I, I went into the end of last year not having one single month's worth of records built, built into the system. I spent three months trying to fill all that in. And now I'm not even five minutes behind on doing all of that bill billing. Everything is current because I built that time into the calendar and I learned to say no to anything that might come over the top of it.

Dina Cataldo (23:49):
Yeah. That's a big deal. And I, and you're not the only lawyer who has had that happen. And I talked to a lot of lawyers who set aside, set aside time to do bills, to do time entry, and they don't do it. Not because they don't know how, not because they're bad at it or anything like that, just because they haven't yet learned the skill of saying no to other things. They haven't yet learned how to forgive themselves when they do the opposite of what they say they're gonna do. what came, what just came up for you? She's got like such a fun, like smirk. It's really adorable. .

Kara Brinster (24:32):
It's so like, I, I, this used, this is sometimes, I mean, it still happens sometimes, don't get me wrong, but it used to be ev all the time where I would plan how things were gonna go for the day and we'd get 15 minutes into the day and something would happen and the whole day got thrown aside. And by the end of the week, which is where my time slot is to do billing, I would feel like I needed to catch up on whatever I didn't get done during that week. Mm-hmm . Instead of doing the thing that I set aside time to do.

Kara Brinster (25:12):
And so through, through a lot of work with calendaring and, um, the, the mind dump and managing my time, I, I'm a little better at even the things that come in that sort of throw off the day because they're gonna happen. Um, particularly when you're the state's attorney and somebody went to jail, um mm-hmm . Those tend to come up kind of rapidly. Um, and it's, it's gonna throw things off, but you learn how to adjust and you learn how to manage that so that you still get that time at the end. Um, I learned how to leave bigger breaks in, in my day, uh, to accommodate when those things were gonna come up and, and how to, um, be honest with myself about how long things were going to take to do. Uh, because I, I think we all kind of cheat ourselves on that. Oh, it'll, it'll just take five minutes, three hours later. Right.

Kara Brinster (26:17):
Um, and so learning, learning to be honest with how long things are gonna take, breaking down each task or step into how long it's gonna take so that you acco account for everything. I, I, I think I am, I, I, my, I must continually lie to myself about how long things take. Um, and it got me to be honest with how long it was gonna take, and it made me more realistic in what I could handle. Mm-hmm. Um, and so we, I, I learned to prioritize better and how to keep those things scheduled in there and allow, I, I pretty much don't calendar Thursday because Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are gonna take longer than I thought.

Dina Cataldo (26:59):
Hey, that's a good strategy. If you know that automatically you just, you're going to need more time. That's one thing you can do. I think that's what some people don't understand about calendars is that it's a process learning how to use it in a way that works for you and your style. And everybody's gonna be a little bit different. And they're gonna find things because they, everybody has a different practice area. They have different demands on their time because of their practice area. Maybe they work in big law, whatever it is. And it does take, there's a learning curve to start to follow through on the things you say you wanna do. Begin to say no more, and then do the things that you're discovering, which is, Hey, I've got this solution. If I understand that typically I'm gonna go over, I'm gonna give myself more space. And may maybe it's, there's other solutions like really breaking down, okay, how much time am I deciding to commit to these different areas? So there's other solutions for it, but that's one solution that right now is working for you.

Kara Brinster (28:04):
Right. I mean, I could probably get more honest with myself, but part of it is also knowing that I do have some interruptions that happen in my day pretty regularly that I, I can't really calendar or account for because they're, there's more spontaneous than that. Um, but I can leave a space at the end of the week that lets me shift everything down if I need to. Yes. And, and if I have a big opening gap on Thursday, I promise there's still plenty of work to fill it in. Right. Um, I just grab something from the next week and bring it forward and work on it. It hardly ever happens though. 'cause there's enough of these spontaneous things that kind of pop up, um, that let me, it, it works for me to do it this way. Um, and other people would, you know, maybe able to break down their tasks and not have as many of these spontaneous interruptions that kind of come up. Um, but when,

Dina Cataldo (29:03):
When we, when we say spontaneous interruptions, I think we should just, we'll make it a little clear. So some people, their spontaneous and interruption may a client matter that needs to be handled right away. But it, as a prosecutor, you have officers coming into your door and you can't get ahold of these officers typically. And so if they walk through the door, you're like, please, yes. Let me grab you. Let me talk to you. Let me, let me make sure that we're on the same page about this case. Because you cannot get a hold of officers for the most part,

Kara Brinster (29:33):
. Right.

Dina Cataldo (29:35):
You do have to drop everything and say, yes, let's talk.

Kara Brinster (29:39):
We, we try to count schedule with them to come in to talk about things, but sometimes we're talking about guys who are coming off the night shift. Right. Um, and they just want to stop by quick before they go home. They see your car there and they're like, yep, I'm just gonna pop in really quick. And I, and I never wanna feel like I'm telling them, no, we can't have a conversation about a case that's important to them. And so it's just, or it might be that bail hearing that, um, pops up because you don't always know when somebody's going to jail. Um, and so those come up too. And so I, I leave a half a day of space at the end of the week to cover when those things happen. So I can shift things into that place. And I do, sometimes my calendar looks like it's a sticky note mess

Dina Cataldo (30:26):
,

Kara Brinster (30:27):
Because then I can pick it up and move it where I need it to go. If something got in, if I got interrupted in that time block, I can pick up that sticky note and move it into the next spot. Mm-hmm . Um, and so that lets me do that. And, and so I've adjusted my style a little bit. Um, when I first started, I'd, I'd literally write it on the calendar. Um, my, you know, what, what block this is and what I was gonna do in that block. And now I put it on sticky notes so I can shift it around if I need to. Beautiful. You know, sometimes it's a client calling you back that you've been trying to get ahold of for a week and a half. Yeah. So you take their call when they call. Yeah. And yeah, so it, it, it, those interruptions happen and, and that's just part of the job sometimes. And so you gotta find a style that works for you. But through coaching, I got there that, that's what I got was how to do this.

Dina Cataldo (31:22):
Yeah. But you also, like, you get the how, but you also gain that inner knowing back. I, I think so many of us lose that when we go to law school. 'cause we're in this fear already. We're trying to prove ourselves. We wanna be good enough. We want people to think we know what we're doing. And so we start following what other people are doing. I think we've even had a conversation about that where you were kind of following some things in Old boss said mm-hmm . How to do things right. And, but you start to regain that inner knowing of what you want and what feels good to you and how you can make that happen with experiment and trial and error. And now that's one of the reasons you're happier is because you now are guiding the ship. Whereas before, I don't think you felt that way.

Kara Brinster (32:08):
Exactly. It there I was informed a lot by where I came from. I think we all are informed by where you come from, um, who you worked for in the past, what kind of ideas and notions they stuck in your head. And challenging some of that to fit better to what I really wanted, uh, was, was huge.

Dina Cataldo (32:35):
Where have you seen some of that come up for you?

Kara Brinster (32:39):
How many calendars do you really have to keep

Dina Cataldo (32:41):
. That's right. That's right.

Kara Brinster (32:45):
Um, I had like three, uh, I had a work one a home, one and a paper. One, like two digital and a paper , uh, shutting off the alarms on, on. Well, let's tell them why those calendaring events. Well,

Dina Cataldo (32:59):
Let's go back and tell them why that was an issue, like why you were keeping some calendars.

Kara Brinster (33:05):
Um, because my old boss called it a malpractice thing to keep two calendars. He had this like thing in his head where he had to have two calendars. It had to be two different ones. Like when I first started at his firm, there were two paper calendars.

Dina Cataldo (33:21):
Okay.

Kara Brinster (33:22):
Like one big one for the whole firm and then like an individual one for each lawyer paper, and then the digital on top of that

Dina Cataldo (33:30):

Kara Brinster (33:30):
Yeah. As we started getting into digital. Um, and so when I transferred over, when I, when I came out on my own, I, we had the digital calendar, which is what everybody puts things on. But then I would sit every time there was a calendar event and I would transfer that onto my paper calendar. And so then my paper calendar and my digital calendar or sometimes out of sync things weren't transferring where they needed to be. And it actually turns out that that's probably a bigger pain in the butt to have two calendars than, um, it is to, to just have one. And so we worked on figuring out which one worked best, basically. Um, and, and I still use my paper calendar, but in a completely different way than I used to.

Dina Cataldo (34:17):
Right.

Kara Brinster (34:18):
Um, I used to rely on the paper more and now I rely on my digital more. Um, and so yeah, that was probably our biggest

Dina Cataldo (34:28):
Thing was Yeah. And I mean, and the reason I wanted to share that is because I think there's a lot of lawyers working right now from these old ideas of how things are supposed to be, but then they never, they never question it. They never wonder. Or they never even ask, is this what I want? What is the reasoning behind this? Does that reasoning make sense? Does it make sense for me now working in 2025? Like, is that something that even matters? And so when, you know, we start working together, we start seeing these things come up, but, and there

Kara Brinster (35:03):
Were, there were more things that were old boss ideas that kept kind of triggering in my brain that we'd find when we started sort of challenging why we did things, why I did things the way I did them. And I'm, I'm not remembering any specific ones right now, but there were other ones where I, we'd be going through something and I'd just be like, why am I thinking about this, this way? Mm-hmm . Um, where is this coming from? And then I realized it was something, it wasn't my idea, it wasn't something that came from me. It was an idea that I brought forward from, um, my former employer. And, you know, he gave me a lot of really good things. So I don't want anybody to think that working for him was bad. But there were some things that I had to challenge why I did 'em the way I did 'em.

Dina Cataldo (35:55):
And I wanna switch gears here a little bit, because we spent a good amount of time on how you manage your time and how you started to really release some of these old ideas and start to test new ideas and reconnect with what you wanted. And that really brought us to revamping part of your practice, part of practice when it came to how you make money and in short mm-hmm. Get paid. Which we can't even really, I mean, we start at the beginning to, to, I think we raised your rates, like we talked through that. So you were making more money from the beginning. And I always like to do that with lawyers because I want them to get their investment back immediately. But that's not always, um, there's always gonna be a longer term plan. And so once your time was all cleaned up, then you started seeing other things that were going on. 'cause you had that calmness about you and you could see, oh, wait a minute. Like, my retainers are getting low and they're not getting replenished. And then I'm noticing that I'm feeling resentful or a little upset that I'm doing this work, but I'm not actually getting paid upfront for it. So we started looking at that. Can you kind of share how we transitioned into that and what you started to discover after you you'd cleaned up the, the time aspect of your practice?

Kara Brinster (37:18):
Oh, we looked at my retainer agreement. So in family law, you do a lot, you get a retainer, and maybe that's as far as you ever got, was just getting that initial retainer. Um, and so we started looking at how to just, how to do that better. Uh, and now we do a replenishing retainer and we set up guidelines for, and we talked through those guidelines like what made sense, um, for setting like a baseline. When are you gonna go back to the client and say, Hey, you need more money. Um, what, and my initial thought on when that was, um, once we talked it through was way too low.

Dina Cataldo (37:56):
.

Kara Brinster (37:57):
Um,

Dina Cataldo (38:00):
Yeah.

Kara Brinster (38:01):
Well, and because we talked it through and it, it made sense to actually give them more time to put that money down and give ourselves enough breathing room that if we had to do anything, we still had money. So the, the biggest part of it wa was literally just was talking it through how were we gonna do this? And we, you know, looked at the retainer agreement, what was wrong? Like, not necessarily what was wrong with it. It was a fine retainer agreement, but what needed to change to match what we wanted, what I wanted to do. Um, because there's no point in being resentful about not getting paid if you can get paid.

Dina Cataldo (38:38):
Right. I mean, the only thing what that wasn't happening was you weren't asking for what you wanted.

Kara Brinster (38:44):
Right.

Dina Cataldo (38:46):
Tell

Kara Brinster (38:46):
Me. And, and I never, I mean, it's not that I didn't know that we could ask for no more money, but we just never did it. We didn't have a plan in place to do it.

Dina Cataldo (38:54):
Yeah. And I think that a lot of lawyers get stuck there where they want to raise their rates, but then they start doubting themselves. They're like, well, you know, I don't really have time to go through all that. We'll just deal with it now. We won't do it. We'll just do it later when I have time. Or they're afraid to ask for more money when they know they actually need to get paid more in order to meet their expenses and to meet the expectations of their clients and all of that. Pay the bills. But they're afraid to ask for more because they're afraid the client's gonna walk away. And I'm curious how you experienced that in, in, you know, raising your rates, but then also in our conversations,

Kara Brinster (39:34):
Nobody walked away. Nobody has batted an eyelash at the higher retainer amount. Um, I've had clients come back from like former clients that have now come back into the, for various reasons. I tell them the new rate. I haven't even had, I, they don't even like flinch. Okay. I tell them the new retainer amount. Okay. That, I mean, and that is all that we, there's, nobody's even flinched at the, the new amounts. And so waiting did nothing but prevent me from being calmer because I'm now not angry about the fact that nobody's paying their bill, or I'm, I should say we're less angry about that. But there's no point in being the busiest lawyer in the room if you're not getting paid. And, and so we just had to come to terms with the fact that you can withdraw.

Dina Cataldo (40:37):
Yeah. I mean, that's a really big deal. Is you feeling comfortable with the fact that if they don't wanna pay, they are not my ideal client. They are not somebody who is going to replenish the retainer. If that's needed for me to move forward in the case, I need to just say goodbye. Yeah. And that, that doesn't require fortitude. It does require resilience. Because your body is saying, wait a minute, danger, danger, danger, we're gonna lose money. That puts us in physical harm. Danger. And but

Kara Brinster (41:06):
You, you aren't losing any money.

Dina Cataldo (41:09):
Exactly. The

Kara Brinster (41:10):
Only money you're losing is what you could earn by letting that client go and taking on one that actually can pay.

Dina Cataldo (41:17):
Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Brinster (41:19):
The money you're losing is the money that you are forfeiting by doing work, you know, you're not getting paid for. Mm-hmm. And so it, we needed a plan on, at the end of the day, there was, we had to come up with a plan for how this was gonna go. And we talked through that a lot. Mm-hmm

Dina Cataldo (41:40):
. And then you got your, like we talked through how to get your staff on board so that you wouldn't have to keep track of things. Yeah. Can you talk that?

Kara Brinster (41:50):
Um, well we explored the system that we use Clio for our practice management software. Um, and we explored that system for like, what do we need to do? So the system alerts us, um, figured that out. We talked, we set a plan for, you know, when we were gonna set that dollar amount for and who was gonna have that conversation. Um, who's gonna have that conversation with the client mm-hmm . Um, is it me, is it my assistant? Who's gonna bring it to our attention? How are we gonna know about this? Mm-hmm . And um, now we have staff meetings every week Yes. That we didn't ever used to have. I'm

Dina Cataldo (42:27):
Just letting everybody, it'd be 15 minutes staff meeting. It's magic.

Kara Brinster (42:33):
And, and we, we troubleshoot what we might see coming at those meetings. Um, my associate attorney works in a different town office from, from me. And he zooms in for those meetings so that we can all be in the same place at the same time for 15 minutes. And we're, we've come up with ideas for how if we see a problem now we problem solve it together, all four of us and, and figure out how we can fix it. Um, and it, that's amazing. And it, that 15 minutes has, um, produced some pretty good results for us, uh, to know what we want to do and how we want do it. And, um, it's been great and it keeps us all connected together, which is really nice too.

Dina Cataldo (43:19):
Yeah. And that's a long way. 'cause I remember when we first started working together, it, you had a pretty much like an open door policy where they just came in. Your assistant would come in, interrupt you if you were in the middle of something and then you started realizing, well, you know, when I go outside there for paper or whatever I need, I can just ask really quickly, is there anything you need? I'm gonna go back in and I have a time block. Right. Like, how is that working for you right now?

Kara Brinster (43:45):
Good. Um, with our staff meetings, we have less of those kinds of things. Um, 'cause I'm, I'm catching them without having to have another timeframe. Um, and then yeah. When I, when I go out to get a drink or, um, when I get up from my desk, I'll just stop and anybody need anything. Um, and then that it, my brain's already interrupted mm-hmm . At that point. So it's much easier to handle the question and then refocus on what I, what's next if I'm already in the middle.

Dina Cataldo (44:20):
Yeah.

Kara Brinster (44:21):
So,

Dina Cataldo (44:22):
And I just wanna spend like a couple minutes on these meetings. 'cause I think lawyers are confused sometimes how you set them up so you can not have a long meeting and get the most value out of them. And one of the things I know that you do is you check in to see about retainer, replenishments. What else do you check in on? Do you ask any questions so that you can get the most outta your meetings?

Kara Brinster (44:44):
Um, we have a running agenda. Um, I, we just created like a Word document on the computer. Everybody knows where it is. If you have a thought about something or you need to talk about something, you put it on the agenda. So we have a running agenda. Um, and then we just very briefly, anybody have anything else? Nope. Okay. And because we do it every week, it takes less than 15 minutes and we do it right before lunch. So everybody is motivated to be done

Dina Cataldo (45:09):
Like that. . Yeah. It doesn't have to take a long time. And you can get so much out of them. And they have that compound effect again of, okay, we handle this problem, we handle these problems, and then now when something comes up, we handle it right away. And then there's no fire in the future.

Kara Brinster (45:28):
Right. Yeah. We, we are catching things before they become an issue. Um, and so it, it's, the staff meeting has actually added to everybody's productivity.

Dina Cataldo (45:42):
Oh, I love that. What are, what is your staff able to do now that you have those meetings?

Kara Brinster (45:49):
Usually they're, we're, we're catching, um, now I'm trying to think of something that we catch when we do these meetings, but it's, um, one of the last things we talked about was utilizing, um, like the task feature in Clio, um, and how we wanted to do that. And that we're just, we're gonna give it a try right now to see how it works out. Is it gonna benefit everybody? So when you, instead of saying sending an email or another kind of message, you create a task and you assign it to them, and then when it's done, they click done and it sends it back to you that it's done. Um, and it cuts down on the amount of, um, back and forth we have to do because you put it all into one event. Hmm. Um, and that came out of a staff meeting using that feature came out of a staff meeting. So they're finding those suggestion things and pushing 'em forward. So.

Dina Cataldo (46:46):
Hmm. I love that. All right. So let me ask you this as we wrap up here. Is there anything that you wish I had asked you or that you really want other lawyers to know about? Anything that either you and I have talked about or we've talked about here on the podcast?

Kara Brinster (47:06):
Coaching is worth it. Um, it was worth every minute that I've put into it because it's definitely made me more productive, um, and calmer, which is a huge deal, uh, when you are juggling home and office and kids and family and all of the demands on your time. Just being able to be calm and, and slow down. Um, I, I move much slower now than I ever used to. I used to feel like my hair was on fire all the time. . Um, but I'm, I'm calmer and slower, but I get a lot more done than I ever did before because I'm moving at a pace that lets me think. And I got that from coaching.

Dina Cataldo (47:56):
Ah, can you please tell everybody listening where they can find you if they wanna refer somebody to you, if they want to check out your website, which is really good. I really like your website. It's very clear. It says, you know who you are. I'm gonna put that all these links in the show notes. But is there anything besides the website you'd like to point their attention to?

Kara Brinster (48:20):
Um, our website's probably our main point of contact, but, uh, we're Brinster Law, PC and Carrington North Dakota. Um, and I am living proof that you can live in the middle of nowhere and have a very successful practice, uh, especially this day and age with electronics and our ability to do everything from everywhere. So, um, our website is brister law office.com. And, um, yeah, if you have a client in North Dakota that you need to refer, we're, we're here. .

Dina Cataldo (48:51):
Yeah. And honestly, I think that lawyers who care about their clients like you do, it is very clear to me from the work that we do together. You love your clients, you want your clients to be happy, you want what's best for them. And so many heart-centered lawyers undercut themselves on their rates. They undercut themselves on what's possible for them in their practice. And what you really did is say, no, I'm worth having what I want. And you invested in yourself and you invested not just, you know, money, but time and energy, and you're consistently showing up for yourself and your business. And it, it's just reflected on everything you're creating in your life. And I just wanna acknowledge how beautiful that is.

Kara Brinster (49:37):
Thank you.

Dina Cataldo (49:40):
Thank you so much for joining us here today, and thank you everybody for being here. I'm gonna link to Kara's website in the show notes, and I will talk to you next week. Bye. If you love what you're learning on the podcast, join me inside one of my coaching programs. There will take what you're learning here, put it into practice, and take your life and law practice to levels you didn't know possible. You can work with me one-on-one or inside of Timepiece for Lawyers, my signature group coaching program by going to dina cataldo.com. There you can sign up for a complimentary strategy session and sign up for the wait list for the next enrollment period for timepiece for lawyers. Now is the time to take charge of your life and your law practice. I will help you every step of the way. Let's go.