Case Study
“You’ve helped me get direction. I knew I wanted to do something but felt really lost. Working with you has really helped me stay focused and get direction on where I wanted my practice to go.”
– Andrea Lauritzen
BACKGROUND
Andrea Lauritzen is an estate planning attorney and partner in a Washington law office.
She'd practiced 3 years before advancing to partner and felt thrown into the fire. She was suddenly responsible for bringing in new clients and didn't know where to begin. She felt overwhelmed with all the work already on her plate and was uncertain how to manage her legal assistant effectively. Andrea noticed she would lose track of time and not bill her hours resulting in under-billing. She knew she wanted to grow her practice, but that seemed like it would take more time than she had. She decided to hire Dina. This case study contains a summary of data from 1 year of weekly one-on-one coaching sessions lasting 50 minutes each.
THE PROBLEM
Andrea had the desire to grow her practice, but she didn’t have direction. She thought her desires were unrealistic given her workload and skill set.
She was also feeling burned out, which was reflected in procrastination and dissatisfaction at the office.
DEFINITION OF SUCCESS
Andrea defined success with coaching with Dina in three ways:
- consistent growth in her practice
- quality personalized service to her clients, and
- improving her quality of life including making more quality time with family.
WHAT ANDREA TRIED BEFORE COACHING
- staying later at the office
- listening to podcasts
- color coding her calendar
- turning on alerts, so she wouldn’t miss tasks
“I was a passenger in my life. I was not the author or creator of my life.”
– Andrea
CHALLENGES TO ACCOMPLISHING HER GOALS
As we worked together, challenges to achieving her goal were revealed. The were all common challenges that many lawyers face including:
Her brain would tell her that her desires were in “fairy tale land” because she had so much to do. Her brain would tell her, “I have to stay late, “I have to respond to theses emails right away, “ “I have to tell a client that I’ll do it right away.” The brain would then shut down and not give her any options.
- Andrea was structured in her beliefs about being a lawyer that most lawyers have, which is that “busy is a badge of honor.” For example, if she didn’t stay late at the office, she made that mean that she wasn’t committed to her office, her clients, her career or her future at the office.
- She hadn’t been trained on how to use or train a legal assistant and assure that complete tasks in the way she wanted them done.
- She didn’t have direction prioritizing the most important parts of her practice
- Aversion to networking for fear of feeling “slimy” and questioned whether she belonged in the room
- She would get distracted and not log her hours accurately
- She spent more time on projects than needed such as consults
- Perfectionism was draining her mentally but also taking time away from tasks she wanted to complete
- Not noticing her body’s signals that she needed to slow down and refocus
Today, Andrea no longer feels like she is a passenger in her life, and she recognizes that she decides what comes into her life. She recognizes that what she wants matter, and that she can intentionally create the exact experience she wants to have in her life and law practice.
SOLUTION
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for any lawyer. Each solution to a problem depends on the specific challenges a lawyer faces. Solutions are crafted in response to specific circumstances in her practice.
The common threads between the solutions listed below are a focus on mindset (the ability to redirect the brain when it says “it can’t be done”) and Andrea’s consistent implementation of the coaching she received week after week.
- Becoming present in every part of her practice, so that she could discover solutions to problems she had been putting up with for years
- We created clarity on exactly the life she wanted, and continued to refine that clarity throughout our session
- Each session we checked in on her progress and made tweaks to make her progress even smoother
- We focused on problems as they came up. For example, she noticed she was frustrated that her assistant wasn’t doing what she needed her to do, so we focused on communication and leadership skills that session to redirect her assistant. In another scenario, she noticed that she was taking longer than she wanted in consults, and we created a formula that she implemented.
- We streamlined client processes that were clunky in her practice
- We focused on her beliefs about networking, and made it easy for her to connect with potential referral sources
PRESENT DAY
In Andrea’s words:
“I wake up at 6am, I take my dog for a walk. My husband joins me. He didn’t used to; he would rush off to work, but now we go on a walk together as a little family, I actually have breakfast, I actually get ready for the day (before, I was like maybe hitting the snooze button at that time).”
Andrea no longer checks her emails first, which led to her feeling overwhelmed. Instead, she reminds herself that she's already pre-planned what I’m going to do that week. Reminding herself of this allows her to start her mornings calmly. She's planned her week, so that the first hour of her day is used working on her practice instead of in it. That sets her mindset for the day, so she feels excited about the plans she's made to grow her practice and to help more people. Instead of coming to the day thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe clients are asking for this,’ Andrea steps into the day grateful and excited to help clients.
“I always take a walk at 3 o’clock. I used to never go outside, and I work in a beautiful area. I have time to go to the gym.”
“I thought I had to reach some sort of milestone in my practice or make some sort of specific revenue before I was “allowed to implement these habits,” then I realized I’ve made it. I’m here. I have my license. I’m here. So now let me live.” – Andrea
YOUR NEXT STEP
In Andrea’s words:
“What you want matters, and you have what it takes to live the life you want. Give the gift to yourself. You deserve it. It’s your life. Go live it.”
What Andrea says to attorneys who wants to work with a coach but is saying to themselves “I don’t have time,” or “now’s not the right time,” or “I’m not really sure I can do this,” :