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The Wellness Docket is a podcast for lawyers and legal professionals ready to prioritize their mental health. Through honest conversations with guests from inside and outside the legal world, we explore burnout, balance, and the pressures of practice—creating space for reflection, recovery, and resilience in the profession. This is a space where your wellness is always on the docket.
Tim: [00:00:02] So I am here with David Skinner and Karen Dunn-Skinner, the dynamic duo of Gimble Consulting, a legal consulting business for lawyers, who have both been practicing for 20 plus years, various areas of law before beginning their consulting business. So I'll give a more fulsome bio when this gets published. But I just want to welcome you both to The Wellness Docket. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak to me about this important topic. I guess as a starting point, maybe just a quick introduction on how you got started from going from the legal practice into starting your own company, Gimble Consulting.
David: [00:00:46] Karen, why don't you lead off and then I'll add colour commentary as necessary?
Karen: [00:00:51] Sure. So, as Tim said, we both practiced law for a very long time. And one of the things that we know is how hard lawyers work. If you know, everybody listening to this has been through the incredible pressure and the amount of work and the hours that lawyers do. And after practicing, you know, for 20 years each, we thought, well, there has to be a better way. And we started looking around for what that better way might be. And we started to look very deeply at efficiency, at productivity, at things like delegation. And that really was the genesis for us of the business. And we started it to help lawyers essentially learn to run their practices more like businesses, so that they actually had the time and the freedom to enjoy their success. Because most of the people that we were working with weren't really, truly happy. In fact, we have a very large sticky on the wall in our office that says, I've never met an unhappy ex-lawyer. And we really want lawyers to be happy without having to leave the profession. And part of that is learning how to manage their practices in a way that is much less overwhelming and less stressful.
Tim: [00:02:01] Right. Because we're not taught how to manage our practices in law school, nor during bar courses.
Karen: [00:02:08] No.
David: [00:02:09] Something that we are… we're lucky if we acquire organically through our practice. The larger the law firm that we work in, and all three of us come from large law firm backgrounds, originally, the more remote becomes the contact with the actual nuts and bolts. Everything that it takes to support the lawyers and paralegals and other legal professionals as they practice law. So you're right, we never learn those things and having to deal with those things when we're working as a solo, a true solo or a small firm lawyer only adds to the pressure. So not only do I have to do an excellent job for my client, whether I'm a litigator or I'm mergers and acquisitions or otherwise, I also have to figure out my tech stack. How to hire and fire people. How to deal with bookkeeping and accounting and filing my financials. That's not stuff that anybody learned to do in law school or bar school. And so we think it adds enormously to the stress of practicing law.
Tim: [00:03:14] And so what would you both say are the common stressors that you see with your clients on an everyday basis? David is smiling at me because obviously there are things that are coming to mind very quickly.
David: [00:03:27] I mean, how long, how long is your podcast? Let's start with the obvious. I have a tremendous amount to do. There are only 24 hours in a day, and there is no way that I can get even the mission critical things done by the end of a reasonable day, which for most lawyers is often 10 to 12 hours, which is a long workday for most people. I have no hope of getting the mission critical stuff done, much less all the other things I need to do to mentor my people, deal with my financials, business develop. Order the toilet paper. Fix the photocopier. So I'd say one of the greatest, single, greatest stressors, Tim, is not having enough time to get everything that I need to get done, done. And there are only 24 hours in a day.
Tim: [00:04:15] Right. And what about you, Karen? What are your thoughts on some of the biggest things that you experience working with people in a practice?
Karen: [00:04:21] I'd absolutely agree. But I do think another stressor for people is that they are trying to manage the business without having the skills to manage the business, so they always feel a bit underwater. They're trying to, you know, manage a team of people or hire and fire those, all those HR pieces that they don't know, or they're trying to manage the accounting and they don't know. And one of the things about lawyers, which you've probably talked about with other people on your podcast, is that lawyers are really good at practicing law, but because they haven't learned these other skills, they don't… They get very stressed about doing them right. And you have a combination of perfectionism and very low resilience. So when we make mistakes, they feel overwhelming. And it's difficult for lawyers to recover sometimes from those mistakes. So not only is it this sort of wearing all the hats, but it's this feeling that they need to be really good at all of the hats, and that's just not realistic. And that disconnect between what's realistic for them to be able to accomplish and what they can actually do, that creates a huge amount of stress because they feel like they're failing at everything, even though they may be doing a great job at servicing their clients. But because the other pieces are hard and unfamiliar, they feel like they're failing at everything.
David: [00:05:39] I think we all acknowledge that stress, that being in the grind is, or feeling that you're always in the grind, is unhealthy. Stress wears us down tremendously. And you know, that ties into mental health and wellness and just the status of lawyers on the spectrum of healthy to unhealthy. We tend to weigh predominantly towards the unhealthy lifestyles that are associated with that stress, and all of the attendant health risks that come with it. And it's just, again, you know, we've never met an unhappy ex-lawyer. We've met a lot of lawyers who are working way harder than they should and as a result, are suffering in ways that are almost unimaginable.
Tim: [00:06:25] So I know the answer to some of these things, but I want to make sure that people that are watching this, and I and I will, I do have to do the plug of The Power Zone Playbook. Yes. You've got perfect… that you've written because I think this is an invaluable resource for lawyers. It’s kind of set out simple, bite-sized pieces of things that you can do and go through. Can you tell me kind of… what do you find yourselves doing on the day to day basis that helps lawyers kind of build better practices and ultimately more happiness?
Karen: [00:07:01] Bringing up the book is a really good, good place to start, because one of the most important things that we do with all of our clients is help them identify what their power zone is. And their power zone is that kind of sweet spot where they are doing the work that they're uniquely qualified to do, doing work that they love to do, and doing the work that adds the most value that they can add to the practice. And everybody has their own power zone. And if you can find ways to spend more time in that power zone, doing the work that fulfills those three, what we call the pillars of the power zone, then you are able to do work that is inherently more revenue generating, but also more personally fulfilling. And then to do that, we really have to get people focused on delegation. And I'll stop there because, David, I know you have lots to say about that. The importance of delegating.
David: [00:07:53] Three pillars that Karen just mentioned, being work that you're uniquely qualified to do. And we could talk for hours about what that means. But in simple terms, you're a lawyer. You're licensed to practice law. So in an office of one and staff, you might be the only person who is qualified to practice law. So work that you're uniquely qualified to do, work that you love to do and that feeds your passion. That's really what I want to come back to, and adds the greatest value to your business. When you get those three, the intersection of those three pillars right, it's a Venn diagram. Those three pillars and the Venn diagram in the middle, which is your power zone, the overlap of all three. They're critical to your productivity, profitability, and ultimately, and I think this is where this conversation goes—your enjoyment. Your enjoyment of your practice, but also your enjoyment of your life outside of the business. And I can talk about the value and importance of delegation. And you may want to take us there, but I'm going to stop and throw it back to you, Tim. And because you've read the book and there are a ton of different ways we could take this conversation.
Tim: [00:09:01] Yeah, I think for me, just the starting point of reading the book and also I out myself as someone who has gone through your practice accelerator coaching is starting to think more about the items. When we say uniquely qualified, I think what I first have to kind of get used to with that statement is it's not an arrogant statement of saying that I'm better and therefore only I can do these things, right? And I'm just going to shove the other stuff downhill. It's saying that in order to be profitable and to maintain a healthy practice, I have to be delegating certain things to other people in order to do that. And so for example, for me, what I've really noticed is the more work I can delegate to other people and get it done. Like what we might call, I don't want to say busywork, but things that are that take a lot of time and energy and need to be drafted. Like drafting is one certain thing, like first drafts or things like that. The more I can kind of take a step back and really do deep thinking and arguments, and it strengthens my court arguments.
Tim: [00:10:13] It strengthens the things that you're writing at the end of the day and ultimately makes you more happy because you're doing the things that you're supposed to be doing. But nobody ever teaches you that, right? And you kind of stumble on those things the hard way. And then I think we also, you know, we have… we meet a lot of people in your practice or employees that work around you, some of whom would push back on some of those things and want you to do all these things. And, you know, next thing you know, you're doing bank... Not that you mind doing those things. You're doing runs to the bank. You're coming back answering all these phone calls or following up with emails, and then you have no more time in the day to do the deep thinking and the things like that. And so for me, that's really where the rubber hits the road on those practical ideas in the book.
David: [00:11:00] So I want to just, I know you want to say something, Karen. I just wanted something came into my mind and that was a failing on my part. And I didn't fully explain it. But you're right, it's not an arrogant statement. The stuff that I'm uniquely qualified to do. And let's parse that out. It's not just that you're licensed to practice law in whatever jurisdiction you happen to be in. It may also be that you own the law firm. It's your money. So there are business and administrative things that fall to you to deal with because you're the boss, ultimately. And so not everything that you're uniquely qualified to do is necessarily directly revenue-generating in the instance. So it's not like the billing your time or fixing something. It's the strategic decision. Am I going to extend my office from where I am in Woodstock and open something in… I don't know, Rothsay or, you know, another… maybe move to a different jurisdiction. P.E.I. or Quebec or... So it's those strategic macro decisions that also fall to you as the law firm leader, owner, managing partner, whatever it may be, and you need time to do those things. Sometimes you need to do that rather than practicing law. And this is where having staff, other colleagues that you can count on is so helpful because you're guiding the business.
David: [00:12:25] You need some people to generate the revenue. So we find that with our clients, the more that we work with lawyers and legal professionals, the more we learned that their greatest frustration isn't so much that they don't have enough time to get everything done, as I said at the beginning, but rather it's that they never have enough time to do the work that they really enjoy, whether that is the deep thinking on a legal argument, or it’s business development, or it’s strategic planning the firm's next move. They all are things that fall into your unique bucket of things you're qualified to do or uniquely qualified to do. Some of them are, you know, more fun than others, but most importantly, that's the driver is, yes, we're all super busy, but because we're so super busy, we don't actually have time to do the stuff that we really love, whatever that is in the profession and the business of law, but also, perhaps more importantly, outside the practice. Because if I'm worn out at the office, then I have a rubbish life outside the office and it becomes a vicious circle. I'm unhappy at the office. I don't get rest, I don't recharge my batteries, and therefore I can't show up for my clients or my staff or my colleagues in the best possible way.
Tim: [00:13:46] And I think that's when I talk to others, that's one of the things that I'm hearing more pushback about. Because there still is kind of what I call like the old guard that believes that law should be practiced a certain way. And it's almost a feeling like if you don't put in those hours and do all those things and basically burn the candle at both ends, you're not doing it properly. And I think that that's really refreshing for me to hear a very different perspective. And I think that kind of leads into Karen, you, you know, I think you would have some things to say about the importance of doing things outside of the practice of law and really finding ways to delegate those things so that you can strengthen yourself outside your practice, which makes you a better lawyer in the long run.
Karen: [00:14:34] Absolutely. And I do want to get to that in just a second. But I want to start by saying one of the things that helps people to handle some of that pushback that they might get from members of their team is to understand what everybody's power zone is. So when you're running a law firm, it's very helpful for you to know what the power zone is of different people on your team. So what are they uniquely qualified to do? What do they like to do? What do they do that adds the most value to the firm? And if you have that conversation and you can direct them and create workflows that have the right people doing the right work, the work that's in their power zone, then overall people are happy. And the last bit I would say about this is a lot of people who work in law firms do not understand how law firms make money. And because we don't have honest conversations sometimes about the actual finances of a firm, people don't understand that when they go to, Tim to, do the some, you know, bank run, what that actually costs the firm, and they don't think about it from that perspective. So we always encourage our clients to have really honest conversations with their teams about how the firm makes money and what is in everyone's power zone. There are always going to be some grunty tasks that are going to have to be done by the newest member of the team or somebody with a different set of qualifications.
Karen: [00:15:52] Not everybody is going to be doing work they absolutely love every single minute of the day. That's not realistic. But if you can keep people in their power zones as much as possible, they will be happier and more productive. So that's kind of the power zone piece. But Tim, you raised a really interesting point about how important it is to recharge yourself by doing things outside of the law. And it's important that you can think about how you organize your practice so that you have time to do those things that are outside of the law. So if you can delegate some of the work so that you have more free time, that free time actually makes you better at your business. And I've been doing a lot of thinking and writing lately about the impact of creativity on overall productivity, not just on your personal health and wellness, but also on how well you perform your job. And I think it's really interesting in law because, you know, we're paid by the hour. Our worth is generally considered or based on the number of hours that we work. And therefore, if you're not working, are you being valuable? Everything could be perceived as a waste, but it's really not. I believe creativity unlocks even greater productivity.
Karen: [00:17:05] It really is what it takes to help you practice at your peak. And I'm not talking about, you know, being a great artist or painting or whatever. That's not necessarily what I mean by being creative. You can be creative in lots of different ways. And one of the articles I wrote recently, I was talking about how you can be creative by doodling or journaling or redecorating your house, or even, you know, rebuilding the ‘67 Chevy in the garage. Like all of those things are creative outlets that get you focused on something that is, that uses a different part of your brain, that lets the analytical, legal part of your brain relax and lets you approach problems, become completely focused on some other activity that gives you some pleasure, that requires some attention, but not as much attention, maybe, as, you know, developing your next argument to present at court. But it… because it gives your brain that bit of a break, it allows you to recharge. There's a lot of really interesting writing that's been done on how important it is to have these moments of flow, which is a famous concept from a psychologist named Mihai Csikszentmihalyi. And he writes about how important it is to get into this state where nothing else really matters. You're just focused on one task. And although it's… your brain is very focused, it's also relaxing at the same time.
Tim: [00:18:30] Yeah, yeah, I almost… I agree 100% with that. You know, when I think about the times in my life, it's funny, that I've been most successful, it's typically when I'm playing music and, you know, for example, when I was in my undergrad and university, I was playing with a band and my grades went up when I was playing more music. I was spending more time doing other things, but I think I was more efficient. Same thing, you know, it's funny because my wife will say to me, how long has it been since you played any music for a while? And she'll kind of, like, catch on to it and say like, uh, I think you might need to start doing that a little bit more. And I'm like, yeah, you're right, I do, right. Like, because.. and you're.
David: [00:19:13] Stressed.
Tim: [00:19:14] Yeah. Exactly right. But you need to find those things, even if it means taking some of that time away from your work because you know that when you come back to your work, you're going to be a lot more efficient and your brain is functioning a lot better. But I think we've definitely shortchanged ourselves as a profession when we kind of look down our noses a bit on that kind of thing. Right? Like, you know, if we're forcing you to sit at your desk for 13 or 14 hours a day on a regular basis for, you know, seven days a week, and we keep doing that and we keep doing that and you're not doing the things that you love to do, there's going to be a burnout point. And maybe that's what we're seeing in our profession and why the statistics are so terrible. And the reports out of Sherbrooke University and others, because we've missed that point. And as I said, I've even talked to people recently that have pushed back on that. And it's kind of hard to get, you know, some lawyers out of that frame of reference to think like.
Karen: [00:20:17] I'm glad you raised that Sherbrooke study because it's fascinating. And for people who don't know, it was a 2021 study by the University of Sherbrooke and the Canadian Bar Association and I think the Federation of Law Societies, and they looked at the levels of psychological distress in lawyers and compared that to the general population. And the results were like shocking. You know, 57% of lawyers versus 40% for the overall population. But for articling students, it was 72%. 72% were reporting some sort of psychological distress. And those are our young lawyers. Those are the people we want to stay in the profession. Those are the people that we want to become the leaders of the future. And we're just, you know, destroying them from the beginning. And it's… and I imagine it's even getting worse now with AI because a lot of them are concerned about their jobs and about the future and the profession. But it is just… that study should be required reading for everyone who's running a law firm.
David: [00:21:18] When I was a younger lawyer many years ago, I thought it was so cool that I could go to the office. And I worked for a big city law firm, City of London, UK law firm, and I thought it was so cool. I could go to the office and have my dry cleaning done, and there was a full-service cafeteria that did breakfast, lunch, and dinner downstairs. There were bedrooms in the basement that were basically hotel rooms. So if you knew you were going to pull an all-nighter, if you knew you were going to pull an all-nighter, you had to be quick and you'd call and you'd reserve the room. You'd arrive. The only thing missing from the neatly made bed you could bounce a pound coin off of, was the mint, the chocolate mint on the pillow. There was a bathrobe. There was a towel. I thought it was super cool. Reality. Totally nefarious. Right. It's a way to keep you at the office. You can't say, well, I got to go get dinner, or I need to go take my dry cleaning in to be done. It's like, no, no, we'll take care of all of that.
David: [00:22:21] You just get back to the grind. You just keep chalking up those billable hours. Because that's how we're making our millions of pounds a year. And, and it is nefarious. And it is ultimately, soul crushing. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. And again, our failure to recognize these indicia. Even today, most of the major law firms that we can all spout off on our two hands list off, it's the same old, same old. Same old, same old. It's face time, to your point, Tim. You know you're at the office 12 to 14 hours. That you're doing work or not is irrelevant. It's that the partners see that you're there, because somehow that's an indication that you are adding value. Not your profitability, not your utilization, not your ability to collect. And obviously, if you're junior, you have no impact on whether your time gets written down or written off. You have no influence over the collection of your accounts receivable. But these are all things that we should be focusing on, as opposed to the number of hours that you're in the office.
Tim: [00:23:35] Right. And it's funny that I hear from younger lawyers all the time that that's the big reason why they've left the profession or are leaving the profession. And I've heard from other lawyers that they see bigger firms doing things, but everyone seems to be concerned. Is that because they really care about it, or is it because they know it's kind of the in-vogue thing to talk about right now because of the reports and whatever? I would hope to think that most people legitimately want to continue practicing healthy in the law. But obviously not everyone is going to be down that road. But it's true that it's causing some big issues. And I think that in a lot of ways, what you folks are doing is kind of teaching people better ways to practice. And ultimately that can lead to more happiness in the practice. Certainly I can say for me, it has. There's still a lot of issues, but you find ways to, to deal with them better and manage your time.
David: [00:24:40] Well. And this is where before we go back to Karen and sort of creative outlet, this is where our focus on delegation is so critically important. Because if you can understand what is in your power zone, those three pillars, the stuff that you're uniquely qualified to do that brings you passion, that fuels your passion, and that adds the greatest value to your organization. Not necessarily your clients. And we're very big on focusing on value to clients, but when we're talking about delegation and finding power zones, it's about what's best for the firm, the organization. It's that efficiency piece that Karen was talking about, the right people doing the right work, the right way, at the right time and cost, with the right resources. That's a lot of rights. But delegation is your key to success, right? You’ve got to focus on keeping the stuff that you are uniquely qualified to do that is in your power zone as we've defined it. And then getting rid of all of the work that somebody else could do. Probably better, faster, and cheaper than you. Assuming that you've empowered them with the right tools, whether that's a precedent, a checklist, a cheat sheet, a practice guide, or whatever, training them to do it. So… And then, and then, so that's the stuff you delegate away.
David: [00:26:00] And there's also a set of stuff that we're doing that we're not actually sure why we do. It's just the way we've always done it. And we're… if we look at it carefully, we'd probably figure out that it's not really adding any value. Any value to me as the lawyer, to my firm, as the organization I work for. Nor is it adding value for my clients. So if it's not adding any value, maybe we should just make a decision to stop doing it altogether. Just because we used to do it, or just because I was taught to do that at Stikeman Elliott or, you know, Ostlers or, you know, Stewart McKelvey. It doesn't matter. Cox and Palmer, I'm using any names. Just because that's how I was taught to do it doesn't mean that that's how I should do it today. So understanding how to delegate effectively and sustainably really is the key to being able to spend your time on the work where you add the greatest value and have more time to do other things. Whether that's more business development, more client work, just getting out of Dodge, as we say, maybe going to Toronto on a Thursday or a Wednesday or a Tuesday in order to watch the Blue Jays, you know, win the pennant. Those are important things to do.
Tim: [00:27:16] That I'm glad that you talked about that, because I'll say that I've recently done that, as you know. So I had some work that needed to be done. It needed to be done quickly. Mostly affidavit drafting. And I've since used either in-office staff or Flex Legal, who's a great outsourcing company. And they will draft things up for me. I was able to go away for a few days, something maybe 4 or 5 years ago, I would never have been able to do. And I was able to come back after going away. Glad you said that. Watching the Blue Jays… I'm going to put my little mug up here watching the Blue Jays win the pennant, the Al East and watching a game on Friday night and then coming back with a lot of work done, right? And I just think it's incredible that there are those resources out there, um, whether it's in office or outside. Like, I was talking to somebody a month ago and they were talking about, oh, I've just got all the stuff to do and I've got to get this done. And I said, have you thought of like Flex Legal? And they're like, what is that? And I said, well, it's an outsourcing company. You can literally find somebody who's a paralegal that’s a remote paralegal. You don't have to employ them full time. It helps your overhead costs. But when you really need somebody, you've got somebody you can call on and say, I need you to put in this time. And it's a win-win. It's every single time I've done it. I have not had a bad result and clients are happy. They don't care who does it, right? They don't care whether it's me calling them or somebody else. As long as the work's getting done and we're getting it filed on time.
David: [00:28:51] Karen, you can talk about, there’s delegating to people both internal to your organization. So we spend a lot of time in the book, The Power Zone Playbook for Lawyers, talking about different types of delegation. You can delegate to someone in your organization. You can delegate to someone that you contract work to part time so they don't have to be full-time. And you could also delegate to an outsource service provider. But you can also delegate to technology. And I point at my screen because Karen is of the relationship. And we've been married for 34 years and together for 36. And so it's not by coincidence that we have the same name, but we work together. But she's the technologist. I'm the Luddite. She's always reminding me I don't have to delegate to a human being. I can delegate to technologies. Karen, you want to talk a little bit about that?
Karen: [00:29:36] Well, I mean, we delegate all kinds of work to technology in our practice. We're not practicing law anymore, but we're working with all of you lawyers. But we actually had an amazing demo today from Spellbook, which is a Canadian-based technology company that's developed some really great AI for contract review and drafting. And we do know some of our coaching clients in Practice Accelerator who are using it and have, you know, from the minute they got the demo, have been able to save a ton of money. We have some lawyers right now who are looking at adopting it instead of hiring a junior associate, because so much of that work, the drafting stuff that you were talking about, Tim, that you can delegate to someone else or you can hire somebody to do for you. Actually, some of this software can do and do a really good job and do it really quickly. So obviously it can't work for you while you're away at a Blue Jays game, but it can get a lot of the work done while you're getting ready to go away. So we were really impressed today with Spellbook. And we're going to be learning more about them and about how they operate and how they… different ways that they can help lawyers, primarily in transactional practices. But really exciting. And that's just one example of many platforms that are being developed that are actually going to make a lot of the work that is very time consuming, it's going to make it easier. But it will have a whole set of new challenges, because if you can't bill 4.5 hours for drafting a document because it only took you together with your AI, a total of, you know, 15 minutes of you reviewing something that AI produced in 30 seconds, you can't bill that 4.5 hours anymore, but you're still delivering the same value.
Karen: [00:31:21] So this leads us to some really interesting conversations with our coaching clients about how to define the services they provide in terms of the value or the transformation that they're providing to clients. And by doing that, if you can, you know, convince the client because as you say, the client doesn't care how the document got drafted. They just want the document. They need the document, they need it filed, whatever. They don't care how the sausage was made, they just need the sausage. But you can't charge by the hour for that sausage if you can make it in two minutes and be profitable. So it's leading to some really interesting conversations about, you know, what is the role of lawyers and how do we… how do we communicate our value to our clients and how can we stop communicating that value just in terms of time? Because it's not that you're worth five hours of time, it's that you have 20 years of experience and you can draft this document that you know is really solid, and it's really going to help your client. And what's that worth to the client? Maybe it's worth way more than five hours of time. And then how can you take that new way of thinking about your value, that new way of thinking about what it is that you provide, what kind of transformation you provide to your client and how you value that, how how you put a price on that.
David: [00:32:35] So really it's a combination of feeing and value-based billing. It's the intersection of those two. And that's a very interesting area. And Karen's the first to say it, that if you get it right going back to your, you know, being able to do it in 15 minutes, Karen. If you get it right, you can actually make a whole lot more money than if you stick to the billable hour construct that most of us grew up in.
Karen: [00:33:05] And it removes the hourly pressure that because the pressure to be in the office to produce, you know, to work for 14 hours a day, that that hourly pressure can be alleviated if you have ways to create value and revenue for the firm that aren't tied to the amount of time that you spend producing them.
Tim: [00:33:23] Yeah. It's true. And then we end up making happier lawyers in the long run, because you're not doing every minute little thing that you used to be doing and, and billing by the hour. But I, honestly, I've seen nothing but more profitable in trying to look at ways that you can do things more efficiently and that is… leads to things that are much better. So tell me a little bit about what ways have you seen your practice and your business be able to help lawyers? And what kind of outcomes have you seen, you know with some… what are some of your clients saying based, you know, have you seen some increases in their mental health and some, some victories there that you can report?
Karen: [00:34:13] Yeah. You know, a lot of lawyers come to us because what they want to do is move away from doing all of the legal work into more leadership roles in their business, into being essentially the CEO of their law firm because they want to have more time. So we spend a lot of time with them, helping them to delegate, first of all, creating a plan for how they're going to get to this CEO or sort of position that they want ultimately. And figuring out how they can do that most effectively, whether that's delegating or automating or just creating a lot of new processes. There are lots of different ways to get there, but for our clients, they come to us because generally speaking, they want to do less law and earn more. And that is essentially the outcome that we provide. We have… they save hours of time. We have one lawyer who we worked with to, just to delegate his email. And by delegating his email to an external resource, actually through a staffing company called Stafi. By using Stafi, he has someone who manages his inbox for him and he saves, I think he says two hours a day. So right away he's saving two hours a day. That's a heck of a lot of time. We have another client who's come to us because he wants to have 10 to 15 hours more a week to spend with his children. His children are under the age of ten, and his only goal right now is to maintain or increase firm revenue, but give himself 10 to 15 extra hours a week to spend with those kids. That's… every hour that he spends with his kids is a huge boost to his well-being.
Tim: [00:35:47] Right. Right.
David: [00:35:48] You know, we have another client who came to us, and after working with us for a little while, he said something along the lines of, you know, with a few simple mistakes or a few simple missteps, I almost drove my firm into the ground. And he thinks of us as his life jacket, his life preserver, because we come at things from a different perspective. We pulled him out of his practice, and he spends time thinking creatively from a… from various different perspectives as to how he's going to resolve some of the management issues that were incumbent in his practice. And, you know, not only do we help him to recover what he almost lost, but then we started to help him move forward at a much greater speed and he was super happy. And that's what makes us happy is those client success stories, the client that saves two hours a day, that's ten hours a week. That's 40 hours a month. You know, you go on and on and on. Or our client is on the west coast of the United States who, as Karen said, he needed 10 to 15 more hours because he realized how quickly his kids’ lives were passing before him and it just wasn't sustainable. He wanted time—wants time—and is spending more time. Yet his revenue is not dropping. He's learned to delegate across his team. He's adding to his team because he recognizes that as the entrepreneur who's running the organization, it's not sustainable if he wants to grow and he continues to do everything himself.
Karen: [00:37:21] Yeah. And I think just to clarify for people what… we do a couple of different things, but predominantly what we do now is we coach. So we act as business coaches who truly understand your practice because we practiced for such a long time ourselves, and because over the last 15 years we've been inside so many different law firms across North America. We've seen kind of what works and what doesn't. And so now we work with lawyers either in a group. We have Practice Accelerator that Tim has mentioned. And we have Reset, which is our 1 to 1 coaching program. And you know, which one people choose really depends on how fast they want to progress, what their goals are. Some people really like the group setting. Other people really want it to all be the sessions, to all be about them. It really depends on what people need. But it's essentially, you know, a coaching program and it has had great results and doesn't really seem to matter what practice area people are in, you know, IP and privacy and litigation and wills and estates and general corporate practice, all of those things. Because the issues that people come to us and are really struggling with are the same across the board. Hiring and firing, getting the right team, figuring out what their power zone is and then figuring out how to delegate. Those are the really big issues because they all… everyone comes to us overwhelmed. Everybody wants to find ways to do what they have to do with less time at the office and more time to step back and think, to have a little creative time, to have that time with their families. Or whatever it is that they really know personally for their own well-being that they need to do and they can't do when they're trapped in this sort of hamster wheel of, you know, of the law firm, where they're doing all the things all the time.
David: [00:39:06] And the other thing I would add to that, Karen, is that whole sort of strategic piece of who do I serve? How do I serve them? And why does that matter to me, to the firm, and to my clients? Because as law firm leaders, not only are we responsible for setting an example for how we think everybody in our organization should practice and the desire that everyone should share with us to have more time to do the things that make us happiest. Maybe that's more practice of law. Maybe it's going to the Blue Jays or just going on a trip with your family, whatever it may be. But it's really understanding who I serve, how I serve them, and why that matters that allows you to then define, hopefully, a fairly audacious set of aspirations, of strategic objectives that you're going to sell, quote/unquote, sell to your team and say, we're here now, this is where I want to go. And that's why I'm asking you to do this or do that, or why I said no to this. Because the decisions that I'm making are empowering us to get where we want to go.
David: [00:40:20] When I say no to you, it's because there's an opening, another opportunity, another door that I'll share with you in a moment that I want to take us through. And I think that piece is also very important to our clients, because some of our clients, they're trying to do everything. They're trying to be a small town general practitioner. And what's that saying? A jack of all trades and a master of none? And that is a challenge. So we encourage our clients to get very clear, very clear on what is their mission, what is their vision? And then to Karen's earlier point, to normalize conversations with everybody else in their organization about what it means to run a business. It happens to be the profession of law. That is the business we're in. But we weren't taught how to run a business. So let's think about our business as a business and understand there are consequences to our decisions that go just beyond are we on time and on budget with our client? There's an awful lot more to running a business.
Tim: [00:41:23] Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct about that. And so we are… Time goes by really fast when I start doing these discussions. No, I think it's great. So I want to end with a question for each of you to answer. And I ask everybody this question. It's, if you could make one change in the practice of law related to the mental health of lawyers, what would it be?
Karen: [00:41:49] I would tell people, especially when they're starting out, that they are more than just lawyers. And the problem is we get really stuck in this identity of being a lawyer and what it means to be a lawyer, and we sacrifice all of our other identities. Sometimes that's parenting, sometimes that's being a good friend or a good child to somebody who needs support. Sometimes that's, you know, being a good member of our community because we don't have time to volunteer. All of those are really important identities and they make us better lawyers. So I would say, do not sacrifice. If I could change one thing, it was… it would be for young lawyers to not sacrifice their other identities.
Tim: [00:42:31] David, what about you?
David: [00:42:32] I think it's very connected. I would say that there is more to life than work, and to focus on how what you're doing supports your life. Work to live. Don't live to work. So that's a call to really put your life in perspective. And when we have these conversations with our own clients—what would you like to change and why and how? We remind them that they need to focus on what they want to accomplish personally first, and then ask themselves, okay, what kind of work life—not work life balance—what kind of work life? What kind of work? What does work look like if I'm going to succeed in having the life that I want? Because keeping that perspective in mind. The overall objective. The journey that I'm on is what's going to motivate you to get out of bed in the morning. Most of your audience will be in Canada, I presume when it's -40 out and you've got hardwood floors and the temperature inside the house is 15 degrees. Why are you leaping out of bed to go to the office to work? It's because you've got these things in your life that bring you joy that you want to do more of, and I do—we do have—I was going to say, and I know, but we know of clients of ours who take great joy as law firm leaders out of building strong teams and always raising the bar about their financial objectives. Why? Because they realize that their job is to support the community that works with them and support the community within which they exist. That's the grocery stores, the gas stations, the movie theaters, the restaurants, whatever it is. So their raison d'etre is to have a wonderful life while supporting a very sustainable practice and profession that gives and feeds the community. But all of that comes out of that notion of, it's not just about work, it's about self-satisfaction.
Tim: [00:44:47] Yeah, I think you've both expressed that very well. And I think they're both correct and both sort of part of the same theme. So I really appreciate you joining me today. And we look forward to future conversations.
Karen: [00:45:03] Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us.
David: [00:45:05] Thank you. Thank you for inviting us. It's been a pleasure.