Legal Practice #7 — Manage your way forward

Every lawyer should decide which day of the week, or at least what time of the week, is going to devote to personal time. Every week. All the time. This personal time gives you some space to look back and think if you’re managing your time as you should.

Nick Pavlidis makes a 3 “must-be-yes” question test:

What do you want for your personal life?

What type of law excites you?

What type of clients excite you?

These are very straight forward questions to answer and if whatever you are doing or are about to do is not aligned with your answer to the three questions try to avoid the work (unless you really need it of course…)

This is what happened to me right before I decided to enroll in an LLM. I had a very pleasant life in Madrid, with enough personal time to enjoy myself, but the type of law that I was doing didn’t really excite me. I liked it, but I was not excited. And the client work we had were a little bit repetitive to me.

So I had 1 yes and 2 no. I needed a change, so I changed. Since completing my LLM I have my own free time, I work in Project Finance which is what I chose to work in and the clients are giving me work that excites me!

Are you a 3-YES person?

Originally published at https://www.antoniodelaesperanza.com on April 12, 2017.