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| Harrison Barnes |
I frequently see attorneys fail in the practice of law because they chose the wrong practice area, practice setting, law firm, or are in the wrong profession entirely. This is understandable. If you do not know yourself and where you are likely to be happy, you are bound to fail. By the end of this article, you are going to have the ability to understand what sort of practice area you should be in, what sort of type of law firm (or practice setting) you should be in and whether or not you should be practicing law at all. You will also take away with you an excellent understanding of other people and why you do, or do not, get along with them and the sorts of people you should and should not be working with.
I’ve recently started meeting with a man who runs a $150-million company painting houses and doing construction work for HOAs around the country a few times a month to understand how he runs his company and evaluates his people. The man is not a lawyer and is uneducated; however, he has become very successful by some simple tools he uses to understand himself and others. This man is the third or fourth incredibly successful entrepreneur I have spoken with over the past several years to use the same method to understand himself and others. I used to use the same process for evaluating legal recruiters that I was hiring and found it useful—but at some point, I stopped.
Attorneys will fit into different types of law firms and practice settings depending on how they see themselves and the world. The sorts of jobs that others want to plug you into will also determine whether or not you are successful as well. One of the biggest mistakes that attorneys make when searching for positions and looking for new jobs is to believe they should be working with a particular group of people, or in a certain type of environment when they really should not be. Law firms that are hiring associates, partners and others should also keep several things in mind when doing their hiring.
One of the benefits of working with a legal recruiter is that they can help you narrow down what is the best environment for you. The article below highlights that and other various benefits of working with a legal recruiter.
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The analysis tool this man uses, as well as several people I have worked with in the past use, is called DISC Assessment. DISC is a tool based on the DISC theory of psychologist and attorney, William Moulton Marston, which centers on the personality traits of Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness--Supportive (S), and Conscientiousness (C). Understanding how you fit in with these different personality traits can tell you a lot about where you should be practicing.
The “dominance” of this personality is often described by these words: Direct. Decisive. Driven. Results. Demanding. Task-oriented.
Most attorneys are high achievers, competitive and goal and task-oriented. They may set their sights on going to the best college and law school possible and getting into the best law firm they can. They may also be very motivated by being competitive with others and succeeding in competition with them. They get into the best schools because they do better than those around them and stand out—they will often have the best grades, most extracurricular activities and strongest looking backgrounds on paper.
Who knows why people are this way. In many cases, they have something to prove—to their parents, siblings, self, or others. Regardless, these extremely driven personalities are perfect for major law firms, in major cities. Unless you are very competitive, task-oriented and have something to prove, there is very little reason to subject oneself to the sorts of hours and pressure of a large law firm. Getting on the competitive wheel of a major law firm is a lot of pressure, and it is not for everyone.
Being driven and competitive is very important when succeeding as an attorney in a major law firm, but I think there are other qualities that are important as well. The article below articulates those other traits that help attorneys succeed.
I meet attorneys and others all the time who I can tell have no business working in large law firms. They are too nice. Not competitive enough. Not driven enough and have nothing to prove. They may be smart, have gone to good law schools and have other abilities—but they do not belong in large law firms. Every year countless people come out of the very best law schools—Harvard, Michigan, Columbia and others who, frankly, may be good students and test takers but have no business working in major law firms: The major law firms would eat them up alive. The same thing goes for many attorneys who choose to teach law and go into academia, public service, clerkships and pursue other occupations. You need to enjoy competing with others, want to get ahead and want to work hard and prove something to stay in most large law firms. You need to want to make as much money as possible and achieve something.
Most major law firm attorneys are motivated by the competition with others and often concerned about their hours, money and how they appear compared to others they know. They will often try and undermine others; they will work harder than them; they will always try and be the best. The best law firms can channel this high motivation into profit by using it to get lots of hours and the best work they possibly can out of their attorneys. To get positions in the largest law firms, an attorney will often need to be extremely dominant. Law firms will instinctively pick up this personality trait in interviews and use it to channel your motivation into lots of hours and improved work product. Whether they realize it or not, law firms use the natural “dominant” characteristics of attorneys and their need to feel important, better than their peers at smaller firms and desire to feel successful to exploit them and make lots of money. Even partners are exploited by this system. As long as you want to be ahead of others, you will believe you belong on the hamster wheel and need to keep competing to find inner fulfillment.
This dynamic of competitiveness and exploitation can often lead attorney to become stressed and unable to handle the mental ramifications that come as a result of such long hours and constant comparison among peers. I’ve seen it happen many times to attorneys some of whom were close to me as well.
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If you want to be part of a large law firm, and remain there, you generally will need to be very dominant. You will need to be motivated by competing with others and want to have the most hours compared to your peers. You will be task oriented. As a partner in a major law firm, you will want to have as much business as possible and be competitive with other partners and make the most money. If you do not feel you are making the most money, you will leave. If you are high “D” you may also be motivated by the quality of law firm you are in. The highest “Ds” tend always to want to be in better law firms, work with better attorneys and be considered to be working in the most prestigious law firms.
The most motivated of high Ds often quickly conclude that working in a major law firm is not worth it. They look around them and see other attorneys killing themselves working a lot of hours and not becoming partners, or advancing meaningfully in their careers, and conclude that they could be more successful elsewhere. High D attorneys also often find themselves in a position where they realize that they are so competitive that it does not make sense for them to direct their energies inside of a law firm, but will direct it elsewhere instead.
The most motivated of high D attorneys in large law firms generally make this leap—which is generally fatal to them ever working in a law firm again. Someone running a business has more independence, more long-term earning potential and more control over their time than an attorney in a large law firm. Someone with a business has far more potential to become someone important, very rich and well-known in the world than an attorney. Working in a law firm constrains you. You may not make partner; your future will be controlled by outside forces (how much other attorneys decide you are going to make, whether or not the firm brings in enough work and more). It is for this reason that law firms rarely hire attorneys who have started businesses after some time practicing law. They know that this psychology will take over for them again.
Many high Ds who enjoy the practice of law also conclude that the business they should start is another law firm. They believe they should get as many of the law firm clients as they possibly can and leave. This is another reason that law firms have very little interest in hiring attorneys who are solo practitioners, or who have left and started law firms. Law firms want “high D” attorneys but are not necessarily interested in attorneys who are so high D that they are likely to leave again.
When law firms are hiring attorneys, they need to make a careful calculation of whether or not that person is truly suited to practicing law in a large law firm. The law firm needs to understand whether or not the person is motivated and high D enough to succeed—or so high D that they are unlikely to be a good fit in a major law firm.
The dominant personality wants to feel important, in control and like they are accomplishing something big. These settings allow for this.
The most dominant people are not happy in positions that do not allow them to be the center of attention and feel like they are not accomplishing more than others. They want to make as much money as possible and be seen as successful and powerful compared to their peers—something these sorts of positions do not allow for. High D attorneys want to be in positions and around others where there is a high degree of motivation to get ahead.
These practice areas allow the attorney to be the center of attention, compete with others and get the sense of winning and being the best. They also tend to attract many sorts of competitive attorneys as well.
These practice areas (not always, but often) tend to be quite routine and not attract the most competitive types of attorneys. These practice areas do not give attorneys the opportunity to draw a lot of attention to themselves and shine compared to others. They tend to be more collaborative than involve people competing with one another.
Someone who is an influencer has a desire to create their environment by influencing others. They can be described by the words: Optimistic. Persuasive. Talkative. Emotional. Social.
Influencers can and cannot work in certain law firm environments and practice areas.
The most suitable practice area for an influencer is, of course, being a litigator. As a litigator, the person can write, express their ideas verbally and be heard. Influencers also can get the constant approval of others when they succeed in court, in negotiations, and for their clients. Influencer attorneys enjoy going up against well-known attorneys in court, being able to verbalize their idea and convincing clients and the other side that a certain course of action is a good idea. Litigators like the idea that when they are working, they are generally constantly interacting with others to get things done. Many of the best litigators I used to work with enjoyed the idea that they singlehandedly won a case or a matter. High “I” litigators want to be the center of attention.
The problem with high “I” litigators is that this personality is not always appropriate for the largest law firms. The largest law firms want “soldiers” to do the work and not necessarily associates to take the spotlight. There are different types of partners inside of law firms as well – there are service partners behind the scenes, and there are those that are out in the limelight drawing attention to themselves, being seen and taking all the credit. High influencers often have a difficult time surviving in large law firms if they are too eager for praise and attention early in their careers. The most classic of high-influencer litigator moves is to state that they need more “courtroom” experience or “trial experience” and want to move firms due to this. This sort of reason for wanting to move firms means that the high influencer is unlikely to be happy in a major law firm. High influencers are often happier in roles where they can be the center of attention—even if it means less money. Also, high influencers will often feel constrained in large law firms. It is for this reason that many high influencers do not do well inside of law firms. They need to have enough of an influencer personality to be good writers and so forth; however, they do not need to be the center of attention.
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It has always been interesting for me seeing litigators in some of the largest and most major law firms. They are not high influencers and are most comfortable behind a desk and not in court. The large law firms like this because the partners are the ones that have this personality—and not even the majority of them have it. When doing work for major corporations, many lawyers in large firms are more technicians than influencers. They spend their time on technical matters, finding fault and attacking the work product of the lawyers who tend to be very high influencers.
In contrast, many other practice areas such as patent law, tax, ERISA, real estate, technology transactions, trust and estates and even many types of corporate law—transactional practice areas—are much better suited for attorneys who do not have influence-related skills. They may be more interested in being technicians and not grandstanding and having the attention of other people, for example. In many law firms, the people who do the work—even in litigation—tend to be people without influence-related skills. The people who interface with clients and are in the limelight have this instead.
Different law firms also have different cultures. For example, the first law firm I ever worked in was comprised only of litigators. The majority of litigators in this law firm tended to be influencers. The next law firm I worked in was a general practice law firm that had litigators in it. The majority of the law firm was comprised of corporate attorneys. Here, the litigators and most of the people inside of the law firm tended not to be influencers. The culture of the law firm was built around servicing large institutional clients and being in the background, and not on drawing attention to oneself.
An attorney who is a high influencer wants to be around others and have the opportunity to shape them to their point of view. They are social and crave environments where they can talk to others and influence them.
High influencer attorneys want their ideas heard, and they want to be around people who will listen to them. Any practice setting that prevents this sort of debate and does not welcome this from the attorney is likely to make them feel like they are not doing well. It is not uncommon for an attorney who is a high influencer to leave a firm when they feel their ideas are not taken seriously, or they do not have many friends to discuss ideas with.
These practice areas allow the attorney to be the center of attention, compete with others and get the sense of winning and being the best. They also tend to attract many sorts of competitive attorneys as well.
Someone who is steady is interested in cooperating with others to complete tasks that support others and maintain stability. They can be described by the words: Cooperative. Collaborative. Stable. Consistent. Loyal. Patient.
A steady personality:
The steadiness personality is something that applies to a lot of lawyers. Lawyers like to be in a role where they are supporting clients behind the scenes and not necessarily the center of attention. Most middle-class professions—of which being an attorney is one—tend to attract people who value steadiness. Lawyers who work in most major law firms, rather than on their own, value steadiness. The traditional idea of going to good schools to get the best job possible and work for someone else (the middle class ideal) centers around supporting the needs of someone else in exchange for a steady paycheck. Attorneys by their very nature are representing the needs of others in the market—they are supporting them by protecting them from issues. Most attorneys look out for their clients’ interest and try and guard them against problems that would disturb the status quo. Whether they are representing a client in a transaction, or a litigation matter, their goal is to bring things back to a state of equilibrium for the client—complete the transaction, settle the case and so forth.
Some attorneys value steadiness more than others. The attorneys who value it the most will likely surround themselves with other attorneys and be in the least adverse practice areas—transactional ones. These attorneys want to work in firms where they are surrounded by lots of others; they have partners and feel like they are cooperating with others. Natural attorneys also like rules, the law and helping their clients follow these laws. People who are not natural attorneys do not look upon their role as to support others—they are more concerned with themselves.
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If you are going to practice law and enjoy what you are doing, you need to enjoy supporting others and solving their problems. You need to feel you are contributing to the success of groups through your actions. You need to be excited about solving the problems of others. Happy attorneys need to think this way and prioritize the needs of others over their own. The best attorneys should also feel their actions are supporting the group and believe in this.
If an attorney is not motivated by solving the problems of others they are going to be unhappy practicing law. If the attorney is unhappy working in groups, they are going to be unhappy in most law firms.
One of the reasons so many lawyers are unhappy in law firms in the United States is because the law has become so depersonalized compared to what it may have been 50+ years ago. The natural makeup of the steadiness personality attorney is geared towards assisting others, cooperating with groups and not feeling multitasked. In a large law firm, the attorney’s natural need to support others is often pulled in many different directions.
All of this makes the modern, large law firm something that many attorneys detest because it is at complete odds with their personality makeups. Instead of wanting to work in a large law firm, attorneys often want to go in-house and say they want to do so “so they can work with just one client.” They want to feel like they are in a supportive role and making a direct contribution. They want to feel like they are someplace steady. They want to feel like they are working with a group that gets along. While all of this is quite understandable, in most cases, this is the exact opposite of what attorneys find once they arrive in-house. Companies go out of business, merge, hire and fire CEOs, General Counsels, sell off business divisions, get sued, close offices and more. Companies are even more unstable than most law firms.
What is an attorney seeking steadiness to do? One of the things that I have noticed is that attorneys who work in smaller to midsized markets—think Madison, Grand Rapids, Rochester, Sacramento, Tucson, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Charleston—tend to have much longer, happier careers than attorneys who try and practice in major markets. Attorneys in smaller markets tend to huddle together and protect one another more. There is less pressure to make a lot of money. People tend to work on smaller clients and have a bigger role in solving their issues. I have noticed that attorneys—regardless of the law school they attended—are happier, more well-adjusted and seem to enjoy the practice of law much more. They do not salivate like mad dogs at the thought of going in house—or even have that as a goal. They tend to be much happier. I believe this is because the smaller law firms in medium to smaller sized markets are a place where an attorney’s natural desire for steadiness is supported.
The steady attorney does well in positions that allow them to support others and at the same time feel secure in their environments. People who are high in the support quotient want to be in positions where they feel secure and are not under attack all the time. They value consistency. Consequently, they are more likely to accept less money in exchange for consistency than they might otherwise make in the market. They are not concerned about drawing attention to themselves and do not need to be in the limelight.
Steady attorneys do not like unpredictable legal environments or ones where they are likely to lose their position. They do not like conflict either. Larger law firms and markets tend to have a lot of conflict and attorneys are unlikely to be happy in them.
The classic supportive attorney enjoys a position in tax law, for example, where they are expected to sit down at a desk each day and work a certain number of hours and know that if they can do this, they will be fine. This makes them happy. Different personality types do not enjoy this sort of thing—the supportive attorney does.
These practice areas put the attorney in conflict with others, require them to hurt others and are unpredictable by nature. These are not the sort of practice areas the typical attorney enjoys.
Are you in the right kind of law firm? Learn how the type of law firm you are in can make or break your legal career. Do you think that these assessments are correct, do you agree or disagree? Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below.
Someone who is conscientious is motivated by producing excellent work. They can be described by the words: Accuracy. Careful. Cautious. Calculating. Objectiveness. Stability. Systematic. Critical.
The conscientious personality:
The conscientious personality is particularly suited to lawyers. To practice law in a major law firm, an attorney needs to be conscientious—there is absolutely no doubt about it. The clients of large law firms expect well-researched work that is delivered flawlessly (without typos, grammatical errors, formatting and other errors). The best attorneys take a tremendous amount of pride in the quality of the work they produce, and it is impossible to work in a major firm and be taken seriously unless you are conscientious. In fact, not being incredibly conscientious is a very quick way to distinguish the best lawyers from the poorest ones.
The larger the client you represent—and the larger the law firm—the more conscientious you will need to be. At its lowest level, when you see the work produced by attorneys in the smallest law firms where individuals are typically represented that do not have a lot of money (in low stakes family law, criminal matters, personal injury, low-level insurance defense, and immigration, for example) the work will be littered with typos, formatting errors, errors of law and more. Attorneys in the smallest law firms often do not have the time to be conscientious because their clients are not paying them. Attorneys in larger law firms that work with the largest clients are expected to be more and more conscientious. When judges evaluate the work product of poor attorneys without resources behind them compared to the best attorneys, there is often no comparison. The best lawyers are careful, their legal conclusions well-reasoned and more. You are more likely to win negotiations, legal cases and do better with contracts and other legal matters when you are represented by an attorney that is extremely conscientious compared to one who is not.
The best attorneys take a great deal of pride in their work, and their conscientiousness is natural—it is something that is ingrained into them, and they do not need to be taught it. They enjoy marking up papers and finding errors. They enjoy tweaking contracts and documenting transactions. They take pride in researching material and coming up with novel conclusions. To be a good attorney and suited for the profession of law, this sort of thinking and way of approaching problems must come naturally to you. If it does not then you will have a difficult time being a lawyer and need to learn this way of thinking and approaching problems immediately.
The reason that conscientiousness is so critically important for attorneys is that lawyers make a living finding errors, researching errors, tricking their opponents into making errors and attacking the errors of other attorneys. If an attorney is not conscientious, they will spend their entire career being beaten up by other attorneys and lose most of the time. Their clients will get the bad side of deals. They will be in a position where they are constantly on the defensive and cleaning up mistakes. They will quite often be sued for malpractice and lose. The attorney who is the most conscientious is the one who wins most of the time.
The best attorneys are also quite calculating. Like chess players, they may withhold information selectively, play games with deadlines, insert provisions into contracts at the last second when the other side is not expecting it, and use the information to their advantage. To be a good attorney you need to enjoy and thrive playing these sorts of games—it should come naturally. If these sorts of games do not come naturally to you, then there is a good chance you are someone that is not well suited to be an attorney either. You need to be able to be as calculating as possible at all points in time.
However, it is important to note that sometimes attorneys are overly calculating. These sorts of attorneys tend to be very calculating and analyze most situations vis-a-vis whether or not they are getting the upper hand. This is not an attractive trait and often demonstrates that an attorney is a narcissist that doesn’t take pride in their work and is playing the game. Here is an article that shows you how to identify these types of attorneys.
Attorneys who are not overly conscientious or calculating can go into practice settings other than large law firms. Teaching law is a setting, for example, where debating ideas is rewarded, and thinking and detail do not need to be as crisp. As stated above, the least conscientious attorneys often find themselves working in more consumer-facing branches of law, or in professions where they can use their legal skills or law degrees but not be expected to produce flawless work—or particularly enjoy doing so.
It is, as a general rule, the most conscientious attorneys who end up attending the best law schools. Attorneys who go to the best law schools do so precisely because they are so conscientious.
The most conscientious and lawyer-like attorneys typically end up in the largest law firms or practicing for the largest clients. They go where there is money to support their desire to be conscientious. Most lawyers in major law firms are conscientious.
The conscientious attorney wants to be around other attorneys who have high standards for the sort of work that they do. All consumer-facing attorneys are not unconscientious; however, they are more likely to be less conscientious than attorneys from major law firms.
The best attorneys tend to be the most conscientious. There are conscientious attorneys in every type of practice area, and they tend to be the best ones practicing in those areas.
Any practice is that requires the attorney to rush and not do the best work is not a good fit for the conscientious attorney.
It is important to understand exactly the sort of attorney you are and what your personality style is. Think of this in terms of how you choose the sort of firm you work in and the practice setting you are in. Your personality traits will have a major impact on where you belong—and you are likely to know instinctively where that is before you commit to a practice area, practice setting, or even location for your practice.
Are you in the right kind of law firm? Do you think that these assessments are correct, do you agree or disagree?
Share your responses to these questions and your thoughts about how to find your ideal environment and practice area as an attorney in the comments below.
One of the benefits of working with a legal recruiter is that they can help you narrow down what is the best environment for you. The article below highlights that and other various benefits of working with a legal recruiter.
See Related Articles:
- Seven Things the Best Legal Recruiters Do that You Cannot Do Yourself
- Choosing the Best Legal Recruiter
The analysis tool this man uses, as well as several people I have worked with in the past use, is called DISC Assessment. DISC is a tool based on the DISC theory of psychologist and attorney, William Moulton Marston, which centers on the personality traits of Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness--Supportive (S), and Conscientiousness (C). Understanding how you fit in with these different personality traits can tell you a lot about where you should be practicing.
1. THE MEANING OF DOMINANCE—THE “D” IN DISC PROFILES: To Succeed in Large Law Firms and Markets You Generally Need to be Dominant
The “dominance” of this personality is often described by these words: Direct. Decisive. Driven. Results. Demanding. Task-oriented.
- A person that is a high D is highly focused on getting things done.
- They are very passionate and prefer to lead rather than follow.
- They work hard to achieve goals.
- They would rather be working than not working.
- They are motivated by winning and thrive in environments where they are competing with others.
- They often fear being seen as vulnerable and possibly being taken advantage of.
- They want to be seen as successful and powerful.
- They are goal and task oriented.
Most attorneys are high achievers, competitive and goal and task-oriented. They may set their sights on going to the best college and law school possible and getting into the best law firm they can. They may also be very motivated by being competitive with others and succeeding in competition with them. They get into the best schools because they do better than those around them and stand out—they will often have the best grades, most extracurricular activities and strongest looking backgrounds on paper.
Who knows why people are this way. In many cases, they have something to prove—to their parents, siblings, self, or others. Regardless, these extremely driven personalities are perfect for major law firms, in major cities. Unless you are very competitive, task-oriented and have something to prove, there is very little reason to subject oneself to the sorts of hours and pressure of a large law firm. Getting on the competitive wheel of a major law firm is a lot of pressure, and it is not for everyone.
Being driven and competitive is very important when succeeding as an attorney in a major law firm, but I think there are other qualities that are important as well. The article below articulates those other traits that help attorneys succeed.
I meet attorneys and others all the time who I can tell have no business working in large law firms. They are too nice. Not competitive enough. Not driven enough and have nothing to prove. They may be smart, have gone to good law schools and have other abilities—but they do not belong in large law firms. Every year countless people come out of the very best law schools—Harvard, Michigan, Columbia and others who, frankly, may be good students and test takers but have no business working in major law firms: The major law firms would eat them up alive. The same thing goes for many attorneys who choose to teach law and go into academia, public service, clerkships and pursue other occupations. You need to enjoy competing with others, want to get ahead and want to work hard and prove something to stay in most large law firms. You need to want to make as much money as possible and achieve something.
Most major law firm attorneys are motivated by the competition with others and often concerned about their hours, money and how they appear compared to others they know. They will often try and undermine others; they will work harder than them; they will always try and be the best. The best law firms can channel this high motivation into profit by using it to get lots of hours and the best work they possibly can out of their attorneys. To get positions in the largest law firms, an attorney will often need to be extremely dominant. Law firms will instinctively pick up this personality trait in interviews and use it to channel your motivation into lots of hours and improved work product. Whether they realize it or not, law firms use the natural “dominant” characteristics of attorneys and their need to feel important, better than their peers at smaller firms and desire to feel successful to exploit them and make lots of money. Even partners are exploited by this system. As long as you want to be ahead of others, you will believe you belong on the hamster wheel and need to keep competing to find inner fulfillment.
This dynamic of competitiveness and exploitation can often lead attorney to become stressed and unable to handle the mental ramifications that come as a result of such long hours and constant comparison among peers. I’ve seen it happen many times to attorneys some of whom were close to me as well.
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If you want to be part of a large law firm, and remain there, you generally will need to be very dominant. You will need to be motivated by competing with others and want to have the most hours compared to your peers. You will be task oriented. As a partner in a major law firm, you will want to have as much business as possible and be competitive with other partners and make the most money. If you do not feel you are making the most money, you will leave. If you are high “D” you may also be motivated by the quality of law firm you are in. The highest “Ds” tend always to want to be in better law firms, work with better attorneys and be considered to be working in the most prestigious law firms.
The most motivated of high Ds often quickly conclude that working in a major law firm is not worth it. They look around them and see other attorneys killing themselves working a lot of hours and not becoming partners, or advancing meaningfully in their careers, and conclude that they could be more successful elsewhere. High D attorneys also often find themselves in a position where they realize that they are so competitive that it does not make sense for them to direct their energies inside of a law firm, but will direct it elsewhere instead.
The most motivated of high D attorneys in large law firms generally make this leap—which is generally fatal to them ever working in a law firm again. Someone running a business has more independence, more long-term earning potential and more control over their time than an attorney in a large law firm. Someone with a business has far more potential to become someone important, very rich and well-known in the world than an attorney. Working in a law firm constrains you. You may not make partner; your future will be controlled by outside forces (how much other attorneys decide you are going to make, whether or not the firm brings in enough work and more). It is for this reason that law firms rarely hire attorneys who have started businesses after some time practicing law. They know that this psychology will take over for them again.
Many high Ds who enjoy the practice of law also conclude that the business they should start is another law firm. They believe they should get as many of the law firm clients as they possibly can and leave. This is another reason that law firms have very little interest in hiring attorneys who are solo practitioners, or who have left and started law firms. Law firms want “high D” attorneys but are not necessarily interested in attorneys who are so high D that they are likely to leave again.
When law firms are hiring attorneys, they need to make a careful calculation of whether or not that person is truly suited to practicing law in a large law firm. The law firm needs to understand whether or not the person is motivated and high D enough to succeed—or so high D that they are unlikely to be a good fit in a major law firm.
| BEST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Large, competitive law firm |
| Solo practitioner or firm owner | |
| Business owner | |
| Leader of a company | |
| Prosecutor | |
| Firm in a major city | |
| General Counsel of a company |
The dominant personality wants to feel important, in control and like they are accomplishing something big. These settings allow for this.
| WORST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Routine government jobs |
| Academia | |
| Public Interest | |
| Judicial | |
| Small town legal practice | |
| Most in-house jobs |
The most dominant people are not happy in positions that do not allow them to be the center of attention and feel like they are not accomplishing more than others. They want to make as much money as possible and be seen as successful and powerful compared to their peers—something these sorts of positions do not allow for. High D attorneys want to be in positions and around others where there is a high degree of motivation to get ahead.
| BEST PRACTICE AREAS: | Litigation |
| Corporate | |
| Entertainment | |
| Criminal Law | |
| Family Law | |
| Labor and employment |
These practice areas allow the attorney to be the center of attention, compete with others and get the sense of winning and being the best. They also tend to attract many sorts of competitive attorneys as well.
| WORST PRACTICE AREAS: | Bankruptcy |
| Insurance Coverage | |
| Real Estate | |
| Tax | |
| Patent Law | |
| Trust and Estates |
These practice areas (not always, but often) tend to be quite routine and not attract the most competitive types of attorneys. These practice areas do not give attorneys the opportunity to draw a lot of attention to themselves and shine compared to others. They tend to be more collaborative than involve people competing with one another.
2. THE MEANING OF INFLUENCE—THE “I” IN DISC PROFILES: Different practice areas are more suited to the influencer personality than others.
Someone who is an influencer has a desire to create their environment by influencing others. They can be described by the words: Optimistic. Persuasive. Talkative. Emotional. Social.
- An influencer enjoys being around others.
- Influencers are not afraid to be the center of attention.
- Influencers often have good senses of humor and are positive people in their environments.
- Influencers are motivated by the approval of others.
- Influencers are motivated by having the opportunity to verbalize their ideas.
- Influencers do not like spending a lot of time alone.
- High “I” influencers often do not like a lot of details and may be perceived as disorganized.
- Influencers are concerned with who is going to be around for various social and other events.
Influencers can and cannot work in certain law firm environments and practice areas.
The most suitable practice area for an influencer is, of course, being a litigator. As a litigator, the person can write, express their ideas verbally and be heard. Influencers also can get the constant approval of others when they succeed in court, in negotiations, and for their clients. Influencer attorneys enjoy going up against well-known attorneys in court, being able to verbalize their idea and convincing clients and the other side that a certain course of action is a good idea. Litigators like the idea that when they are working, they are generally constantly interacting with others to get things done. Many of the best litigators I used to work with enjoyed the idea that they singlehandedly won a case or a matter. High “I” litigators want to be the center of attention.
The problem with high “I” litigators is that this personality is not always appropriate for the largest law firms. The largest law firms want “soldiers” to do the work and not necessarily associates to take the spotlight. There are different types of partners inside of law firms as well – there are service partners behind the scenes, and there are those that are out in the limelight drawing attention to themselves, being seen and taking all the credit. High influencers often have a difficult time surviving in large law firms if they are too eager for praise and attention early in their careers. The most classic of high-influencer litigator moves is to state that they need more “courtroom” experience or “trial experience” and want to move firms due to this. This sort of reason for wanting to move firms means that the high influencer is unlikely to be happy in a major law firm. High influencers are often happier in roles where they can be the center of attention—even if it means less money. Also, high influencers will often feel constrained in large law firms. It is for this reason that many high influencers do not do well inside of law firms. They need to have enough of an influencer personality to be good writers and so forth; however, they do not need to be the center of attention.
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It has always been interesting for me seeing litigators in some of the largest and most major law firms. They are not high influencers and are most comfortable behind a desk and not in court. The large law firms like this because the partners are the ones that have this personality—and not even the majority of them have it. When doing work for major corporations, many lawyers in large firms are more technicians than influencers. They spend their time on technical matters, finding fault and attacking the work product of the lawyers who tend to be very high influencers.
In contrast, many other practice areas such as patent law, tax, ERISA, real estate, technology transactions, trust and estates and even many types of corporate law—transactional practice areas—are much better suited for attorneys who do not have influence-related skills. They may be more interested in being technicians and not grandstanding and having the attention of other people, for example. In many law firms, the people who do the work—even in litigation—tend to be people without influence-related skills. The people who interface with clients and are in the limelight have this instead.
Different law firms also have different cultures. For example, the first law firm I ever worked in was comprised only of litigators. The majority of litigators in this law firm tended to be influencers. The next law firm I worked in was a general practice law firm that had litigators in it. The majority of the law firm was comprised of corporate attorneys. Here, the litigators and most of the people inside of the law firm tended not to be influencers. The culture of the law firm was built around servicing large institutional clients and being in the background, and not on drawing attention to oneself.
| BEST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Anywhere the attorneys can influence and be around others |
| Political office | |
| Public interest | |
| Many law firms that welcome this sort of personality | |
| Sales-oriented jobs that require a law degree | |
| Academics |
An attorney who is a high influencer wants to be around others and have the opportunity to shape them to their point of view. They are social and crave environments where they can talk to others and influence them.
| WORST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Anywhere the attorney is not around others and cannot influence them |
| Solo practitioner | |
| Law firms that stifles creativity and debate about ideas | |
| Many corporate environments where the attorney is faceless and nameless |
High influencer attorneys want their ideas heard, and they want to be around people who will listen to them. Any practice setting that prevents this sort of debate and does not welcome this from the attorney is likely to make them feel like they are not doing well. It is not uncommon for an attorney who is a high influencer to leave a firm when they feel their ideas are not taken seriously, or they do not have many friends to discuss ideas with.
| BEST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney gets to be around a lot of other people and influence them. |
| Litigation | |
| Corporate | |
| Entertainment | |
| Criminal Law | |
| Family Law | |
| Trust and Estates | |
| Labor and Employment |
These practice areas allow the attorney to be the center of attention, compete with others and get the sense of winning and being the best. They also tend to attract many sorts of competitive attorneys as well.
| WORST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney feels isolated and as if they are not connecting with and influencing others |
| Real Estate | |
| Tax | |
| Patent Law | |
| ERISA | |
| Many types of finance | |
| Anything overly clerical, or transactional that does not involve people and influencing them—even litigation can be this way if you are doing discovery or document review, for example. |
3. THE MEANING OF STEADINESS—THE “S” IN A DISC PROFILE: Most Attorneys Tend Towards Being Steady and Desiring Supportive Roles
Someone who is steady is interested in cooperating with others to complete tasks that support others and maintain stability. They can be described by the words: Cooperative. Collaborative. Stable. Consistent. Loyal. Patient.
A steady personality:
- Does not like change.
- Does not want to offend others.
- Tends to be dependable.
- Likes to be in a role where they support others.
- Does not like being the center of attention and promoting themselves.
- Feels secure following rules and in a role where they help others follow the rules.
- Wants to be accepted by the group.
- Likes working with teams and cooperating.
- Values consistency.
- Does not enjoy confrontation.
The steadiness personality is something that applies to a lot of lawyers. Lawyers like to be in a role where they are supporting clients behind the scenes and not necessarily the center of attention. Most middle-class professions—of which being an attorney is one—tend to attract people who value steadiness. Lawyers who work in most major law firms, rather than on their own, value steadiness. The traditional idea of going to good schools to get the best job possible and work for someone else (the middle class ideal) centers around supporting the needs of someone else in exchange for a steady paycheck. Attorneys by their very nature are representing the needs of others in the market—they are supporting them by protecting them from issues. Most attorneys look out for their clients’ interest and try and guard them against problems that would disturb the status quo. Whether they are representing a client in a transaction, or a litigation matter, their goal is to bring things back to a state of equilibrium for the client—complete the transaction, settle the case and so forth.
Some attorneys value steadiness more than others. The attorneys who value it the most will likely surround themselves with other attorneys and be in the least adverse practice areas—transactional ones. These attorneys want to work in firms where they are surrounded by lots of others; they have partners and feel like they are cooperating with others. Natural attorneys also like rules, the law and helping their clients follow these laws. People who are not natural attorneys do not look upon their role as to support others—they are more concerned with themselves.
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If you are going to practice law and enjoy what you are doing, you need to enjoy supporting others and solving their problems. You need to feel you are contributing to the success of groups through your actions. You need to be excited about solving the problems of others. Happy attorneys need to think this way and prioritize the needs of others over their own. The best attorneys should also feel their actions are supporting the group and believe in this.
If an attorney is not motivated by solving the problems of others they are going to be unhappy practicing law. If the attorney is unhappy working in groups, they are going to be unhappy in most law firms.
One of the reasons so many lawyers are unhappy in law firms in the United States is because the law has become so depersonalized compared to what it may have been 50+ years ago. The natural makeup of the steadiness personality attorney is geared towards assisting others, cooperating with groups and not feeling multitasked. In a large law firm, the attorney’s natural need to support others is often pulled in many different directions.
- The attorney will find themselves in a position of working for a corporation it never interacts with on matters that feel insignificant.
- Instead of cooperating with others, the attorney will be working in an environment where their peers (other attorneys) may be perceived to be out to get them.
- The attorney will not be in a stable environment because attorneys will be leaving and losing their jobs all the time and the attorney will never feel safe.
All of this makes the modern, large law firm something that many attorneys detest because it is at complete odds with their personality makeups. Instead of wanting to work in a large law firm, attorneys often want to go in-house and say they want to do so “so they can work with just one client.” They want to feel like they are in a supportive role and making a direct contribution. They want to feel like they are someplace steady. They want to feel like they are working with a group that gets along. While all of this is quite understandable, in most cases, this is the exact opposite of what attorneys find once they arrive in-house. Companies go out of business, merge, hire and fire CEOs, General Counsels, sell off business divisions, get sued, close offices and more. Companies are even more unstable than most law firms.
What is an attorney seeking steadiness to do? One of the things that I have noticed is that attorneys who work in smaller to midsized markets—think Madison, Grand Rapids, Rochester, Sacramento, Tucson, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Charleston—tend to have much longer, happier careers than attorneys who try and practice in major markets. Attorneys in smaller markets tend to huddle together and protect one another more. There is less pressure to make a lot of money. People tend to work on smaller clients and have a bigger role in solving their issues. I have noticed that attorneys—regardless of the law school they attended—are happier, more well-adjusted and seem to enjoy the practice of law much more. They do not salivate like mad dogs at the thought of going in house—or even have that as a goal. They tend to be much happier. I believe this is because the smaller law firms in medium to smaller sized markets are a place where an attorney’s natural desire for steadiness is supported.
| BEST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Anywhere the attorney can feel secure in their position |
| Government position | |
| Support role in a noncompetitive law firm-they do exist | |
| Public interest | |
| Academia | |
| Judicial environments | |
| Support role inside of a company | |
| Small, family-owned law firms-these often do not have a lot of turnover and minimal conflict | |
| Smaller to midsized markets without a lot of movement in them-these often do not have a lot of turnover and minimal conflict |
The steady attorney does well in positions that allow them to support others and at the same time feel secure in their environments. People who are high in the support quotient want to be in positions where they feel secure and are not under attack all the time. They value consistency. Consequently, they are more likely to accept less money in exchange for consistency than they might otherwise make in the market. They are not concerned about drawing attention to themselves and do not need to be in the limelight.
| WORST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Anywhere the attorney does not feel secure |
| Law firms with a lot of turnover and conflict | |
| Companies with a lot of turnover and conflict | |
| Positions that require business generation to get paid | |
| Positions where compensation is variable and unpredictable | |
| Law firms in major cities—these typically have a lot of turnover |
Steady attorneys do not like unpredictable legal environments or ones where they are likely to lose their position. They do not like conflict either. Larger law firms and markets tend to have a lot of conflict and attorneys are unlikely to be happy in them.
| BEST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney is not in conflict with others—or is allowed to work behind the scenes--most transactional practice areas. |
| Tax | |
| Patent Law | |
| Many types of finance | |
| ERISA |
The classic supportive attorney enjoys a position in tax law, for example, where they are expected to sit down at a desk each day and work a certain number of hours and know that if they can do this, they will be fine. This makes them happy. Different personality types do not enjoy this sort of thing—the supportive attorney does.
| WORST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney is in conflict with others, there are winners and losers and which is unpredictable by nature. |
| Litigation | |
| Criminal Law | |
| Family Law | |
| Trust and Estates |
These practice areas put the attorney in conflict with others, require them to hurt others and are unpredictable by nature. These are not the sort of practice areas the typical attorney enjoys.
Are you in the right kind of law firm? Learn how the type of law firm you are in can make or break your legal career. Do you think that these assessments are correct, do you agree or disagree? Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below.
4. THE MEANING OF CONSCIENTIOUS—THE “C” IN THE DISC PROFILE: Almost All Attorneys Are Conscientious by Nature
Someone who is conscientious is motivated by producing excellent work. They can be described by the words: Accuracy. Careful. Cautious. Calculating. Objectiveness. Stability. Systematic. Critical.
The conscientious personality:
- Wants to produce work that is not criticized.
- Likes to challenge assumptions in thinking.
- Likes to research and come up with the correct information.
- Enjoys showing their expertise with the work they produce.
The conscientious personality is particularly suited to lawyers. To practice law in a major law firm, an attorney needs to be conscientious—there is absolutely no doubt about it. The clients of large law firms expect well-researched work that is delivered flawlessly (without typos, grammatical errors, formatting and other errors). The best attorneys take a tremendous amount of pride in the quality of the work they produce, and it is impossible to work in a major firm and be taken seriously unless you are conscientious. In fact, not being incredibly conscientious is a very quick way to distinguish the best lawyers from the poorest ones.
The larger the client you represent—and the larger the law firm—the more conscientious you will need to be. At its lowest level, when you see the work produced by attorneys in the smallest law firms where individuals are typically represented that do not have a lot of money (in low stakes family law, criminal matters, personal injury, low-level insurance defense, and immigration, for example) the work will be littered with typos, formatting errors, errors of law and more. Attorneys in the smallest law firms often do not have the time to be conscientious because their clients are not paying them. Attorneys in larger law firms that work with the largest clients are expected to be more and more conscientious. When judges evaluate the work product of poor attorneys without resources behind them compared to the best attorneys, there is often no comparison. The best lawyers are careful, their legal conclusions well-reasoned and more. You are more likely to win negotiations, legal cases and do better with contracts and other legal matters when you are represented by an attorney that is extremely conscientious compared to one who is not.
The best attorneys take a great deal of pride in their work, and their conscientiousness is natural—it is something that is ingrained into them, and they do not need to be taught it. They enjoy marking up papers and finding errors. They enjoy tweaking contracts and documenting transactions. They take pride in researching material and coming up with novel conclusions. To be a good attorney and suited for the profession of law, this sort of thinking and way of approaching problems must come naturally to you. If it does not then you will have a difficult time being a lawyer and need to learn this way of thinking and approaching problems immediately.
The reason that conscientiousness is so critically important for attorneys is that lawyers make a living finding errors, researching errors, tricking their opponents into making errors and attacking the errors of other attorneys. If an attorney is not conscientious, they will spend their entire career being beaten up by other attorneys and lose most of the time. Their clients will get the bad side of deals. They will be in a position where they are constantly on the defensive and cleaning up mistakes. They will quite often be sued for malpractice and lose. The attorney who is the most conscientious is the one who wins most of the time.
The best attorneys are also quite calculating. Like chess players, they may withhold information selectively, play games with deadlines, insert provisions into contracts at the last second when the other side is not expecting it, and use the information to their advantage. To be a good attorney you need to enjoy and thrive playing these sorts of games—it should come naturally. If these sorts of games do not come naturally to you, then there is a good chance you are someone that is not well suited to be an attorney either. You need to be able to be as calculating as possible at all points in time.
However, it is important to note that sometimes attorneys are overly calculating. These sorts of attorneys tend to be very calculating and analyze most situations vis-a-vis whether or not they are getting the upper hand. This is not an attractive trait and often demonstrates that an attorney is a narcissist that doesn’t take pride in their work and is playing the game. Here is an article that shows you how to identify these types of attorneys.
Attorneys who are not overly conscientious or calculating can go into practice settings other than large law firms. Teaching law is a setting, for example, where debating ideas is rewarded, and thinking and detail do not need to be as crisp. As stated above, the least conscientious attorneys often find themselves working in more consumer-facing branches of law, or in professions where they can use their legal skills or law degrees but not be expected to produce flawless work—or particularly enjoy doing so.
It is, as a general rule, the most conscientious attorneys who end up attending the best law schools. Attorneys who go to the best law schools do so precisely because they are so conscientious.
| BEST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Large, major law firms |
| Most legal practice settings where work is done at a high level | |
| Places where the attorney has a lot of money and time to do work well | |
| Places where quality is highly valued | |
| Structured legal environments with rules | |
| Judges | |
| Some government offices and environments | |
| Some in-house environments | |
| Legal environments composed of attorneys who went to top law schools | |
| Law firms that do work for large corporations |
The most conscientious and lawyer-like attorneys typically end up in the largest law firms or practicing for the largest clients. They go where there is money to support their desire to be conscientious. Most lawyers in major law firms are conscientious.
| WORST PRACTICE SETTINGS: | Legal environments without high work quality standards |
| Legal environments composed of poor attorneys | |
| Most consumer-facing legal environments | |
| Unstructured environments without a lot of rules | |
| Legal environments composed of attorneys who went to poor law schools or did not do well there | |
| Small law firms in small towns | |
| Consumer-facing law firms |
The conscientious attorney wants to be around other attorneys who have high standards for the sort of work that they do. All consumer-facing attorneys are not unconscientious; however, they are more likely to be less conscientious than attorneys from major law firms.
| BEST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney can be a perfectionist with their work. This could be any practice area for the most part. |
| Any practice area where work is being done for clients that can afford to pay for good work. | |
| Tax | |
| ERISA | |
| Patent |
The best attorneys tend to be the most conscientious. There are conscientious attorneys in every type of practice area, and they tend to be the best ones practicing in those areas.
| WORST PRACTICE AREAS: | Any practice area where the attorney is less likely to have the money, or time, to be conscientious |
| Criminal Law | |
| Family Law | |
| Consumer bankruptcy | |
| Personal injury |
Any practice is that requires the attorney to rush and not do the best work is not a good fit for the conscientious attorney.
Conclusions
It is important to understand exactly the sort of attorney you are and what your personality style is. Think of this in terms of how you choose the sort of firm you work in and the practice setting you are in. Your personality traits will have a major impact on where you belong—and you are likely to know instinctively where that is before you commit to a practice area, practice setting, or even location for your practice.
Share Your Thoughts
Are you in the right kind of law firm? Do you think that these assessments are correct, do you agree or disagree?
Share your responses to these questions and your thoughts about how to find your ideal environment and practice area as an attorney in the comments below.
