The Unfrazzled Lawyer: Benefits for law firms supporting unfrazzled lawyers

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By Kate Ahern, BridgeTower Media Newswires

Editor’s note: The Unfrazzled Lawyer is aimed at helping attorneys take back control of their time and focus on what’s most important to them, so they can build the career and life they want, without guilt or burnout.

In the last column, our sister publication Minnesota Lawyer talked about the five personal and professional benefits to becoming an unfrazzled lawyer. Here, we’ll cover benefits to law firms that invest in and support their lawyers in becoming unfrazzled.

Real well-being support. Many law firms are noticing the concerning impact of practice on their lawyers’ well-being. However, firms often struggle to provide concrete, curated, impactful well-being support.

Making matters worse, unless lawyers have meaningful insight into their own needs, firm well-being efforts can prove ineffective.

In contrast, unfrazzled lawyers understand how to clarify their own needs and priorities, develop an effective time management strategy to support their priorities and avoid burnout, navigate the frazzle factors that get in the way, and regularly revisit and evolve their unfrazzled approach as their lives and practice change, empowering them to be more intentional about supporting and maintaining their well-being.

Firms investing in training and support to develop these skills in their attorneys can provide more concrete, cohesive, effective well-being support.

Better lawyers. Lawyers lacking proper support may be unnecessarily exhausted, precariously juggling commitments, and sprinting to keep up, risking burnout. They may struggle to keep up with hours, spend too long on projects, and turn in work close to deadlines, leaving colleagues and clients under a time crunch.

Unfrazzled lawyers are focused, intentional and reliable, because they know how to manage their time and priorities.

Firms can invest in and support unfrazzled lawyers who are sharp, refreshed, intentional about their own development, wise in striking balance and choosing commitments, who show good judgment in spending their limited human willpower and focus, and who have a reliable, foundational time management strategy.

Hiring and retention advantages. Firms providing attorneys with foundational unfrazzled skills training directly supporting their attorneys’ well-being can strongly demonstrate a commitment to their attorneys’ well-being and development, giving an advantage in hiring.

In addition, because unfrazzled skills can significantly reduce risk of burnout, attorneys can thrive in firm practice, rather than turning to a job switch in a desperate attempt to reduce burnout.

Industry leadership. In draining practice culture, many firms struggle to figure out where and how to play a role in attorney well-being, leaving internal support absent, stalled, disjointed, infrequent or ineffective, even in well-meaning firms. Instead, firms that empower their attorneys with effective, life-changing, unfrazzled support stand to be leaders in an industry struggling to balance performance with attorney well-being.

Even better, a firm full of unfrazzled, refreshed, focused, committed attorneys are much more likely to be innovators in practice.

Tired, flooded lawyers at risk of burnout are focused on daily survival, leaving little time for creativity or the space to view challenges and changes differently. Unfrazzled lawyers have the energy and space to be creative, fueling their firm’s industry and practice leadership through innovative ideas.

Diversity. The culture of our industry presents additional challenges for marginalized lawyers, who are often pressured to leave firm practice. Firms can strengthen their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by attracting, retaining and advancing women and other marginalized lawyers through meaningful support.

Unfrazzled lawyer skills can fuel attorney success in a sustainable way, growing a diverse and equitable firm environment.

Next steps

As you head into the new year, include unfrazzled support for your attorneys as part of your annual planning. You can ask the following questions to help analyze your next steps:

Do we have the expertise and bandwidth to provide unfrazzled skills support internally? If so, who will provide the support? If not, are we prepared to invest in external support/training?

Which of the above benefits are aligned with our firm’s mission and next steps? Which are we most excited about as a firm?

What are the current and future costs to our firm if we do not focus on providing this support?

What is our concrete next step to move forward in providing this support? Who will take that step and when?

As always, I’m here cheering on both the law firms stepping up to provide unfrazzled support to their attorneys and the individual lawyers making progress on their unfrazzled journey.

Kate Ahern of Unfrazzled, LLC guides lawyers and law firms on time management, priorities management, burnout, and the related impact of gender bias and other external pressures through her Unfrazzled University program, live workshops and articles.  Ahern is also a law professor, former AmLaw200 attorney, and transactional lawyer. She can be contacted at [email protected].