Synopsis
The Tips for Lawyers show is here to provide lawyers with the tools they need to thrive in legal practice.It's to fill a gap in the training of law students, lawyers and attorneys: practical legal skills and training. Lawyers and attorneys for a long time now have begun to ignore or avoid the skills and knowledge that are being utilised by businesses and entrepreneurs all over the world. For some reason, we seem to think that we are special in legal practice, and avoid taking on board skills that could help us develop better relationships with clients, more valuable endeavours for our law firms, and better outcomes in terms of profit. The Tips For Lawyers show will deal with topics that allow us to improve our communication skills, our marketing and business development (or rainmaking), our productivity as lawyers, time billing and recording, persuasion and advocacy, legal writing skills and drafting, and an abundance of other ways in which lawyers can be more personally productive, useful and beneficial to their firm and their client.The show also deals with the struggles and issues that young lawyers face in getting through day to day practice.Subscribe today - and see how you can genuinely love a legal career.
Episodes
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Playing to your Strengths as a Lawyer
28/04/2015 Duration: 18minPlaying to your strengths, or working on your weaknesses? That’s the question in today’s podcast. While I address it, I give you a little insight into my own strengths (at least, according to the test I just did) and a bit of information about why you need to do something similar, and how you need […]
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3 Ways Young Lawyers can Disrupt the System for the Better
21/04/2015 Duration: 24minHave you ever considered that you have been trained to specifically avoid engaging in any activity that looks to the future, rather than referring to the past? Well you have. In effect, the methods you have been taught in terms of finding the right legal answer, while suited to that task, are completely unsuited to […]
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Who Bears the Onus to Train Law Students and New Lawyers?
14/04/2015 Duration: 12minA Lawyers Weekly article contained quote after quote of management level lawyers saying, in effect, that it was too expensive and not worth their time to train lawyers. On they went to say, effectively, that young lawyers should be skilling up themselves if they were going to be employable. After hunting to make sure this […]
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Get your Audience Raving about your Next Presentation (AKA – How to Give a Good Presentation)
07/04/2015 Duration: 26minGiving a good presentation can be a burden, and many lawyers don’t have the training or inclination to do something that is memorable, educational and has a lasting impact. Sounds like an opportunity, doesn’t it? And you’d be right. Developing a great presentation takes a lot of effort, but is absolutely worth it. Microsoft PowerPoint […]
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Writing Articles? The Wrapping Matters!
31/03/2015 Duration: 24minLawyers write a lot of articles – it’s just a fact of life. As a result, it’s a little amazing to me that lawyers have basically no training (any many express no interest) in actually having their articles read. You know – the audience, right? They actually matter? Our job doesn’t end when we have […]
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Either Take Some Risks or Stay in the Cage – it’s Up to You
24/03/2015 Duration: 15minAre you a bird in search of a cage? Recently an article by Seth Godin really caught the attention of a number of Tips for Lawyers readers. I couldn’t help wonder why. Is it because that’s how you feel? Desiring to get out that door and spread your wings, but when faced with the opportunity […]
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6 Tricks for a more Productive Morning
18/03/2015 Duration: 11minWe’d all like to have it, wouldn’t we? That feeling of control, serenity, energy and positivity going in to each day. Of course, the usual advice is to eat well, don’t drink too much coffee, exercise sleep right, and leap out of bed full of beans. But that advice is for other people. It might […]
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“I hate Being a Lawyer” and other lies we tell ourselves
14/03/2015 Duration: 25minSome of the most frequently Googled things which lead people to this website are phrases like “I hate being a lawyer” and “Why do lawyers hate their jobs”. Does that disturb you? It sure disturbs me. It leads people to one of my articles about why lawyers hate their jobs, and so I wanted to drill […]
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How to Build your Network From Day 1
12/02/2015 Duration: 21minYou know you’re supposed to build a network, but you’re not sure why, or how. As a young lawyer the process of building a network of relevant, meaningful industry contacts can be daunting. As a result, we let our fear and uncertainty get in the way, stopping us from working on it from the outset. […]
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How to Start Working on your Personal Brand NOW
29/01/2015 Duration: 27minAll lawyers have a personal brand, one way or another. But is it the one that they actually want to have? How do you want to be perceived? Clever? Arrogant? Funny? Silly? Engaging? Aloof? Perhaps you know you need a personal brand but you’re afraid of putting yourself out there? What are the risks? What […]
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Goal Setting and Promotion Strategy
15/01/2015 Duration: 20minYou’ve probably decided on some aspirations right? Set some bold targets? Well that’s not enough. You’ve got to set goals that are meaningful, optimistic, achievable but most of all you’ve got to drill down to things that you can actually do, not just an aspirational target that you probably won’t bother working on until you […]
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Is Social Media a Complete Waste of Time for Lawyers?
11/12/2014 Duration: 21minOne of the most common things I come across amongst lawyers is a perception that using social media for business development is a complete waste of time. It’s an interesting perspective, because all the same people are happy to waste a tonne of time on Facebook for personal reasons – they just haven’t figured out […]
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What are the Essentials of Legal Practice (and what are you doing about them)?
25/11/2014 Duration: 22minWhat do you view as the essential elements of legal practice? Well in this podcast I discuss what I see as the four main pillars of legal practice, with a preview for you of the Essentials Library. The Essentials Library is a compilation of material that I’ve put together to take young lawyers through the […]
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Is Going Overseas Good for your Legal Career?
30/10/2014 Duration: 16minIt’s the yearning of many young lawyer – to travel overseas, earn money, eat good food and generally explore the world while not going broke in the process. But as we start to convince ourselves that overseas travel is a good idea, a few little white lies begin to creep in. Sorting the truth from […]
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Are you Worthless In your Own Mind?
16/10/2014 Duration: 21minOne of the transitions that all young lawyers need to make after they start in the profession is to begin to understand their sense of worth. In today’s podcast episode I explore how young lawyers can begin to appreciate their worth through three major areas of legal practice. Attitude to Legal Practice First I take […]
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Perfectionism is Killing your Career
01/10/2014 Duration: 18minLawyers have an overarching problem. We’re all fundamentally defective when it comes to our own ability to progress our careers. The problem is fear of not being perfect. You see, our training requires us to be so averse to something going wrong, that we ultimately end up paranoid with fear about doing anything at all. […]
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Ways to Do Well in a Job Interview
20/09/2014 Duration: 22minIn the ever increasing job market that’s not too favourable to young lawyers, we’re seeing a never ending string of clones applying for jobs. Endless resumes full of identical grades, achievements and desires. False promises about dedication to the field. One trick ponies. People who just happen to have volunteered only in law, worked only […]
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How to React to People Who Hate Lawyers
27/08/2014 Duration: 21minClosing off on our series about people who hate lawyers, in this podcast I talk about how I suggest reacting to the “anti lawyer” approach that some people have. Specifically, I talk about: What to do when Uncle Bob tells you at a family barbecue how much he hates lawyers; The Zorro Circle; Why people who […]
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Why Does Everyone Hate Lawyers?
27/08/2014 Duration: 20minLawyers have a special place in the community. At their highest, the legal professional is a trusted advisor, assisting their client in all aspects of their decision making in business. However, variously, lawyers are also the butt of jokes, the object of skepticism or hatred, and viewed as a necessarily evil. We can be told […]
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Better Business Skills for Lawyers
27/08/2014 Duration: 20minToday’s podcast is an ode to my new Better Business Skills course. For my dedicated podcast listeners I’ve put the entire first day of the course into podcast format so you can hear what it’s all about, why you should consider it, and hopefully get a few tips and tricks here and there. IMPORTANT NOTE […]