Of course, this suggests law practices must create and promote leadership qualities in lawyers and law firm managers. Recently, a seventeen-year lawyer told us that she recognized her ability and willingness to change is a gift. She said many lawyers suffer from an inability to change. We believe the problem is not lack of ability, but lack of desire to change, or lack of understanding how to change practices that are no longer working well. Perhaps the single most important discovery of the late twentieth century has been the certainty that what we humans think controls the quality and quantity of our lives.
Lawyers are excellent thinkers.
And, Lawyers are well equipped to be this country s best leaders, but they must develop a mind-set that is conducive to leadership. Dr. MacKoff interviewed leaders in many different industries to determine whether they had common thinking habits that made them successful. In the context of job satisfaction for lawyers, this means looking at the problem of attrition as a challenge of retention and preparing to change. Reflection - Successful leaders analyze their experiences and appraise their own behavior, then apply what they've learned to other daily activities. In law practices, successful senior lawyers can help retain other lawyers by analyzing the factors that make the firm an excellent career choice and then making those factors available to all lawyers.