Litigating Lawyers Deserve Lives They Love Too

Not all attorneys enjoy litigating, but those that do seem to enjoy it a lot! At Desert Diva we love and support lawyers of all kinds –  August 31 is Love Litigating Lawyers Day so we’re sending extra support to our litigators!

Time blocking for litigators

It’s important for all lawyers, but especially those that find themselves in court frequently, to manage their time in the office well. The more you can achieve while you’re in the office, the more you’re freed up for a solid performance in the courtroom.

Switching back and forth between tasks is tiring for the brain. Although it often feels like we're doing two things at once, the brain can’t do two cognitively demanding tasks at the same time. What’s actually happening is that the brain is switching back and forth between them very quickly so you’re not conscious of the switch.

What does that mean? You’re not giving your full attention to either task. Either you’ll take longer to get them both done or you’ll find mistakes you wouldn't make if you were paying attention to what’s happening. Or both.

Even though it may feel like you’re doing things faster, trying to multitask doesn’t do you any favors. And switching from task to task, like doing some research, then answering an email, then writing content doesn’t do you any favors either.

Instead, tackle all your research in one block of time. Set aside a different time to deal with emails, and yet a different one for content. Schedule big enough blocks that you can actually accomplish a task, as opposed to 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there which doesn’t allow for thought.

Litigators who own their own businesses

If you’re often in the courtroom, you don’t have a lot of time to run your business as well. Fortunately, there’s an entire ecosystem to help lawyers build their own businesses and run them in a way that leads to thriving instead of burnout.

I’m happy to help with productivity, and there are other professionals who can help with marketing and operating a legal business, as well as dressing to kill (not just when you’re in trial mode!) You can get pretty far with calendars and automations, though most litigators I know have an assistant to deal with phone calls and emails.

The good news is you don’t have to do all this alone, and many service providers focus on lawyers specifically. You can have an outsourced team that knows exactly what running a law firm is like. 

Prepare for downtime

Litigation is definitely what’s known as “knowledge work”. There’s a lot of what former president George W Bush liked to call “strategery”. Plenty of brainpower is involved!

Yet brainpower and willpower are limited resources that need to be shored up from time to time. Recharging leads to better performance. That shoring up requires downtime for your brain to exit out of “strategery” mode and use other regions of the brain instead.

Spending time with loved ones, exercise or physical movement, and other fun activities are all necessary to keep your brain functioning well. No they’re not billable hours, and none of these activities are directly work-related.

However, they’re what human brains need for peak performance. Athletes don’t spend all their time working out, but tend to their bodies and minds in other ways in order to perform at a high level. Your brain needs the same consideration.
Fun activities, physical movement, and time with friends and family could all be considered active rest. (Actual rest in the form of sleep is necessary too.) These active rest periods allow your brain to recover from intense mental exercise and prepare for the next period of performance.

Recap (tl;dr)

Litigating lawyers benefit tremendously from having good time management skills, especially when they’re not in the courtroom. There is a lot of support for anyone who’s running or wants to run their own business.

Interested in continuing a thriving legal business but not interested in burnout? Schedule your free consultation here to see how I can support you.