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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey, everyone. Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we like to make the practice of law fun. And today, we’re going to take a look at defining success as an attorney.
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[00:01:13] Scott Benton: Now, in the context of this podcast, success is largely defined as utilizing the success cycle as efficiently as possible. That’s a three part. circle that we include, which has a to do list category. It has a perform the legal services category and then bill for time. And you are going to then repeat that cycle.
[00:01:31] Scott Benton: It’s three parts. You do that over and over and over again. And that’s our definition of success as an attorney in terms of you practicing law. Now you can see we even have the word success built into that tool, the success cycle.
[00:01:45] Scott Benton: You’re learning how to actually practice law as an attorney then look no further than the SUCCESS cycle and what this podcast is designed to explore. Now, as you’ve probably already figured out, law school is not going to teach you how to practice law. That’s [00:02:00] not what they’re in business to do.
[00:02:01] Scott Benton: They’re working towards the goal of not only getting you to graduate law school, but also to pass the bar exam so that you can become a fully ticketed attorney and practice law. But again, they’re not going to teach you the how part of how to practice law. In fact, they usually tell you that practicing law is something you learn once you join a law firm. On the other hand, when you’re interviewing with law firms, since you have already gone through and graduated law school, and since you’ve passed the bar, they’re going to expect that you already know how to practice law, a subject that was never taught to you in law school, and it’s certainly never mentioned on the bar exam, yet somehow, you’re expected to know this very important part of the legal profession.
[00:02:44] Scott Benton: So that’s where this podcast comes in and it’s why you want to listen to it and why you want to master the success cycle and learn every nuance that we’re talking about. Because if you’re still a law student or if you’re currently looking for an attorney position, then this is your chance to dig [00:03:00] deeply into those skills so that once you get hired.
[00:03:03] Scott Benton: You’ll have a better idea of how to start your career and how to practice law and even work with clients and become successful. The success cycle is the key that’s going to get you there.
[00:03:12] Scott Benton: But even once you’ve crossed that threshold and you’re up and running as a practicing attorney, one of the next things you might need to do is define exactly what success looks like for you. What does success even mean? It can mean so many things, so we want to get extremely clear, and we also might want to understand that your definition of success might change over time, or it might even expand.
[00:03:37] Scott Benton: A lot of people look at the idea of success and they naturally think of money as that benchmark. So if you reach a certain level of monetary success, however you define that, or if you make a certain amount of money, however you define that, then you either have success or you do not have success. It’s a simple measurement.
[00:03:54] Scott Benton: So for the sake of this conversation, let’s say you decide 100, 000 is that benchmark. So if you [00:04:00] earn 100, 000 or more per year, or if you accumulate 100, 000 or more, then By your own definition, you’re successful. Anything less than 100, 000 and you still have a little bit of work to do. Now for others, that number might be 200, 000 or 500, 000 or even a million dollars.
[00:04:18] Scott Benton: All things being equal, assuming that they’re making the same amount of money as you are, one person could consider themselves successful, who’s making 100, 000, while the other, also making 100, 000, considers themselves unsuccessful. But, this is all just an academic exercise. There are many other ways to look at and measure success. For instance, if it’s not focused on the financial area of success, then success can be defined as making good decisions along the way. So therefore, a person who makes, let’s say, 8 out of 10 good decisions, is more successful than someone making 2 out of 10 good decisions, if you want to put in a, put it in a competitive light.
[00:04:59] Scott Benton: [00:05:00] Although, it could be that you’re the person who’s making 2 out of 10 good decisions, and then later, just through sheer determination to pursue success, you get to a point where you’re making 8 out of 10 good decisions, which is a huge improvement and a huge leap forward. Maybe you can even get to 10 out of 10. Who knows?
[00:05:19] Scott Benton: So if you take money out of the equation altogether, then there’s this idea of focusing on goals. What are your goals? If goals are the measure by which you’re going to determine your success level, then the more you achieve the goals that you set for yourself, whether those are work goals or family goals or personal goals, any kind of goals, and you’re busy knocking those off your list consistently, one after the other, Then by that metric alone, you are wildly successful, and that might have little or even nothing to do with money.
[00:05:50] Scott Benton: Now finally, there’s the idea of personal fulfillment. Maybe you’re not measuring success based on money, or making good decisions, or even reaching the goals you’ve written [00:06:00] down and achieved. Maybe it’s all based on your own personal fulfillment. So, are you having fun? Are you loving the life that you’ve created for yourself?
[00:06:09] Scott Benton: Are you making things happen? for yourself and for others? And are you out there making the world a better place? Assuming that’s part of your definition of successful personal fulfillment. So as you can see, there’s a lot of ways that you can define and measure success. If you don’t put a lot of thought into it, most people probably automatically tend to look at the money part of success only, and consider themselves successful once they get to a certain bank balance, or maybe it’s wealth they’ve accumulated in another form.
[00:06:39] Scott Benton: It could be stocks, or bonds, or mutual funds, or real estate, or really any asset that they pour their money into. Or it could be areas in your life that you’re focusing your energy on, that you decide represents the feeling of accomplishment and success you’re looking for that goes far beyond the fiscal yardstick, such as mastering the practice of law, [00:07:00] which you can do with the success cycle that we’re talking about here.
[00:07:03] Scott Benton: Or maybe it’s making good decisions or reaching goals or achieving personal fulfillment. It can also be any combination of these areas or maybe all of them. But whichever direction you go and measuring and defining success as an attorney, make sure that you’re striving and reaching for and even surpassing the goals you set for yourself.
[00:07:22] Scott Benton: And at the end of the day, do whatever you can to just go for it. I’m Scott Betten. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast episode. Now, if you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom.com.
[00:07:40] Scott Benton: That’s classroom the number two courtroom.com. You can send us a message if you like, if you can just wanna keep in touch or even acquire about our seasonal associate programs. We have available for law school students. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes.
[00:07:57] Scott Benton: And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the [00:08:00] world a better place, one client at a time.
