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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 make the practice of law fun, and it should be fun. Now today we’re going to take a closer look at figuring out why you’re working as an attorney, why you’re working as an attorney, or why you’re going to work as an attorney.
[00:00:31] Scott Benton: Because if you’re still a law student, then you’re really not going to have an answer for that question yet.
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[00:01:25] Scott Benton: Maybe you went to law school and you went that direction because your family wanted you to become an attorney for any number of reasons. Maybe they’re attorneys themselves, or Maybe it was something that you always saw yourself doing or maybe you wanted to do something that had the potential for a high salary in order to afford the best possible lifestyle that you could.
[00:01:45] Scott Benton: And you might have even written about those reasons for your law school application essays that a year or two into your law school studies you may or may not still feel the same way about law. Or Maybe e you’re still driven for the same reasons as before you started [00:02:00] law school. But there’s another threshold that you’re going to eventually cross, and that’s when you’ve finished law school, and that’s when you’ve finished the bar, and you’ve been working for a few years as an attorney at a law firm, when your personal why reason might once again change.
[00:02:15] Scott Benton: Now it might not change, maybe you’re still in it to make a lot of money and afford an expensive lifestyle if that was your reason. But once you begin to see the results of helping clients to achieve their legal goals, and you realize that monetary rewards for them are pretty significant and it’s changing their lives for the better, where you get clients to achieve some kind of non monetary goal that improves their lives, and Sometimes dramatically.
[00:02:41] Scott Benton: Your why reason for working as an attorney may shift or it might even evolve. You might start to find that your work brings you a large degree of satisfaction or identity or purpose. You might find that you’re thriving on improving the lives of your clients. And now, having [00:03:00] done that for maybe hundreds of cases, that begins to add up and it begins to mean that you’re out there making the world a better place.
[00:03:09] Scott Benton: And that’s what’s getting you up out of bed every morning, every single day to go to work. Now, as mentioned, some attorneys are doing all of this because they want to reach a level of financial freedom as quickly as possible. And they’re using the leverage of their bar number to generate as much personal income as they possibly can.
[00:03:30] Scott Benton: And they’re probably putting in a lot of hours. Now, after several years, they put together enough money or enough financial investments that they really don’t need to worry about working any longer.
[00:03:40] Scott Benton: All of their financial expenses are covered and they still have plenty of leftover. Now, I know about some attorneys and even some business owners who make it that far and their big dream might be, for instance, to play as much golf as they possibly can stand and visit and play on all of the [00:04:00] famous golf courses across the world.
[00:04:02] Scott Benton: That might be their goal after achieving financial freedom. Now, one attorney that we know They did just exactly that. And they made so much money that they achieved financial independence and focused on golf. But there is that idea that too much of a good thing is easily spoiled. And that’s what happened to this one particular person.
[00:04:22] Scott Benton: And it’s not uncommon to have people who reach this level who find that they go through the exact same thing. After a while, that attorney got bored, lost their purpose, didn’t have the same kind of fulfillment that they had when they were working. And even though they were working towards financial freedom to do whatever it is they wanted, whatever they could dream up, what they didn’t realize is the work that they were doing for their clients was tremendously fulfilling for them on just a personal level.
[00:04:50] Scott Benton: Now that they weren’t working as an attorney any longer, that fulfillment simply wasn’t there anymore. And the thing that was getting them up and out of bed each morning to go into work, it [00:05:00] had vanished. A life of leisure and golf vacations after a while, it just wasn’t as exciting as this attorney had thought it would be.
[00:05:07] Scott Benton: Now, this of course, it doesn’t happen to everybody, but we can still learn some valuable lessons for those who do go through this kind of an experience. So it’s important to know what your personal why is from the time you’re a student to the time you start your first job as an attorney to the time that you’ve been working as an attorney for several years.
[00:05:26] Scott Benton: And then a couple of decades after that, it might change, but you want to make sure that you’re keeping in mind why you’re working as an attorney and what’s giving you purpose and what’s giving you fulfillment. A lot of people find that helping others achieve their goals and improve their own lives through the work that they do to be incredibly fulfilling and incredibly purposeful.
[00:05:50] Scott Benton: And you don’t have to agree with that yourself. Finding your own why is going to be an individual journey. It’s going to be your own thing. Your why is [00:06:00] not going to be the same as everybody else. It’s going to be very personalized. It’s going to be very individual. But it’s important to make sure you know why you’re working as an attorney.
[00:06:11] Scott Benton: That’s going to become very powerful information for you to have. And often that can include an inward journey that you take to reach the why answer that is true for you. I know that’s a little esoteric, but basically that means that you’re probably going to do a lot of introspection. But just know that the why reason behind going to law school and then later pursuing the career of an attorney may not be the real deeper reason that you put in as much work as you did and achieve the high level of success that you’ve reached.
[00:06:44] Scott Benton: You may be doing it for completely other reasons and you don’t even need to tell anyone what your big why is. You just have to know it yourself.
[00:06:53] Scott Benton: And by the way, if financial freedom is your goal, and your big why, then great. I know [00:07:00] money is one of those subjects that really gets a bad rap, and a lot of people, they don’t even want to talk about it, but you’re certainly allowed to talk about it.
[00:07:07] Scott Benton: Especially to yourself. Especially during those. introspection moments that you have, and you’re definitely allowed to pursue financial freedom, which I know that you know that. And if that’s what’s going to bring you purpose and meaning, or if that’s a conduit for bringing you those things that you’re looking for, and if that’s what you’re after, then great.
[00:07:28] Scott Benton: You’ve figured out your big why, which is a critical part of your journey as an attorney.
[00:07:32] Scott Benton: My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If this is material that you like and you want to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website, which is classroom2courtroom.
[00:07:46] Scott Benton: com. That’s classroom, the number two. Courtroom. com. You can leave us your contact information. You’ll get an alert when we put out a new episode. So how cool is that? Additionally, if you like this material, don’t forget to share and subscribe. And by doing that, it’ll [00:08:00] help you stay on top of our newest episodes as well.
[00:08:02] Scott Benton: Cause you’ll get an alert through the podcatcher that you’re on. So until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time. Thank you so much
