This episode is dedicated to my young lawyers.
Trial lawyering is literally one of the biggest mindfucks that could ever happen to a human being.
That means that you NEED to have your own back, and give yourself grace and compassion.
Tune in to find out my top three advice for YOU as a young lawyer that if you use to shape your career, one, unlike Joe, you’ll get to skip the never-ending search for the “formula”, and two, you will never have to worry about winning again.
Xo,
Sari
"You have to have your own back and talk nicely to yourself, because you're going to have a lot of bosses that are not going to talk nicely to you. You're going to have a lot of opposing counsel that's not going to talk nicely to you. You're going to have a lot of judges that are going to dress you down in front of the fucking jury. You've got to be the one person in your world that has your own back, that tells yourself, 'I could have done that differently, I did miss that, but I'm still a worthwhile person and I'm going to get this and I'm going to learn it.' Because what you're going through right now is already fucking hard. Don't make it harder by being your worst enemy."
sari de la motte
EPISODE 241 TRANSCRIPTION
Hey, we're getting close to 250 podcasts, which is amazing. I would like to increase the reviews of the podcast, so if you haven't done that, please go do that. The reviews are good. I'm so excited that you guys are loving the podcast and loving me. I love you back. I love you, man. If you're walking your dog right now or driving and listening to me, I just want you to feel the Sari love wash all over you right now.
I love you.
Now, today we're talking about my advice for young lawyers. So I got to tell you that one of my favorite people on earth, who also happens to be one of the best trial lawyers that ever lived, and is one of the only people that could call me out and I'd listened to that shit. Well, they called me out. So this podcast is for them, and you know who you are, because I do not normally listen to feedback that I don't agree with. But I ended up agreeing with some of this, not all of it.
Anyway, I'm getting in the weeds. But my podcast at the beginning of the year called, How to Have Your Best Year Ever, kind of ticked this person off. And the reason for that is because in that podcast, I talked a lot about designing your life exactly the way that you wanted it, and I talked about taking 10 weeks off like I do. I didn't suggest you do that, but I just gave it as an example. I talked about saying no. I talked about “have to’s” versus "choose to’s”. And the person who called me out was saying, "This is not advice that young lawyers need to be hearing right now, because in this part of their career, they need to be focused. They're going to be working more than they probably ever have in their life. They can't take 10 weeks off, the trial is going to require things from them, and they're going to have to do things that they have to do. So could you stop giving that advice?"
I want to say a couple of things in my defense, not that I need you to defend myself with this person because I love them. First is that I've been on the record, maybe not in that podcast, but I have, if you listen to me throughout the 250 episodes. We're not there yet, but I've been on the record many times in saying, one, that if you are in trial or just starting out, then these types of things don't apply. Every trial lawyer who's an actual trial lawyer will know that you put in long days, long hours, and long weeks in trial. It's grueling and there's no getting out of that. I know as a trial consultant who used to be at trial with my lawyers, and I often do that now with my mastermind clients, that it's hard on me as a trial consultant, it's long hours.
So I don't want to have given the impression that, “Oh, this is how you can be in the world when it's in trial.” Again, taking 10 weeks off is something I can do. I'm not saying it's totally out of the realm of possibility for trial lawyers to do. I would love for y'all to start taking vacation AT ALL. That would be a good start. And my definition of “have to” is, even the things that we, “have to do”, many of those things we actually don't. But the things that we actually end up having to do, they change your mindset and we choose to do them because they're in service of a bigger goal.
So that's what I mean when I talk about “have to”. But the biggest thing that I wanted to clarify is our avatar. Now, before I say this, I don't want young lawyers to stop listening to me because I love you, and so many of my avatar, who I'm going to talk about in just a minute, say to me, "Where were you when I started out?"
So I want to be a resource, and so that's why I'm so glad that this person did call me out because it allows me to make this clarifying statement. Our avatar, we call him Joe, he's from North Carolina, that's my biggest contingency right now in the crew, are my North Carolinians. I think that's how you say it, right? That's how you say it. I'm never going to learn how to say that correctly because it pisses y'all off. I love it. He's between 40 and 60 years old, he's not super tech-savvy, rarely on Facebook, he's old school, buys all the books, and does all the things. Okay, that's who I'm talking to. He has been in practice for 20 plus years. When you write a book, when you create a podcast, anything, the prevailing advice is to speak to one person. I'm speaking to Joe.
Now, that doesn't mean that you're not going to get things from my podcast if you are female or a person of color, Joe happens to be white, and that is only because that is the trial lawyer right now. We're changing that. Not that I don't love my white Joe's, I'm just saying, but it means that, that is my avatar currently and that is who I'm speaking to. So if you are a woman, not everything is going to apply that I'm talking about because we have a different set of challenges. Now, I have a lot of podcasts specifically for my women. So I'm not saying that there's not stuff here for you, but some of the things that I'm saying, you might be listening to over the last several years and go, "I could never do that as a woman," and I'd be right there with you going, "Yeah, I know!"
I would never agree with never, because there's always a way. Or you might be listening to this as a young attorney and go, "I could never do that." Well, yeah, because, again, I'm talking to Joe. Now, having said all of that, here's what I've learned from Joe that is going to apply to all you young lawyers. Here's who Joe is. Joe has one. Joe is in this middle place, he wants to be better, then he finds me, and then his career takes off. But here is also what I've noticed about Joe is that when he's coming out of this middle place, finds me, and us and our whole ragged tag band of misfits, which is Team Sari, he looks like a fucking zombie. He looks like he just came out of a bomb shelter. And so I don't want that for you as young lawyers. And, again, I apologize for my voice. I'm still struggling with bronchitis.
So I have three things for you because you know I love my three’s and here they are.
Number ONE, learn to manage your brain.
By the way, a lot of these things also apply to my Joe's.
Trial lawyering is one of the biggest mindfucks that could ever happen to a human being. It is one mindfuck after another.
It's not even like this one thing. It's all the fucking time. From opposing counsel, from sometimes your staff, sometimes your co-counsel, sometimes your clients, the jury, the judge, all of it is a mindfuck. It's a huge risk to go to trial, all of the things. So if you don't want to be 20 years in your career and stumble out of that bomb shelter looking shell-shocked, you'll learn now early and often to manage your brain.
Now, what do I mean by that? We all have a brain that is amazing. I love my brain, it's my favorite thing about me, but our brains are assholes. They're like little fuckers, man. And they do it for a good reason. They want to make sure that we are not going to die. So brains are always on the lookout for anything that could be like, “You're going to die.” And unfortunately, brains haven't evolved much past caveman days where a bear jumps out and eats you. So any kind of change, anything different, anything risky, the brain is still thinking a bear is going to jump out and eat you. So in its attempt to do a good thing, which is to keep you alive, it adds all this extra stress and pressure on you as a trial lawyer by making you second guess every last fucking thing.
It makes you think that you are horrible. It makes you think that you are stupid. It makes you think that you are dumb. And here's the thing, as a new lawyer, it's that but on steroids, because, I'm sorry to say it,
You are going to do a lot of stupid shit. You are going to be wrong a lot of the time because you're learning, and that is how it is going to be for you as a young lawyer.
So what you need to do so that we don't lose you, because we need you, especially women. Women leave trial lawyering in record numbers, and do you know when they leave? They leave after their first loss. So we need you, and in order for you to stay in this mindfuck of a profession, which can also be one of the most exhilarating professions in the world, if it wasn't, I wouldn't be here, this is exciting shit that you guys do, you have to learn to manage your brain. You have to be able to hear those voices.
Here's the big thing– you have to have your own back and talk nicely to yourself, because you're going to have a lot of bosses that are not going to talk nicely to you, you're going to have a lot of opposing counsel that's not going to talk nicely to you, you're going to have a lot of judges that are going to dress you down in front of the fucking jury. You've got to be the one person in your world that has your own back, that tells yourself, "I could have done that differently, I did miss that, but I'm still a worthwhile person and I'm going to get this and I'm going to learn it." Because what you're about to go through, what you're going through right now is going to be fucking hard. Don't make it harder by being your worst enemy.
See, here's the big thing that's out there in the trial lawyer world right now, it's this fear of complacency. Y'all have this feeling that if you actually believe that you are amazing, that you would stop doing the things to be amazing, that you get lazy, that you wouldn't care anymore, and nothing could be further from the truth. I'll just come out and say it. You are exceptional. Me being exceptional is not a product of me constantly questioning whether I'm exceptional or not or being afraid of no longer being exceptional. Me being exceptional is a product, first and foremost, of believing it, wanting to continually improve upon that, and loving the fuck out of my job so that I continually do epic, exceptional shit. It's not because I'm scared or I'm worried that I'm going to get lazy or complacent.
So get that out of your mind right away, that somehow if you believe that you're exceptional, that somehow means you won't learn anything or work hard anymore. And by the way, believing you're exceptional doesn't mean that you know everything or that you know more than your boss, because you don't. Not yet. You can still believe you're exceptional, because you are. Build on that.
Number TWO, learn to manage your time.
When you work for someone, and I did not mean to give the impression in my first podcast, again, I was talking to Joe that this is not the case, but when you work for someone, especially as a young lawyer, they own your ass, as it should be, because they're taking a chance on you. They're seeing what you're made of. They have put in their work, they have gotten their stripes.
Now, the good ones will be right there with you, working up until midnight before trial. Maybe not, because some of them have learned and they're like, "You guys got this. I'm going to go and get some rest." But that's the deal. So it's even more important for you to manage the time that is yours because you're going to have to start saying no to a lot of shit because you're saying so much yes to your employers. Meaning, the time that's left is for you. Not for stuff that you think you should be doing, or that you feel guilty about, or that you feel pressured to do. You're already owned by your boss.
You got to manage your time so that the time you do have for you is edifying, nurturing, and is restorative because, again, being a young lawyer is hard.
Number THREE, learn to manage your learning.
You're going to learn so much in your first five to seven years, which is when I consider you to be a new lawyer. In fact, we were just having a staff meeting today, We were talking about our three avatars. We've got Joe, we've got Joey, which is hilarious because we have a Joey in our crew, who's a younger lawyer, and when we've got Joseph, who is an older lawyer. So they were talking about Joey, and that he is a new lawyer. I'm like, "No, no, no, no. Joey's not a new lawyer. Joey's a younger lawyer, five to 12 years. New lawyers are one to five, zero to five."
You're going to be learning so much in those first five years, and one of the things that I will give you in terms of advice is to learn absolutely everything you possibly can.
I talk a lot in this podcast about being authentic, being yourself, and finding your own voice. What I'm about to say is going to sound like it's so anti-Sari advice, but listen, when you're a lawyer, speaker, or whatever it is that you're trying to do, copy the shit out of everybody that you see. I did. I copied my mentor for years. That's how I found my own voice. It's a lot for somebody to say, "Well, just find your own voice. Be authentic," when you don't even know what that is. You got to try some shit on. So go get your cardigans and be Randi McGinn. That would be even more funny if you're a man listening to this. Go hold your hands out in front of you and ask your jury to be brutally honest. Go do that weird shit that Jerry Spence does where he talks about, "You show me mine, I show you..." Whatever that is with Jerry.
Go do all the things. Go copy all the things. That's what you should be doing, and I don't want you listening to this podcast thinking, “Well, I'm not supposed to be doing that, I'm supposed to be authentic.” You don't know what authenticity is yet. I don't mean to talk to you like you're a teenager, but this world is going to chew you up and spit you out. So during that process, while you're earning your stripes, steal shit, copy shit. I don't mean steal in a bad way, but take all the things and go try it, and experiment and go, "That didn't work. I don't like that. Ooh, I like this with this twist on it." That's how you develop your own style. Randi McGinn literally talks about the style, like clothes that she went through. She has this great presentation where she's literally changing clothes in front of you.
No, you don't get to see anything that much, men. In fact, the one time she did it, the first time I saw it, it was in front of men. She's like, "I've never done this in front of men," but it was very modest and it was great. She literally went through an iteration in clothing styles, and, I'm sure she would admit, in her style as a trial lawyer. Now, she's a fucking legend, Randi fucking McGinn, is her name. That's what I think her name is. That's her name. That's on your passport, right? Randi, if you're listening? All right. So copy, copy, copy.
And the caveat to this number three is, question every damn thing. You're a new lawyer, but you're not like you don't have a brain of your own. Question every damn thing.
If there's any advice that I can give you, and maybe you don't question it in front of your employer, but in your own mind you are like, "Why the fuck are we doing it that way?"
Listen to your own voice. That may mean that you will do it that way as long as you work for that person, but you start developing your intuitive sense. Don't let anybody ever take that from you, because that is the one thing that I am now having to do the work in my world is to give that back to you. That's what I'm doing with the Joe's that are coming out shellshocked is saying, "Hey, you do have instincts. Those are good. Let's tap back into that." Because it's been worked out of them. You're going to have to play the game for a while, you're going to learn, you're going to learn, and you're going to learn. But right now, I want you to make the commitment that you will never not trust your instincts. You may have to act against your instincts sometimes, especially if you're working for someone else, but you never discount those instincts.
You question every damn thing. And for the person who called me out, I hope that this makes up for it and that we are now square. I love you. And I love you, those of you who are listening, and I hope this was helpful. Talk soon.
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