Lessons From 20 Years in Law
A career in law isn’t for the faint-hearted.
If quitting had been an option, I suspect I may well have done so at various points in my career when it became too much. Having reached this stage, I see now how lucky I have been that quitting has never been an option for me – like most people, I don’t have a financial cushion to fall back on and need to work. If I quit, what would I do instead, that paid the same salary? And so, I persevered.
Just Say No!
In Female Lawyers’ Club last week, we were chatting about saying no to things, and how difficult we found it. I talk about saying no a lot but this doesn’t make it any easier for me to do it!
Case in point. I’d been contacted a couple of weeks ago by a colleague who asked if I could speak at an event in Leeds, as an employment colleague had dropped out. I really wanted to help my colleague out, but it would have been a nightmare.
Five Tips for Boosting Charisma and Winning in Your Career
We can all think of charismatic people, those overflowing with charm who make everyone around them feel good. I’d always thought that those people just had a certain gene and were lucky to have been born with this magical power.
It turns out that I was wrong. The good news is that everyone has the ability to be charismatic. Charisma is a skill, like public speaking and driving a car. With practice, we can increase our charisma and, in so doing, obtain significantly better results in many key areas of our role, such as client meetings, advocacy, networking and team building. In so doing, we’ll increase our overall effectiveness as lawyers and attain higher levels of success.
How to Claim Your Power as an Influential Woman in Law
We had the incredible Dion Johnson deliver an inspiring masterclass to Female Lawyers’ Club in which she talked about the P.O.W.E.R principle: the secret to unlocking and unleashing your most powerful expression as a woman, leader, and changemaker in law.
Dion is a Board-level leader, development strategist for women in senior leadership, author and international conference speaker. Dion challenges women leaders to respond to the call to show up, speak up, and shake things the hell up in their industry.
No Time for Golf
Are you a boundary boss? Or does the word “yes” fall out of your mouth before you’ve even had chance to think?
My boundaries have historically been porous in the extreme. I rarely said no to anything as I hated disappointing people, even a tiny bit. As women we are socialized (and often expected) to say yes and help people, and it can be very hard for us to refuse a request, even when our plates are already overflowing.