Guest Chapter 6

Name: Kimberly R. Willoughby

Current Position: Principal, Willoughby & Associates

Legal Practice Areas: Estate Planning and Administration; Matrimonial Law

Law School and Year: University of Virginia, 1994

Time between undergrad and law school: 1 year (went camping)

One or two books I recommend: Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss; Tribes by Seth Godin; The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam

Short description of my law school experience

I went to law school because I loved philosophy, history, and politics, and while a Ph.D.

At the law school freshman orientation, they told us, “After you graduate UVA, you have the job. Don't worry about that. We have a B mean. Don't worry about your grades. Look to your right. Look to your left. One of those people will be a judge. Your job while you are here is to get to know your fellow UVA law students.”

Almost 30 years later I can tell you this—no, we were not guaranteed the job. Most judicial positions are not coveted positions anymore. However, they were right about the grades: I did not break past the B mean, and grades were irrelevant to my career. They were also right to tell us that one of the most important things law school had to offer was lifelong connections. At the time, I did not understand that if you attend a law school filled with people you don't want to develop a lifetime connection with, you will miss out on one of the most important things law school has to offer. Law school offers community and a network that can serve as a springboard to the rest of your life, including (but not limited to) your career.

The Path of My Legal Career

When I graduated law school, I immediately moved back to Colorado and started at a traditional large firm. The associates were (at first) really excited to do rote, boring work and the partners trained us just enough to be useful to their billing needs. I traveled a lot with my supervising partner, but I felt I was there mainly to keep him company. I did not particularly care for the entire experience and the firm went under within a few years. I then did a clerkship at the Colorado Court of Appeals. That position fit me better, but it was pretty lonely. One thing I learned from reading trial transcripts, however, was that a lot of trial lawyers are, well, not exactly Perry Mason. I came away with the notion that if being in a big, fancy firm did not guarantee stability and my lack of trial experience did not ensure ridicule, I might as well open my own office.

So I did. I practiced “door law,” meaning, if it came in the door, I took it. I worked practically for free. I represented all sorts of people—alleged child abusers, teenage mothers, prostitutes, general scammers. I had a client ask me to meet him at a bar so we could watch the news clip of him holding up a bank. “Should I turn myself in?” he asked his 26-year-old lawyer. I went to court a lot. A magistrate yelled at me in the courtroom one day when I told her the case had not settled because I needed trial experience. I very actively sought out mentors. I joined everything. I worked in areas without much law. I testified in front of the legislature. I took on cases that could make new law, and I did make new law in Colorado.

Eventually I gained leadership roles. I wrote a lot in the industry journals. I taught constantly at CLEs. Most people in the bar associations knew me or knew who I was. Eventually I charged more for my services.

As I write this, I am nearly thirty years into practice. I am nationally ranked as one of the best in my field. I am the only active attorney in the nation granted a Fellowship to two national, very selective organizations in my practice areas.

My practice areas, however, require deep skill sets that are not in law school. My practice areas involve death and family legacies. They involve the moments in a life where people look closely at who they are, what they did with their lives, and how they want to be remembered. I should have taken classes on how to become a priest.

Law Is a Service Industry

Law schools and firms do not actively teach that law is a service industry. Those who go into law tend to be “type A” people who are largely driven by their need to be seen as smart and important. However, delivering a service is about the client. Whether the client is an individual or an entity, lawyers interact with people. The most successful lawyers are the ones who are able to put their egos aside and give the client the experience of being heard, empathized with and of being important.

What is frustrating about new graduates? How have you used the core concepts of lawyering this book proposes?

It takes graduates too long to realize it's not about them. Law is a service industry. Clients do not care about you anywhere near as much as they care about themselves (if they care about you at all). The faster you learn to “do unto others as they would have you do unto them,” the faster you can be an excellent, sought-after lawyer with an amazing reputation.

What does the client want? Mainly, for the person serving them to treat them like it's all about them. The happiest client is the one who feels like he or she is your only client. The successful lawyer tries to get into the position of the client. What do they need? What do they think they need? What are they worried about? What is their stated goal? Is there another actual goal? What do they think you can do for them? What will make them feel attended to and important? What will give them an outcome to make them talk to other people about you? Little of that has to do with your credentials or how well you analyzed case law.

To determine what your client wants and needs, you need to ask lots of questions. Research them, their position, their company, and their story. My firm's intake process includes researching potential clients before they talk with a lawyer. When the client retains, we have a series of “dossier meetings.” We talk about the client—What do they need now? How do they most effectively receive information? What frustrates them? What makes them happy? How to they best like to be attended to? What are their interests? What things in their worlds are stressors? What brings them joy?

Serving the client requires listening to the client and showing them that you are listening. Once you have asked lots of questions and listened, you can better put yourself in the client's position.

Find your tribe. When you do, service is a two-way street. You will feel, and you will be, the most successful when you serve those you feel good about giving your time and energy to. This is a very basic human reality. People want to feel that they are a part of something meaningful. Most attorneys join the legal profession to be helpful and to be part of something they believe is important. You will best be able to employ the core concepts in this book when you genuinely feel connected to those you serve. This is akin to the adage, “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” If you do for those you have a connection to, and with those you have a connection to, “work” becomes how you live.

Biggest mistake(s) you made while in law school

The two biggest mistakes I made were studying too much and not going to a law school that fit me. Likely, I studied too much because the school did not fit me. The people at my law school were not my tribe, and as a result I did not make the connections that would have enriched my experience there.

Looking back, I would have done better to choose a school in a state where I wanted to live, with students who were passionate about social causes, and that offered more ways of getting trial experience.

What to learn while in law school

Law school does not teach you how to be a successful lawyer. It teaches you how to think in a certain way. Remember in the first year of law school your brain just hurt? Everything was new and presented in a way that did not mesh with how you learned before. Law school mainly teaches you to think in a certain way, and how to find information about the law. Take the classes that interest you, as most non-required classes are not very helpful to your career. Take classes that will help you pass the bar. Do externships so you can assess who your tribe will be after law school.

The classes I loved in law school were about theory or history. I did not take them to get a job. As it turned out, they were fundamental to my success because they taught me how to think, how to understand, and kept my brain creatively working on big concepts.

If you want to be a successful practicing lawyer, you must know the law in your practice area, you must learn things that give you a creative edge, and you must understand how human brains and groups of people work. You need to learn anthropology, cognitive psychology, and some popular neuroscience. You need to understand social systems, and how small and larger groups of people function well together. You need to know what causes people to think a certain way and behave a certain way. To convince someone to do something (a judge, a client, opposing counsel), you need to get inside their head and their brain, which are often two completely different things.

Make this your mantra: Know yourself, accept yourself, be yourself. Know what you are good at and do that in law school and afterwards. “Law” is a very big tent. It encompasses what you are good at. Stop trying to be what your dad/mom/girlfriend/Netflix series told you to be. Be your very best self, every day, but accept who that is and be that person. You will never be successful trying to be what you are not.

Most useful classes in law school

Legal writing.

How did you decide what to do post-law school? With hindsight, how good of a job did you do?

I applied for jobs and I was offered a prestigious firm position. In hindsight, I should have been more open to options other than a big firm. I never thought I would be interested in matrimonial law or estate planning. However, after starting at the very bottom and working my way up, it was clear that those were the exact areas in which I had strengths and something to offer.

What was the biggest mistake you made while at your first job?

Pretending I was interested in it. When I was laid off, the partner who sent me on my way suggested that I should look at positions in social advocacy. While my ego was bruised by the message, “You don't actually belong here,” she was absolutely right.

What was the best advice you received or have given for those coming out of law school?

Find a mentor. However, a mentor is not someone who you call once a year with a legal question. A mentor is someone invested in you and who you are invested in. The only way to have an actual “mentor” is to spend time with that person, empathize with that person, listen to that person, and ask a lot of questions. Also, give him or her a reason to empathize with and listen to you.

What was the worst advice you received coming out of law school?

“Do not take payment in drugs.” It's not bad advice per se, but I was sharing an office with this person, and he apparently thought this was advice I needed. I had not yet found my tribe.

How have you remained happy in your profession? Have there been times when you were not? If so, what did you do to improve your situation?

True happiness is something you realized you attained when you look back. Strive to be useful and connected and you will feel good in the present. When you look back, you will realize you were happy.

Unhappiness, however, is definitely a “now” thing. Whenever my practice was draining instead of sustaining, I made a list of all of the things I did not like about my practice, and all the things that I did like about my practice. Then I made a specific plan for getting rid of the things that I did not like and for increasing what I did like. This always works, but it is something that must be done every couple of years.