In praise of the late bloomer
If like me, you sometimes feel a little down that you haven’t yet hit your breakout career stride or left your mark on the law, then check out this article, What Kind of Genius Are You?, David Galenson, Wired (7/06) (hat tip to Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity). As Herz summarizes, Galenson describes two types of geniuses:
The first type he calls conceptual innovators. These people
“make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their
breakthrough work when they are young.” On the other end of the
creative genius continuum are experimental innovators who,
“like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a
lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later
in their careers.”
I know that solo practice has lots of late bloomers, lawyers who never found a niche at biglaw or other permanent employment or lawyers for whom biglaw simply wasn’t big enough to accomodate big ideas on how law ought to be practiced. And after spending years wasting away, they now blossom at solo practice. For you lawyers who think it’s too late to make something of your career, remember the geniuses who took a long time to figure out their way – and remember that solo practice is always an option where you can bloom, no matter how late in the season.
There are precious few resources out there specifically designed to help solo practitioners. So at the risk of offending anyone with a crass commercial message. . . I just want to let any late bloomers out there know, if you are struggling financially with your solo practice (or hesitant to take the leap, out of fear of struggling financially) there ARE many affordable and convenient resources available to short-cut the learning curve and teach you all the small law firm marketing and management skills you’ll need to operate a professional and profitable law firm business. Your law practice doesn’t have to eat you alive.
Respectfully,
There are precious few resources out there specifically designed to help solo practitioners. So at the risk of offending anyone with a crass commercial message. . . I just want to let any late bloomers out there know, if you are struggling financially with your solo practice (or hesitant to take the leap, out of fear of struggling financially) there ARE many affordable and convenient resources available to short-cut the learning curve and teach you all the small law firm marketing and management skills you’ll need to operate a professional and profitable law firm business. Your law practice doesn’t have to eat you alive.
Respectfully,