The Second Brain
One person outside your firm whose job is to make you better at yours.
The argument
Surgeons have someone who watches them work and tells them what to do differently. So do musicians and athletes. Therapists are required to have one and cannot practise without it.
Lawyers have nobody. You are watched every day by opponents and judged by courts. Neither has any interest in making you better. Once you are admitted, nobody is responsible for making you better at the work, and the profession has no word for the person who would do it.
That is the job I do.
The work
We meet on a rhythm set when we start and reviewed as you need it, weekly or fortnightly. Between those you have direct access. When something lands on your desk that you want tested before you answer it, you call.
You bring the decision you are about to take. The hire you are about to make, the partner you are about to confront, the client you are about to keep or let go, the matter you are about to run. It gets tested before you take it, by someone with no stake in the answer. You take the decision and you do the work. A written note follows when something is worth keeping, in whatever form you keep things.
Thirty six years in commercial litigation, most of it in the matters that arrive after a firm or a partnership has broken. You never have to explain to me how a practice works, what a bad month looks like, or what it costs to say the thing nobody in the room wants said.
Who it is for
You qualify if you want to be better than you are now, or if you want your practice to be better. You also qualify if there is nobody you can be completely honest with.
The fee
A fixed monthly fee, set when we start.
How you arrive
Most people arrive from the letter, or because a client of mine has said my name. If that is you, write to me.
Unhappy Mondays. A letter, every Monday, to a lawyer who is good and wants to be better. Nothing is sold in it. Read it