Helping Lawyers Find Their Callings: Career Coach Stephen Seckler

My most recent guest for Higher Callings is Stephen Seckler. After graduating from law school, Steve took a job with Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, where he organized hundreds of educational programs for lawyers over several years. He then formed his own business, helping lawyers learn how to market their services, serving as a legal recruiter, and serving as a career coach for lawyers. Steve also has an excellent podcast called Counsel to Counsel, where lawyers can find career advice from Steve and the impressive guests he interviews. 

When I spoke with Steve about appearing on this podcast, we agreed that his higher calling is helping lawyers find their callings. Some of his most recent work has focused on coaching senior lawyers about how they can prepare for what lies ahead when the time comes for them to leave their law practices and pursue the next chapter in their professional lives. We talked about that and other topics on this episode of Higher Callings.

You can learn more about Steve Seckler and find his podcast, Counsel to Counsel, at https://www.seckler.com/.

If you have enjoyed the Higher Callings podcast, you might also enjoy Don's Substack Newsletter, Reflections of a Boston Lawyer, which you can find here: https://donaldfrederico.substack.com/

Transcript

Higher Callings Podcast

Interview of Stephen Seckler

Hosted by Donald R. Frederico

Recorded November 22, 2021

Don: If you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I interview lawyers and other guests whose lives reflect a higher calling, a commitment through their careers or volunteer service to the common good. That higher calling can take many forms. The lawyers I've interviewed have included, among others, a homicide prosecutor, a public defense attorney, a judge, a mediator, and the head of a law firm's pro bono program.

My most recent guest is Stephen Seckler. After graduating from law school, Steve took a job with Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, where he organized hundreds of educational programs for lawyers over several years. He then formed his own business, helping lawyers learn how to market their services, serving as a legal recruiter, and serving as a career coach for lawyers. Steve also has an excellent podcast called Counsel to Counsel, where lawyers can find career advice from Steve and the impressive guests he interviews. 

When I spoke with Steve about appearing on this podcast, we agreed that his higher calling is helping lawyers find their callings. Some of his most recent work has focused on coaching senior lawyers about how they can prepare for what lies ahead when the time comes for them to leave their law practices and pursue the next chapter in their professional lives.

We talked about that and other topics on this episode of Higher Callings. 

Steve: Coaching is not just sort of the delivery of information. It's also helping elevate people so that they can reach their highest potential. And there is a delivery of information. There is an exchange of information. I do educate people. But really what I'm trying to do is also help lawyers move past obstacles that are getting in their way of their own success, be a sounding board, and there's a certain element of encouragement in it. But I'm not the player. I'm the coach.

Don: I'm Don Frederico and this is Higher Callings.

I'm here this afternoon with Steve Seckler,a lawyer, but much more than a lawyer, whom I have known for many, many years, in the Boston area. Steve, how are you today? 

Steve: I'm doing great, Don. Thanks for inviting me. 

Don: Your career really does touch on the theme of my podcast, which is Higher Callings. You are somebody, and we're going to get into this, who went to law school and had some thoughts about what he wanted to do. And your career has taken a couple of different directions, and one very interesting direction that it's taken recently, which we're going to get into, as sort of a new aspect of your coaching career. But I'm really looking forward to this. 

So, let me just get started, Steve. You, you went to college, I know, in the late 1970s. You graduated college in 1982. You majored in political science and environmental studies, and you were very active as a student in public interest work at the time. Can you tell us a little bit about what you were doing back then and where you thought that work you were doing might lead you.

Steve: Well, first of all, Don, again, I want to say thank you for having me on your podcast. I've been listening regularly and I know you have had some great guests and I find listening to the people that you've interviewed, lawyers and non-lawyers, very inspiring. 

So I went to college, as you said, in the late 1970s. And I was born a little bit after the peak of the upheaval of the 1960s, but it was still in my blood. When I got to college, I was very interested in becoming an activist. And I would say that a big portion of my experience at college was being involved in the New York Public Interest Research Group, NYPIRG.

And there were a whole bunch of initiatives that we got involved. And a big one that I really enjoyed was working to pass the bottle bill, which was a bill that required deposits on bottles and help with reduced solid waste back in the late 1960s. You probably remember Don, there was all this advertising, "no deposit, no return."

And there was a big push to make consumers all excited about being able to throw away their bottle cans. But then 10 years later, we started to realize how much solid waste that was generating. So that was one initiative I worked on. 

Don: So what did you think you were going to do? You were majoring in political science. A lot of people who major in political science go on to be lawyers, but you were also majoring in environmental studies and working on the public interest, environmental side that you were just talking about. What were you thinking would be your career when you got out of college.

Steve: So, truth be told, when I went to college, I didn't really know many lawyers. I don't think I knew any practicing lawyers. And in fact, while I was in college, the thing that got me interested in thinking about law school was I spent a semester in Albany lobbying for NYPIRG. I was a full-time lobbyist working on election reform, working on toxic tort reform. And the legislative director for our organization was an alum of Northeastern. And I didn't really see myself going to law school to become a lawyer. Again, I didn't really know any practicing lawyers. But I thought somehow that becoming a lawyer would give me an entree into being involved in my community, being a community leader and having more cache.

That was my thinking back then when I was in my early twenties, if I can remember that far back. 

Don: Now, you ended up going to Northeastern Law School, but did you take some time off between college and law school or did you go straight there? 

Steve: So for a few years after college, well I traveled for a year, spent the better part of a year in Israel. Living on kibbutzim and sort of seeing what life was like there in a collective. That was interesting. And then I came back and, to be honest with you, like many people in their twenties and me and my early twenties, you know, I was kind of lost. And I went through a couple of gyrations in terms of thinking about what I would do with my career.

At one point I thought I would become a chiropractor. I took some science courses that were missing, but then I realized that that wasn't really the direction I wanted to go. I took a job as a research assistant and was actually with an arm of the Methodist church. And then, not long after that, I decided it was time to go back to where I had been in college, at least mentally, and I applied to law school.

Don: So, you ended up going to Northeastern Law School, which is in Boston for people who are not from this area. And you had mentioned that you had been working with somebody when you were a lobbyist, who had been an alum of Northeastern. Was that person instrumental in you applying to Northeastern Law School?

Steve: Indirectly, because he was my role model for where one goes to get a legal education. And I knew that Northeastern had a very strong public interest bent, so it was very high on my list. 

Don: Well, the other thing Northeastern has that a lot of people may not know is a very strong cooperative program. So, I should probably let you describe it. My understanding is, the way it's always worked is, students will attend classes for a certain period of time, and then there will be a break and they will have a co-op, which is like an internship, with a business or some other organization for a period of time where they're getting some practical skills. Then they go back to school again, to the classroom, then they do another co-op, and I think you had several co-ops. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like for you? 

Steve: Sure. So basically my law school experience was sort of full circle. I came to law school, not necessarily thinking I was going to practice law, but as soon as I got to Northeastern, I quickly realized that pretty much everybody that I was surrounded by was planning to become a lawyer. And you kind of get swept up in whatever environment you're in and whatever culture you're surrounded by. 

So my first co-op, so yes, at Northeastern, you have four co-op experiences. You go to school for a year, and then the class splits. The first half of the class goes out on a co-op and the second half of the class starts their second year. And then for the next two years, you alternate between spending three months in your co-op job full-time and three months studying in law school.

So I went to summer, I went to school in the summer. I began my second year in the summer, after my first year. And then my first co-op was with a plaintiffs toxic tort law firm. So I did start along the same path that I had thought I would start on. But I began to realize pretty quickly that the actual practice of law didn't really seem like a great fit for me. Although I did like the subject matter, I liked the notion that the firm was working on addressing problems with environmental hazards, environmental exposure, but I didn't love the research and the writing. 

So I had three more co-ops, and one of them, the first one was with the U.S. Attorney's Office. That actually was a great experience. It was just very exciting. Actually, it was an interesting office. Bill Weld, who became the governor of Massachusetts, was in that office at that time. And so was Bob Mueller, who is well-known to probably most of your listening audience. And I worked for Ralph Gants, who eventually became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. And I found it really exciting to be working with them. 

Don: Were you working on criminal cases or civil cases, or both?

Steve: Criminal cases.

Don: Did you see trials during your co-op? 

Steve: I saw one, one big trial, was an arson case that mostly I was sitting in the gallery. Just watching . . . . 

Don: Sure. Well, you were still a student. Sure. Well, and then you also had a co-op with CPCS, right?

Steve: Yeah, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Roxbury Defenders. So that was the part of my legal education where I really got on my feet. I got to make bail arguments. I had a little mini-trial and could really start to see myself at that point becoming a lawyer. 

While I was in law school, I also did some clinical work. One of the clinics I did was the Prisoner's Assistance Project, where I got on my feet and represented an inmate in a disciplinary hearing. And so at that point, I was starting to see myself as an advocate. 

My last co-op was with the BU Office of General Counsel. And for some reason, at that point, I was already starting to have another shift and think, "Gee, I'm not really sure that I really want to practice law." And then to be honest with you, at that point, I was really a little bit lost and really kind of sank into a little bit of a depression. It was 1988 and the job market wasn't great. At least it wasn't for me. I was having trouble finding work. I had applied, I believe, to some of the D.A. offices, some of the public defenders' offices. 

I did not get hired. And at that point, it seemed like the writing was on the wall that maybe I should be looking at something alternative. So I took a job with the office, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, investigating housing discrimination. At which point I began to realize that maybe public service wasn't for me, because I wasn't really crazy about the bureaucracy.

About six months later, a job was posted for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. I applied for the job. A professor of mine was on the board of trustees, helped me get the interview. A little career practice tip: use your contacts to get in the door. They won't get you hired, but they will help you get in the door.

And the rest is history. I mean, that really set my course up in a completely different direction. I was really excited about professional development. I got to meet some of the leaders of the bar, like Don Frederico. And 

Don: [Laughs] I'm not sure I was a leader at that point. I was a member. 

Steve: You had a lot more cache than I did. And it really, it put me in a place where I was interacting with some very successful judges, lawyers, and I got to really see what made for a successful legal career. 

Don: And you put together thousands of continuing legal education programs. You were there I think for what, seven years? Seven or eight years?

Steve: I was there for seven years. And the volume of courses that I was putting on and organizing, it was probably, I don't know, 50 or 60 courses a year. It was a lot. So I don't think it was thousands, but it was certainly hundreds. 

Don: It was a lot. And so, you certainly had exposure to all the major law firms in Boston. A lot of lawyers in Boston. And of course lawyers who were not at the major law firms as well. And, that had to be really a great way of connecting and networking with people.

But what you were doing was you were helping to train them. And that sounds a little bit like coaching. And I'm wondering if you, while you were at MCLE for those seven years, were you beginning to get the seeds of this thought that maybe your real calling was coaching lawyers? 

Steve: Well, I realized pretty early on once I had veered from the path of actually practicing law that I was, maybe I wasn't destined to become a practicing lawyer. I mean, I liked, I really like, I still really like, I love being around lawyers. I love interacting with the legal community. I like knowing a little bit about a lot of different areas of the law. But the day-to-day practice of law just wasn't that attractive to me.

So, being at MCLE gave me a chance to get exposure to just about every conceivable iteration of the practice of law, from, including public service, to large law firms, to small law firms, and really every practice area imaginable. But what I really started to really enjoy were the courses that had to do with practice management, technology, marketing, all the things that weren't actually the practice of law, but which were important in the practice of law.

And that's when I started to get interested in things that were sort of a precursor to my interest in coaching. I don't think I really knew what coaching was back then. Around the time that I left MCLE, I discovered coaching, and that's when I hired my own first coach when I was starting up my own business. And that's when I really got the bug about coaching. 

And it's related to professional development, but coaching is not just sort of the delivery of information. It's also helping elevate people so that they can reach their highest potential. And there is a delivery of information. There is an exchange of information. I do educate people, but really what I'm trying to do is also help lawyers move past obstacles that are getting in their way of their own success. Be a sounding board, and there's a certain element of encouragement in it. But I'm not the player. I'm the coach. 

Don: And I think probably early on in your coaching career, many of your clients were probably relatively young lawyers who were still trying to figure out where their career was going and whether they were going to make partner at their firms and things like that. Is that right?

Steve: Well, initially, to be honest with you, initially. So when I left MCLE, I realized that I had a really good skillset that could be monetized. My second child was, had just been born and, you know, I worked for a nonprofit. I wasn't making that much. So I started my own coaching business, but it was really a recruiting and a coaching business, and really the focus of my work really centered a lot around recruiting. 

Now the coaching work that I did really focused more around marketing, which it does to this day. I still really enjoy helping lawyers to build their practice, to find comfortable ways to grow a practice. But it's only been over the last five years that I've started to spend a lot more of my coaching time helping lawyers on career advancement, on, you know, I'm working with a lawyer who just became partner. I'm working with, you know, some young partners who are trying to grow their practice. I'm working with a managing partner who is trying to be a more effective leader. And now I'm working with senior lawyers who are trying to figure out how they can get meaning in the next stage of their lives. So I would say that now I'm a little bit more focused on career coaching, but I still do a pretty broad mix. 

Don: When you were coaching people on marketing, I mean, marketing was really the way people were going to develop practices and succeed in their careers. So even if you weren't directly coaching people, the way you coach them now about career advancement, what you were doing was helping them to develop the skillset they needed to advance in their careers, whether they were in law firms or out on their own, I think. Do you agree with that? 

Steve: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And also it's sort of, you know, it comes to a question of, you know, of higher calling, of meaning. You know, to me it's never been . . . I mean, I suppose there's an element of practicing law where if you're doing things that you feel like you're achieving some higher goals, social justice, fighting despoliation of the earth, helping with immigration, there are lots of areas of the law where you can, where you could be helpful.

But to me, where I have found my sense of purpose is in helping individuals find more meaning in their work. And being able to generate your own work is a way of elevating your own sense of purpose as a lawyer. It's been my observation that the lawyers who seem to have, at least in private practice, their own clients, seem to be the most fulfilled and the happiest.

Don: Absolutely. So you've done the coaching, well first the marketing, helping people with marketing and recruiting for a number of years. And you've been doing coaching for a few years. Most recently, you've moved your coaching practice into an area that I think is somewhat new for you, and it was of great interest to me to learn about what you're doing. I'm actually at a point in my life where I've been reading books about the second chapter of life. I know David Brooks has a book that came out a few years ago on a similar topic. 

You're talking a lot with lawyers who are nearing retirement, or at least starting to think about retirement. And, that's of course a growing field, given the demographics of people who are at that stage of their law practices now. So tell me a little bit about how you got interested in that and how you got started doing that. 

Steve: My interest in this subject has really been an evolution. In 2017, my last child went off to college, my wife and I became empty nesters. And in that year we joined a group on aging and it was a mixture of professionals and some of them were lawyers, but mostly they weren't lawyers. They were all different other professions. And it was a really great group. I mean, it really energized me. I really liked the people in the group. They were all doing interesting, exciting things. And they were all 10 years older than us. So like, in some ways we didn't get the memo. We thought it was a group for empty nesters. And what it really was, was a group of individuals who were really much further along in their own transitions. 

But what I loved about the group and what I realized was so great about having done the group is that I started to realize, well, it's never too soon to start thinking about that next stage and to start laying the foundation. And while I didn't make any radical changes, it really got me thinking, do I really want to be spending my life recruiting? Recruiting has been very lucrative. It can be at times very rewarding, fulfilling, but a lot of times it's very frustrating and it's fundamentally, it's a sales job. 

Don: It's more transactional. It sounds like it's more transactional than coaching is. Coaching sounds more personal and recruiting tends to be a transactional practice. 

Steve: It tends to be a transactional practice. It can be relational if you have some ongoing relationships with clients, in particular the ones, the employers who are doing the hiring. To be honest with you, those have been the best relationships. And sometimes I'll get a candidate that really wants to work closely together and we're really sort of exploring their career. And I'll continue to do some of that. But the thing that happened to me after doing that group on aging was, I realized that I really want to start making some changes in my own life. 

So that was really the beginning of my own shift. And, one of the things that I did just sort of more on a personal basis, is I started to think, "Gee, I haven't played guitar in a long time." And I went out and bought myself a nice Martin guitar. And I know you have some music in your earlier roots, Don.

Don: I have an old Martin guitar sitting right here. 

Steve: Oh, you have an old Martin guitar. Okay. Well, I had an old Yamaha guitar that was, that my middle son absconded with and I never got back. So it was sort of a convenient opportunity to finally invest in a nice guitar. 

And so since that time, I've really been thinking more about shifting my energies away from recruiting and more towards coaching, which again, like you point out Don, is very relational. You're really working with a client who is really trying to elevate their performance, find ways to find more career satisfaction, build their practice. And I really, I just love the relationship. 

So what really pushed me in the direction of working with senior lawyers was the pandemic, because like many of us, the pandemic has really kind of caused me to sit back, caused me to sit back and think about where do I get meaning? 

Don: Let me interrupt you, Steve. I know from having talked with you that you actually lost both of your parents early on in the pandemic, and I know that was a major motivator for you in terms of thinking about coaching senior lawyers. Am I right about that? 

Steve: Yeah, it really was. And, you know, my, my parents lived nice long lives. They had very long retirements. My dad was 95. My mom was 94. You know, it was obviously extremely sad to lose both of them at the beginning of the pandemic. There were some mixed blessings. They, you know, they didn't suffer. They were with each other till the very end. All my adult children were with us because it was the pandemic. So, it wasn't like a lonely experience being all by myself mourning, but it did cause me to realize that, you know, life is short and precious, and I want to devote myself to doing what I think is valuable and meaningful.

And I began talking to more senior lawyers. And then I began doing work with senior lawyers. And then I organized a group for senior lawyers. And I've been interviewing various lawyers for my podcast and writing articles and getting involved in the Senior Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association, and appearing on panels. And I love having the opportunity to hear people's stories and I find great inspiration. And I've found great inspiration from listening to the stories that you tell on your podcast. 

Don: Well, thank you. Thank you. Well, I think it's really important what you're doing. I know as somebody who's getting to that point in my life myself that it's a struggle. It's something that is sort of a new thing to think about for lawyers at this stage in their careers. And I know even reading some of your material, you've written some great articles. And, one of the things that you talk about is how lawyers have always identified themselves by their professions and when they get to the end of their law firm career or whatever it is they're doing, they face the potential loss of that identity, which can be traumatic for people, I think. 

So, I mean, one reason I wanted to have you on this podcast was you have a higher calling. Your calling is to help other lawyers find their callings and to find satisfaction in their careers, which is, and in what comes next at the end of what might have been a very long career in private practice or wherever, what do they do next? So I think that's very important work and not very many people are doing it. So, you know, I applaud you for doing it and for doing it with the kind of compassion you have for the people that you work with.

Steve: Well, thank you. 

Don: Tell us a little more then about what you're doing, Steve. What exactly are you doing with this and where do you intend to take it?

Steve: So as you correctly noted, like for a lot of lawyers, being a lawyer is a very strong identity. So thinking about not being a lawyer anymore can be really difficult. I mean, these are really, really hard transitions for anyone and in particular for lawyers. 

So I take lawyers on a process, on a journey, and it's very different than practicing law. It doesn't have like a definitive end. I try to open people's creativity up. I get them active. I get them thinking about what are some of their options. And the transitions that lawyers are making, and in some ways using the word retirement may be, it's a complicated term, because retirement connotes like the end of something. And what a lot of us who are doing this kind of work, not just with lawyers, think, is that this isn't really an end. This is just a new beginning. It's an opportunity to do things differently. 

And doing things differently could mean transitioning some of your clients by continuing to practice in a more limited capacity. Maybe you're working as a mentor to younger lawyers in the firm. Maybe you're serving as an ambassador for your firm, which can help the law firm generate even more work. Maybe you're out there doing public speaking. Or, maybe you are transitioning your clients, leaving the practice, or really cutting way back or almost out of the practice of law and spending more time on nonprofit work.

Some people want to spend time with their children, and their grandchildren. Some people want to take up personal interests like music or travel. Travel's a very big one. Some people want to do pro bono work. So there's a lot of ways that lawyers can find meaning in the next stage in their lives. And I think why this transition is so hard, in part, is that lawyers have a strong identity, but they're also very concerned about the financial ramifications. If you've been at all successful as a lawyer, you're accustomed to earning a certain amount of money. And honestly, I've never met anyone who thinks that they have enough money to retire. It doesn't matter how much money you have. There's always that fear that something catastrophic can occur. And so one of the things that we work on is sort of looking at your beliefs and how much one really needs to have. Some of that of course is getting people to just talk to their financial planner. But really helping lawyers who are very risk averse sort of try some new things, and understand that they may end up jettisoning those ideas, that you don't have to follow through.

You know, if you've achieved anything in the practice of law, you're not a quitter. You're used to of striving, you know, you work hard to get into the best law school. You get into the best law school, you do as well as you can. You get into the best law firm you can. You work as hard as you can as an associate. You become a partner. You're not a quitter, probably. 

Don: But at that point, it's all an upward trajectory, you know, you're just pushing to go up, up, up, up, and then after you become a partner, you're pushing to get your income up, up, up, up. And then all of a sudden, you're at a point where you're facing having to leave your firm because maybe they have mandatory retirement or something like that. So that's a major event in somebody's life. 

How do you help them with it? I know you've done some group sessions and you also counsel people individually. Can you talk a little bit about what you've been doing in those two contexts?

Steve: So I have done some groups, but to be honest with you, my experience is that a lot of lawyers would prefer to do this work one-on-one and individually. Lawyers are often, this is a little bit of a stereotype, but a lot of lawyers don't really like to show a lot of vulnerability, and getting a bunch of older, usually men together in a group and having them share what they're feeling is not as easy as talking to somebody one-on-one. I'm very good at getting people to open up and express really what's going on in their head. And, I have a friend who is a coach. I've met a lot of coaches through a group I belong to called ProVisors. It's a great business networking group. 

Don: That's P-r-o-V-i-s-o-r-s?

Steve: Yes. Yes. It's a group of lawyers, accountants, financial planners, coaches, management consultants, trusted advisors with 10 or more years of experience in their fields. So I've met a lot of really great coaches. And one of them, Sergiu Simmel, said to me, the quote that he gave me was, "You can't read the label from inside the jar." And I love that quote because it basically connotes what the problem is for most of us, which is that most of us are not great at being self-reflective. 

I hired my own coach recently because I was having a little bit of trouble with my own marketing messages and working on redoing my website. And I know I've got a lot of good stuff there. It's all there. And I just needed somebody to help me winnow it down and keep me on task. 

So, I really believe in the power of coaching. I've had coaches throughout my life for various things, including for my business. And I just love having that support and having that sounding board. And I love being the coach also. 

Don: Now while you're focused on senior lawyers who are at that stage in their lives where they're thinking about what comes next, you haven't stopped coaching younger lawyers too, right? You're still doing both? 

Steve: Oh yeah. I'm doing a lot of work actually with younger lawyers. I, like I said, I have a client that just became partner. I have a couple of lawyers I'm working with who decided that, where they were going to get more satisfaction was in starting their own law firms. I've got a lawyer who's a litigator trying to go in-house. That could be a little bit of a challenge compared to corporate lawyers have a little bit of an easier time. So I'm working with him. 

I've got a mid-career partner who is uncertain whether he's in the right law firm, but I helped him through a career transition. He's at his new firm. He's not sure that that's what he wants to do, but he's also now seeing himself, having gone through this extensive career search, as somebody who can generate work. So we're working together on that. 

And, I just love seeing the self-limiting beliefs sort of wither away and people sort of move past those roadblocks. That's just, that's what gets me going, just seeing people become self-aware and have those successes. And I don't take credit for them. I mean, I'm happy, of course, when people give me some credit, but I just see myself as being happy to help people succeed. But they're the ones that are making the transitions, doing the work. 

Don: And you've been doing coaching for a long time. Where did you develop the expertise? What do you bring to the table? What is it about Steve Seckler that makes him particularly qualified to help people with their legal careers? 

Steve: There's a number of things. First of all, when I was at MCLE, I was pretty much, it was like being in a university mini-MBA program, just constantly going to workshops, organizing seminars on marketing, practice management, in addition to all the substantive practice areas. 

I also, I would say that actually one of the most important skills that one brings to the table as a coach is being a great listener. So in 1990, in one of my many iterations of thinking about what I wanted to do to find more fulfillment in my career, I got trained in mediation. Then I did some mediation. Then I did some community mediation. And mediation, as you know, Don, cause you're trained as a mediator, there's a lot of emphasis on listening skills. And I think those skills are really important when you're a coach. 

I've been coached. So, like any good therapist who gets therapy, the coach has been coached. That's one way that you learn. And I'm a constant student. I'm just always learning. I've been trained in a couple of assessment tools, the Myers Briggs is one of them that helps us understand our communication styles and preferences. I've learned a lot in the last three years through my involvement with ProVisors. I belong to a coaches and consultants affinity group. We get together. We talk about coaching, and I am drinking from a fire hose. I read. So, I would say a lot of my learning is self-education. 

Don: And I will say, you and I have had a lot of conversations, not always in a formal coaching relationship, but, you ask just the most insightful questions that really make me think about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I think that's a gift that you, I'm sure you bring to your coaching clients. 

Let's go back to the senior lawyer work that you've been doing. I'd like to just focus on that before we wrap up. And I guess my question, Steve, is what should lawyers be thinking about as they approach retirement age?

And obviously, I don't mean, I'm not talking to you as a financial planner who's going to say how much money they should have put away and how they should invest it, but really just talking about what their lives, what they might want their lives to look like, and whether they want to keep working after they reach that age when many people retire. What should they be thinking about?

Steve: Well, the first thing they should be thinking about is planning. Again, these are difficult transitions. You don't want to just make a change on the dime. You want to sort of give yourself a lot of lead time so that you could start planning. 

If you're in private practice and you're planning to leave private practice and you have clients, you need to give time for the clients to be transitioned to other lawyers, because lawyers are trusted advisors, and clients are not going to just sign up and work with the next partner that comes along just because they've been told to, although they might. You want to have a chance for the new partners to get to know the clients. 

You want to have an opportunity to do a little bit of experimentation to see where you do want to focus your energy. So again, my number one piece of advice is give yourself some time and do some planning. 

So, I guess my advice to senior lawyers is start keeping a list. Make a running list of things that you think you might want to explore. And some of them are things that maybe you used to do, like you and I, we played a lot of guitar when we were growing up and into our twenties. Well, maybe that's something that you want to get back to. Maybe travel is on your list. Maybe doing pro bono work is on your list. Maybe being involved on nonprofit boards is on your list. Maybe starting a small business is on your list. I mean, the possibilities are really endless. 

But start keeping the list and don't evaluate it, because once you start judging, which is what we as lawyers do, you're going to start eliminating things before you've really had a chance to explore them. It's a process. Be open-minded. Be unjudging and give yourself time. 

Those are my best pieces of advice for senior lawyers. 

Don: That's great advice. And, you've talked to me and I think written about some resources that are available to senior professionals, whether they're lawyers or not, I think. Can you name a few of those for anybody listening to this podcast who might want to get more information?

Steve: I'm going to name one resource that is excellent. And it's a person. And her name is Ida Abbott. And Ida is a lawyer on the West Coast who began her career working at a large law firm and eventually got very interested in mentoring, and for many years now she's been helping law firms develop mentoring programs.

And I don't know how long ago, but a while ago she started to get very interested in all of these issues. And I have learned a tremendous amount from Ida. Ida has a terrific book called "Retirement by Design." it's a great resource. It's a workbook. And if you want to do some self-guided work, pick up a copy. Ida has some great exercises laid out in the book and you can get started that way.

Honestly though, for some of us, having an additional resource, like in the way of either family members who can coax us along, or think about working with a coach, because sometimes that can make the difference between action and inaction. 

Don: Steve, you have an excellent podcast for lawyers looking for career advice called "Counsel to Counsel." Where can people go to find your podcast? 

Steve: So the easiest way to find my podcast, well, first of all, the podcast is "Counsel to Counsel." CounselToCounsel.com is my website, but it's probably easier to just remember my name, Seckler.com. And if you go to Seckler.com, that's my website, and there's a link there to my podcast. If you want to look for my podcast, Counsel to Counsel, just find it wherever you find your podcasts 

Don: And how can people get in touch with you for more information? 

Steve: So the best way to get ahold of me again, is to go to my website, seckler.com, or you can email me steve@seckler.com.

And I love talking to people about these issues. I feel like it's a great privilege to hear people's stories. And even if it's just a very quick conversation to help them get a little bit unstuck, I love doing that. Ever since I was very, very young, I've always been one who likes to ask questions. And so, thank you Don, for acknowledging that. I guess that's my one gift to the world, and the best skill, the most important skill coaches can have is to ask good questions. 

Don: Well, I think somewhere you wrote about the importance of curiosity, and I've always been a believer that the most successful people, certainly in the legal profession, but probably anywhere, are the people who are curious and curious enough to ask questions.

So, you are very good at it. And it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I really appreciate your appearing on the podcast today, and I'm sure we'll have many more encounters. 

Do you have any parting words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our listeners before we end this?

Steve: Sure. Keep listening to Don's podcast because he's [laughter]I mean really, well, I say that sort of half jokingly, but the fact is, is that we all get ideas from hearing what other people are doing and you're going to get some good ideas if you keep listening to Don's podcast. And then secondly, just get started. You don't have to figure it all out at once. Just start keeping lists, keep a running list. And when you're ready, then you can start exploring things further. 

Don: Great. Steve, this has been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been great to see you today and to talk with you. And I'm looking forward to sharing this with anybody who's interested. 

Steve: Thank you, Don. It's always a pleasure talking to you. 

Don: Take care.