Beverly Davidek - Happy Lawyer: The Art of Having It All Without Losing Your Mind

The Art of
Having It All
Without Losing
Your Mind

Beverly and Dirk Davidek

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

happy lawyer

2018 Beverly and Dirk Davidek

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the priotr written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN 978-1-68350-752-9 paperback

ISBN 978-1-68350-753-6 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017913736

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For Johnnie Mae, Marlene, Gerard, Steven, and Nick.
We love you, always.

e very day I speak to and hear from lawyers who have achieved some of the greatest heights of success in the world, and are miserable in their lives and lost, uncertain what to do next. After years of working so hard to be successful, and making it in the eyes of the world around us, how can it feel so bad?

I remember starting to have these thoughts around the age of 28 years old. I had graduated first in my class from Georgetown University Law Center, gotten married, had my first baby and been hired as an associate at one of the best law firms in the country. A $15,000 signing bonus, earning $165,000 my first year in practice, and able to afford and move into a starter home in Redondo Beach, California, I should have been in heaven. Or so I thought.

But I wasnt in heaven at all. Far from it.

I was miserable.

Each day, I would drag myself out of bed, leaving my husband and baby sleeping to make the hour plus commute to downtown Los Angeles. Several times a day, I would lock my door to pump breastmilk for my baby girl, who I missed terribly. And, oftentimes, her dad, who was staying home with her, would call me to tell me he couldnt get her to stop crying.

I felt helpless.

I worked all day on complex tax projects for a partner who liked to teach by trial, and I was fairly certain I was getting it wrong more often than I was getting it right. I thought I must be the stupidest person they ever hired.

On occasion, I would get to work with the estate planning partner, meeting with families and then searching and replacing our firms form documents to create estate plans that were pretty much guaranteed to have mistakes and not even work when the clients needed them because we always stayed at the surface and never even inventoried the assets.

I knew the family would have a rough go of it, relying on the documents that were sure to be outdated when our clients died. But I didnt feel as if I had any real say in the matter, so I just kept doing as I was told. And I felt bad that I wasnt more grateful.

Truth be told, the firm truly was one of the good ones, as big law firms go. I had my own office with a lock on my door, so pumping breastmilk was easy. For the most part, other than the old-school partner who seemed to hate all of my work, everyone was really kind. And the pay was great, even though after taxes, insurance and my 401k, I only took home half of what I was paid.

Best of all, the firm let me take on my own clients, so long as they passed the conflicts check and I came to learn that this was quite rare in the world of big law. So instead of leaving, I decided I would make the best of my time there and build my own law practice within the big law firm.

That decision led me to attend the Manhattan Beach Women in Business Chamber of Commerce event in 2002. During that event, I heard a woman speaking about branding. But I didnt hear a word she said about branding.

What I heard was a vision of life that I wanted to step into.

She was a mom, she worked from home, and she loved her clients. She had full control over her schedule and a life she loved.

I wanted THAT!

Id never even imagined something like that was possible. But as soon as I heard her speak, I knew that it was, and I wanted it. So I bought her book hoping Id find some insights that would guide me. And I did.

Reading her acknowledgements like a scavenger seeking pearls (in this case pearls of wisdom), I found the name of a coach she had worked with to create her dream life and business. Immediately, I called that coach up and talked with her about hiring her.

Now, mind you, this was 2002, before everyone knew what coaching was and had a coach. Back then, coaching was still considered weird. At least in my book. And my mind was raging at me, Alexis, it screamed you dont need no stinking coach. Youre way smarter than her. She didnt graduate first in her class from Georgetown.

Yep, those were the kinds of thoughts and mindset driving me back then.

Fortunately, I had some other, wiser voices guiding me as well and they said Alexis, she may not have graduated first in her class from Georgetown, but shes happy with her life and business and, frankly, you cant say the same. Maybe there is something you can learn here. So I continued to think about working with this coach.

There was one huge part though that was standing in my way. It would require me to spend $350/month. On myself. On a coach for me.

I had never spent that kind of money on myself, unless you count the student loans I took on for law school. All my money went to the house, my husband, and my daughter. Heck, I was still wearing the suits I had bought for my job interviews, more than three years later. (Truth be told, I still wear those suits today, nearly twenty years later, because I so rarely wear a suit these days and I did buy some nice suits.)

But I knew I had to do it. I had to make the investment in discovering how to have a life and law practice I would love. I knew I couldnt do it on my own because there was just too much I couldnt see that was keeping me stuck.

So, I did it. I said yes. I made the investment. Within two years, I had made the leap into my own law practice, not something I had ever considered possible (or even something I desired) when I first hired that coach.

Today, 15 years later, my life is radically different and exactly what I always dreamed it would be. I went on to build that law practice into a million dollar plus law firm in just three years by creating a new law business model.

And today, I get to work from home, on my own schedule, only working with clients I absolutely love (like Beverly who has written this book), exactly as I once envisioned I wanted to do when I heard that gal speak at the Chamber event.

The best part is that I didnt have to stop being a lawyer in order to do it.

I did need to get clear on the life I wanted, what was possible and then find the people who could step-by-step support and guide me to say yes to this life. None of it would have been possible if I had not seen other women I respected and admired go first.