Having your family’s support doesn’t mean your family wants what you want.
I am my own boss. I am my own decision-maker. But I am not only responsible to me.
Just because my family supports me and will rah-rah me until the cows come home doesn’t mean they understand what I do, nor does it mean they care.
The thing they care about is how our actions will affect them:
- Will we be working late on client calls?
- Will we have enough money to pay the mortgage?
- Will dinner be early or late? Or are we fending for ourselves all day?
- Will the littles have a meltdown because we’re not there for bedtime?
- And when we have that trip to speak at that conference, how are we taking care of our responsibilities to the family before we leave, while we’re there, and when we get back?
Our family’s support directly depends on how we ensure *they’re* supported.
If you’re always worried about how your work will affect your family, you might not make the moves you need to make for yourself or your business.
And if you don’t worry about how your work will affect your family, you might not make the moves you need to make for yourself or your career.
OoOf. What a dilemma.
Most business owners believe that having their family’s support is unconditional, when it’s not.
You can pretend that love is unconditional, but often, it’s unconditional only when it’s reciprocal. Real buy-in from your family isn’t “I support you as a person.” Buy-in from your family is “We are in this together – you support and resource me, and I’ll support and resource you.” It’s unfair to ask otherwise.
When you know exactly how much time and effort and energy and money you’re going to give to your business and to your clients, it’s very easy to see how energy leaks out. And when you know that, then you can stop pretending that the business is a “great thing for everyone,” because the reality is often that it’s not great for everyone.
Too often, business owners rely heavily on their family to pick up the slack at home, under the guise that their family supports them. And while that’s true in theory, reality is different.
I see way too many law firm owners overwhelmed at work.
- They’re struggling to do all the stuff they need to do ON the business (i.e. taxes, bookkeeping, calendaring, IOLTA audits and reconciliations, communications, marketing, billing, invoicing, and more).
- Then, they’re also struggling to do everything they need to do IN the business (i.e. returning client calls, replying to messages, drafting memos, prepping witnesses, going to court and mediation, doing the research, and more).
That struggle leaves a firm owner exhausted and on the edge of burnout all the time. That’s because they’re trying to do it all on their own – without any support or resources.
It’s the exact struggle so many families of lawyers face, and it’s exactly what you need to FIX to get their buy-in.
For every level of support you don’t create for yourself in your business, chances are your family also doesn’t have the level of support they need at home. Following your example, your family is also trying to do it all on their own, without any support.
- They’re probably trying to do it alone because they don’t want to bother you – they know you’re overwhelmed.
- They’re probably also trying to do it alone because they’re afraid to ask for the resources they need to be supported.
Besides the obvious (money), the whole point of having your own business is to build a business that creates a LIFE you want, not a life you and your family have to suffer through.
We have to stop taking our family’s buy-in for granted, and instead, give them the support they need so that everyone can be resourced on all fronts. Ignoring how our actions impact our family leads to unnecessary stress and emotional friction.
The best way to learn whether your actions at work are impacting your family’s buy-in: ASK.
Normally, to get the early buy-in we need from our families, we discuss launching our business with them – we talk about how excited we are and all the things we’re going to do as our own boss. Rarely do law firm owners talk about all the things that can and will go wrong when you’re running your own firm. Nor do they renew that buy-in again later on, long after the business has gotten its legs under it.
That gap comes up the most because we don’t know what we know until we know it. That’s when that early misalignment of boundaries and expectations – and the decisions that come with both – cause unnecessary and costly tension. And that tension wears on the buy-in that was once so readily given.
To have real family buy-in, you need to have a reality-based discussion that creates an opportunity for EVERYONE to be resourced and supported: you, your business, your family, your clients, and the relationships inside each of these domains.
Nobody wants to get divorced, but 35% of attorneys do.
I read that stat the other day and was surprised it wasn’t higher. It was in comparison to other professions, which fall much lower. And the rate of divorce for divorce attorneys? Even lower.
You might think the 35% divorce because of the stress or the long work hours. But actually, I think the reason is a lot more insidious.
It’s going to sound a little crazy, but I believe attorneys get divorced because attorneys aren’t great communicators. They’re also not great at setting boundaries. And they’re definitely not great at clarifying expectations outside of a contract negotiation for a client.
Early on in my career, I was working 100-120 hour weeks. I was building a multimillion dollar law firm from scratch, all while having my earliest adult relationships. In those first ten years of my career, I had at least six relationships. They rarely lasted more than two years, and trust me when I say that by the 9th month, I had *clear* warning signs they would end in a spectacularly terrible way.
And, because I’m now a social worker, I just want to say: it wasn’t that I wasn’t a good communicator – I definitely talked about my feelings and needs. But the thing that always got me in the end was that I was not good with boundaries. I wasn’t good with clarifying what my partners could expect from me, and what I needed to expect from them.
Those last two things are the KEYS to buy-in. They’re the keys to being supported and being supportive.
By not resourcing myself, I was failing to resource my relationships.
The worst part is that I knew this was the truth. And rather than deal with it, I kept on keeping on, hoping that things would just sort themselves out.
- That eventually that trial would be over and I’d have my time back.
- I’d get that Writ in and could go back to “regular” life.
- Those 9/11 litigation depos would finally be done and I’d return from my trip to NY, and things would be “normal.”
In reality, life kept on going without me. My partners suffered my poor choices of how to spend my energy. Eventually, they found solace and support in the arms of other people.
Lawyers working in law firms know that there’s no such thing as a “normal” life. Because nothing about being an attorney is normal. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want or need buy-in from our families.
It took me finally deciding that I was worth someone who truly supported me, and that I wanted someone who truly wanted to be supported, before I knew the kind of buy-in I actually needed: not just intellectual rah-rah cheerleader buy-in, but reciprocal “I got you and you got me” and “we’re doing all this together” and “I want you fully resourced” buy-in.
And here I am, 19+ years later, with the love of my life and a relationship that we work on every single day. I’m not saying there aren’t tough moments; of course there are. But in order to minimize the impact of being an attorney on your family, you have to communicate everything – intellectually, emotionally, mentally, everything.
- You have to make sure they’re as resourced as you are.
- You have to assess expectations and the level of support each season of life and work brings.
- You have to set boundaries for family involvement, family integration, and family intervention.
The buy-in that lawyers need from their family isn’t a superficial one-time buy-in when you start your career, a new job, or hang your shingle.
It’s a repeated buy-in again and again, checking in with each other every single week, preferably during a non-negotiable and reserved time on the calendar.
Because the success of your business doesn’t depend on how many clients you have or how much money you make. Your success depends on the success of your family and the people who support you.
I can’t tell you how many attorney-clients I’ve had over the years who are either divorced or on the verge of it.
I’d say about 75-80% of them owned their own firms, and the rest were all in firms where they didn’t call the shots.
I’ve recently been talking more about Human Design and it’s for good reason. Those 75-80% of lawyers who owned their own firms and were either divorced or on the verge of it? More than half are Generators: the type of person built to go, go, go, and to check all the boxes and keep going until they plop into exhaustion each night … then get up and do it again the next day. Their “motor” can run them toward success, or it can run them into the ground if they’re not careful.
When it came down to it, those lawyers became my clients because they wanted support with their firms: they wanted better balance, support, resources, goals that felt realistic and actionable.
But the immediate solution wasn’t always about changing their firms (we did that, too, but not at first). Most of the time, the most immediate release of stress was a real, honest, and vulnerable conversation with the people they loved the most: their family. When the family’s on the same page as you, you’ll have reduced conflict *and* everyone will feel supported, seen, and heard.
The legal industry wants you to prove yourself every single day.
It wants you to bill the most, to not ask for help lest you be seen as weak, and (G*d forbid), if you’re struggling, it really doesn’t want you to tell anyone because your license depends on you presenting a competent and capable front.
But all these things get us is stressed and isolated. That’s the wrong way to be a lawyer.
I think most lawyers would say they don’t want their professional life to look like that. (If you’re not in that number, please, tell me why.)
I believe in a collaborative environment. One where we depend on each other. Communicate our needs and expectations and boundaries with everyone around us – at home and at work … bosses, partners, clients, opposing counsel, Courts … everyone.
Lawyers aren’t just service providers creating a miracle from nothing. We’re humans who went into the law to make the world a better, more just place. (Or, because it was either that or med school and we didn’t want the math or the blood … which, unfortunately, is about all the law is: math and blood…)
So, if you’re feeling like you don’t have the buy-in with your family like you want, then maybe it’s time to discuss what you really want out of the law.
Let’s have that discussion together, so you can be armed with a script and an outline of what to say in that conversation with your family. I can help you ease that tension, assess the support everyone needs, and start setting the boundaries you need to set in order to be the person you want to be at the office, and at home.
👋🏽 Hi, I’m🌞 Sheila! I’ve spent 25+ years building and running law firms. I’ve mentored hundreds of lawyers, spoken to thousands more up on CLE stages, and I know what it really takes to run a successful, ethical, regulated business without burning out. I help lawyers and other licensed professionals make smarter decisions, set boundaries that stick, and build practices that actually work for them (not the other way around). 🔗Let’s create a practice and a life you actually want.
#JoyfulAndThrivingLawyer #DoItYourWay ⚖️
