As the days get shorter and colder and the year winds to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on what’s unfolded in the past twelve months—and preparing for the holidays ahead. In the midst of it all, we also find time to give thanks.
While we may be grateful for time with family, new relationships, a meal with friends, or the enthusiasm of early winter, as lawyers, we have even more to be thankful for.
The benefits of gratitude
Whether it’s telling someone else what you’re grateful for, journaling or meditating on your gratitude, or simply silently noting and acknowledging the small gifts in each day, practicing gratitude comes with a host of benefits.
Gratitude:
- Supports a strong immune system and may reduce the risk of heart failure
- Improves mental health and lowers anxiety and depression
- Strengthens relationships
- Gives you a better night’s sleep
- Makes you more patient, which results in more sensible decision-making
- Leads to greater happiness
Clearly, the benefits of practicing gratitude are significant enough that we should all be practicing gratitude year-round! So, what are lawyers grateful for? (Year-round, not just around Thanksgiving!)
Diligent, detail-oriented paralegals
Where would you be without your team? Although every team has its moments of stress, we’re all grateful for diligent, detail-oriented paralegals.
From keeping matters moving forward to cracking a joke when we need to hear it most, law offices would be far less productive without their paralegals. We’re grateful for all the managing and organizing they do, as well as how they help us prepare for hearings and so much more.
Technology that creates efficiencies and delivers
Legal tech has continued to develop in leaps and bounds—reducing administrative burdens and freeing up more of the work day for billable hours.
Whether it’s drafting batch invoices in just a few clicks or running three-way reconciliation in a fraction of the time and effort it used to take, legal tech has changed the way we run law offices.
With trust accounting safeguards in place that prevent overdrafting individual client accounts and other ethics violations, legal tech makes lawyers’ jobs a little less stressful.
And don’t get us started on automated reminders for evergreen retainer replenishment and overdue invoices. We definitely don’t miss writing those emails!
Reliable merchants who come through
Hand-in-hand with a good practice management system afforded by legal tech, we’re also grateful for reliable merchants who come through for us—despite all the complexities of accepting credit cards as a law firm.
We understand that while generic merchants may work for other professions, they can land lawyers with an ethics violation in a heartbeat.
Our legal-specific merchants who deposit funds into a trust account while removing processing fees from the operating account go a long way toward providing us with a reliable framework for accepting credit cards and electronic payments—which we know our clients expect.
The ability to do meaningful work
As lawyers, the work we do changes our clients’ lives. We get to use our specialized education and experience to help others accomplish goals and right wrongs in a manner they wouldn’t be able to do alone.
Even for clients going through stressful transitions, such as divorce, we get to support them by providing a foundation for moving forward with their lives. To be able to impact others’ futures for the better is a true privilege. We’re grateful to be able to do so while maintaining a sense of skill and proficiency—and yes, continuing to learn.
And for those who volunteer their time to help others with pro bono work, we’re thankful for you, too.