The Sexy Lawyer

Posted by Rachel Flower / January 10th, 2017 / No responses

OK so I thought we’d start 2017 with some confessions.

Here at Serenwood we’re all about the honest approach. Having difficult conversations, negotiating sticky issues and asking curious questions to get to the nub of the issue. So in the spirit of that, we’re also going to share our own ramblings about our deepest fears and barriers to success.

Here we go. Right to the heart of our greatest fear.

Lawyers are dull

Lawyers are traditionally seen as dull. Much as we try to avoid this fact here at Serenwood, it’s a tough one to shake off. The historical stereotype of a lawyer is a grey suit, piles of dusty old books, a dark office with a ticking clock, blathering on in jargon about stuff which makes no sense to the ordinary person on the street. And, of course, charging zillions of pounds for the privilege.

If you ask a person to describe a lawyer in 3 words, those words are rarely complimentary.

Admittedly, some films and TV programmes may have gone a little way over the years to add more colour into the traditional lawyer concept. Not always in a good way, mind.

Maybe you think of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men? (“You can’t handle the truth!”) Perhaps you think of the character Saul from Breaking Bad (Better Call Saul)? Ally McBeal brought the legal profession into a whole new light, but there’s not many real-world lawyers who can relate to the bizarre plotlines (sadly?)

Lawyers are stressed

The everyday reality for the majority of UK lawyers remains that the grind of life as a lawyer in private practice is less than exciting. It is also extremely demanding. Long hours, lots of responsibility, often repetitive tasks and the weight of multiple files and getting it right. Billing targets, utilisation targets, bringing in new work. As lawyers we’re encouraged to get it right a lot. There’s little margin for error and we’re trained to be risk averse. Heavily caveated advice which can make clients pull their hair out.

[“Yes yes all very interesting to hear about the applicability of the regulations and the recently overturned decision by the Court of Appeal….but what do I actually DO with this real-life bloody problem? TELL ME“].

Can you spare some sympathy for the lawyers? A 2012 survey by LawCare revealed that over 50% of the profession felt stressed and 19% were suffering from clinical depression. In 2013 the Law Society interviewed 2,226 solicitors about stress at work and worryingly more than 95% said their stress was extreme or severe. This situation is made even worse by the fact that there remains a stigma attached to stress in the legal profession where asking for help or admitting to struggling is not the done thing. You are encouraged to get your head down and burn the midnight oil. I have a lot of admiration for my friend Hannah Beko who works for law firm gunnarcooke, who spends some of her time coaching other female lawyers to help them overcome stress and gain more  balance and quality of life.  I should also add that gunnarcooke is a fabulous example of a law firm actually putting its money where its mouth is and trusting its lawyers to create their own flexible working patterns. From what I hear, their clients are extremely happy with the service provided, and apparently the lawyers there are annoyingly buoyant and happy. You do the maths.

Lawyers in recovery

Now as you know, here at Serenwood we are not a regulated law firm nor do we want to be. We’re a team of happy people with a shared history of working in the law and commerce, but we operate as commercial consultants who are able to give practical advice to businesses about what to ACTUALLY DO when it comes to navigating the tricky world of contracts and everyday business challenge. I founded Serenwood because I didn’t want to be a stressed, unhappy lawyer who was so tightly bound to regulatory advice that I struggled to solve their problems. And I wanted to be a good mum as well as a good lawyer. No mean feat, let me tell you.

Maybe you could call us recovering lawyers? These habits are hard to break actually. We take the work we do for our clients very seriously and we pull out all the stops when it comes to getting a job done quickly. We cover the bases from a risk perspective. Sometimes we spend way too much time getting excited about a certain clause and have to calm down with a cup of Yorkshire tea. BUT we’re very rarely stressed and when we are, we’ve got a wonderful chiropractor upstairs (Brighter Life), green Yorkshire countryside on our doorstep for a stroll, and lots of bad jokes in our backpocket to share. Not a grey suit in sight.

Lawyers are sexy

So anyway, I lured you into this article by talking about the Sexy Lawyer, and so now it’s time to confess why. When I founded Serenwood in 2009 I set out to create a fresh approach and for us to bring a different way of delivering legal support into business. I always intended that we would be hands-on, jargon-free, fun and honest in our dealings. Exciting and forward-thinking, non-conforming, innovative.

Yet in mid-2016 I shared with a trusted coach (US-based, although I don’t think that’s relevant) that despite our commitment to a fresh exciting approach, I felt I was still held back by my traditional lawyer image. Try as I might, I was finding it hard to make my presentations on cash-flow be interesting enough to capture my audience. I noticed that I sometimes revert to boring, risk-averse behaviour and people’s eyes glaze over when I meet them at networking events. I try a little too hard to persuade them of my exciting Serenwood venture –  a provider of legal services… but we’re fun, vibrant, interesting HONESTLY (“Come  back….where are you going? I’ll bribe you with a coffee??….ok bye….”)

And do you know what my friend said?

She said “OMG!!!” (she’s in the US, remember) “I think lawyers are so sexy! I always wanted to be a lawyer. Female lawyers in particular…so sexy, so clever, so self-assured, so confident, full of answers and ideas and like….sexiness. uh-huh.”

Silence. Righto. The Sexy Lawyer archetype. Who knew?

Of course this little conversation is quite simply a great reminder that we’re all living our own little stories in our heads, on all manner of things. You might think lawyers are money-grabbing. I might think lawyers are seen as boring and stressed. My friend might think lawyers are sexy. It’s all generalisation and the sooner we escape those stories and just be our own fabulous, imperfectly unique selves then the sooner the labels cease to matter.

What matters is that I was letting my own story about being a dull boring lawyer hold me back from shining and growing in the way I wanted. It massively helped me to accept that it matters not what the legal profession is doing right now, it only matters that here at Serenwood we look to the future and focus on what makes us happy. We concentrate on delivering great value service to our clients and eliminating stress from everyone’s lives. Changing the world, one sexy contract at a time.

I later shared the Sexy Lawyer thought with my team, and we have allowed ourselves a little bit of time laughing about it. Serenwood, the Sexy Lawyers of Sicklinghall. Less cake, more lipstick please.

It’ll be the same in your business. Don’t waste time looking outwards at what others are doing and what history says we should do. Look inward to what you love doing, where you can deliver value, and simply solving the problems of your clients. Be sexy and confident and brilliant. [Or at the very least, tell yourself that you are.]

Lawyers living vicariously

Speaking of which, another great thing that has come of this Sexy Lawyer discussion is that we have admitted to ourselves that here at Serenwood we do live vicariously through our clients. We gravitate towards sexy clients doing exciting, entrepreneurial and innovative things in the world. We love to ride on your coat-tails and be inspired by your vision and help you create strong foundations for your growth. Perhaps we’re hoping that your sexiness is going to rub off on us and we’ll grow into our own high heels.

As recovering lawyers, we all agree that we love doing our Serenwood thing. We pick and choose our clients. We each play to our individual strengths, bringing different skills and viewpoints to our team offering. We hugely relish and appreciate that we are not tied to a desk or under pressure to deliver against constant demands [and yes we do boast about this a little bit, simply because we created this way of working and so we’re proud of it]. We spend lots of quality time with our family and friends. Our team meetings are slightly shambolic because we embrace the creative side of our personalities – spending an inordinate amount of time coming up with new ideas which may or may not save the world or make us into billionaires.

Come to think of it, I confess that we are pretty sexy after all. How fabulous. Happy new year!

Email us: hello@serenwood.co.uk

Rachel and Team Sexy Serenwood