3 Signs It's Time to Retire From Your Law Practice

It might be time to retire if: Your aged parents look younger than you do, you don't recognize that old person in the mirror, or you have more hair in your nose and ears than on your head.

Come now, we're joking. After all, people can lose their eyesight and go prematurely bald early in life.

Aging and retiring are two different subjects, but let's face them together for a moment. Here are three signs that it's time to retire:

1. You Want to Retire

If you find yourself daydreaming about it, then maybe it's time to realize that dream. Nobody said you have to work until you die. (Although some federal judges may consider their lifetime appointments death sentences.)

Lawyers, particularly private attorneys, notoriously work past retirement age. It may be economically necessary for some, but sometimes that's because they didn't plan for it.

If you want it bad enough, get to it before it gets too late.

2. Your Spouse Wants You to Retire

Whoever said, "happy wife, happy life," was probably a man. Times have changed, but let's just say that the person you promised to support is your spouse.

So if your spouse wants you to retire, he or she is ready. Your obligation to work for a living has been fulfilled, and your spouse wants something different.

Some things -- like health, family and happiness -- are more important than working for a living.

3. Your Mistress Wants You to Retire

Relax, it's a metaphor. Just trying to keep you reading here ...

The law is a jealous mistress, they say. But if she has lost interest in you, or you have lost interest in her, well, the affair is over.

Don't worry, you will find other interesting things to do in retirement -- travel, hobbies, reading, etc. If you really miss the law, you can do something different with your law degree.

The point is, like old fighters, every lawyer should hang up the gloves before it's too late. No one likes to see an old champ get knocked out.

Related Resources:

• 10 Signs it's Time to Retire (New York Times)
• Cookie-Cutter Law Practice: Recipe for Success or Excess? (FindLaw's Strategist)
• Spaces Are the New Frontier in the Lawyer Writing Wars (FindLaw's Strategist)