When Lawyers Need Lawyers: Vacation
While running a solo practice might be best thing to happen to you since passing the bar, busy solos can often suffer from a critical lack of vacation. After all, who would run the practice if you weren't there?
If you have needy clients or cases in active litigation, getting away for more than a weekend might be impossible, unless you have another lawyer you can rely on to keep an eye on things while you're away.
Tech Helps, But Lawyers Are Better
Sure, with all the wifi and smart phones these days, you can be just one email or expensive text message away, wherever you are in the world. But, when you’re trying to actually vacation, rather than take a "working vacation," one email or text message could derail an entire day of R&R as a client's “emergency” can set your mind spinning on what you have to do for work, rather than vacation. Conversely though, some clients don’t want to wait, and not responding could have serious consequences for solo lawyers.
Luckily, there's an easy way around this, and that involves hiring a lawyer to help you run your practice while you're away.
Mentor With Benefits
One of the best ways for a solo practitioner to be able to get some much needed vacation time is to get themselves a young solo practitioner mentee whom they can trust and train to keep an eye on things while they are away. Although being a mentor requires actually providing some mentorship, and maybe even sharing some work, it will actually payoff when the need arises to rely on that mentee's judgment when asked to watch over the practice. It also gives solos an easy option for who to hire to watch over things when they need a vacation (or even when they want to retire).
Have a nice trip.
Related Resources:
- 3 Tips to Help You Squeeze in a Summer Vacation as a Busy Lawyer (FindLaw's Strategist)
- Lawyers on Vacation? Yeah Right. 8 Tips to Make It Happen (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
- 5 Best Vacation Destinations for Busy Lawyers (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)