The role of personal financial resilience in great lawyering

Do you have a financial plan B?

Sharing here some experiences of building empowerment through personal financial resilience and the role it can play in great lawyering, particularly for in-house counsel.

It was at Yahoo! in 2009 when I started tuning in to the importance of financial resilience for lawyers, particularly in-house lawyers.

Working with tech companies, the grapevine and press are peppered with stories of general counsels:

Getting unceremoniously switched out when new exec come in
Under crazy behavioural and ethical pressure
Standing down because they can’t support a path the business is taking
Taking the fall for company failures

It took more than 5 years for me to do something about this growing awareness, but it was seismic when it came.

Moorhead, Vaughan and Godinho talk in their book on in-house lawyers' ethics (a must read) about the ‘tournament of influence’ in-lawyers are under – the direct and indirect influences that contribute to how they behave, the advice they give, the decisions they make. What I came to realise is the influence our personal financial situation can have on our actions and on how bold we are in what we say, do and accept.

Being reliant on another for our financial stability has a registration inside – something we calibrate to, whether consciously or unconsciously, at some level in fear of the rug being pulled or in hope of a future windfall. If you have dependents, this is all the more keen.

My husband and I decided to remove this reliance by downsizing our lives and living in a way that we could live as a family on a single salary. It took time, but building plan B was incredibly powerful (and a great reminder to count our blessings).

As a GC, personal financial resilience provides the ultimate independence.
It gives you the freedom to put your own money where your mouth is, in the advice you give and the choices you make. To never have to stay in a position that conflicts with your professional responsibilities or personal values. To speak up, to be ready to be fired, or to walk away and for that to be difficult but fine. To not have to second guess or compromise yourself or wait it out because you can’t afford to be out of work.

Of all the advice out there for in-house counsel, this is foundational - doing all you can to remove money as a factor in your decision making:

Be on the front foot with your financial plan B.
Build the financial buffer so it is there should you need it.
Behave like an independent consultant every day – like it is just that one day and you act and advise accordingly, free of what may come.

Austerity works when you keep things simple. State schools are better for society. Knowing you can live on little is empowering.

Independence is a particular focus and area of risk for the in-house community, where there is a single employer client responsible for salary, promotions, bonuses and treatment day to day, and whose mission and people in-house lawyers care about and become invested in. The same principles apply to outside counsel too – to anyone, in fact, who may have unpopular advice or opinions or who want to question a business, action, ethos or culture. The purpose beyond profit and ESG movement need independence and need these people – society needs them. Personal financial resilience can help play a part and there are always steps that can be taken - even small steps build up over time.

As part of this, I also question, particularly for those at the big law end of the market, what the impact would be of lower personal overheads of legal business owners and decision-makers - the impact on pricing and fee structures, on investment in the client relationship, on working practices, people and culture. If the personal financial pressure was off, would this have a knock on effect on the financial pressure in legal businesses that underpins the dysfunction in the status quo?

Building financial resilience into your personal balance sheet not only makes you more content, it makes you a stronger-decision maker and thus a better lawyer, in significant and perhaps unexpected ways.

jenifer swallowApril 16, 2021

The role of personal financial resilience in great lawyering

It was at Yahoo! in 2009 when I started tuning in to the importance of financial resilience for lawyers, particularly in-house lawyers.

Working with tech companies, the grapevine and press are peppered with stories of general counsels:

Getting unceremoniously switched out when new exec come in

Under crazy behavioural and ethical pressure

Standing down because they can’t support a path the business is taking

Taking the fall for company failures

It took more than 5 years for me to do something about this growing awareness, but it was seismic when it came.

Being reliant on another for our financial stability has a registration inside – something we calibrate to, whether consciously or unconsciously, at some level in fear of the rug being pulled or in hope of a future windfall. If you have dependents, this is all the more keen.

My husband and I decided to remove this reliance by downsizing our lives and living in a way that we could live as a family on a single salary. It took time, but building plan B was incredibly powerful (and a great reminder to count our blessings).

As a GC, personal financial resilience provides the ultimate independence.

Of all the advice out there for in-house counsel, this is foundational - doing all you can to remove money as a factor in your decision making:

Be on the front foot with your financial plan B.

Build the financial buffer so it is there should you need it.

Behave like an independent consultant every day – like it is just that one day and you act and advise accordingly, free of what may come.

Austerity works when you keep things simple. State schools are better for society. Knowing you can live on little is empowering.

Building financial resilience into your personal balance sheet not only makes you more content, it makes you a stronger-decision maker and thus a better lawyer, in significant and perhaps unexpected ways.