Finding happiness in your life, work

In “Balancing Life and Work,” Amy E. Clark Kleinpeter advises lawyers—specifically, young associates—to strive for happiness, not just contentment. It’s been her career mantra learned as a first-year associate, eventually guiding Kleinpeter to find her passion in law—something she would never have found by settling for less.

Finding happiness involves achieving a balance between work and personal time. Too many lawyers ignore this balance with their I-can-sleep-when-I’m-dead mindset, and end up leaving law altogether. “In the four years I have been practicing law, three attorneys I have known walked out of their office doors one day and never came back. No notice, no goodbyes, the extra suits still hanging on the back of their doors—they were gone,” recalls Kleinpeter.

Using her own career journey as a case study, Kleinpeter offers tips for finding happiness:

• Define your values. Match your life to what you value. A person can’t do everything, so discover the things that are important to you and find a way to include them in your life.
• Cherish your down time. Kleinpeter notes that this may mean saying “no” at times. Further, that down time should be held as “sacred.”
• Have non-law friends and activities. This may extend to non-mommy or -daddy activities if you're a new parent.
• Eschew perfection. Kleinpeter advises, “Strive for effective arguments and writing instead of perfection and you will be serving your clients as well as, if not better than, if you agonize over every semi-colon.”
• Fail. That's a hard one. “When you have more to your life than just your work, you can see your failures in perspective.”

Kleinpeter’s article appears on the Young Lawyers Division Web site as part of the division’s 101 Practice Series.

Back to top

Back to home