Dear Advy,
I was very fortunate to have an amazing mentor in my life. My grandfather was a very successful barrister and solicitor, but he always stressed that a big part of his success was having an identity beyond being the ‘lawyer’. He believed that his clients would be better served by someone “well-rounded” that had friends and interests outside of the profession. He’s no longer with us, but I’m thankful he lived to see me pass the bar. My issue is this; I’m having a hard time building a support network outside of the legal profession. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my lawyer friends, I’m just also keen to honour my grandfather’s legacy…I’m just not sure where to begin.
Sincerely,
Expanding My Support Network
Dear EMSN,
Your grandfather gave you great advice. Having a diverse group of friends and interests helps you understand people from many walks of life. It also helps you weather difficult times, because it gives you access to the advice and support of people with many different strengths. Because you usually develop as a person based on the relationships you form with others, a varied group of friends can even help you realize potential skills, interests, and attributes in yourself that you would not if you had a narrower range of friendships. Just as your financial planner may sometimes encourage you to diversify your financial portfolio, you do well to diversify your friend portfolio too.
Of course, as with all advice that's handed down to us from grandparents, parents, or anyone we know and admire, it can be difficult to take what one person learned in his/her own context and lifetime and apply it in our own circumstances today. Following your grandfather’s advice is more difficult than it sounds.
Part of what you are facing is a function of your stage in life.
Remember law school? Remember how easy it was to make friends with your classmates? You were all going through this strange and new experience together. After the initial shock, you kind of bonded over the shared experience. You all struggled together with tough exams, professors who thought Socratic Method meant saying "Anyone? Anyone?" a lot, and other weird and wonderful things you now look back on fondly. That common experience of adversity made making friends with your cellmates, er, classmates almost automatic.
Once you got out into the profession, it became increasingly difficult to make connections with others. One side effect of that intense experience of being in the trenches with your fellow law students was that it made it harder to relate to people who hadn't gone through that experience.
Articling, and the early years of practice are also difficult, and some might say traumatic life stages. You feel a natural pull toward other people who have gone through - and are still going through - experiences you have in common. The intensity of the law school-articling-junior lawyer period of your life makes it easier to connect to others in the legal profession and harder to connect with those outside of it. My first piece of advice is not to beat up on yourself for the fact that most of your friendships may be within the profession right now. That is a reasonable and understandable by-product of what you and your peers have gone through. It is wise to broaden your circle, yes, but your current situation doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. It means you’re human.
Your laudable goal of making friends outside of legal circles will take some deliberate work on your part to break out of that tendency to keep your friendship circle within your profession. “Work at making friends?!” you may ask, “Isn’t friendship just supposed to happen organically?” Well, no. Recognizing that developing friendships will take effort is a key to being more successful at making friends and for keeping you out of the spiral of self-blame that can develop out of loneliness.
What's the common thread of most friendship? It's common experience. Find something you already enjoy doing outside of work and look for others who share that interest with you. In fact, some recommend trying an activity you're interested in but have never tried. Getting outside of your own comfort zone in terms of activity can make the discomfort of making friendships a bit easier to bear, especially when the others you're participating with are also trying it for the first time.
Are you curious about rock-climbing? Have you always wanted to learn how to paddleboard? Even something as seemingly unadventurous as taking a novice pottery class can be helpful. Just as was the case in first year law school, you and your classmates can bond over the shared discomfort of learning something new. You may find some other specific ideas for opening up your friendships to people outside of your own field by reading another letter to this column with a similar question to yours.
One key mindset adjustment that helps build adult friendships is to assume other people - potential friends - will like us. When you choose to believe that others will like you, you increase the chance that you will exude warmth, openness and other attributes that make others more likely to want to be your friend.
Because of the nature of our work, frankly, it can be hard to believe other people will like us. I'm making an assumption, of course. Maybe you're not someone who has internalized those negative perceptions society has about lawyers. If so, congratulations! You are one step ahead in developing satisfying friendships. If you have internalized that bad perception many people have, though, then be aware that it is an obstacle to making new friends. It is particularly an impediment to making friends with non-lawyers. Your friendships with other lawyers don’t have that lingering irritation of having to hear a bunch of lawyer jokes every time you get together, after all.
That means working deliberately against the perception that others you encounter don't or won’t like you. We work in a profession that a lot of people love to hate. The first step in overcoming that problem is to be aware that you have that perception, and that your perception is not a fact. We humans commonly underestimate the degree to which other people like us. There is a good chance that people you meet during your quest for friends will like you.
Your calling as a lawyer is only one dimension of who you are. Heck, that’s exactly why you want to widen your circle of friends in the first place! If you find yourself pulling back from others for fear of experiencing rejection, take note of that feeling. If it is a strong feeling, make time to sit with it later on to consider why you are having it and what that feeling is telling you. Then, as best you can, set aside the “They’re going to hate me as soon as they find out I’m a lawyer!” thought bubble you’re carrying around, and try to engage with others around you.
Now, please excuse me. I’m running late for my Slalom- Bagpiping League practice. My teammates will already have their lawyer jokes ready to tell me when I get there!
Be well,
Advy
