DTCI: Working with a professional coach has big career benefits

About 13 years ago, I seemed to be in something of a rut professionally. I was doing good work, but I had lots of room to improve both the quality and the quantity of the work I was producing. I was going to be up for partner in a year or two and wanted to make sure I did everything I could to make it.

Despite the desire to get better, I was unable to figure out what I needed to do. My stepmother, a former English professor who was running her own consulting firm, suggested that I work with a professional coach. She said she had been working with one for several years and it had really helped grow her business, and she knew one who worked with lawyers, in particular.

I was a bit skeptical at first. Part of being a professional is figuring things out on your own. But while I could figure out the right argument to support my case, I wasn’t able to see what I needed to do to make the improvements to become a better attorney. So I reached out to Josh Hornick.

Josh is a professional coach who specializes in coaching attorneys. An attorney himself who lives in Massachusetts, he was able to help me figure out one particular thing that I wanted to improve and how I could do that. I worked with Josh over the next six months, speaking with him over the phone every two weeks for about two hours at a time. We would go over what I had wanted to work on the last time we spoke, what I had done to improve over that time and how it had actually worked. Sometimes the strategies didn’t work, but most of the time they did. Over the course of that six months, my work product improved and I was able to produce more of it. My bosses noticed the improvement, and the following year I became a partner.

A professional coach helps you drill down to find not only what you want, but why you want it. He can help you crystallize your goals beyond just “being a better attorney” or “making more money.” While your coach can help you set broad goals, the improvement really comes when the coach helps you determine narrow goals that will lead you to the broader ones.

In my case, one of the big things I wanted to do was reduce the distractions I was experiencing on a daily basis. Those distractions kept me from spending more time on the work at hand, which made me feel rushed and behind much of the time. Josh helped me identify which things were distracting me and what I could do to eliminate them. Checking email too often? Why don’t you try turning off your notifications so that you aren’t tempted to check your email every time a new email comes in and that little envelope appears on your screen, or set a schedule so that you check emails only at a particular time of day? Surfing the web too often? Why don’t you remove the browser from your taskbar so it’s not tempting you to click on it every time you look at your screen? Or if you feel compelled to check certain sites multiple times per day, why don’t you install an extension that allows you to block particular sites on your computer?

My coach also helped me take better depositions, become better organized, be a smarter marketing presence and visualize the type of attorney I wanted to be. Over the course of the last 13 years, I’ve worked with him on three or four different occasions when he has helped me to improve in each new phase of my career. When I decided I wanted to apply for an open judgeship here in Marion County, Josh helped prepare me for the application and interview so that I felt that I had done everything I could to appeal to the judicial selection committee (given that I’m still in private practice, there are still areas in which I can improve). I anticipate that as my practice continues to grow, I’ll continue to work with him.

Working with a coach is an investment in your career. It is not cheap, and it can make you ask difficult questions about yourself. But it can also help you determine what you want out of your career and the steps you can take to get there. Just about every successful professional athlete has a coach to help him or her improve as a player. The right coach can do the same for your practice.•

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Charles S. Smith is a partner in the Indianapolis firm of Schultz & Pogue LLP and serves on the DTCI board of directors. Opinions expressed are those of the author.