Hustle Until Your Haters Ask If You’re Hiring. This is my personal mantra. I have no idea who said it. I first saw it on a workout shirt (which I now own). Google is of no help. So, I guess kudos to someone in a marketing or design department at some unknown corporation. Your words kick my butt into gear on a daily basis. Not everyone is going to love this mantra. And that is just fine. I have come to realize that nobody loves everything. Some may feel you should not measure your success against the opinion of others. They’re right. But these words – Hustle Until Your Haters Ask If You’re Hiring – just speak to me. So to those that don’t like it, I hear ya, but I still love it, and I live by it. So…

Dear Hopeful Quick-Study: This is an excellent question. The articling experience is notoriously challenging and often all-consuming. In this post, I outline some strategies for managing the articling experience based on my own experience and what I’ve picked up from colleagues over the years. There is a Significant Learning Curve I wanted to speak to this point first, as I often questioned whether I was learning “fast enough” during articles. The short answer is that there is no “right” pace for learning. During articles (and the first several years of practice) you are taking in a lot of new information, and for the most part, you are doing things for the very first time. The first few times you take on a new task, it takes longer to complete. This is normal. My best advice for this point is to…

“Jacinda Ardern retires: Can women really have it all?” While Thursday’s (original) BBC Headline was, in my non-journalist’s opinion, tired and clearly meant to evoke some knee-jerk reaction about the state of women in society, it was, at least, thought-provoking. Like many others, my first thought was to wonder if the BBC would ever ask “can men really have it all?” It was more of a rhetorical, rage-filled thought, I confess. But now that the red glow has dissipated from my eyes, the thoughts and questions are more nuanced: what does it mean to have it “all” and do we really want it “all” anyway?

I recently listened to a podcast on the topic of “Claiming your Authority” by host Kara Loewentheil, a lawyer turned life coach from New York. It had me thinking about how I claim my authority in my own personal and professional life. The ideas introduced in the podcast are not novel – Kara discusses how women are conditioned to think and behave in certain ways. Typically, this entails women taking a back seat when it comes to decision-making, women being quiet and “polite”, and women taking on more traditional roles in family and work life.

Are you old enough? A typical exchange in the professional context: Me: “Hi, I’m Brooke. I’m a lawyer.” Client or allied professional: “I hope I won’t offend you…but, are you old enough to be lawyer?”