If you ask several lawyers whether it’s possible to maintain a balance between work and personal life, you’ll get different answers. Some believe it’s achievable, while others beg to differ. We fall into the first category. In our eyes, lawyers’ work-life balance is something that anyone can pull off, and in the following few paragraphs, we’ll explain how.

Set Boundaries Between Work and Personal Time

It’s easy to lose sight of what’s appropriate and healthy when you get a taste of success. Unfortunately, lawyers are no exception to this rule. Although their jobs are full of ups and downs, there’s just something inherently greedy about them. They thrive on being the best of the bunch. It’s almost as if all those TV shows about law firms aren’t exaggerating at all. Yet, that comes at a cost.

The line between being a successful lawyer and a person with a healthy personal life is all too thin, which is why it’s essential to set clear boundaries as soon as you enter the world of law, courthouses, and big trials with media coverage. 

But how do you do that? Firstly, we suggest focusing on a maximum of three daily activities. Regardless of how much work you have, start each day with those three and consider those 24h successful.

Furthermore, prioritize self-reflection and self-care needs. Reflection is all about planning and then evaluating what you’ve done. Once that is over, think about what it cost you in terms of health. If the cost was undeniable, shuffle your cards differently before you engage in work again. And if it all becomes too much at some point, do take time off and go on vacation. No kind of work should stand in its way.

Track Time and Follow Your Schedule

No matter which work-life balance guide for lawyers you look up, they’ll all talk about schedules. But it’s not enough just to mention the importance of a well-organized day. You should understand how to manage it properly at all times. Schedules aren’t just about making your desk look professional — they’re useful tools in tracking your time and balancing out life and work.

So, what should your professional-life schedule look like? Before anything, it should clearly state when you wake up and go to sleep. It should also have space for a couple of downtime hours a day. In between those lines, you can slip work-related tasks, meetings, and deadlines. Rest is essential for anyone, so that means lawyers too.

Go On a Vacation

We’ve briefly mentioned vacations, so let’s emphasize their importance now, shall we? Most consider them privileges that are only possible when your work allows for them. However, this is a misconception. Vacations are important parts of our professional lives, as they allow us to unwind and recharge. Even if work isn’t all roses, you should be able to call it a day and head off to take some time off.

Of course, you don’t need to pay ridiculous amounts of money to have quality time with your friends or family. Vacations can also be staycations if you know what we mean. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a tropical beach, drinking cocktails from coconuts, or if you’re snowed-in inside your apartment. The only thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t think about work-related issues to regain your focus.

Spend More Time With Yourself

When someone mentions lawyers and the legal industry, most of us imagine folks in fancy clothes constantly talking about business. And although they’re serious people, they can have fun from time to time. Being a lawyer doesn’t forbid you from having a hobby or two and exploring it to its fullest. Moreover, if you want to reduce stress, we strongly suggest that you maximize your personal time.

To improve your mental health, many therapists will propose pursuing an activity that would make you happy when you were young. It might be traveling, painting, collecting items, or anything else for that matter. Whatever you choose as your excuse to have some time alone, it’s okay. Participating in such activities will reduce the load gathered throughout all those long hours of court hearings and client meetings.

Don’t Own Up Everything — Delegate Tasks if You Can

Being successful in any business usually comes down to hard work and determination. That’s all true, but something appears missing. Success rarely comes from one person only. It’s a product of teamwork. The chances of accomplishing something skyrocket when several people push to accomplish the same goal. But that’s not all. Teamwork also allows people to take a break when their batteries begin running out.

But what does any of this have to do with maintaining a proper professional-private balance in your life? Well, it’s simple. No matter how diligent and proactive you consider yourself a lawyer to be, you shouldn’t do everything. In fact, delegate tasks with colleagues. This will, in turn, up your business as well as your mental and physical state as you’ll have a more defined barrier between your job and private life.

Manage Your Emotions

Lastly, we need to mention emotions. We can talk about flexible working hours, parental leave, hobbies, etc., but there’s so much more to fine-tuning a healthy work-life balance if you’re a lawyer. Like anyone else, suits have emotions. But lawyers rarely show them while working. This is a way to control the situation around them and accomplish tasks on time and successfully. At least, that’s how the top honchos do it.

Don’t get us wrong. We’re not suggesting that you turn all toxic and hide emotions so that your work benefits. Quite the opposite. Emotions are what make us human, after all. But it’s how we handle them that separates the successful from those who’re not. You should, therefore, learn what and when to show. If you get that right, you’ll be one step closer to balancing out your work and private life.

All in all, lawyers have it the same as all other people. Stress is on every corner, and it sometimes seems like they can’t get a hold of their lives. If that’s the case with you too, you should pause things and take a close look at yourself in the mirror. Ask yourself all the things we’ve mentioned, and you’ll at least begin your journey towards betterment. And once you do, the only way will be up.

We asked you to tell us which books a future law student should read. Here are the top nominations – and some of the other contenders

The Rule of Law by Tom Bingham

Whatever did inquiring legal minds read before Lord Bingham published The Rule of Law? This slim volume has rapidly become the book Guardian-reading lawyers are most likely to recommend to anyone interested in the profession. As Joshua Rozenberg put it: “Bingham’s definition of that much-used term is now entirely authoritative and will probably remain so for the next 120 years or more. In summary, it is ‘that all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made, taking effect (generally) in the future and publicly administered in the courts.’

Letters to a Law Student by Nicholas McBride

“Dear Sam, I hope you don’t mind me writing to you in this way…” The only book to receive as many nominations as Bingham’s was Letters to a Law Student, by All Souls fellow and director of studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Solicitous, authoritative and hardly discounted even by Amazon, it knows its audience – those who already have a place to read law are advised to skip the first chapters.

Glanville Williams: Learning the Law (ATH Smith)
Welsh legal scholar Williams died in 1997, but Learning the Law lives on – though much of the rest of his prolific output is out of print. His support for legalising abortion and euthanasia, as well as his role in decriminalising suicide in 1961, earned his reputation as a reformer. But not everyone is a fan. “I read it once and I’ve never touched it again,” wrote Stephen Clark (LLB Exeter and about to start his BPTC). “This is supposedly the standard introductory text, but I couldn’t encourage students enough to stay away from it. It really won’t help when it comes to knowing the law, it won’t help when it comes to understanding the law and it won’t impart you with the skills necessary to do well on the LLB.”

What About Law? by Catherine Barnard et al
Recommended by – among others – Southampton University lecturer Mark Telford, What About Law? describes the various fields of law in engaging detail, though is less forthcoming with practical advice. Opens with the legal implications of the wild party 17-year-old Laura throws while her parents are away for the weekend.

Eve Was Framed by Helena Kennedy
Baroness Kennedy, as listeners to her current Radio 4 series will know, is as much concerned with justice as the law. Much of this lively and highly readable book is devoted to exploring the myriad ways in which the legal system has let down women – as lawyers, victims and defendants – though there is also plenty of optimism, particularly about the ability of women to rise to the top of the legal establishment. Kennedy’s Just Law was also nominated.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Somewhere in the new Rolls Building, a modern Jarndyce v Jarndyce is doubtless lumbering – or perhaps the Technology and Construction Court is hosting a particularly lengthy dispute involving tree roots. Dickens was a court reporter for four years and undoubtedly drew on his experiences, particularly at the Old Bailey, for his fiction – this coining trial may have inspired part of Great Expectations.

Other nominations
Cardiff and UCL academic Richard Moorhead: The End of Lawyers by Richard Susskind

UK Human Rights Blog editor and 1COR barrister Adam Wagner: Geoffrey Robertson’s The Justice Game

Carrie Alcott: How Law Works by Gary Slapper (“Absolutely brilliant. Have just read it now, going in to my final year, and really wish I’d come across it before I began studying”)

Lila Lamrabert: The Law Machine by Clare Dyer and Marcel Berlins

Michael Zymler and Jennie Evans: How To Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic by Madsen Pirie

Jason Miller and Emma Morris: The Case of the Speluncean Explorers by Lon Fuller (Miller: “Jurisprudence isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it shows a variety of legal and moral viewpoints.”)

Stacey Roden: Learning Legal Rules by James Holland

Paul O’Grady: A Short History of Western Legal Theory by John Kelly

Marika Giles Samson: The Best Defense by Paul Dershowitz

Jack Gilbert: The Colour of Law by Mark Giminez (“on a purely motivational basis”)

The law has long been seen as a prestigious career path—and a great option for people with all kinds of skill sets.

But the conversation about law school is filled with a fair amount of doom and gloom these days. The legal industry has contracted seriously in the last few years, and there’s no doubt that JDs face a lot of competition coming out of law school.

Still, if you make the right decision for you as an individual, a law degree can open any number of career doors. Here’s what to consider when deciding whether to take the law school plunge—and how to find the right school for you.

1. The Job Market

It’s no secret that employment prospects for new law school grads have dimmed in the last few years (it’s become such a trope that one Chicago lawyer is even offering a $1,000 scholarship to students who decide not to study law).

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go—it just means you should know what you want out of your legal career and be realistic about getting there. Start by looking at the employment trends—where new JDs are getting jobs, the salaries they’re making, and the un- and under-employment rates at top law schools. You should also look up schools you’re interested in in the American Bar Association’s employment summary reports, which break down bar passage rate, the types of jobs graduates are getting, and where they’re working.

Generally, you’ll want to look for schools where most graduates get full-time, long-term legal jobs within a few months of graduation. If you see that a lot of new JDs end up at part-time or short-term jobs, it’s probably an indication that they’re struggling in the job market. And the last thing you want is to graduate with $100,000 worth of debt and no job prospects.

2. Geography

Knowing where geographically you want to practice law can give you some much-needed direction—law schools often have strong alumni networks and recruiting relationships with firms in particular states and cities. Sometimes these networks are obvious, but often, they’re not (for example, Berkeley sends a lot of graduates to jobs in California, but also to big law firms in New York City). If you know you want to move back to the Bay Area or plan to join your fiancé in Chicago after graduation, look for schools that feed into those regions.

Similarly, a particular industry may have a major presence in a certain geographic area, and that should factor into your search, too. If you’re passionate about a social cause and interested in working for a national advocacy group, for example, you should be looking at law schools that send a lot of graduates to jobs in Washington, D.C. If you’re interested in, say, energy law, target schools in Texas and Louisiana. You can ask admissions officers where each school’s JDs are ending up, or use the law school search tool on Noodle to see which schools feed into the place you want to go.

3. Return on Investment

Higher education has never been more expensive, and law school is no exception. Advice on paying for law school deserves its own post, but before you get that far, do a little research to estimate your return on investment. Payscale offers data on salaries for graduates from law schools in a variety of jobs, so you can think objectively about how much you’re willing to pay and how much debt you’re willing to take on. Some career paths value a legal education even if they don’t require it (think government or policy jobs), so if you go to law school and don’t plan to practice law, take that into account when you look at how all the numbers break down.

And if you’re interested in a public service career, consider paths that offer loan forgiveness. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program through the U.S. Department of Education forgives federal loans after 10 years of employment in jobs with government entities or nonprofit organizations.

4. Scores
On a more obvious note, your LSAT scores and college GPA will largely determine where you go to law school. So, as you’re thinking about the schools with great employment rates that place graduates in your field and industry of choice, look at their average and target numbers. If your scores aren’t close, it’s worth postponing the application process to focus on boosting your LSAT score or thinking seriously about going. It’s difficult to do, but it’s crucial to your future to look at the numbers and make an informed decision.

Finally, the most important thing is finding the school that’s right for you as an individual. During your research phase, remember to keep asking yourself a key question: Why do you want to go to law school? Yes, you want to apply to the highest quality law schools where you can gain admission, but it’s crucial to find a program that meets your needs and fits your situation. Be honest with yourself about your goals, and the other questions will be much easier to answer.