Paramedic or surgeon

There are two very different types of medical professionals.

Paramedics

The first type are the paramedics, those heroic first responders who sit next to the phone, ready to respond to a wide range of emergencies at a moment’s notice. When the crisis occurs, they are the first to jump into action and the first on the scene. Paramedics are not, nor can they be expected to be, experts in any particular speciality of medicine, instead, they are expected to be (a) good enough in a wide range of situations and (b) (crucially) able to respond quickly on demand, 24–7.

Yet despite their heroic qualities and action packed lives, paramedics are also, in general, the least well paid of the medical professions, and the most likely to be put into a situation of danger. They are also the most likely to be unionised, as individually they are fungible, and only by congregating under a collective banner can they achieve equality of bargaining power. And through a combination of long hours, constant alert, low pay, ubiquitous stress and the occasional danger, burnout is a chronic occupational hazard.

Surgeon

The other type of medical professional, at the other end of the spectrum, is the surgeon. While emergencies requiring urgent intervention can sometimes occur, for the most part the life of a professional life of a surgeon operates on a comfortable and predictable rhythm. They work discrete hours. Mondays and Wednesdays are consulting days, Tuesday and Thursday morning theatre, and Friday is teaching at the university. In a normal week, there are periods of high intensity work, but these are buffeted by long periods of relative tranquility, necessary and appropriate to re-energise for the next challenge.

As the epitome of the ultra-specialist, they enshew treating the vast majority of medical ailments, yet as a result, the one thing they focus on (hearts, lungs, brains, spines etc), they do extremely well. In consequence, surgeons are extremely well compensated, their tightly cultivated niche skills being rare and in demand.

Happily enough, surgeons are unlikely to get into situations of active professional danger, unless, like Bruce Wayne’s parents, they are shot by a mugger at the opera. Surgeons each have a strong, induvial brand, and have little need to unionise. Indeed, the idea would be viewed widely with some distaste.

Legal paramedics

Comparing the two types of professionals, with the differences starkly illuminated, most people would express a wish to gravitate to surgery over ambulance driving. Higher skills, status, pay, safety and (probably) job security. Yet this doesn’t happen by accident, only by deliberate focus.

All lawyers start as paramedics. Fresh out of university, we have received basic medical training in a wide variety of legal fields, and are set loose on the legal demands of society, almost inevitably as employees in a law firm. At this stage of our careers, our raw energy, willingness to work hard, and tolerance for late nights is valued far higher than our non-existent practical expertise in a particular legal field. We are working as paramedics – next to the phone, ready to deliver basic emergency care.

That is why it is common career advice for young lawyers that it is best to have availability, affability, and ability, in that order. Like a paramedic, you are not being paid for your specialised skills, you are being paid to be available to jump into action to stop the worst of the bleeding when a crisis arises. Hence the lot of many young lawyers: working long hours, doing a variety of unfocused tasks, as you drive the legal ambulance from place to place.

The above is not intended to be a prerogative description: we all have to start somewhere. Where this model becomes problematic is when we fail to evolve from this unspecialised, generalised first responder into a mature and focused surgeon.

The challenge is that this doesn’t happen on its own. It requires at some point, not too early, but also not too late, to saying ‘no’. No, I’m not doing that work because I want to protect and enhance, not dilute, my speciality. And ‘no’ I’m not doing it then, because I need to protect and enhance my energy, not dissipate it, and this can’t happen if I am provoked into action in times and in situations I don’t control.

Of course, saying ‘no’ to remunerative work at odd hours in the name of building a more specialised skill set and and energetic mind to deploy it carries cost and risk. The costs, most obviously, include turning away paying work from paying customers. The risks are more subtle and interpersonal, but none the less real – by saying ‘no’, regardless of how politely, you take an almost inevitable reduction in your affability credentials. Yet it is essential to keep saying no to keep your career moving forward.

People will wait in line for a good restaurant

Meet Tony and Penny. The former is a cautionary tale, the later an instructive one.

Tony is an eager-beaver young attorney. An extremely energetic and affable chap, Tony starts working at a law firm and says ‘yes’ to any request at the slightest provocation. In the early days of his career, when availability and affable are valued highly, this earns him considerable praise. ‘What a superstar’, people gush. ‘Extremely proactive and user-friendly’.

Over time however, this say ‘yes, do anything, anytime’ strategy starts to show signs of strain. After a couple of years, Tony – having been pulled in a thousand different professional directions, finds himself a generalist without a specialised skill set. He also finds himself tired from the constant late night and emergency responses. Yet he is stuck. Without a specialised skill set, he finds it difficult to increase his charge out rate, as the market is generally unwilling to pay premium rates for a jack of all trades. The only strategy remaining to increase his earnings is for Tony to work longer hours, essentially doubling down on the availability and affability side of the equation. His message to the market, masking the grim strain of the relentless work, is ‘hire me, not because I’m particularly good, but I’ll make myself available at any time for you (and I’m user friendly)’. Tony has essentially become the legal equivalent of a suspicious 24 hour restaurant with dozens of cuisines and a hundred options – the type of place to be frequented only when you have no other option because all the more talented chefs are tucked up happily in bed.

Penny on the other hand avoids the trap. After a year of doing her time in the ambulance brigade, she decides she wants to be a specialised tax attorney. But she doesn’t end there (most lawyers don’t define their speciality tightly enough and end up becoming just, say, Construction law paramedics), but decides her game will be indirect tax disputes. Fantastic. As part of this strategy the word no starts filtering more frequently into her vocabulary, and she declines any work that falls outside the four corners of that expertise. If this means she has no work that day, so be it, she studies the authoritative texts on indirect tax. And if someone calls her at 9pm, she says ‘no’, ‘I’m resting so I can perform at my best tomorrow’. Eventually she turns her phone off at night. In the short term Penny raises some eyebrows and loses out on some work, putting her at a temporary fiscal disadvantage to Tony. She also has to endure some grumbles about being ‘hard to get hold of’ and ‘not a team player’, and is therefore deprived of the validation from others which forms such a massive part of insecure lawyers emotional compensation. But Penny sticks to her strategy. Gradually, she works fewer and fewer hours, and the hours that she does work, she focuses more and more tightly, like a boa constrictor, on her stated specialisation. Slowly, but surely and with gathering pace, she develops a valuable skill set in indirect tax, and has a burgeoning reputation. She is able to support decreasing her working hours because every hour is so valuable to her clients, and she can charge more. She of course retains her interpersonal charm. Essentially, her message to the market is ‘I won’t do anything for you, and I won’t do it to your schedule. But if you need the absolute best in indirect tax, I promise to make my high fees worth every cent (oh, and I am user friendly)’. In contrast to Tony’s dingy all night dinner (which he is desperate to sell but no one will buy), Penny runs the most exclusive degustation experience in town, that people are willing to book months in advance and wait patiently for.

(Tony on the other hand fears ever closing because he knows the late night crowd may abandon him for a McDonalds, get a taste for it and never return.)

Tony focuses on the number of hours he works, whereas Penny cares little about the number of hours, and more about how much she can charge for her time.

Conclusion

One of the most derogatory things you can call a lawyer is an ‘ambulance chaser’. But behind the legalistic environment and sharp suits, the reality is that too many of us, having failed to make the necessary investment, are performing the legal equivalent of driving ambulances.

The most important step that new, fresh and otherwise ubiquitous young lawyer must make in their career is transitioning from undifferentiated generalist paramedic, to mature, specialised surgeon. This requires saying ‘no’ and, saying ‘no’ can be scary.

But it is not as scary as the alternative – being pulled in a thousand directions at any time of the day, and being perennially condemned to simply working longer (because you cannot compete on skills). You courageously trudge on, until such time as, like Boxer, the hard working, dutiful but clueless horse from Orwell’s Animal Farm, you collapse under the weight of collective exhaustion and are sold for glue, while someone newer and younger takes your place and the cycle repeats.

The imperative is therefore clear: learn to say no like your life depends on it. Because your professional life does.

About the author

Samuel is a leading commercial construction law and construction litigation specialist, advising on complex and high-stakes project and major infrastructure disputes.

Prior to launching his solo (but national) consulting practice, Samuel had more than ten years experience working in private practice at some of Australia’s largest law firms.