Advice warmly shared from of the nation’s best

Advice from Joe Fried:

1. Focus on your passions and helping others, not on making money. If you work in an area that you are passionate about and you focus on helping others, the money will follow.
    
2. Narrow your focus - today’s world is increasingly specialized. It is hard to be good at everything and even harder to be known for being good at everything. Consider finding an area of law that you are passionate about and become a true subject matter expert in that area. I am living proof that this can work. 20 years ago when I first decided to focus on truck crash law, there were very few lawyers in this space who really knew their stuff and limited their practices to this area. Many laughed at me and told me the specialty area was too narrow. I don’t think anyone would say that today. 
    
3. Develop your skill set. If you want to be a courtroom lawyer, there are amazing programs to help advance you in that direction - but you will need to find a way to actually get into a courtroom. There is no real substitute for time preparing for and actually engaged in trial. That said, to advance your skills requires more than just time in trial - it also requires becoming a student of the art and science of trial work. Both out-of-court learning and practicing in-court time is needed. 
    
4. Most trial lawyers are really trial preparation lawyers. Learn how to be an exceptional strategist and learn how to prepare for and take exceptional depositions. Of course the better you are at doing this probably the less trials you will get!
    
5. Remember that you are not ONLY your legal career. Schedule your life to include time for fun, relationships, and non-law hobbies. Specifically remember to pour attention and time into your marriage, your kids, your close family and your best friends. Work on being the best human being you can be - the best version of yourself. It will be a better life and it will even help you in your career in more ways than I can articulate here. 
    
6. Don’t be an island. Neither the practice or law nor the practice of life are solo sports. Isolation for more than short periods of time tend to lead to dark places and stuck places. As humans we need other humans to sharpen our thoughts, challenge our beliefs, and remind us of what is important and what is not important. 
    
7. Have a long term vision. You will be tempted to make decisions or act in the moment in response to what someone else did. If they are jerks to you you will be tempted to be a jerk back. But is that the human being you really want to be? You are building your long term reputation with each decision and each action you take. Act accordingly.