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"An important book for practicing and would-be lawyers and a healthy antidote for law-bashing laypersons."
Booklist
Transforming Practices explains how you can reconnect with the spiritual side of law practice and place more emphasis on your clients'and your ownemotional and spiritual needs. Now includes a new foreword by Jan Schlichtmann, who attained national prominence with the release of Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action, which later became a movie starring John Travolta.
Steven Keeva's Transforming Practices Is Changing Lives
"Every lawyer and law student in America [should] read this book, study it, savor it, and make it a constant companion."
--Texas Lawyer
"If you don't like what you've become, if your life seems empty, sterile or diminished . . . and if you've ever desired a more fulfilling life in the law, then read this book!"
--The Pennsylvania Lawyer
"Goes back to the fundamentals of our humanity to describe a better way to be a lawyer. It actually does more than that. It describes how to be a better human being. Everything else flows from that."
--Corporate Legal Times
"An amazing little book that has the potential to significantly affect the lives of lawyers and their families. . . . Rather than write another book aimed at improving what we do, Keeva has written a book that can help improve who we are and what we are."
--Trial magazine
". . . Provides a needed resource for lawyers seeking to wrest their lives from the often implacable maw of corporate life."
--New York Law Journal
"[Transforming Practices] should help all lawyers recover the integration of life and work that alone makes a day's work worth it."
--Boston Bar Journal
Transforming Practices presents a revolutionary vision to America's nearly one million lawyers, many of whom have become disillusioned with their careers. Author Steven Keeva, assistant managing editor of the influential ABA Journal, shows how by cultivating a vibrant inner life, any lawyer can find profound satisfaction, pleasure, and joy in his or her work.
Through the use of narrative, interviews, and anecdotes from lawyers who have found ways to bring renewed meaning, fulfillment, and a deep sense of pleasure to their law practices, Keeva demonstrates that it is absolutely OK for a lawyer to be human, to care, to let the values and priorities that matter at home also matter on the job. Transforming Practices makes it clear that the opportunity for transformation exists for every lawyer, in every kind of law practice.
New to this edition is a foreword by Jan Schlichtmann, the lawyer whose extraordinary story was told in Jonathan Harr's bestseller, A Civil Action.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
COMPANION AND PROFESSIONAL BIBLE FOR EVERY LAWYER!,
By John V. McShane (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Transforming Practices : Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life (Hardcover)
Nearly every practicing lawyer owns and carries a briefcase. If each lawyer's briefcase contained a worn, dog-eared, repeatedly read copy of Steve Keeva's remarkable book, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life, the practice of law would be a much more joyful place. My copy is extensively underlined, highlighted and adorned with yellow Post-Its to mark the multiple epiphanies I found in each chapter. Out of the hundreds of books and articles I have read on lawyering over my thirty-two years of practice, none have given me as many "ah-hah's" as I received from Transforming Practices.The genius of Keeva's book is his recognition and description of the crises in the legal profession as a spiritual crisis requiring inner work as the solution. This spiritual crisis comes in part from a lack of congruence between lawyers' daily work and their core values and yearnings. In other words, what we do every day on the outside is dissonant from how we feel on the inside. It has long been thought that the solution is for the lawyer to simply compartmentalize his or her life, e.g., do and say things at work that would not be appropriate in other settings, such as with family, friends, or in the community. However, it is now clear that the compartmentalization approach simply does not work and produces even greater distress. In order to bring more harmony and joy into lawyers' lives and work, Keeva outlines a number of practices designed to minimize the gap between lawyer's professional selves and their humanity. His descriptions of The Balanced Practice, The Contemplative Practice, The Mindful Practice, The Time-out Practice, The Healing Practice, The Listening Practice, and The Service Practice ignites unlimited new hope and possibilities for lawyers who felt doomed to a meaningless work life. Since maximizing the fulfillment from one's law practice requires both inner and outer work, Keeva provides practical tips at the end of each chapter so lawyers can begin to implement these theories in their work immediately. Keeva's book should be required reading for anyone even remotely interested in the legal profession. It has served me well in several ways. As a trial lawyer for over 30 years, I continue to search for ways to bring the most meaning, joy and compassion into my work. This book has proved to be a continuing source of inspiration and renewal in my quest. Since I devote part of my professional time to coaching other lawyers on transformation and quality of life issues, I have found this book to be an excellent teaching and coaching vehicle for my attorney clients. I am extremely grateful to Keeva for this invaluable book. It is my hope that it will someday be every lawyer's companion and professional bible.
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keep your work (not just in law) from killing your spirit.,
By
This review is from: Transforming Practices : Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life (Hardcover)
There was a joke a few years back about a Russian banker. The devil appeared and told him he could have control over one of the largest banks in the country. All he would have to do was sign over his, his wife's, and their children's souls for all eternity. The banker hesitated, thought for a moment and finally looked at the impatient demon "I don't get it," he said quizzically "what's the catch?" Too many Americans think of lawyers as (sorry!) soulmates to this mythical banker and too many lawyers act and live in ways that justify this belief. Part of this comes with the territory: we ask lawyers to do unpleasant things for us, be greedy and unreasonable for us in business and matrimonial disputes, help us hide from the consequences of our actions in criminal cases, and sometimes stretch the envelope in getting us what we feel we are owed in any number of types of claims. We judge lawyers by how well they do these things and then (depending which side of the dispute we were on) salve our consciences or get even by disdaining them for doing what we want them to do. Lawyers, like many other people, fall easily into their ascribed roles. Many of them revel in how unscrupulous they are, how cleverly they helped miscreants escape, etc. And, of course, many of these personality traits have appeared in people running legal organizations: greed, amorality, lack of connection with the human consequences of their actions. Is this only in law? I don't think so. Steven Keeva's book brings light into this dark and shadowy place. He shows some lawyers who are opting out of this world of mindless, soulless predation and are finding ways to allow their work to nurture, rather than prey upon, their souls. His book is a treasury of insights, stories, and techniques, designed to keep the best people (the ones who want to know what they are doing and who care about what it means) in law and to connect the best of what all people in law have to offer with the work that lawyers do. Along the way, he offers insights into how lawyers can transform themselves and their practices in ways that will benefit themselves and their clients and some glimpses into the larger movement in American life that is seeking to bring meaning and satisfaction into our lives at work (the anti-Dilbert movement). If every lawyer in America read this book carefully, perhaps the high rate of job dissatisfaction in this profession would change. Certainly the legal world would be a better place. There is much to read and ponder here for workers in all fields in which human lives and values are at stake. Here is a way to build a bridge back from alienation to meaning and joy. I hope people read it and find the courage to act on its wonderful message. I guess it means something that I've written this much and said nothing about the book's writing and organization. That's what reading it was like. The technical sides of the book were so unobtrusively excellent that all I focused on was the message. I don't know higher praise for a book.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book can change your life!,
By
This review is from: Transforming Practices : Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life (Hardcover)
As a career counselor who often works with disillusioned and unhappy attorneys, I really appreciated Steve Keeva's book for its understanding of the inherent difficulties in practicing law and its wise and compassionate solution. For unhappy lawyers who still want to practice law, but also want to enjoy it more, Keeva's book is an important reminder that, while we may not be able to transform a whole profession, each and every one of us has the power to transform ourselves. It takes just as much courage for lawyers to stand up for themselves as it does to stand up for their clients. I thank Steve Keeva for writing this book and can only hope that his readers heed his message and heal themselves.
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