The perfect practice should mean something.  What I mean is this:  what you do as a lawyer should mean something.  Now this varies from person to person — not everyone feels that you need to champion some cause or work for the greater good of humanity with every breath — but it should mean something to you.

I bring this up because it’s a problem I’ve been having at my job recently.  As I handled what seemed like my bazzillionith commercial landlord-tenant case, where the goal was simply to stall and let the tenant (our client) stay as long as possible, I realized how little I cared for what I was doing.  Sure, it’s important to our clients — the longer they get to stay somewhere, the longer they stay in business (for some clients, like some restaurants we work for, leaving a location is basically the death of the business).  It’s not important to me however.  I feel like I’m not really doing anything but pushing some papers around and asking for adjournments.  Not a great feeling.

So what do I consider important?  I’m not totally sure.   I’ve yet to find that area of civil law where I can honestly say that I’m doing something important.  When I was working in a prosecutor’s office, it was easy to find that.  So what am I destined for?  Maybe a job with Child Protective Services?  Maybe guardian ad litem work for children?  Who knows.  Maybe I’ll find it in PI work.  Whatever it may be, it needs to be important.