The Creative Lawyer: A Practical Guide to Authentic Professional Satisfaction

Brilliantly written, consistently practical, and filled with scores of illuminating exercises, including many new ones, The Creative Lawyer is the book that the profession has been waiting for. "Professional satisfaction," the author writes, "is a question of creating what you want, not just waiting for it to appear. You become the creative lawyer when you take stewardship of your own life and career. This means analyzing your desires, interests, temperament and ambitions. It means designing goals related to things you're sure about and designing experiments about things you're not. It means mastering the present while anticipating the future." This book shows you how, precisely, to do these things.

Gretchen Rubin, author of the international bestseller, The Happiness Project, says, “There is no book on the shelves to compare with The Creative Lawyer. Funny, well-researched, and provocative, it’s an invaluable guide to understanding yourself better – not just as a lawyer, but as a person. It’s full of useful exercises, relevant case histories, and powerful insights, delivered in unlawyer-like concise and entertaining prose. The Creative Lawyer should be required reading for anyone who has taken the bar exam – or, for that matter, anyone who is considering taking the LSAT.”

If you're a young lawyer, The Creative Lawyer will give you a template for envisioning and managing your own professional development, whatever path you choose. If you're an experienced lawyer, it will help you to reassess and renew your career. It can aid you in understanding how your own values and passions might have changed over the years, and what to do if they have. If you are unhappy or stuck in your career, the book will help you figure out ways to ameliorate your problems and gradually get to a place where your work is in synch with who you really are. If you are happy in your career, The Creative Lawyer can help you to manage your career so that you can stay happy. And if you are not sure what you think about your career, this is a great way to develop a framework for sorting things out and moving forward amidst ambiguity.

Praise for The Creative Lawyer...

“Whether you are living the law or leaving it, you need wise counsel to make your career meaningful. One part Socrates, one part Deepak Chopra, one part cheerleader, Michael Melcher is the ideal advisor for lawyers contemplating their options. The Creative Lawyer should be mandatory reading for anyone who has ever set foot in law school.”
-Noah Feldman, Professor, Harvard Law School

“Michael Melcher takes the mystery out of finding and building a fulfilling career. He also breaks the process down into bite-sized chunks that even the busiest lawyer can find time to do in a week. I recommend this book to every attorney I counsel.”
-Susan Robinson, Associate Dean for Career Services, Stanford Law School

“A book full of applicable wisdom and practical exercises designed to conquer the problem keeping so many lawyers unhappily toiling in unfulfilling careers: lack of self-knowledge.”
-Henry Robles, Television Writer, Switched at Birth

“Law is a great servant but a terrible master—you can do anything you want with a legal career, and you can also get stuck as a bleak, uninteresting version of yourself. Michael Melcher’s book shows you how to figure out what you want and then how to go out and get it.“
-Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America

“Full of encouragement, guidance, examples, and exercises—all delivered in Michael’s uniquely engaging and comforting voice. Lawyers can and do thrive; read this book and find out how.”
-Linda Mercurio, Executive Director/Attorney Coach, Lawyer Reentry Program, American University Washington College of Law

“The Creative Lawyer is a smart, practical, and often inspirational guide for any lawyer seeking to build both a better business and a richer life.”
-Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, A Whole New Mind, and To Sell Is Human

“Michael F. Melcher’s The Creative Lawyer should be handed out to every graduating class of law school students at their hooding ceremonies.”
-Joe Hodnicki, Co-Editor, Law Librarian Blog

“Wherever you are on the career trajectory, read this book! You will discover what you have been pursuing, without knowing it, all your working life.”
-Shubha Ghosh, Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Entrepreneurship, University of Wisconsin, Madison

“Michael Melcher’s guidance provides more than career advice for lawyers. When you can envision a better life for yourself, you can envision, and speak up for, a better world. This is how we start to create change.”
-Peter Lehner, Executive Director, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

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Michael Melcher is one of America’s leading executive coaches. Educated at Harvard and Stanford, and a former associate at one of the country's leading law firms, Melcher has worked in law, business, and government, and has spoken before thousands of people on career-related issues. He has coached individual leaders and teams in a variety of sectors and in more than a dozen countries, including China, Thailand, Myanmar, El Salvador, Haiti and Tanzania. He lives in New York and Western Massachusetts.