by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Lawyers need to get a balance to their lives, and so does just about everyone else, a motivational speaker told about 250 at the Jacksonville Bar Association meeting Wednesday.
“We are killing ourselves when we spend 12 hours at work and don’t leave time for anything else,” Pensacola attorney and author Mike Papantino said. “I sent out a survey to attorneys all over the Southeast to determine how much balance they had to their lives, and the answer was almost unanimous: none.”
Papantino said that the lack of balance extends to other professions “but it’s particularly true in the legal profession. We judge our progress on how we look, how we dress, what clubs we belong to, what big cases we get.
“But, how much time do we spend with our family, or raising money for charity, or learning more about the world?”
Papantino wrote a book about famed attorney Clarence Darrow and said, “I learned that he truly was a man of the world and a comprehensive lawyer. He was a great attorney, but he also was a world traveler, a theologian and a writer. He had a low opinion of people in his own profession, believing that they were one-dimensional.
“We sit daily with clients who have problems, but do we have the ability to truly see their problems? Unfortunately, we all too often see the world only in the terms of what we know.
“If we do criminal law, should everything in the world be in terms of cops and robbers? If we do corporate law, should every corporation be poorly run? Of course not. But unless we venture away from our desks and our offices, we will know little else.”
The audience was very quiet during Papantino’s 20-minute speech and afterwards, many went up to relate their experiences.
“People come up all the time to tell me what they did before they became an attorney,” he said. “It’s amazing what they’ve done — bush pilots, professional athletes, entertainers. I ask, ‘Why did you get into law, and are you still doing it for that reason?’
“Too often, they aren’t. They came in with a mission statement and they got away from it.”
Papantino, also the author of “In Search of Atticus Finch,” an acclaimed motivational book, said he got into the speaking business “because there wasn’t anyone else out there who could relate to attorneys. I found plenty of books about making CEOs and business executives into better people, but none about attorneys.”
He got on the speaking trail a decade ago and gave as many as 50 speeches each year.
“I’m now doing about a dozen,” he said. “I need to practice what I preach and do other things.”
He urged the JBA members to take a big leap and do something they’ve dreamed of.
“In the short term, do something as simple as take your daughter to the mall,” he said. “But you need a long-term commitment, too. What does a college course in medieval history have to do with practicing law? A lot more that you think. If you have an interest in Greek mythology, go take a course! Learn a foreign language!
“Every day, you need to be doing something to get yourself out of the office. It must become a habit. The only way to build balance is to work at it.”