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An attorney’s job is to solve the problems of
others. Attorneys are hired to be advisors
and problems solvers. One of the most no-
table aspects of many of the people who be-
come attorneys is that they are hardly aware
of why their jobs exist. These attorneys
believe that the law exists to serve them. In
their minds, the law exists to give them feel-
ings of superiority, income and respectability
in society.
This article examines the importance of
focusing on the needs of others in your pro-
fessional life. Whether you are an attorney,
legal secretary, paralegal-or even if you are
in another profession outside of the law en-
tirely-you will be far more successful if you
focus on the needs of others. Your work will
also be far more fulfilling.
One thing that I have noticed in my many
years of dealing with lawyers, both as a
lawyer and as a recruiter, is that when you
stop thinking about yourself in your work and
concentrate on the needs of others, you will
begin to do well. I have seen this rule repeat
itself over and over again and this rule, I be-
lieve, is one of the largest keys to success. I
call this the “I’m Second Rule”. The I’m Sec-
ond Rule is built on the realization that when
it comes to work, our own interests should
be secondary. The interests of our employer
and the clients we work for should always be
at the top of the list.
A. How I Learned The I’m Second Rule
We all can name a few experiences that have
had a profound effect on our lives. One of my
personal experiences was in my work as an
asphalt contractor. This is where I learned
the I’m Second Rule.
When I was in high school, I started an
asphalt business, paving the driveways of
homeowners in the Detroit area (where I am
from). The work was absolutely grueling and
was so difficult that very few people in the
entire area would even attempt to do it. This
was not the sort of work anyone wanted to do
and, because of that, it paid very handsomely.
I started this business because I wanted to
make money for college. I worked at this
business for about two months, including
four weeks of the summer. While there are
many entertaining stories I could tell, to
make a long story short-after several weeks
of doing this business I lost a great deal of
money, had done very poor work and had
failed. Miserably. There were a lot of people
that were upset with me for my shoddy work.
When I did my job the only thing I thought
about was making money and finishing my
work. The customer was certainly not my top
priority. I was.
Because I absolutely had to make money for
college, I became a garbage man for $5.00 an
hour and worked from 5:00 am to 4:00 pm on
Monday through Friday. I did this throughout
most of the summer. It was not a fun job
and the people I worked with left a lot to be
desired. One day, the driver of the truck I was
riding on the back of was pulled over by the
police and arrested for assaulting a woman
the evening before. I was then delegated to
another truck and the driver of this truck told
me that if I was not careful, he would “cut
me up.”
Even though I had basically quit the asphalt
business, the phone in my home still rang
constantly with complaints about my shoddy
asphalt workmanship and demands that I
come and fix the work. Towards the end of
the summer, I had saved just over $1,000
and went to a hardware store to buy supplies
in order to fix one of the jobs I had botched.
I did not have to fix the job because I had
already been paid, but I believed it was im-
portant to ensure that I fixed every job that I
messed up before I went off to college.
As I was buying supplies, I noticed an older
man asking a hardware store clerk questions
about various asphalt products. The clerk did
not know the answers, but I did. I approached
the man and began answering his questions.
I was surprised how much I knew about
asphalt and I must have answered his ques-
tions for over an hour. Despite the fact that
I was not a talented asphalt contractor, I did
know quite a bit about asphalt!
This man owned a large apartment complex
and was planning on having his maintenance
man do a large resurfacing project on the
complex. In our conversation, I told him how
much he should be paying for the work, the
best material to buy, how to apply it and how
to ensure that his maintenance man did a
good job. At the end of the conversation, the
man asked me if I would go and look at his
apartment complex to provide him with more
tips.
The I’m Second Rule
[A. Harrison Barnes]
If You Focus on the Needs of Others and Not Yourself, You Will Succeed. Following this simple rule can make your legal career more fulfilling (and suc-
cessful).

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Not even thinking about the money (I was
actually interested in the PROCESS-and
helping this man), I went and looked at the
complex and then called the man and told
him everything I recommended he do with
this particular asphalt. The man then asked
me for my phone number in case he had any
questions. I hung up the phone feeling good
that I had assisted the man with his questions.
Throughout my whole exchange with this man,
I never expected anything in return.
A day or two later the phone in my house rang
again. I was not in the habit of answering the
phone because I was always afraid it would be
another complaint! My mother answered the
phone and told me it was the man from the
hardware store. He wanted me to do the work
on the apartment complex for him! I could not
believe it. He said something to the effect of:
“You care about the work. You will look out for
me. I want you to do this because I know you
will do a better job than anyone else I could
ever find.” To make a long story short, I made
over $3000.00 in just over two days doing this
job. And the job turned out perfectly! I also did
a great deal of work for this man again over
the years.
I took a lot from this lesson. Two summers
later, I was only twenty years old and I am
confident I did more driveway resurfacing than
any other contractor in Michigan. I did this
work throughout college, law school and even
after law school! I loved the work! I owed all
of this success, I believe, to the realization
that in business you can never concentrate on
yourself. Today I literally owe my home and
much of my current motivation to that one
lesson in selflessness-and caring about your
work---that the man in the hardware store
unknowingly taught me.
B. Why So Few Legal Professionals Follow The
I’m Second Rule
Instead of following the I’m Second Rule,
a great majority of attorneys out there are
stuck following the I’m First Rule. You too may
follow the I’m First Rule., which will lead you
to believe that the work you do is simply to
take care of your own needs. This belief will
be something that is quickly picked up by oth-
ers-whether they are your employer, or your
client. In addition, you will be less effective in
your work.
This sort of attitude is engendered in at-
torneys because of the values our society
promotes. In the Western world, many people
feel that success means having their sensory
and material wants satisfied. This sort of
attitude is constantly reinforced and strength-
ened through a barrage of advertisements and
messages sent out by our society that success
and happiness translates into having many
possessions. Many attorneys may therefore
believe that their success as an attorney has
to do with their level of economic accomplish-
ment in the profession. Any yet, even when
they do get these possessions, these same
attorneys usually want more possessions, and
therefore remain quite tormented and still do
not truly enjoy their work.
Under many Eastern philosophies, satisfaction
and consciousness comes from a different
foundation. Material possessions are con-
sidered empty and meaningless unless they
are accompanied by an attitude that does not
connect their existence with your happiness.
If you have a comfortable life and many pos-
sessions, you will enjoy them, but these things
should not be viewed as something that will
ultimately bring you peace of mind and happi-
ness. Peace of mind can only come if you are
freed from emotionally upsetting states. All
emotions are ego centered:
In the ego-centered state, tensions or anxiety
results in discomfort and distress. To allevi-
ate that distress, we look for relief through
distraction. Distraction does give us tempo-
rary relief, but it does nothing to free us from
the discomfort which will return when another
situation distresses us. As we toss about in
this ocean of experience with its waves of
ego-centered activity, we experience repeated
periods of anguish, followed by periods of
temporary relief.
Ellen Kei Hua, Wisdom from the East, p, 10,
1974 (Farout Press)
The fact of the matter is that the reason the
job of an attorney exists is because people
have problems and need other people to
interpret and help them solve these problems.
If you are working for a large law firm or cor-
poration, the reason your job exists is because
other attorneys in your firm have work they
need done and they need someone to help
them with it. The job does not exist because
you have a divine right to earn $100,000+ per
year. Nor does the job exist because you have
something to prove to the world by being an
attorney. The only reason the job exists is
because you are presumed to have the skills,
experience and training to solve these prob-
lems that other people have.
C. Conclusions
Imagine you are an employer looking to hire
an attorney. Whom would you want to be help-
ing you? Would you want someone who is most
concerned about their own needs, or someone
who is most concerned about your own?
In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Ef-
fective People, Stephen Covey talks about
“empathetic listening”:
When I say empathetic listening, I mean lis-
tening with intent to understand. I mean seek-
ing first to understand, to really understand.
It’s an entirely different paradigm.
Empathetic (from empathy) listening gets you
inside another person’s frame of reference.
You look out through it, you see the world the
way they see the world, you understand their
paradigm, you understand how they feel.
When your employer or client knows and
senses that your priority is to satisfy their best

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interests and that you are empathetic, they’ll
trust you more and want to give you more
work to do. They’ll also want to help you, too.
Get on your employer’s side and away from
your own. As soon as you recognize that you
are second-or embrace this rule even more
-- your professional life will improve.