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Lately, I ended up out of my comfort zone on three different work projects I was handling, all at the same time.  This stretch hurt,  not in a good way, because it was too many directions at once.  Good stretching is when you grow by branching out where you want to with good support.  Suddenly stretching too far in too many directions, physical or mental, is not a good idea.

One of these tasks, assisting with the remodel loan for my church, was completed last week.  I was blessed that the other professionals and volunteers that I was working with were top notch.  It was stressful only because of the large amount of time it took, the tight deadline, and the large amount of money and importance to my Unitarian Universalist Congregation.  What a relief for it to be finished!  By itself, performing this volunteer work would have been a very good stretch.

The other two stretching tasks are types of cases/litigation that I don’t usually work with.  Both of them have hearings set for this week.  Like my normal family law area of practice, the issues are extremely important to my clients.  In one of the cases, I should have used Advantage Denton’s services to send these folks to a lawyer who handles this rare type of case far more often (and the clients know it, because I told them of my mistake).  The other case is just unusual, but I don’t think that anyone else would be more qualified than me to handle it.

The way I dealt with the stress of these three situations coming to a head all at once was extra exercise.  I have now learned that using an elliptical machine for over an hour a day for five days in a row is not easy on the hips.  Heaven knows what would have given next if I hadn’t taken a couple of days off from that one form of exercise.  In the future, I sure hope that stretching my professional expertise will occur under less stressful circumstances.  It seems odd to me that I handle monumentally important issues for family law clients all the time, but usually don’t find it uncomfortably stressful when it is the type of work I normally perform.  Each client and each case is different and there are no guaranteed results, but work I know and like is a good stretch.

The exciting adventure of hunting for just the right lawyer is also a good stretch.  Advantage Denton lawyer finding presents unique challenges with each person’s needs and wants as we search for and set an appointment with the right lawyer for them.  Like with my church’s financial transaction, we work with fantastic people.  We connect  a client who is often not sure what type/location/experience level of lawyer they need.  Then we evolve a process each time to find and set an appointment with the right lawyer.  It is a win/win situation because the client is much better off for having the appointment made with the right lawyer rather than a wrong one,  and the lawyer is getting a client who is right for them.

One stretch that I quickly backed off from recently was trying to find a lawyer for someone who realistically just could not afford to pay for the legal services that they need.  It is wonderfully challenging to find the right lawyer in type/location/experience but unacceptably difficult for our business model to find a lawyer to agree to be underpaid for services.  It was a much better idea to refund the Advantage Denton client’s money with an apology than to perform this herculean task.  Many, many blessings on the heads of the lawyer bar association and other organizations who attempt this difficult work.

I will complete my other two “stretching” experiences fairly soon and look forward to the positive stretches of always learning more about lawyer finding and working as an attorney and business person.  May you learn as much as I do from my rather painful experience of taking on too much in too many directions at once.  Quickly deciding to not do the impossible was the best decision made during this time.  Next time, not taking the wrong type of case will be a much wiser course of action.  It would also be nice if we could do new stretching work at comfortable intervals, but that is just asking too much.