What Law School Never Taught Me About Winning the Game
I came across a photo of myself on law school graduation day.
Smiling. Hopeful. Incredibly Enthused.
My lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer, offer in hand from an amazing respected firm, the world was my oyster.
I brought the skills that made me successful throughout school into my new role:
✔️ Hard work
✔️ See around the corners – as fast as you can
✔️Clear Thinking
✔️Clear Communication
✔️ Fast learning
✔️ Straightforward solutions
I was committed to doing it right. And that had always put me right where I wanted to go.
Until it didn’t.
When I started practicing in Big Law, the rules changed.
It wasn’t about how well you understood the issue.
Or how clearly you explained the solution.
Or even how happy the client was with the result.
It was about time.
🕒 How long did it take?
🕒 How many hours could you track?
That shift didn’t just surprise me—it disoriented me.
Because I was still solving problems well.
Often faster than expected.
Clients gave me amazing feedback and thrilled with the results.
Partners were appreciative.
But when it came time to log hours?
I struggled mightily.
12 days… and I’d have maybe 8 hours to show for it.
(Long before I understood the impact of switching costs. Boy, do I wish I knew then what I know now!)
The better I became at delivering clear, fast solutions, the harder it became to meet the metric that mattered most:
Tracking Time.
I felt it most clearly during the one and only review I have ever had in my life.
Clients had been giving strong feedback.
One even pushed back when the firm tried to reassign their work and wanted the work sent back to me.
But that kind of thing? All of that was a sidenote.
Instead, the focus was simple:
My hours were “fine.”
Not great. Not bad. Just fine.
And for someone who had spent her whole life doing more than required— doing the extra credit after getting the A— “fine” didn’t just feel disappointing.
It was devastating.
There was a brass ring.
But no matter how hard I reached,
No matter how hard I worked,
there was no way to grab it.
That’s when I started to understand:
You get what you measure.
And no one was measuring what I thought mattered.
Not outcomes.
Not client trust.
Not creative thinking or creative solutions.
Not the ability to cut through complexity and get to the heart of the issue—quickly.
That realization shaped everything that came after.
It’s the core of why we built ADVOS Pro—
To help lawyers stop chasing the wrong scoreboard.
To show them how to build practices that reward clarity, not just time.
Where client outcomes are the point, not a footnote.
After helping lawyers 1:1 build on a new model so their value is actually – valued,
we’ve distilled what we have learned into the minimum effective dose:
🎯 The ADVance Bootcamp: Pricing Ed.
30 days. Starting June 9.
If you’ve been curious about what we’ve been building—this is for you.
-Gwen