Slogging on

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) lawyers Jonathan Brenner and Simon Harper, the brains behind locum business Lawyers on Demand, put on a free event last week at BLP’s London Bridge offices, designed to help lawyers manage their lives.

Life With Law, it was called. The preceding bumph pitched it thus: “Though good at helping their clients, lawyers aren’t always so good at managing their own lives - or at helping their team to manage theirs. Life With Law provides a forum for lawyers to find inspiration…”

The first speaker was John Purkiss, a headhunter and co-author of a book about ‘discovering the life you want’. He launched in with some exercises designed to help the audience discover what in life makes them happy. They were asked to list the high points in their lives and then consider what linked these. For example, do most of your high points occur in social situations or when you’re alone?

While Purkiss was quizzing attendees on their responses, one asked for a show of hands from those for whom none of the high points were connected to work. The result: a clear majority of the 70 or so audience members raised their hands. Purkiss looked mildly taken aback.

Brenner and Harper were clear that the event was not put on to recruit candidates for Lawyers on Demand, but this must have been seen as a bonus.

However, Purkiss may well have done a good job in helping most in the room realise that the law was not really for them after all.