Are you living the life you want? Is your job giving you the quality of life you expected when you chose a legal career?

After years of advising women attorneys, I’ve learned that it’s possible to have the quality of life you want and be fulfilled with your career once you address the biggest financial derailers.

For executive women, our careers often dictate our financial success, which in turn gives us choices to live our life as we’d like. For this reason, it is critical that professional women leverage their careers to create their ideal life. This means having a plan that focuses on your career and the money this career generates, as well as knowing where your money goes.

The challenge for women attorneys is that given the hourly model many have, they just haven’t taken the time to have a plan, and in fact may be going down a path that will prevent them from ever reaching this life. I’d like to share how we can prevent this so you can have and maintain the quality of life you are working so hard to achieve. By having a plan for each of these derailers you will have better choices for a better life.

FINANCIAL DERAILERS: NOT MANAGING CASH FLOW

This is the number one derailer for women professionals, and an especially big issue for women attorneys. There are two reasons for this: First, many attorneys get paid irregularly, and also have estimated taxes. Second, by not tracking their spending they tend to spend a good portion of what they earn, many overspending. This prevents them from saving for retirement or any other goals they might have. Far too common this becomes a case of “golden handcuffs,” where the increasing cost of their lifestyle keeps them in positions that they no longer enjoy, but so little money is saved that they become handcuffed to their job. These issues can be avoided with some basic cash management tools.

Cash Flow Tools:

This is all about awareness. If you know where your money is going, you can choose to have it go elsewhere. Find a tool you like to track your expenses for a few months. I use a Cash Flow worksheet for my clients, but there are also apps like Mint.Com and LevelMoney.com that track where you’re spending. Separate your expenses into Fixed (expenses you have on a regular basis, like your mortgage) and Discretionary (expenses that fluctuate and that you can choose what you spend, like eating out). One client found that she was spending a large amount on an expensive car lease. By choosing to spend less on a car, she was able to contribute to her kids’ college funds.

FINANCIAL DERAILERS: LACKING A CAREER STRATEGY

Spending time on career or business management is critical for women, not only from a financial perspective, but also from a quality of life perspective. For us, our business success will dictate our financial choices. I’d suggest you take a few minutes to think about where you want to be professionally in 3, 5, 10 years. What steps will you need to take to be there? Are you adequately compensated for your work? Are you on the track you want for your career? Are you happy?

For attorneys who may also be business owners, it is very important to have a plan for leveraging your firm to fund your goals. This may mean spending the time to create a client base that generates recurring revenue so that your succession plan can include a sale to junior partners. Or perhaps you want to continue to work in retirement and take a few clients from your existing firm to do this. Having a strategy for your career and your business will give you the lifestyle and choices you want.

Career Tools:

Get yourself a coach. At WealthChoice we work very closely with our clients’ business coaches. They are one of the most important members of our clients’ team of trusted advisors. I suggest interviewing coaches who are in line with your specific needs (for example engaging an expert in business development if that is a weakness). We feel that coaches have become almost indispensable for high achievers. We are happy to give references to some of the coaches we work with.

Cash Flow and Career Management are two of the Five Fundamentals in our financial planning process at WealthChoice. Let us know if you have questions about how to help you with these derailers so that you can get, and stay, on track.