What if the very qualities that make you an effective lawyer are limiting your success in business development, leadership, and career growth?
Lawyers are trained to identify risks, spot weaknesses in arguments, anticipate problems, and proceed cautiously. These skills are essential when serving clients. But they can also make it harder to build relationships, develop business, embrace new opportunities, delegate effectively, and market yourself with confidence.
That is the central premise of Think Like a Lawyer, Act Like an Entrepreneur.
In this practical and sometimes humorous guide, attorney coach Stephen Seckler shows lawyers how to retain the strengths of their legal training while adopting the mindset and habits that help entrepreneurs thrive.
If you think like a lawyer, this book will help you act like an entrepreneur.
About the Book
Why Stephen Seckler Wrote This Book
Although trained as a lawyer, Stephen Seckler has spent his own professional life helping lawyers build successful and satisfying careers.
He has worked in legal education, legal recruiting, and attorney coaching. After beginning his career in continuing legal education, where he learned from many of the pioneers in legal marketing, professional development, and law practice management, Steve spent more than 25 years as both a legal recruiter and attorney coach. In 2022, he stepped away from recruiting to focus exclusively on coaching lawyers.
Throughout that journey, he became a student of human behavior, drawing insights from psychology, leadership development, behavioral science, mindfulness, and career development. Those diverse influences shape both his coaching practice and the ideas presented in this book.
Steve didn’t write this book from the sidelines. As a lawyer himself, he spent much of his own career learning how to overcome his skepticism, pessimism, and risk aversion in order to build a business and create a career that was both successful and fulfilling. He brings that self-awareness to all of his coaching.
Whether you are building a book of business, leading a team, contemplating a career change, or simply looking for a more effective way to navigate your professional life, this book provides practical guidance that can be applied immediately.
What Makes This Book Different?
Most books about legal marketing focus on tactics. Think Like a Lawyer, Act Like an Entrepreneur focuses on mindset as well as tactics.
The book explores how the habits of thought developed in law school and reinforced throughout legal practice can unintentionally interfere with business development and career advancement. By understanding those patterns, lawyers can make more intentional choices about how they build relationships, pursue opportunities, and manage their careers.
Rather than encouraging lawyers to become salespeople, the book helps them become more entrepreneurial, relationship-focused, and proactive while remaining true to their values.