The Importance (and Limits) of Availability

Being responsive while maintaining boundaries in a service business

My law students sometimes express surprise at how fast I respond to e-mail. My response: “While you can take the boy out of Big Law, you can’t take Big Law out of the boy.” I say that because in my time in private practice I had a very high level of immediate responsiveness drilled into me (and despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to adjust that…