Thanksgiving is in the rearview, and the December holidays are upon us. Consider this your holiday lawyer’s guide. In no particular order, a few thoughts and some advice.
Gift Giving. Your staff works hard. Don’t rely solely on your firm to provide holiday gifts. Get your legal assistant and paralegal a gift to show you appreciate them. Beyond your staff, give gifts to anyone else who has made your job easier this year.
Holiday Cards. If your firm still provides its lawyers with holiday cards, secure some and send them out. If not, purchase a box or two of holiday cards and send them to colleagues and friends. And please, no e-cards.
Handwritten Notes. It’s a great time of year to mail handwritten notes to others.
Guard Your Calendar. It’s easy to get buried in holiday commitments — office parties, bar association events, happy hours — go to what you want and need to go to, and do not overcommit.
Respect Others’ Calendars. If you do litigation as I do, many folks are out of pocket from mid-December through the end of the year. Understand and respect this.
Holiday Blues. You may love the holidays. Some suffer through them. Appreciate others’ perspectives and feelings toward the holidays and respect them.
Your Waistline. It’s easy to overindulge over the holidays and think you’ll lose weight as part of your New Year’s resolutions. It never quite works that way. The more holiday events you attend, the more cognizant you should be about that second serving of dessert.
Make Time. The holidays are supposed to be about friends and family. Make time for them and for yourself.
Plan. December is a great time to plan for the following year. Devise a plan for 2026 so you can hit the ground running come January.
Treat Yourself. No one knows better than you what you want for the holidays. Buy yourself a gift for making it through another year of practice.
Prepare A Budget. Create a budget for yourself for the coming year. Many firms ask their lawyers to prepare a marketing budget.
Online Shopping. Unless you like the malls, you can do your holiday shopping online and save time for your other interests and obligations.
Donate. During the holidays, lots of folks don’t have enough to buy their kids gifts or put food on the table. Donate food, toys, etc.
Traditions. The holidays are imbued with traditions. Lean into them or create your own.
Lower Expectations. Don’t let culture, media, or social media define what the holidays should be. It can be simple, low-key, and different. Lower expectations of what holidays should be, and let them just be.
The holidays should be fun, invigorating, and life-affirming. So often we let the stress and demands of the holidays make them unenjoyable. Let’s focus on what matters, and let’s focus on the true meaning of the holidays.
Frank Ramos is a partner at Goldberg Segalla in Miami, where he practices commercial litigation, products, and catastrophic personal injury. You can follow him on LinkedIn, where he has about 80,000 followers.
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