David Selesnick

THE STORY

Why LawyerWise exists.

I practiced for five years at Shearman & Sterling in New York. For the first three, I was highly engaged, with strong billables and great reviews. Around the three year mark, though, I slowly grew disillusioned with my practice, eventually culminating in me giving notice just hours after my last bonus hit my bank account.

My story is unfortunately far from unique. Many friends and colleagues at firms across the U.S. and Canada experienced the same challenges, often without the support to navigate them.

Almost every firm provides excellent technical training and rigorous professional development. But the legal industry has been slow to invest in the proactive, resilience-focused programs that build the personal habits and mindsets needed to sustain excellence. I sat through a lot of wellness seminars that reminded me to get more sleep and eat healthier. But as a busy associate, the advice was so generic and disconnected from my reality that the only action it spurred was an eye-roll.

After I left the firm and moved deeper into executive coaching and positive psychology, I came to learn that what so many of us experienced was largely preventable. There are many tools and approaches drawn from disciplines outside of law that could have helped me stay engaged for longer. The right interventions, at the right time, can make all the difference.

Earlier exposure to the right tools and frameworks, adapted to the realities of large-firm practice, can meaningfully change the entire arc of an associate’s career.

LawyerWise was launched to close that gap with high-quality, evidence-based professional development that takes the challenging realities of associate life seriously.

I know how easy it is for associates to dismiss or disengage from training that doesn’t feel like it was really made for them, so every LawyerWise session is built to land with an associate audience: practical, immediately applicable, and respectful of the time it asks them to give.

Associates who receive this kind of support early in their careers are more engaged, more resilient, and more likely to stay through the years where the firm’s investment really pays off.

That’s why LawyerWise exists.