It’s so easy to tell others what they should be doing and it’s often pretty perfect advice. Lawyers are excellent at giving advice. We are horrible at taking our own advice. My favorite thing to tell lawyers is to find your people. Not everyone will be a good networking partner, client, or colleague.

But it’s so hard! One of the hardest lessons I have learned in my career has nothing to do with bankruptcy law, technology, or running a business. It is learning that not everyone in the legal profession is my audience, and not everyone needs to be.

I see it most clearly when ideas never make it past the gate. Posts are not approved. Comments disappear. Conversations that could have been productive are shut down before they start. This happens most often when the topic is something outside the traditional box, like charging for consultations (the horror!), building educational products (that’s not lawyering!), creating courses (oh good grief, not this again!), or thinking differently about how legal knowledge is shared (you’re cheapening the profession!).

What makes it especially frustrating is that this resistance often comes from other lawyers. Not regulators. Not ethics boards. Other attorneys who occupy positions of influence in online communities and professional organizations.

There is a tendency in law to frame everything through competition. Who is taking work from whom. Who is encroaching on whose practice area. Who might be gaining an advantage. That mindset leads to narrow thinking and defensive behavior. Instead of curiosity, the reaction is control. Instead of engagement, it is dismissal. Instead of asking whether something might add value, the default is to shut it down.

That approach does not strengthen the profession. It limits it.

Lawyers who see every new idea as a threat tend to stay stuck. They invest energy in protecting their turf rather than expanding what is possible. They confuse tradition with quality and familiarity with effectiveness. Over time, that posture isolates them from collaboration, innovation, and growth. It also keeps the profession stuck in the 1900s.

At the same time, the lawyers who are experimenting with new ways of sharing expertise are not taking anything away from others. A course does not replace representation. Education does not eliminate the need for counsel. New delivery models do not reduce demand for good lawyering. They reach people who were never being served by the traditional system in the first place.

The problem is not disagreement. Reasonable people can disagree about the best ways to practice law or serve clients. The problem is when disagreement turns into gatekeeping, and when gatekeeping is justified as protecting the profession.

I have learned that when an idea consistently meets resistance in certain spaces, it is not always a signal to stop. Sometimes it is a signal that the space is not designed for that conversation. Not every group is capable of supporting new thinking. Not every professional organization is willing to examine its own assumptions.

Finding your people means recognizing where your ideas can actually live. It means choosing environments that value curiosity over conformity and growth over control. It also means letting go of the need to convince people who are deeply invested in maintaining the status quo.

The legal profession does not move forward because everyone agrees. It moves forward because some people are willing to try something different, even when it makes others uncomfortable.

Not everyone will be your people.

That clarity is what allows you to stop arguing with closed doors and start building with those who are actually open to what comes next.

Need someone to tell you to go for it and ignore tradition? I’m a click away.