You Build a Case for Everyone but Yourself: Introduction to the DISC System for Self Actualization
By Mark C. Daly, JD
You already know how to do this. That’s what makes it strange.
Hand a lawyer a complex case and watch what happens. You develop a theory of what the case is actually about. You put somebody on research who won’t quit until the record is airtight. You staff it with people who hold the thing together for eighteen months, who know where every exhibit is and who pick up on a Sunday. And somebody makes certain every filing hits its deadline, because none of the rest of it matters if you’re late.
Four functions. If you’ve done the DISC personality assessment, you already know them by their letters. Strategy is I. Research is C. Support is S. Getting it filed on time is D.
DISC Personality Style Team Building
Some people are better at doing certain things.
William Moulton Marston laid the model out in 1928, in a book called Emotions of Normal People. He never trademarked or patented DISC, nor built an assessment from it. Industrial psychologists did that decades later. The model itself is in the public domain. The assessments built on it are commercial products, and there are good ones.
If you’ve ever been a solo, you know what it costs to try a complex case without help. You eventually lose to the bigger firm with more support and better preparation.
The same is true for your personality. If you only have access to your one primary personality, and judge or ignore your other three, you are just like the solo attorney.
When we use the DISC system, your solo firm gets three more attorneys on board. Your primary style is the one you already trust to be better at doing certain things. DISC gives you the strategies and tactics to integrate those other three letters. The goal is to operate with your sub-personalities at full bandwidth so you can get more done, with more ease.
Now, knowing what your primary DISC personality style is (and yes, you can be a combination of two styles), do a client intake on your own life.
What is going on in your client’s life that needs to cease and desist? Given the truth of the matter asserted, what are the best outcomes? What is your client’s cause of action, and what is your client’s remedy?
Is your client burned out, overworking, carrying the weight of the world and calling it duty? Is the remedy More Time?
Is your client an associate flooded with anger because their future is held together by hyperachieving managing attorneys who bury them and blame them? Is the remedy More Freedom, Autonomy and Power?
Is your client’s marriage strained over money and family planning, and they avoid going home at night? Are they seeking More Love, More Money, More Family Time?
Or is your client old, tired, wanting out and unable to afford it? More Respect and Retirement?
Don’t walk away from this client, and don’t walk away from your own happiness. Every personal drama is a cause of action in your life. It is painful, but common, to be a struggling lawyer.
I know, because I was one. Immigration lawyer for 26 years. An Influencer on the DISC, with strong people pleasing tendencies. Early on I burned out, alcohol took hold, I went broke, and my marriage ended. I litigated my own case badly before I learned any of this.
Sometimes no remedy is available, and your job is to deliver the bad news with empathy and a shoulder to cry on. But if you do intend to litigate for this client, you’ve got to create and communicate your complex case strategy to your client.
Create Your Case and Seek the Remedy of Self-Actualization
Ashby’s law, which Stafford Beer built his systems work on, says a complex problem requires a complex system to address it. And your client has multiple sets of complex problems. That is why I recommend the DISC system to address the client’s internal issues, and Maslow to address the client’s external issues.
My admiration for Abraham Maslow is deep. “No need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives.” I agree with this holistic approach to dealing with anything. Just start on one thing, and you will start gaining momentum. He also decided to focus on what keeps people healthy, rather than what makes them sick.
What he described was an infinitely complex set of human motivations chunked down to an easy to understand, and easy to visualize, hierarchy of needs. A successful, awesome life is like a ladder we all want to climb.
Tell your client to start at the bottom rung by keeping their bodies and families safe. They will ask if they can skip a rung. Tell them they can try, but it won’t work. For this ladder, they must be firmly planted on the bottom rung to reach the next one, period.
Promise your client that the next rungs of loving, belonging, contribution, self-esteem, the respect of others, get easier and come one right after the other. Each rung takes your client through the problems of no time, no power, no retirement, no money, no love, no family, bad health. And at the top, held up by everything underneath it, is the state of self-actualization. This is where your client is unburdened, experiencing joy, for a while at least, and doing more of the thing their soul came here to do. “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write … to be ultimately happy.”
The good news is that every state has a Lawyers Assistance Program, where you can learn these types of complex tools to unpack your problems, sort out your important unmet needs, and build a strategy suited to your own personality. They can connect you with licensed therapists and confidential peer support groups, so you can share your journey and learn from others. And they can point you toward coaches and professional groups who can support you in achieving your professional goals and your personal self-expression.
So if you’re an attorney in trouble, and self-actualization sounds like a bridge too far, start where you’d start with anybody else. Every personal drama in your life demands a remedy.
And you can choose to do nothing.
Mark C. Daly is a California attorney who practiced immigration law for 26 years. During that time he earned a professional coach certification from the Raynor Institute and registered in Colorado as an unlicensed psychotherapist. He has been creating CLE courses in leadership and management for attorneys since 2004, and has participated in, founded and facilitated men’s groups, couples groups and mixed personal growth workshops since 1995. He now coaches attorneys, consults with leaders, and provides group trainings through Actualis Attorney Wellness. Book a free discovery session.