ABOUT SARAH TETLOW
Sarah wants to see a change in the legal industry where attorneys enjoy the career they worked hard to achieve and reduce the burnout. She is passionate about focused work and organization and helping the attorneys she works with achieve a healthy balanced professional and personal life. She understands the pressure that attorneys endure in trying to manage their workload, respond to emails, course correct as unexpected (or many even expected) changes occur in your case. Firm Focus was created to help attorneys boost productivity and reduce stress at work.
Sarah is an experienced productivity consultant, trainer, and speaker for attorneys and other legal professionals. She uses her past experiences, organizational and strategic thought process, education, and training to help law firms increase their bottom line and operate more efficiently. More importantly, attorneys see a reduction in stress and anxiety and an increase in focus and new business. Through one-on-one consulting, strategic planning, workshops, and group trainings, Sarah works with attorneys and law firms to find personalized ways in which to manage one’s day with a proactive and focused approach.
Sarah began her career in law in the early 2000’s after graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a B.A. in Law & Society. She has worked in law firms of all sizes and has stretched from legal assistant to paralegal to manager of marketing and business development. Sarah has experienced first-hand the stresses that attorneys endure in trying to manage multiple projects. They also have the daily necessity to react to more pressing needs in a matter of minutes,
causing frequent mind-shifting and multi-tasking. Sarah’s mission, and the reason for starting Firm Focus, is the desire to see a change in the industry. To help attorneys and other legal professionals experience control over their day and mitigate the poor habits caused by the workload.
Through Sarah’s passion for focused work and her unique and sympathetic coaching approach, she creates a partnership with her client that warrants learning and changed behavior.
Sarah enjoys work-life balance engaging in a multitude of activities outside of Firm Focus. Sarah is married to Andy, Director of Operations for a large restaurant group, and they have two sons. She enjoys outdoor activities with her family, dancing her heart away at U-Jam Fitness®, learning, self-improvement, and watching an occasional “brainless” series on Netflix during her quadrant 4 not important / not urgent time-wasting period.
ABOUT FIRM FOCUS
Firm Focus provides experienced productivity consulting, targeted training, and speaker coaching for attorneys and legal professionals. Their mission is to help law firms and legal departments of all sizes increase their productivity, reach their mission critical objectives, develop a strong workplace culture, and develop a plan for continuous growth and focus. Sarah Tetlow, the founder, merged her years of experience working in a variety of law offices as a Paralegal and Legal Marketing Director to develop a formula for success in reducing our client's bottom line by using strategic organization to operate more efficiently. Her passion is in partnering with clients to offer personalized services targeted at reducing everyday stresses. She enjoys collaborating to make a difference.
Sarah is brilliant, hard-working, smart, funny, and beautiful inside-out. She enjoys work-life balance engaging in a multitude of activities outside of Firm Focus. Sarah is married to the Director of Operations for a large restaurant group, and she raises two sons. What makes Sarah unique is that she does all this while battling Ulcerative Colitis. She spends her life changing the lives of attorneys, all while quietly combating a condition that could very well take hers any day. Sarah is a giver. However she is smart and strategic about her giving. She has learned to successfully navigate so others don’t take advantage of her. She attributes her great work with lawyers to setting boundaries, planning properly, and being prepared, teaching them to do the same. Inadequacy in or absence of boundaries for attorneys is a persistent theme. The concept of boundaries often arises but is something attorneys don’t understand and they take on as much work as given, even if there are nowhere near enough hours in the day to complete those tasks. The fact is, lawyers are simply too afraid to set boundaries related to workload and they suffer profoundly as a result. The helpless feeling that comes with being asked to do more and feeling unable to say no often leads to depression, anxiety, substance abuse and in some cases, suicide. The person not setting a boundary is choosing a course of action and absorbing the consequences. In the same way, people who set a boundary for their own health or sanity also accept, with open eyes, that there may be other consequences associated with that decision. It’s about exercising choice and power in one’s life. Sarah helps lawyers exercise their choice and find their power. One might even make the case that Sarah saves jobs, marriages -- and maybe even lives.
IN MY OPINION
What Sarah does is so vital in our mission to lower the depression and suicide, alcohol and drug addictions in the lawyer population. The legal industry has one of the highest suicide and addiction rates of any industry. Sarah should be proud that she is actually changing behaviors in an industry where their compensation systems and inefficient operations are literally killing the lawyers. Today's legal environment puts pressure on law firms to deliver faster and more efficiently in order to remain competitive. Sarah's workshops are highly interactive and customized to meet the needs and desired outcomes of each individual client. She works closely with stakeholders to create onsite or offsite workshops that will achieve results while creating a dynamic environment that promotes engagement and powerful discussion. She focuses programs on strengthening morale and building an ideal work environment for lawyers while adding fun to the learning process. Her presentations have been called, "edutaining."
SARAH’S BRAGGING RIGHTS:
Chief Editor of Volume III of The Law and Society Review at UCSB Current Member of Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Editorial Board for the International publication, Strategies (2017)
Co-Editor for the October / November 2017 edition of Strategies on Budgeting
West Region Program Committee (2017 - Present)
West Region Local Steering Committee Board Secretary (2018 - Present)
West Region Local Steering Committee Board Co-Chair of Programs (2019 - Present)
Member of National Association of Productivity and Professional Organizers (NAPO) (2017 - Present)
NAPO-SFBA Newsletter Editor (2018 - 2019)
Sarah was recently quoted in this article in “Attorney at Work”:
Tetlow, the founder of Firm Focus LLC, saw firsthand how embracing project management can help lawyers tame the client service beast, among other benefits.
Sarah offers free resources on her website.
You can also sign up for productivity tips here.
