Jennifer Cona, is the Founder and Managing Partner of Cona Elder Law, an award-winning elder law and estate planning firm located in Melville, New York. Celebrating 25 years in business, Cona Elder Law has been consistently ranked the number one elder law and trust in-estate firm on Long Island. Jennifer has won many awards, including the New York Law Journal Award for Top Women in Law.

She and her firm are committed to corporate social responsibility, and she has held roles on the board of trustees of the Long Island Alzheimer's and Dementia Center, the United Way of Long Island, and the executive leadership team of the American Heart Association.

Jennifer has also been featured in many publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on radio and TV. She also writes a monthly column for the Long Island Press called Power of Your Attorney. Jennifer Cona's dedication to Elder Law and her impact on her community are a testament to her outstanding career.

Many lawyers dream of opening their own practice. It takes a lot, though, to go from working for someone else’s firm to starting your own, especially if you have no one with experience to guide you.

Jennifer Cona didn’t grow up in an entrepreneurial family who could show her the ropes. But going on guts, she managed to open an elder law practice and successfully grow it from a solo operation to a boutique. And even she will tell you it looked like she did it by the seat of her pants at times!

In this episode of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast, you’ll discover how Jennifer launched and grew a law firm while creating a culture built to last. She’ll also reveal how everyone at Cona Elder Law reinforces the core values of the firm, how they focus on the local community even outside of serving clients, and the challenges and opportunities presented by younger generations in the workplace and the advent of artificial intelligence.

2:16 - How Jennifer went from working at someone else’s firm to starting her own within five years of practicing law

5:26 - Why Jennifer felt the need to move her solo firm out of Manhattan to Long Island and expand to a 35-lawyer boutique

10:37 - Jennifer’s leadership style and how her firm focuses on corporate social responsibility

13:57 - How the core values of Jennifer’s practice are constantly reinforced and make it much easier to hire (or fire) people

16:42 - The generational issue Jennifer thinks is the greatest challenge these days

22:31 - How Jennifer uses AI now, how she plans to use it in the future, and why she’s excited about it when many others are wary

26:08 - The difficulty of growing a law firm (especially when you’re also trying to raise a family)

29:39 - Why you’re always answering to somebody even if you own a law practice

Cona Elder Law

“Power of Your Attorney” archives | Long Island Press

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The Lawyer’s Edge

Today’s episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer’s Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008.

Each member of The Lawyer’s Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach AND either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress.

To get connected with YOUR coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

Lawyers frequently report that they are exhausted, overloaded, or burned out. Sound familiar?

In this episode of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast, host Elise Holtzman chats with Lauren Baptiste, a burnout expert and founder of Acheloa Wellness, to delve into the all-too-common issue of burnout in the legal profession. Lauren shares how to prevent burnout as well as how to recover from it.

Learn the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout, the need for self-awareness, and the differences between coaching and therapy. Lauren will also introduce you to Ayurveda, an ancient wellness system, and discuss how it can be used to understand our unique body-mind compositions and spot early burnout indicators.

Listen in as Lauren offers practical tips, like the importance of taking breaks, especially for lunch, and striking the right balance between solitude and social interaction. She also shares why it’s critical for legal professionals to prioritize self-care and seek the proper support when facing burnout. Taking care of yourself is not only crucial for personal health, but is also imperative for sustaining professional efficiency and achieving success.

2:09 - Lauren's personal experience with workplace burnout and her realization of the prevalence of burnout among colleagues.

5:23 - The prevalence of burnout in the legal profession, including long hours and unhealthy habits.

7:43 - Exploring the historical presence of burnout and the recent emphasis on addressing burnout in the legal profession.

12:07 - How to identify symptoms of burnout and distinguish between general burnout and chronic burnout.

17:33 - The importance of exploring coaching and therapy, and the severity of the issue.

22:42 - Recommendations for small, daily activities to combat burnout.

Lauren Baptiste is enhancing today’s work culture with a simple strategy: prioritize well-being as the "hardest-working" professionals climb the corporate ladder. As a life coach and consultant on a mission to help women level-up at work and at home, Lauren brings more than 13 years of experience in corporate culture and workplace burnout alongside her knowledge as a practitioner of Ayurveda, hormonal health and other evidenced-based modalities. This results in clients shifting from exhausted to energetic, cynical to optimistic, and ineffective to empowered.

Acheloa Wellness | LinkedIn

Niki Schaefer | How a Stroke at 38 Changed a Lawyer’s Approach to Life and Work

Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com

The Lawyer’s Edge

Today’s episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer’s Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008.

Each member of The Lawyer’s Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach AND either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress.

To get connected with YOUR coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

What do you think is one of the most powerful obstacles to business development success for lawyers?

Despite their busy schedules, it isn’t a lack of time. It’s not about the lack of money, either. It’s not even that you don’t know how to do it, although law school certainly didn’t teach it.

Simply put: it’s your mindset. It’s the stories you tell yourself that stop you from taking (or fully committing to) consistent, targeted action. And it’s the biggest impediment I’ve come across again and again with lawyers I meet.

In this episode of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast, you’ll learn 7 tips that will help you cultivate a successful business development mindset. I’ll teach you a thought process that will inspire you to start taking action in the direction of your goals and stick with it consistently!

2:57 - What business development success and that criminal law class you took in your first year have in common

5:27 - The first thing you can do to cultivate your business development mindset for success

8:14 - Two things you need to recognize about business development and one thing you shouldn’t expect to see

11:26 - The people you shouldn’t listen to and the responses you don’t want to give to everyone else and yourself

14:12 - A change that’ll make it more likely for you to focus on and engage with business development

IGNITE Women’s Business Development Accelerator

Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com

The Lawyer’s Edge

Today’s episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer’s Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008.

Each member of The Lawyer’s Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach AND either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress.

To get connected with YOUR coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.