Some years ago I developed the theory that professional careers can have three stages. Stage One is the day you graduate from law school, or medical school, or accounting school. You know more about all parts of your field than you ever will again. You are full of knowledge but haven’t yet acquired the practical experience to put it to use.

Stage Two arrives maybe 5 to 15 years later, as your practice acquires a focus. You learn much more about a narrower field, but the details of what lies outside that field fade away. I can talk for an hour about how to draft an easement agreement (real estate), but I couldn’t give you more than 30 seconds of information about the guest passenger statute (torts) or the law of general average (admiralty). A physician might develop a specialty in orthopedics while retaining only a hazy knowledge about kidney disease.

Many people enjoy satisfying careers in Stage Two, becoming recognized as experts in their field.

But for some fortunate professionals, Stage Two will give way to Stage Three, when the professional has developed not just technical skill in a specialty, but the general skill to diagnose problems and to devise solutions. The Stage Three professional may not be the one who implements the solution, but is often the one who knows what is causing the problem and what the solution will look like, whether it’s the Stage Three orthopedist who recognizes the patient’s joint pains as signs of kidney disease, or the Stage Three lawyer who discerns the human conflict that underlies a business dispute and advises the client on how to solve both the dispute and the underlying conflict.

If you’re entering Stage Two as a real estate and business lawyer and want to achieve Stage Three, let’s talk.