How a Venable Partner Manages a Big To-Do List, Including Preaching and Motivational Speaking
Venable partner Craig Thompson has learned that it’s important to manage priorities.
After all, he’s got several irons in the fire. At Venable, he leads the diversity committee and represents corporations in tort and product liability cases. Outside of the firm, he is a part-time preacher, motivational speaker and children’s book author, the Washington Post reports.
Thompson says he follows 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author Stephen Covey’s advice to manage priorities more than time. “I try to draw the distinction between what’s important and what’s urgent” and what can wait until later, he tells the Post.
According to the story, Thompson “is a rarity in the legal profession, which demands long hours and a full attention to the details of cases, new clients and more. No major organization tracks how many lawyers have second jobs, but it’s likely to be less than the 5 percent of workers who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, collected two or more paychecks in March.”
Thompson sees his endeavors as related. Sometimes he gains clients from speaking engagements. At times, when he learns a client has children, he hands out a copy of one of his two books, The ABCs of Black History, as a “unique marketing gift.”
