At the end of the year, it’s all too easy to focus on what you didn’t accomplish or finish. Yet it’s far more productive to focus on what you did accomplish.
Reflecting on your wins and celebrating them reinforces the behavior that led to the win in the first place. You’re literally training your brain to know that hard work leads to success.
In that spirit, we’ve highlighted a few ‘wins’ from throughout the last year at Smith + Malek.
- We grew our team. We brought on talented new employees, including Emily Geddes, who worked with us as an intern while she attended Gonzaga University School of Law (and graduated first in her class); Baeley Hathaway, whose past experiences include interning for the Attorney General’s office in the Department of Social and Health Services; Shannon James, a litigation paralegal in the Coeur d’Alene office who has volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA); Alix Millan, administrative assistant and receptionist, who regularly volunteers with Real Life Ministries for their Missions team; Korrei Kruger, legal assistant in the Coeur d’Alene office who loves living in the Northwest; Debbie Evenoff, an accomplished legal assistant; and Ebelia Rea, a legal assistant who brings 16 years of legal experience and came to us from an immigration law office (soon to be added to the website).
- We redoubled our commitment to creating a work environment that nurtures healthy work-life balance and allows everyone — parents, women, men, mothers, fathers, pet parents — to succeed. This included increasing our parental leave policy to 16 weeks.
- We opened our Spokane office to better serve clients in Washington State.
- We offered law clinics for small businesses and community health centers, providing timely information to the organizations that work hard every day to keep us healthy and thriving.
- Team members were recognized for their contributions to their professions and communities. Attorneys Luke Malek and Katie Daniel were recognized this year by the Idaho Business Review as 2021 Leaders in Law. Attorneys Tara Malek, Caitlin O’Brien, and Cora Whitney were named to the 2021 Idaho Business Review’s Accomplished Under 40.
- It feels pretty good to go out on a win, doesn’t it?
As 2021 wraps up, we are grateful to our clients, team, and community for being part of each of these wins. Going into 2022, we are focused on our mission of making tomorrow better for our clients, our employees, and our communities.
We hope you use this list as inspiration to share and celebrate wins with your team, family, and network. Here’s to celebrating successes and using them to propel you forward.