For everyone, take some time to optimize your legal resume, polish up your networking skills, learn how to improve your performance on job interviews (including OCI interviews).
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Some bloggers have it relatively easy. They can sit down at the end of day and write about their day, explore mistakes made, or pour out their inner thoughts. The attorney blogger has some constraints because we aren’t always writing for writing’s sake—many practicing attorneys blog for marketing purposes. A piece exploring a recent legal error, while helpful for other practitioners, may not engender client confidence. Alternatively, a straight up marketing piece discussing a latest triumph may have readers yawning before they finish the piece. How to walk this delicate line?
The Limited License Legal Technician is the Washington State Bar Association’s answer to the current legal market. The LLLT program attempts to change the legal field by offering more specialized training and hopefully, in turn, more affordable legal services. According to Paula Littlewood, the executive director of the WSBA, the “consuming lawyer cannot afford lawyers….” The goal of the LLLT program is to give more people access to legal professionals. Littlewood also claims that “you have these folks out there doing unauthorized practice, which is harming the public. The hope is to bring them under the tent.”
The program would create a class of professionals similar to a nurse practitioner. They would have specific training and ethical requirements overseen by the LLLT Board. They could advise clients on specific legal matters, but not appear in court. Admission to Practice Rule 28 provides that LLLTs would be permitted to “advise clients on specific areas of law, which have yet to be determined [by the LLLT Board].” The Washington Supreme Court has to specifically approve any area of law the LLLTs can advise on.
One of the things I love about being a lawyer? There are a lot less meetings than when I worked in the world of non-profits. Clients don’t want to pay for lawyers to sit around talking to each other and so our profession generally eschews agonizingly long meetings. That said, even as a junior attorney, there are times when you’ll need to run a meeting: a board meeting, a paralegal meeting, a meeting with opposing counsel, or a committee meeting.
Since an inefficiently run meeting is more annoying than waiting in an inefficient line at Starbucks, I thought I’d offer my thoughts about running an efficient meeting (and potential pitfalls).
When I first started law firm life, several colleagues dropped by my office to ask my opinion on key issues: Did I prefer one space or two after a period? And, what were my feelings on split infinitives? How about justifying versus non-justifying text? I think my grammar and style preferences generally disappoint people in all camps.
For the past few years, I coached an undergraduate mock trial team. While I stepped down from my role this past September, I am still reaping the benefits of the (unpaid) position. How can coaching mock trial help a newer litigator out?
Law firm hierarchies can be odd. I have a friend who works for a big law firm in St. Louis, and her office measures success based upon how many ceiling tiles your office counts. At a recent happy hour, I discovered another hierarchy of which I had previously been blissfully unaware—the email address ordering hierarchy.
“When everyone’s super, no one will be.”
— Syndrome, The Incredibles
That’s right, tell your parents to stop bragging. It’s not like you are a doctor, or anything.
Getting a law degree, passing the bar, and getting a license to practice law is no big deal. Not anymore. More than 40,000 law students do it every year. (That’s just a few more people than starters at the Boston Marathon in 1996.) Anyone with an LSAT score who wants to go to law school will be able to go, because law schools are in it for the money, not the prestige, and loans are easy to get.
Happy New Year! It’s time for resolutions, predictions for 2013, and, for many firm attorneys, an annual review. I find the entire concept of a review stressful, and have been known to stay awake at night imagining terrible things people could say during a review. Over the years, however, I have assembled some coping tools which I humbly offer for your consideration.
