From the moment you start practicing law, people are going to tell you that you aren’t very good at your job. Sometimes they will be right. Sometimes they will be trying to intimidate you. Sometimes they will just be jerks.
If you aren’t prepared for this (because your law school artificially boosted your GPA, for example), you won’t be very good at being a lawyer.
Last week I dispelled some prevalent myths about solo attorneys.
Here’s another myth worth examining: young lawyers should take every piece of advice and immediately act on it.
Seeking input from other attorneys is a good idea. But blindly following external advice is a terrible idea.
Sometimes the best advice is to ignore everyone else and do what you think needs to be done.
Young attorneys are frequently crippled by a lack of morale and inability to trust their gut to make decisions.
For me, the most frustrating aspect was bouncing an idea of another attorney, only to be told: “no, you have to do it this way.”
Wrong. There is more than one way to achieve your client’s goals, and your way is just as likely to lead to success.
I find myself using the very same term—“unsophisticated”—when describing my former client, a term I criticize below. But I use it not because my client lacked intelligence. It’s because I know she would’ve been railroaded if she’d showed up to the deposition alone.
But I was there for her.
And drilled into me during the experience was this: all I had to do was show up. That was it. Just show up, and most of the work of representing my client effectively was already done.
I sat across the table from my friend, a criminal defense lawyer. We were eating an early-morning breakfast in a St. Paul diner and chatting about what it takes to be a good litigator. Our food arrived—oversized portions of hash browns, eggs, cheese, you name it—and as we dug in, he let me in on a secret.
It had nothing to do with finding the right clients or managing your reputation or blogging to build authority. These things help. But blogging, for example, will not make you a good litigator.
What my friend told me, I realized later, was really the biggest success-killer for litigators.
As a young attorney, you will experience more WTF moments than you would like. Fortunately, there is more than one way to deal with, and get past those moments.
Another solution is to avoid them in the first place. Here are three ways to decrease the likelihood of those hair-pulling/cringe-inducing/cry-to-your mom moments.
Young attorneys face all sorts of challenges: from dealing with opposing counsel, to starting their own law firm, and that minor distraction of having children.
Unexpected moments of “WTF” are also more common than anyone likes to admit.
The next time your jaw drops, here are some tips to get it off the ground and move forward.
Whether you work at a firm or run your own, one of the toughest challenges for a young attorney is having kids.
Most parents will tell you that the best way to handle is first few weeks is to focus on survival.
With that in mind, here are a few tips that will help you get through the first weeks of newborn magic/sleep-deprivation and keep your legal career from going down the tubes.
If you are a new attorney—solo or otherwise—dealing with opposing counsel can be a royal headache.
It’s one thing to be honest about your experience (or lack thereof) to your clients. Opposing counsel, however, is probably well aware of your relative inexperience and will likely try and take advantage of it.
The next time they try to pull the wool over your eyes, be prepared, and take ‘em to task.
As a newer lawyer, I am delighted to find my day to day work invigorating and exciting. In fact, only one aspect of lawyering gets me down—unpleasant interactions with opposing counsel.
In my first few months of practice, I learned that one will occasionally have disagreeable run-ins with folks on the other side. These incidents have included lawyers calling me disingenuous (I’m not!), sending snarky emails, and even offering patronizing advice. I don’t pretend to offer strategizes for success against such attorneys. Instead, I offer my methods for staying upbeat when a cranky opposing counsel threatens to harsh your mellow.
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