Associate Advice, Small Law Firms

Memo To New Associates: Manage Your Own Career

You must take an active role in the development of your career, it's not your law firm's job to do it for you.

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Recent law school graduates have been taking the bar exam. In a couple months, if last year’s statistics continue, hopefully around 59.9% of them will have jobs. The below hypothetical memo is written from a senior partner to new associates of a firm.

New Associates,

Congratulations on finishing law school and passing the bar. If we have hired you, you must have an impressive résumé (or really good connections/relationships which we plan to leverage). I mention this because nearly half of the other lawyers who graduated don’t have a job. It’s a buyer’s market for law firms — and we bought you. Good job.

The fact that we hired you over all the other available candidates likely leads you to believe that we believe that you have valuable skills, experience, knowledge, and can contribute to the firm.

Nope.

We picked you because you seemed like the most marginally competent person. You have little to no valuable skills, knowledge, or experience. You know absolutely zero about what it means to actually practice law. Letting you near a client would be foolhardy on our part.

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As such, you will only be given simple tasks that we think you can handle with close supervision. Stuff like: “Here, carry my briefcase,” or: “Tell my paralegal to come in here so she can do this the right way.”

Once you’ve shown that you can do some basic tasks, we’ll eventually graduate you to doing some grown-up work. Don’t mess this up. Sweat the small details. Manage your time effectively. Revise, rewrite, recheck everything you do before you turn it in to be reviewed.

Never assume anything. First try to research and think your way through a problem or issue. One of the biggest issues with new hires today is that they stop as soon as they hit the first obstacle. Don’t do this. Only after you’ve rammed your head against the wall until it’s bloody should you come ask a question. I want to know that you’re tried to figure it out on your first try (i.e., don’t waste my time, it’s much more valuable than yours).

As we will be directing your every task, you might also think we will help you with your career development. That someone will take you under their wing and help you figure out the practice of law. This cannot be further from the truth.

While we do have a “mentoring program,” it’s all largely for show. No one wants to be forced to be someone’s mentor. True mentoring relationships happen organically between two compatible people, not because there is a corporate policy in place. What does this mean for you?

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Your career is up to you.

The firm is not responsible for your development. The firm is not responsible for finding you work. The firm is not responsible for your success. You are responsible for all these things. You must take an active role in the development of your career.

  • Want to learn more about a practice area? Go to CLEs on your own, buy books on the subject, ask attorneys in our firm (or even another!) out for coffee to talk about it.
  • Want a mentor? Get out of your office and find one. Take interest in your potential mentor’s work, offer to help. Be interested in the world, and be interesting yourself. Free bit of advice: get more than one mentor, and get some who aren’t lawyers.
  • Want to be successful as a lawyer? Success is not something that is handed to you. It requires long hours, hard work, and dedication. It requires diligence, frustration, and sacrifice.

Your success or failure at the firm will largely be the result of your attitude and mindset. You can either have a fixed, set-in-your-ways, I’m-a-special-snowflake mindset, or a flexible, industrious, growth-oriented mindset. A fixed mindset is intimidated by obstacles, sees effort as fruitless, and takes criticism poorly. A growth mindset embraces challenges, sees effort as a means to achievement, and integrates criticism to improve performance.

To do well in the firm, you must possess the latter. Or be fired.

Good luck.

I channeled a fair bit of Scott Greenfield and Mark Hermann in this one.

Keith Lee practices law at Hamer Law Group, LLC in Birmingham, Alabama. He writes about professional development, the law, the universe, and everything at Associate’s Mind. He is also the author of The Marble and The Sculptor: From Law School To Law Practice (affiliate link), published by the ABA. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @associatesmind.

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