Small Law Firms

How Waiting Tables Made Me A Better Lawyer

According to small-firm columnist Gary J. Ross, this is why waiting tables turned out to be good preparation for a legal career.

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Gary J. Ross

Gary J. Ross

I’ve heard you either worked in restaurants, retail, or you were born rich. I worked in restaurants. For years, even after college. And waiting tables after college was completely different than waiting tables during college. In college, there were other priorities and often the only bill I was responsible for was my phone bill. I took the job a lot more seriously when I was relying on the tips to pay my rent (and electricity, car payment, gas, bar tab, etc.). I would gripe over floor plans, ask why another person’s section had more tables, get mad when the kitchen lost an order, or when the host seemed to be playing favorites (“Oh, Charlie got the four guys in suits and I got the stoners who ran out of money.”).

With a résumé that included five years of waiting tables and mediocre grades from my first year (hey, I hadn’t been in a classroom in years!), people who interviewed me during OCI considered me a curiosity — I’d go in and they’d look at my résumé and say, “Oh yeah, I remember this one” — but none of them had any intention of having me actually join their firm. One guy in particular, when I told him waiting tables had been a good experience, chortled. Laughed at me. But what he didn’t know was that it was true: waiting tables for those five years (eight if you count college and part-time when I was a social worker) did have a positive effect, for it did indeed make me a better lawyer.

So for you, Mr. OCI guy who probably never spent one day of his life making less than $100,000 a year, here is why waiting tables turned out to be good preparation for a legal career:

  • Customer service mentality. When the bulk of your pay consists of people voluntarily giving you money, you learn to do whatever it takes to keep people happy. Same in SmallLaw: these folks don’t have to hire me. When they do, I’m going to do whatever I can do (ethically) to keep them happy. In SmallLaw, we complain about our clients from time to time — not me, of course — but it was much more so in Biglaw, where I would occasionally hear an associate, or even a partner, say, “these people keep bothering me.” Yeah, well, these people who keep bothering you are paying your bills!
  • Forced me to have a personality. Likewise, I quickly learned having a personality is a good for business. Tips are higher when you can insert a witty comment here or there. And everyone always has the same comments (e.g., “How much longer until our food is ready?”), so you can use the same witty remarks (e.g., “good things come to those who wait”) over and over. Clients want their lawyer to be serious, but there are times, such as when you’re in a conference room with your client waiting for the other side to come back with a revised proposal, when you need to be able to take a break and chitchat. Clients should enjoy hanging out with you, or at least not find it cringe-worthy.
  • I can comfortably carry three plates in one hand. And two glasses in one hand. And my hands are small! But, um, I haven’t quite figured out how this makes me a better lawyer. But I can carry three plates in one hand. So there, Mr. OCI guy. Beat that with a stick.
  • Check back often. “How is everything? Did they cook your steak like you wanted it?” It’s almost the reverse with law. Instead of them telling me how they’re doing, I’m telling them how I’m doing. “Finished with the PPM, have started the LPA, will send you both this week.” But I can’t do it too often. In restaurants, if I interrupted the guests too much they’d start to get annoyed. In law, if I check in too often I’ll eventually get hit with a “how much are these check-ins costing me?”
  • Being adaptable. Every now and then our genius managers would hire someone completely unprepared for life in a busy restaurant. Brittle is the word that comes to mind. I remember we had a food runner who would panic if a table asked for a spoon and the nearest wait station was out of silverware. Um, go to the next station? Similarly, in law, you have to roll with the punches. You can’t fall to pieces when on the morning of a board meeting you get a call from the chairman telling you one of the directors got busted for a DUI the night before, and asking if it’s legal for someone else from the director’s company to fill in.  (Note: I made that up.)
  • Work on a matter as soon as possible. I found it was better to approach a table too soon than too late, so I would go up to them right after they sat down. “Hi, I’ll be taking care of you today, I’ll give you a couple of minutes to look over the menu, let me know if you have any questions.” The great Dan Mills of the D.C. Bar says that right after both of you sign the engagement letter, when the client is still sitting in your office, whirl around in your chair and start working on the matter right then, right there in front of them. The client will leave thinking, “I got the right guy.”
  • Finish strong. I could do a great job the entire meal, being responsive, anticipating needs, etc., but if I took too long to drop the check or to bring back change, the tip nosedived. I learned that no matter what I did, I had to finish strong. Same with SmallLaw (probably Biglaw as well). If I wait for weeks before sending a bill — which is easier than it sounds, because it’s so easy to get swept along in the day to day — or if something happens at the end that negatively affects the relationship, there are bad consequences. Better to make every effort to end on a high note, and then send a bill immediately after the matter has concluded, along with an effusive message about how you loved and appreciated working with them. Something that really pumps the client up. You want them to have a warm, fuzzy feeling for you as they reach for their checkbook. It’s like with college football: a loss in November is worse than a loss in September. Don’t have a misstep at the end.

There were times early in my Biglaw career when I recognized it may have been helpful to have been a paralegal or to have had some other law-related experience prior to law school. Maybe I wouldn’t have been completely lost the first time I encountered a Fiscal & Paying Agency Agreement. (“You want me to mark up what?”) But Mr. OCI guy, overall, I wouldn’t trade my years of waiting tables for anything. Not only did I learn the lessons above, but the fact that my hourly rate is several multiples of what I used to earn in an average shift is not lost on me, and it makes me appreciate being a lawyer.

Also, I can carry three plates in one hand.

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Gary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and compliance matters for investment funds, small businesses, and non-profits, occasionally dabbling in litigation. You can reach Gary by email at [email protected].

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