Bring On (And Cultivate) Apprentices
Find the right staff for the long term, develop them right away, and plan to spend your own time on that cultivation.
It takes a long time to become a good lawyer. Find the right staff for the long term, develop them right away, and plan to spend your own time on that cultivation.
Through some networking connection a few years ago, I was put in touch with a fairly well-established transactional lawyer. He was a bit older than me, out of law school something like 15 years at the time and, as he explained to me, he had had enough of transactional work. It simply didn’t interest him anymore. But, as he made clear to me, he really thought he could be a great litigator. We only connected that one time, and I only provided what advice I thought I could on being a litigator. As he put it to me when we were parting ways, “I just think I have a talent for litigation and I have it in me to be good at this right away.”
Maybe he’s right, but I doubt it.
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I don’t mean to say that he could not become a good litigator and, for all I know, he’s a fantastic trial lawyer today. Where I think he was wrong was with his belief that he simply “had it” in him. Maybe there are professions and crafts and fields where you just “have it” (I doubt that, too), but if there are, litigation is not one of them.
If we’re blessed enough to do work that satisfies us while allowing us to contribute in some meaningful way, then we certainly do “have it” in us in terms of interests, inclinations, likes and dislikes, and the way we handle things in our life. At our firm we see this in how our different kinds of clients handle themselves: the auditor and actuary clients come in for their initial meeting with all their documents already organized and schedules and timelines prepared; the actor or artist clients have no documents but may have a very (very) dramatic story describing the injustice they are facing; the finance clients may come in with the certainty that there is some clever scenario or solution to what can be a very complicated legal question. Like our clients, we, as litigators, are different, and we bring those differences—which can include strengths like enjoying argument, tactical thinking, and disciplined writing—to our work.
But the work still requires exactly that: work—and a lot of it, with a lot of time put into it to get good at all. Despite the fanciful and arrogant view of many young lawyers that they actually know something (because of the unfortunate myths we are told in the academic—as opposed to professional training—programs that are most law schools), we actually need to do our work for quite a while, years, in fact, in order to learn how to be a good litigator.
If you’re responsible for developing a law office, that means finding good apprentices early—in school or in the few years after graduation—and cultivating them. They may have talent, they may “have it,” but they are going to need a lot of time to get good. Find law students or young lawyers with attitudes and values that work for your law office. If you have those shared values, and the young lawyers or law students are willing to work hard, you have, as far as I’m concerned, all you need in at least a potential apprentice. I write “potential” since it takes time as well to determine if a given professional is a good fit for a given law office. If the fit is there, then it just takes time.
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And it doesn’t only take the young lawyer’s time, it takes the senior lawyer’s time: give the apprentices real experience, but then be ready not only to guide them in that work, but help them figure out what they did well or poorly in the work, and how they can get better at it.
Developing your law office means developing young talent early, and for both the young lawyers and the experienced lawyers devoting time to cultivate that talent.
John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at [email protected].
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