In-House Counsel

Trusting Your Legal Interns Has Never Been More Important

Millennials will soon be the leaders of this profession, and seasoned attorneys have a duty to train them well.

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As my colleagues and I entered the room to be briefed on the complexities of a pending case and our potential path forward, I will admit to being slightly unnerved.

No, I was not nervous or worried about the facts of the particular case. Rather, I was a bit skeptical of the quality of the briefing we were about to receive.

Our in-house team, woefully understaffed as usual, had leaned especially hard on one of our legal interns to help us research this particular pending case. Prior to making the decision on whether or not we would need to retain outside counsel, generally a rather costly move, we asked our intern for the semester, a rising 2L with only her required courses complete, to vet the issue and make her recommendation.

Having graduated law school after laptops were invented, but before they became the staple in every class as they are today, I was only slightly surprised to walk into the room to find her scrolling through Instagram on her tablet device. Typical millennial, I mused to myself.

However, as we sat down, she quickly stopped scrolling through her feed, pulled up her notes, and launched into one of the most incredibly well-reasoned and -researched presentations of a case I have heard in a while.

Command of relevant caselaw? Check.

Logical presentation of the facts of the case? Check.

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Thoughtful advice on how to proceed? Check.

Accurate description of the potential impact of the case on our company? A bit understated, but with a little more guidance, she was ready to start a successful career in-house.

To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. She had knocked it out of the park. But in hindsight, I should not have been so surprised.

Whether working in-house, Biglaw, or as a solo practitioner, we have a duty to train the next generation of legal talent whenever we have the opportunity to do so. Thankfully, one of my colleagues had worked with this particular intern since she started with us, and it was clearly paying its dividends.

Not only was this intern gaining education beyond what can be offered within the confines of the four walls of a classroom, our company had gained a new, albeit temporary, legal resource to help support our resource-starved team.

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While this experience is my most recent one being impressed by our next generation of legal colleagues, I can recount dozens of other like examples where an investment of time with an intern paid its dividends in a big way. Of course, to add a bit of balance to this, I can also recount a number of occasions where a lack of proper interaction with interns has caused more harm than it’s worth.

From filing documents lacking a signature to temporarily forgetting the importance of attorney-client privilege through the errant forward of an email, your average 2L or 3L will still need a great deal of coaching. But it is certainly a worthwhile investment as I have seen time and again.

Plus, it has the added bonus of free and valuable help in the resource-deprived world of in-house.

Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.

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