Overcoming That Nagging Self-Doubt

When you're chased by a bear, you don't have to run faster than the bear; you just have to run faster than the other camper.

I’ve told you a few stories about my son, Jeremy.  (That links to what may well be my favorite column of all time.)

Let me tell you one more story, before segueing into the topic.

Jeremy was young — 21 — when he started medical school.  He had majored in political science, which is not exactly the typical pre-med route.   He had no advanced degree.  He speaks only English.  You get the idea.

When first-year students arrived on his medical school campus, the school distributed information about the incoming class:  Out of 105-ish students, 40 were chemistry majors, 40 were biology majors, 10 were biochemistry majors, and the remainder were one-offs:  one each in math, art history, political science, and so on.

The age of the incoming students ranged from the youngest, at 21 — who might that be? — to the oldest, at 35.  Sixty of the students had advanced degrees; 10 of those were PhDs.  Forty people spoke two languages; 20 spoke three; 10 spoke four or more.

It was a mighty intimidating group.

A couple of weeks later, Jeremy had his first chance to see his classmates in action.  There had been a small-group discussion of eight students and a professor batting around some subjects.  Jeremy had spent an hour with his fellow students, up close and personal.

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As he walked back from class, Jeremy called me.  What were the first words out of his mouth?   

“Hey Dad: I’m gonna be okay.”

I’m not sure you ever get that sense of relief at law school.  The other students in my first-year section seemed awfully smart; I’m not sure any of us knew where we stood until we received back first-semester grades.

It took a while for me to develop a sense of comfort when I started working at a small firm in San Francisco.  I didn’t know how the quality of my written work compared to the quality of the written work of other new associates at the joint.  (In fact, in my first week at the firm, I made the mistake of using a brief filed a few months earlier as a model for a brief that I was working on.  When the partner told me my work was nothing special, I showed him the model I’d worked from.  He explained an important lesson: Your obligation is never to recreate what we did last time; your obligation is to do the best you can do.)

I certainly was intimidated by the group meetings that we had at my small firm.  The litigators would sit around discussing issues, and I didn’t understand the concern, let alone the solutions that were being offered.  For the first few months, it felt like people were talking in code.

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I learned gradually.

But I absolutely did have the “I’m gonna be okay” moment when I moved to a huge firm after practicing for six years.  My little joint in San Francisco was essentially unknown nationally.  My big firm was renowned as one of the global titans.  Would I really make the grade?

Then I saw a few people up close and personal.  I heard the questions they asked.  I read the research memos they’d written.  I saw the quality of briefs they’d filed.

And I breathed a sigh of relief: “I’m gonna be okay.”

There are two lessons to be learned from this:

First, you’re not comparing yourself to perfection.  During the course of your career, you’ll miss lots of issues and overlook many seemingly self-evident solutions.  But the question isn’t whether you’re perfect; it’s whether you identify more issues and solutions than the other guy.  When you’re chased by a bear, you don’t have to run faster than the bear; you just have to run faster than the other camper.

Second, it takes some experience even to tell how your work compares to others.  When you first start practicing law, you’re not able to compare yourself to others because you have very little sense of the game you’re playing.  After you’ve been practicing for a few years, you know the shape of the sandbox, which lets you better assess the others who are playing in it with you.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.