Small Law Firms

From Novice To Expert: What Is Your Legal Skill Level?

What makes someone a good lawyer? And how can someone become a better lawyer?

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Every few years, we may wonder how good we are as a lawyer. Or how much we have progressed professionally since graduation.

This is hard to tell because to a great extent, this is subjective. What makes someone a good lawyer? When people tell you so? When you make more money than your peers? Win the most awards? Or win the most cases? Give the most speaking presentations? Or write the most blog posts?

I recently read The Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition by Stuart E. Dreyfus, which summarizes five levels of skill. Let’s see how they could apply to lawyers.

Novice. The novice is a newcomer who is simply learning the rules without any context. This would describe a typical law student who learns the law and how it is applied by reading appellate court decisions. This can also describe an apprentice who fills out simple paperwork at his boss’s request without question. Or it can be a practicing attorney who wants to learn a new specialty.

Advanced beginner. The advanced beginner is someone who knows enough of the basic rules to work on their own but still needs guidance. For example, you know how to file a lawsuit and take a deposition, but you ask for advice on how to deal with a certain judge, opposing counsel, or some procedural obstacle.

The problem is that you might get overburdened with advice and not know what to do. For example, if you ask a lawyers group for advice, you might get 20 different answers each resulting in success. How will you know which advice will work for you? You will have to figure out which ones work and which do not.

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Just about every starting solo practitioner is an advanced beginner for some period of time. This may also describe an associate with an absentee boss. A few will quickly develop while others never quite make it past this stage.

Competence. The lawyer who reaches a level of competence knows the law and procedural rules but is just beginning to understand which of them are relevant to his client’s case and which ones are not. Or if he does not, he will ask others for guidance like the advanced beginner. But the competent lawyer will know which advice to follow and which ones to disregard in a certain situation.

But since the lawyer knows the rules and cannot blame ignorance, he has to own up to his mistakes. And because of that, making a mistake can be scary and frustrating. But at the same time, the lawyer is likely to celebrate if they win.

The problem is that if you tend to make more mistakes, you might get depressed, burned out, or stressed. These things happen to the best of us. But it is best to learn from them and persevere.

You might be at this stage if you are still trying to figure out how to practice, but your work is good enough where you still have a job or clients.

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Proficient. A lawyer reaches the proficiency stage when he starts to act on intuition. He knows the law well enough so that he spends minimal time on analysis. He obtained his intuitive skills by learning from his wins and his losses and subsequently exercising better judgment. As a result, the lawyer can determine whether he can meet his client’s needs but needs to figure out the best way to do it.

Suppose the proficient lawyer meets a client who wants to sue someone to recover a large sum of money. The lawyer knows about the defendant’s assets and the high likelihood that he will fight any lawsuit. The lawyer must decide whether it is best to file a lawsuit anyway or negotiate out of court.

Expert. The expert lawyer acts almost entirely on her intuition based on her knowledge of the law. She does not even need to think. She understands what the client wants and can provide a winning plan of action and give a realistic estimate of the case value. If the client has a bad case, she can explain why but also has a plan to minimize the damage.

Some expert lawyers are known to do the impossible, like swaying a hostile jury during trial.

I know a lot of lawyers who I consider experts. But their quick thinking led to many of them losing business by giving free consultations.

So the question is how do you advance to the next higher level? You will have to have a desire to get better. This requires reading, talking to other experienced colleagues, and just plain old trial and error. Also, not everyone needs to reach expert skill level.  Some people can do just fine at the proficient level. Or even at the competent level, so long as you have a proficient staff.

Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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