A Letter To Incoming Associates

What your law firm won’t tell you (but you need to hear).

Dear Incoming Associate,

As a newly graduated 3L beginning your summer-long cram session for the bar, you’re probably not focused on what law firm life will look like on the other side. But with the practice of law changing quickly, there’s no bad time to start planning for the future. With that in mind, I’ve composed another letter to you, my future colleague, filled with a few frank thoughts I hope you find useful.

You Shouldn’t Know What You Want To Do Yet

At best, you have one or two summer associate clerkships under your belt and maybe a practical clinic at your law school. That’s the sum of your actual legal experience. If you think you already know the kind of law you want to spend the next 40 years of your life practicing, you might find yourself surprised once you get into it.

The practice of law is broad, and right now you’re as malleable and open to new experience as you’ll ever be. Take advantage of that. Get entrepreneurial and advocate for yourself to try out a variety of practices. You can’t know what you like and dislike until you give it a shot.

I’d also recommend remembering that the kind of work you’re going to be offered as a first year will have the flavor of the real practice, but it’s not going to represent what you’ll be doing if you stick with it another five or 10 years. As a new associate, the work you’ll initially be doing is some combination of simple enough for a learning attorney and boring enough that your senior attorneys would prefer not to do it. You won’t be doing doc review as a 20-year partner.

To really understand what a field of practice is like, pay attention to the work your senior associates and partners perform. It’s more challenging and requires a deeper skillset, but it also tends to be more fun. If their day is what you want your day to look like in a few years, then pay your dues, learn the field, and that fun work will start to land on your desk. If not, seek out a new path quickly. Don’t let yourself get locked into a situation you don’t like. That’s a lose-lose for you and the firm that wants to build you up.

Sponsored

Don’t Treat This Like The Gig Economy

It’s not breaking news that the old model of law firm career progression is largely dead. An increasingly small number of attorneys start out as summer associates, get hired as first-years, and move up to partners all under the same roof anymore. Job mobility is much more the norm now, and many in your generation are probably planning on cruising through a Biglaw associateship for a few years before figuring out where they actually want to be.

If you’re at an Am Law 25 firm, where partnership promotion is rare, then, yes, you need to be realistic. But down the Am Law rankings a bit, into the second hundred or in midmarket firms, going from cradle to grave with the same firm is not only achievable, but actively desirable. Staying in one place allows you to build goodwill and identity among an entire organization. That’s great on the business front, internal cross-marketing, and it’s just plain fun being in an office where you have warm relations with your colleagues. Lateraling to another firm entails leaving that branding behind and starting fresh.

The grass isn’t always greener outside firm life, either. I’ve heard from any number of departed attorneys that they wish they hadn’t jumped ship when they did. In-house work can be just as demanding of your time and energy as firm life, and your financial upside might be drastically capped. In-house attorneys have also reported being treated by management as barely tolerated cost centers, as opposed to firm attorneys who actually drive profits.

You’re the only one who can read your situation, but at least consider dancing with the one that brought you, bucking the Millennial trend, and shooting for partnership from the get-go.

Sponsored

Be Deliberate In The New Flexible Working World

Last year, most every firm in the country went remote. Firms had to make drastic changes to function in a virtual space, and many of those changes were largely overdue. Flexibility is the present, and most firms have wisely decided it will remain part of the future.

But flexibility brings its own set of challenges. You’re the newbie in town, looking to build relationships and work sources from more senior attorneys. That can be tricky when you, or the people you’re hoping to create connections with are scattered around the country.

The secret sauce is being intentional with communication. Whether by Zoom or in person, set up standing meetings with mentors and colleagues to ensure you get the guidance you need and forge bonds. If you’re at home, pick up the phone to ask that question as you would if you were in the office. Don’t rely exclusively on email or instant messaging systems. It might seem intimidating at first, but give it a try. Even if some lawyers you contact are too busy, most will make time, and you can begin cultivating those vital relationships.

On a practical level, going back to the chance of making partner, having advocates in your corner is always a good thing. Making human connections starts on Day One, and it can be done in person or remotely. But it can’t be ignored.

This Is Just A Phase

Finally, if you take nothing else away from this letter, please understand that these next few years will go by quickly. Professionally, you are going to grow, change, make friends, develop a smidgen of expertise, and before you know it you’ll look back on yourself now with a sense of nostalgia.

You’re here because you’re smart, driven, and focused. You have all the tools to make these next few years amazing, both at work and in the personal life that you also need to be maintaining. You’re going to face challenges and setbacks. You’re going to botch an assignment or say something foolish in front of someone you want to impress. Everyone you’re working with has done the same.

But if you keep all of this in perspective and focus your efforts where they matter, you’ll be on the path to a rewarding, fulfilling career and friendships that will last a lifetime.


James Goodnow is the CEO and managing partner of NLJ 250 firm Fennemore Craig. At age 36, he became the youngest known chief executive of a large law firm in the U.S. He holds his JD from Harvard Law School and dual business management certificates from MIT. He’s currently attending the Cambridge University Judge Business School (U.K.), where he’s working toward a master’s degree in entrepreneurship. James is the co-author of Motivating Millennials, which hit number one on Amazon in the business management new release category. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.