Associate Advice, Career Center, Lawyers

Swimming Lessons for Baby Sharks: Practical advice for new lawyers

This column includes more rules to help build relationships and trust with colleagues.

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ATLSLFBSLogoQ: I have heard that there are lots of “unwritten rules” at law firms. Is that true?

A: There are. In the prior column, I covered unwritten rules about building relationships within a firm. This column includes more rules to help build relationships and trust with colleagues. Future columns will cover unwritten rules involving communications, client relations and law firm economics.

1. Never guess.

Don’t give advice on the fly.

“We never guess. We always look it up.” That is the advice one partner at a global firm gives to all her associates. If you guess, you may well get the answer wrong. The facts may differ. Your memory of the law may not be perfect. The law may have changed.

If you give an incorrect answer, senior lawyers (and clients) will not remember how quickly you responded. They will remember that you gave the wrong answer.

That erodes trust. And the problems don’t end there. Embarrassment, blown deadlines and write-offs are just a few of the other problems wrong answers can cause.

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Never guess. Always look it up.

2. Don’t ask every question.

As a new associate, you will hear that you need to ask questions. Asking questions is one of the best ways to learn. As one professional development manager counsels new associates, “It is okay not to know; it is not okay not to learn.”

But there are some questions you should not ask. Lazy questions top the list. They involve things that you could – or should – look up yourself. Ask a partner for the client’s phone number, and the silence may be deafening.

If you need information that will be difficult and time-consuming to find without asking the senior lawyer, go ahead and ask. Just remember to think about your time and the partner’s time when considering the most efficient approach.

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Another type of lazy question involves delegating up. These questions are less common, but more irksome. At firms, work assignments generally flow one way. Projects can be team efforts, but other team members don’t want to do your work.

You never want to give others a reason to question whether you are adding value. Junior associates rarely do things like asking partners to fill in a blank in a brief. But lapses do happen. The ensuing reaction can beget regret.

3. Don’t be the first to respond to group e-mails.

You want to be responsive and helpful. But don’t do it by being the first to respond to a group email. The issues here are similar to the ones above. You need to be respectful of partners’ time, and you do not want to broadcast an incorrect answer.

If an email is about scheduling, senior lawyers will assume that you can conform your schedule to the time they pick. Finding a time that will accommodate key players may require a string of emails with several time changes. If you respond to every change saying that you are available, you force many people to open many emails telling them something they already know – or presume. (If you respond that you are not available, senior lawyers may believe you are being difficult – unless your conflict is monumental.)

If the email asks for substantive advice, you should still allow others to respond first. One exception is if the sender directed the email to you. Whenever you respond, buy insurance by first checking your answer with another lawyer.

Good luck.

HeadshotBWLPM1Grover E. Cleveland is a Seattle lawyer, speaker and author of Swimming Lessons for Baby Sharks: The Essential Guide to Thriving as a New Lawyer (West 2010). He is a former partner at Foster Pepper PLLC, one of the Northwest’s larger firms. His clients included the Seattle Seahawks and other entities owned by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. Grover is a frequent presenter on new lawyer career success at law schools and firms nationwide. Some of the questions in this column come from those presentations. Readers may submit questions here or follow him on Twitter @Babysharklaw. He is not related to the 22nd and 24th President of the United States.

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