Law firm job survival manual from first interview to partnership [1 ed.] 9781454843139, 1454843136

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EDITORIAL ADVISORS Vicki Been Boxer Family Professor of Law New York University School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law University of California, Irvine, School of Law Richard A. Epstein Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law New York University School of Law Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow The Hoover Institution Senior Lecturer in Law The University of Chicago Ronald J. Gilson Charles J. Meyers Professor of Law and Business Stanford University Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business Columbia Law School James E. Krier Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law The University of Michigan Law School Richard K. Neumann, Jr. Professor of Law Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University Robert H. Sitkoff John L. Gray Professor of Law Harvard Law School David Alan Sklansky Yosef Osheawich Professor of Law University of California at Berkeley School of Law

Kent D. Syverud Dean and Ethan A. H. Shepley University Professor Washington University School of Law

Copyright © 2014 CCH Incorporated. Published by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business in New York. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business serves customers worldwide with CCH, Aspen Publishers, and Kluwer Law International products. (www.wolterskluwerlb.com) No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or utilized by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information about permissions or to request permissions online, visit us at www.wolterskluwerlb.com, or a written request may be faxed to our permissions department at 212-771-0803. To contact Customer Service, e-mail [email protected], call 1-800-234-1660, fax 1800-901-9075, or mail correspondence to:

Wolters Kluwer Law & Business Attn: Order Department PO Box 99 Frederick, MD 21705 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rapoport, Nancy B., author. Law firm job survival manual : from first interview to partnership / Nancy B. Rapoport and Jeffrey D. Van Niel. pages cm Includes index. eISBN 978-1-4548-4313-9 1. Law—Vocational guidance—United States. I. Niel, Jeffrey D. Van., author. II. Title. KF297.R37 2014 340.023′73—dc23 2013033126

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About the Authors and Contributors Introduction Acknowledgments CHAPTER ONE The Interview: There’s Never a Second Chance to Make a First Impression A. Some Pre-Interview Dos and Don’ts B. Let’s Talk About That Screening Interview That You’re About to Have C. Post-Interview Etiquette Do I Need to Write a Thank-You Note After a Screening Interview? How Long Should I Wait Before I Follow Up to See If I’m Going to Get a Call-back? Should I Ask My References to Contact the Firm Directly If I Haven’t Heard from the Firm Yet? D. When You Get a Call-back E. What About the Schedule of Call-backs? F. Things Not to Do During the Meal G. What Happens If the Interviewer Hasn’t Read Your Resume? H. Some Special Situations I. Things to Remember in Every Interview CHAPTER TWO The Informational Interview: The Interview That Helps You Get the Interview A. What’s Networking and Why Is It Important? B. What’s an Informational Interview? C. Who Should Conduct Informational Interviews? D. How Do You Get Started? A Quick Blurb About Cold Contacts E. The Next Step: Making Contact with Your New Referral(s) When to Proceed? How to Proceed? F. When, If at All, Should You Forward Your Resume? G. What to Prepare for the Informational Interview H. The Informational Interview Itself

About [Referral] and his/her career About the firm General questions About me Referrals I. What to Do After the Informational Interview What Should the Thank-You Note Say? Make Sure to Organize All of Your Contacts J. Conclusion CHAPTER THREE The Foundation: Common Issues for All Jobs A. Confidentiality B. Managing Your Workload C. Deadlines D. Working Long Hours E. Mistakes and Feedback F. When to Go to Work G. Dating in the Workplace CHAPTER FOUR Clerkships: Summer and Judicial A. Summer Clerkships The First Day The First Week Stupid Summer Associate Stunts Working with Support Staff What If You Don’t Like the Firm? Finishing Up the Summer What If You Don’t Get an Offer? B. Judicial Clerkships There Is No “I” in “Team.” There’s Also No Hierarchy, Other Than That the Judge Outranks You What Judges Want What Judicial Assistants Want Supervising Externs Should You Interview for Jobs During Your Clerkship? Should You Sit for the Bar During Your Clerkship? Stupid Judicial Clerk Stunts C. How to Leave Your Clerkship on Good Terms

CHAPTER FIVE Before You Begin: Working Ethically A. Billing Your Time B. Mentors and Sponsors—Why You Need Both C. Navigating the Waters of a Small Firm or Going Solo Competence Diligence D. Navigating the Waters of a Large Firm E. Working with Different Cultures F. Your New Best Friend: Your Assistant G. If You Want Honest, Diligent, Competent, Timely Work, Model That Behavior Yourself H. Playing Well with Others I. Client Management J. Dealing with the Media CHAPTER SIX The First Year of Law Practice A. The Impostor Syndrome (Revisited) B. The Law Firm’s Culture What Do the People at the Top of the Pecking Order (Not Just the Senior Partners, But the Successful Associates) Wear? Do People Keep Their Office Doors Open or Closed? Are the People with Whom You’re More Likely to Work Early Birds or Night Owls? What Does the Firm Announce? How Do the Higher-Ups Like to Communicate? If the Firm Is Going Through Some Rough Times, Does the Leadership Address the Problems Directly or Pretend That They’re Not Happening? C. Some of the Types of Lawyers That You’re Likely to Encounter at Your Firm D. How Do You Figure Out How to Do the Assignment, Once You Get It? E. Writing and Research Skills F. Working Efficiently and Competently Few Things in Law Involve Totally Original Thinking Even Though Few Things in Law Involve Totally Original Thinking, Don’t Just Recite What the Law Is—Think About the Ramifications of Your Research as You Draft Cover Your Butt—and Do So in Writing ’Fess Up When You Make a Mistake G. Why You Need to Develop a Good Calendaring System H. Assignments: Getting Them, Doing Them Well, and Balancing the Workload

I. Make Yourself Useful J. Boneheaded Moves (or the Types of Horrifying Mistakes That First-Year Lawyers Tend to Make) K. A Word About Electronic Communications (or How You Can Embarrass Yourself on a Global Scale) Using an Unnecessary “Reply All” The Angry Response Tone (Probably the Most Important of the Three) L. Becoming a Rainmaker (Yes, Now) M. Taking Time Off—Vacations, Sick Days, and Errands N. Bonuses and Billable Hours O. Having Friends and Family CHAPTER SEVEN Moving Up Through the Ranks: Life as a Junior Associate and Life as a Senior Associate A. People skills Emotional Intelligence Speaking Fluent “Client” B. Political Skills Partners Aren’t the Only People with Political Power A Word About Your Own Power C. Are You at the Home Office or a Branch Office? How Did the New Partners Get Ahead? D. The Coin of the Realm E. Headhunters and Competing Offers F. Legal Skills G. Preparation, Preparation, and More Preparation H. No Dithering—Make a Decision I. Teamwork J. Judgment and Experience Stupid Stunts by Lawyers Who Were Experienced Enough to Know Better K. Your Career, Yourself CHAPTER EIGHT Ten Career Mistakes That Junior Lawyers Make A. Losing Touch with Law School Classmates B. Overlooking That Your Partners Are Also Your Clients C. Failing to Take Ownership of Your Career Have a Formal Plan D. Not Seeking or (Worse Yet) Ignoring Feedback

E. Discounting Professional Development and Networking Opportunities F. Neglecting to Treat Support Staff as Valuable Colleagues Who Play a Critical Role on the Team G. Disregarding the Importance of Learning the Business Aspects of Law H. Not Developing Your Leadership and Management Skills Early and Often I. Not Maintaining a Professional Brand at All Times J. Losing Passion for the Work You Do CHAPTER NINE I’ve Made It! Life as a New Partner A. Partnership B. Buy-ins and Taxes and Distributions, Oh My! C. Will I Make More Money as a Partner? D. The Sprint Is Over: Are You Ready to Run a Marathon? E. Old Mantra: Billable Hours; New Mantra: Exercise, Nutrition, Commitment, and Billable Hours CHAPTER TEN Being a Great Lawyer (as a Partner) A. Your Long-Term Value to the Firm and Your Clients B. Rainmaking Get to Know Your Clients and Their Businesses Get to Know Your Clients as People Get to Know Your Partners Prepare for Meetings with New Clients and Senior Partners C. Care and Feeding of Associates D. Your Written Work E. Some Final Pointers CHAPTER ELEVEN Moving On, Moving Out A. Why Exactly Are You Leaving? B. Are You Running Away from Law Firm Politics? C. How Do You Know That It’s Time to Go? D. How Miserable Are You…Really? E. Where Do You Want to Go and What Do You Want to Do? F. So What Are Some Options? Downsizing to a Smaller Firm Government Work Working In-House with the Client Becoming a Law Professor Something Else

G. How to Avoid Burning Bridges on the Way Out AFTERWORD Appendix A Appendix B Index

Nancy B. Rapoport is the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She studies the behavior of lawyers, which is why people at parties tend to avoid speaking to her. She’s very happy to be married to Jeff Van Niel, a man of infinite patience and a good sense of humor. In her spare time, she’s a ballroom dancer. Jeffrey D. Van Niel is currently a law clerk at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada. Before becoming a law clerk, Jeff was the Regulatory Advisor for the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office (NWRPO), Nye County, Nevada (more commonly known as “Yucca Mountain”). Because he is a patient man with a good sense of humor, he has moved around from state to state and job to job to let Nancy do her thing as an academic. He’s worked for judges, state government, private law firms (small and medium-sized), and even as the in-house staff attorney for the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department in Houston, Texas (a/k/a the adult probation department). J. Scott Bovitz is a partner at Bovitz & Spitzer. He’s a bankruptcy litigator in Los Angeles. Among other things, he’s board-certified in Business Bankruptcy Law from the American Board of Certification (abcworld.org). He’s also a Director of the ABC and the Chair of its State Bar Liaison Committee. He’s a certified specialist in Bankruptcy Law (State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization) (californiaspecialist.org), and the past chair of the Board of Legal Specialization. When he’s not litigating, he’s writing: He’s the Executive Editor of Personal and Small Business Bankruptcy Practice in California (CEB.com) and is a contributing author of Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice (west.thomson.com). He serves as a member of the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California and is a frequent lecturer on bankruptcy, commercial law, and ham radio topics. Billie J. Ellis, Jr. is a partner at Locke Lord LLP. His practice covers a broad spectrum of private equity, financial, commercial, and real estate transactions, including the acquisition, financing, development, and sale of all types of properties and companies. Before he joined the firm in 2003, he was a Co-

Founder and Managing Director of The Halifax Group, a $200 million private equity fund. He has been recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Monthly Magazine, been listed in “Best Lawyers in America,” and is a member of several professional organizations, including the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. An accomplished writer and presenter, he has been educating students and colleagues for nearly two decades in private equity, finance, and real estate law. He received the 2012 Texas Exes Teaching Award, an annual tribute honoring one professor from each of the schools and colleges at the University of Texas, for his course, “A History of the American Law Firm: Aspects of a Learned Calling and Business Enterprise.” Elias P. George is an associate at Gordon Silver in Las Vegas. Before he started at Gordon Silver, he served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Chief Judge Jennifer P. Togliatti of the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County, Nevada. He’s also an adjunct professor of economics at the College of Southern Nevada. Elias was one of Professor Rapoport’s Contracts students, and he later worked with her in an independent study applying lessons from behavioral economics to bankruptcy law. Besides the fact he’s a pretty awesome Greek dancer, Elias loves nothing more than his UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. Amee R. McKim is currently the Director of Legal Recruitment at Duane Morris LLP. She started her legal career as an honors graduate of The1 Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where she was on the Ohio State Law Journal. She then practiced family law before returning to Ohio State1 to become the Assistant Dean of Professional Development. Not content with working a mere 70+ hours a week and raising a family, she has completed all of her Ph.D. coursework in Ohio State’s College of Education, so she’s ABD2 in the Higher Education, Policy, and Leadership Program there. She’s also the author of this very well-received book: Maximize Your Lawyer Potential: Business Etiquette and Professionalism for Law Students and Lawyers (Thomson West 2008). Todd J. Thorson is a partner at Locke Lord LLP. He concentrates his practice in the areas of securities law, capital markets, corporate governance, general corporate law, and mergers and acquisitions. In addition to representing issuers in public and private equity and debt offerings, he regularly assists companies in establishing policies relating to corporate governance, business practices, and disclosure procedures and provides counsel to private and public companies regarding corporate reorganizations. He also provides clients with ongoing advice regarding federal securities law compliance (with particular emphasis on Section 16 liability matters) and officer and director fiduciary duty issues.

1 Yes, it’s “The” Ohio State University. Ignore the “The” at your peril when talking with OSU fans. 1 The short form of “The Ohio State University” is “Ohio State” or “OSU.” 2 That’s “all but dissertation.”

Introduction We’ve been there. We’ve worked at large multinational firms (Nancy), mediumsized firms (Jeff), and small firms (Nancy and Jeff); we’ve both clerked for judges; and we’ve both worked in government. Although the world of law has changed dramatically over the past few years, some things are “constants.” We’re here to make sure that you get a sense of what those constants are, how to anticipate their arrival at your office door, and how to deal with them when they ambush you in the hallway. And we’re old enough to be able to help you through the cultural minefield and the shift from boomers to whatever the current generation is calling itself. In this volume of our Survival Series, we’re going to walk you through how to survive at a law firm.1 As always,2 we’re going to be our sarcastic and snarky selves as we take you through the evolutionary life from law school interviewee to brand-new partner. (After that, your career trajectory is your own.) We end this introduction with an apt statement from General Colin Powell, who clearly understands success and how hard it is to achieve it: There are no secrets to success: Don’t waste your time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence. —General Colin Powell 1 We realize that law firm life isn’t for everyone. You may choose to use your law degree in a non-lawfirm job. That’s perfectly OK; in fact, for many people, the right job for them is a non-law-firm job. After all, neither of us currently works at a law firm. If you discover that life in a law firm isn’t your cup of tea, see Chapter Eleven. 2 If a second book in a series is “always.”

Acknowledgments Jeff wants to thank his wife, Nancy, who makes all of these opportunities possible. He also wants to thank Adrienne Gasser for her sage input and suggestions. Finally, Jeff joins Nancy in thanking the folks at Aspen/Wolters Kluwer, for their good humor about some delays that were unavoidable. Nancy wants to thank, first and foremost, her two best editors: her husband and her dad. The following people also deserve a huge round of applause for their wise contributions and good writing, editing, and brainstorming: Christian Balducci, Scott Bovitz, Dawn Cica, Billie Ellis, Dianne Fouret, Elias George, Gordon Goolsby, Jennifer Gross, Kirk Homeyer, Demetra Liggins, Nettie Mann, Kerry Martinez, Amee McKim, Marisa Rodriguez-Shapoval, Layke Stolberg, Todd Thorson, and Vincent Vitatoe. Finally, a big “thank you!” to the good folks at Aspen/Wolters Kluwer, for their inordinate patience and to Dana Wilson for seeing our manuscript through the production process.

OK, YOU’VE GOT a nice suit on (or something else that looks office-y), and you’re about to meet the person who’s going to interview you. Let’s rehash how you got to this point: 1. You made it through part of law school (after all, the concept of “interviews” can include summer jobs or post-graduation jobs). 2. You’ve cobbled together a resume. 3. [choose one or more] You’ve: — Done decently in school. — Made law review. — Made moot court. — Joined at least one student organization. — Networked like mad1 to land an interview. — Made sure that your references really know you well,2 that they actually have good things to say about you, and that they are willing to say them (by asking them “would you be willing to be a good reference for me”)?3 4. You either snagged this interview through on-campus interviews (OCI)4 or through some other creative method. 5. You got dressed up.5 6. And now you’re waiting to get interviewed. Congratulations! Now what? Well, we’ll walk you through the first screening interview in just a second. Let’s double-check first that you’ve put your best foot forward as you’ve been casting about for interviews. A. Some Pre-Interview Dos and Don’ts

First off, spend some time thinking about where you want to work. We’re sure that you want a job (or you wouldn’t be reading this book), but you should give some serious thought to whether you think that you actually might want to work at any of the places to which you’re applying. Yeah, you might just need a job (those nondischargeable student loans are going to kick in at some point),6 but if you can afford to be choosy, then ask yourself if there are some places where you really don’t want to work. Pretending that you’re interested will always smack of insincerity. Even if you can pull off the initial interview for such a job, the call-back will likely be your undoing. It’s hard to put on a false face for eight to twelve hours at a time without someone sensing your lack of sincerity. On the other hand, if you’re open to considering a place, or a type of law, then by all means cast your job search net as wide as possible. If the job market’s horrible, then you may well have to apply for every job under the sun in order to have a chance at a legal career. But if you do have a choice, you’re going to want to work at a place that does not act as sandpaper on your soul, day in and day out. You’re going to want to find a place at which you can learn how to be a good, ethical lawyer—one at which you respect (and possibly even like) your colleagues. So spend some time thinking about what type of firm you want. Maybe the issue for you will be whether you want to be at a big firm or a small one, or in a big city or a small town, or in a firm that does litigation or one that has a transactional practice. Of course, it’s entirely possible that you may not have a clue about what type of firm you’d like to try. So spend a little bit of time thinking about whether you prefer to work in big groups or small ones. If you want to know everyone with whom you’re going to work, a large, multinational firm is not going to be your ideal workplace. If you want to fly all over the world to do deals, then you might not want to start out at a two-person firm. If being close to home is important to you, then concentrate on employers in your geographic area. Once you have narrowed your field of potential employers, hightail it to your Career Development Office. Talk with the Director or Associate Director about your preferences and about your strengths and weaknesses. Sort through the buffet of possible employers together, and then make your list. Once you have that list, go to the various firms’ websites and start taking notes. For each firm to which you plan to apply, make a list of its representative clients and practice areas as well as the names of the managing partner, the hiring partner, and the hiring coordinator, if he or she is listed on the website.7 Now that you have narrowed your list of firms, you’ll have to write a cover letter (at least for non-OCI interviews).8 You’ll also need a resume and a writing

sample. Please proofread all of these items before they go out. Proofread your cover letter. Proofread your resume. Proofread your writing sample. Then proofread them again, and ask someone else to proofread them, too. Good lawyers proofread everything that goes out, so you should just get into the habit of proofreading from the get-go. Here are some proofreading disasters that we’ve either done ourselves or have seen others do: 1. Failing to verify the gender of the person to whom you’re writing. Nancy still remembers how embarrassed she was when she found out that the “Robin” to whom she wrote was a male, making her “Dear Ms. ______” more than a little awkward. 2. Misspelling someone’s name. Both Jeff and Nancy have received cover letters that misspelled their last names. In some cases people who know Nancy, but not Jeff, will refer to him as Mr. Rapoport. Jeff once sent a cover letter to someone and misspelled that person’s last name. In hindsight, Jeff ducked a bullet (the person worked at Enron), but still— yikes! 3. Failing to understand that “spell check” is just the first step in proofreading. There are some seriously awkward mistakes that spell check won’t catch. For example, if you’ve worked in the public interest, or you want to work in the public interest, make sure that the “l” is in the word “public.” Spell-check will not catch that particular faux pas, but the recipient likely will. If you want to help poor people, remember that they’re “indigent,” not “indignant.” 4. Forgetting that many lawyers are just a tad OCD.9 Lots of compulsive people decide to practice law.10 Those people will actually care if your resume entries have periods at the ends of all of the sentences, and not just after a few of them, or that you use commas before an “and” in some places but not in others. Make sure that whatever style you use is consistent throughout. Here’s the bottom line on proofreading. When someone is sorting through piles of potential interviewees who have similar qualifications and who are competing for only a few available positions, the tiniest mistake can sometimes lead to a rejection. Why risk a rejection right off the bat? B. Let’s Talk About That Screening Interview That You’re About to Have

There are a few things that you should know. First, as this chapter’s title points out, you have about 30 seconds to impress the interviewer. First impressions stick. Let us restate this for emphasis: You only get one chance to make a first impression.11 So make eye contact, have a good strong (firm but not bone-crushing) handshake,12 and smile at people. Wear well-fitting clothes.13 Don’t fidget. Second, be aware of both your own body language and that of your interviewer. As for your body language, think about how you sit when you’re truly interested in what a person is saying and doing. Generally speaking, you should sit up straight, lean slightly toward the speaker, and look him dead in the eye. Your body language should say that you’re interested in what he’s saying. Jeff rarely slouches in his chair or leans back when he’s interested in the conversation; but if he’s bored with the conversation, he’s been known to slump or look away—decidedly not the impression you want to give in a job interview.14 You also need to pay attention to the interviewer’s body language. Is the person leaning in and asking you lots of questions, or is he or she staring at your resume for a long time? If we were Machiavellian, we’d say that it’s a decent idea for you to mirror the body language of your interviewer occasionally, because it makes the interviewer feel more comfortable and positive about you. Don’t be obvious. Just tap into the person’s body language. If the interviewer leans forward, then after a while, you lean forward (you should already be leaning forward anyway, because you’re supposed to be interested in what your interviewer is saying). If the person’s sitting with one arm draped over a chair, you do that.15 Don’t mirror everything—that can get a bit creepy. But if you pay a little attention to body language, you can increase your odds of making the interviewer comfortable. Third, avoid verbal tics. We know: Saying “like” or “um” is something a person does without noticing. Mostly, we seem to use “um” or “uh” to fill empty time during a conversation to allow our brains to process what we’re saying and hearing. Speaking in slang and using words such as “like” and “dude” have become so common to us that we rarely know that we’re using those words.16 But everyone else notices the tic. Jeff recently had the “opportunity” to listen to a lawyer “um” and “uh” her way through an multi-day evidentiary hearing at the rate of roughly 300 “ums” an hour.17 She was obviously smart, and she appeared to grasp both the law and her case, but her verbal tic diminished her effectiveness. We all have tics. Your friends know yours. Ask them what your tics are, and ask them to tell you when you’re sliding into a paroxysm of them.

Fourth, remember that you’re interviewing the law firm, too. Listen to your gut. Do you like the interviewer, or does he or she make you uncomfortable? When you get to the call-back stage, your gut is going to be very, very important as a way to sort out whether you’ll fit in at a particular firm.18 We understand how difficult it is to find a job today, but even if you’re going to take a job just to have an income, you should still pay enough attention to your gut reaction about a place that you take the job with your eyes open. Fifth, remember that the interviewer is human. He or she may be tired, or stressed out about something having nothing to do with you. That person might just be bad at interviewing. One of our best tricks when meeting someone for an interview is to start with a question about how the person’s day is going. True story: When Nancy was in law school, she did a screening interview with the law firm at which she eventually worked. It was the end of the day, and the person doing the screening interview looked a bit tired. Nancy started out by asking him if he wanted a cup of coffee or a soda. He and she ended up going to the campus coffee house, and they talked for hours. Maybe Nancy would have gotten the call-back anyway, but the fact that she treated the interviewer as a person certainly helped. That person’s a federal judge now, and she still stays in contact with him. (See? Another sneaky lesson here—you’ll run into these interviewers over and over in your life. That’s another reason that you want to make a good first impression.) Finally, be yourself. Either the firm will like who you are or it won’t. But you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not, because eventually that pretending will take a toll on you. So just be yourself—only a more cleaned-up, alert, friendlier version of yourself. Oh, if “yourself” would ask things about salary, family leaves, bonuses, and vacation times in the screening interview, then don’t be yourself, at least not yet. Those questions are reserved for after you get an offer.19 C. Post-Interview Etiquette Here are some questions that we always get: Do I Need to Write a Thank-You Note After a Screening Interview? Well, let’s see: Someone just spent a day of her non-billable time by meeting a bunch of candidates, and she’s going to have to catch up with her billable work later on. That person has to keep each interviewee’s information

straight. And that person probably sat in the same room all day. You, on the other hand, had to be in that room for only 20-30 minutes. So what do you think? Is a nice note to thank the person for her time really too much to ask? (We’ll settle for a nice email, if it’s well-written, although we’ve heard that many interviewers not only prefer handwritten notes but actually attach those notes to the interviewees’ files.) We won’t, however, settle for texts. Texts are for friends, not interviewers. So, yes. You should write a thank-you note. The best ones don’t just say, “thank you for meeting with me.” They add something specific that occurred during the interview, such as “I really enjoyed our discussion about why ERISA lawyers are more fun than they might seem.” The detail-specific note also shows that you were paying attention to the discussion during the interview. In closing, if you’re still interested in working there, say so explicitly. Suggest a date and time that you’ll contact that person again to follow up. Remember: A thank-you note is your chance to be polite and memorable. Do it. (And yes, you’ll have to write an individual thank-you note to everyone you meet, both at the screening interview and at the call-back interview, within 24 hours after the interview’s done.20) How Long Should I Wait Before I Follow Up to See If I’m Going to Get a Call-back? There’s no hard-and-fast rule. Most places will give you a sense of when you’ll hear back from them. Some won’t, and you might start hearing by word of mouth that some of your classmates are getting called back. Your Career Development Office folks will likely have some good ideas about individual firms and how long they take to get back to interviewees. Check with them. The one time when it’s permissible to check back with a firm before you expect to hear from it is when you have an offer from somewhere else. If you’re interested in the firm that hasn’t gotten back to you yet, let people at that firm know that you have an offer and what the deadline is for you to accept that offer. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We haven’t prepped you for your callback interview yet. Should I Ask My References to Contact the Firm Directly If I Haven’t Heard from the Firm Yet? That all depends on your references—how good they are and how engaged

in the process they want to be. If your references don’t know you really well, then any calls or emails that they make won’t do a thing for you. If they do know you well, and if they have some contacts at the firm(s) you want, then ask them if they have time to check in with those contacts. After all, it can’t hurt for other folks to weigh in on how smart/nice/driven you are. D. When You Get a Call-back Congratulations!! You’ve gotten a call-back interview. You’re one step closer to landing a job. You may think that the call-back interview starts when you get to the firm, but it doesn’t. The interview starts when you first make contact with the person who’s coordinating your interview. Literally speaking, you’re interviewing from that very first contact until you finish up those thankyou notes that you’ll be writing after the call-back’s over. Be your nicest self during the entire course of the interview process.21 That means that you should be polite and respectful and accommodating about the scheduling of your interview. (If “accommodating” means that you’re going to have to miss class, it’s a good idea to let your professors know that you’ll be gone. If you’re going to be penalized for missing class, so be it—but professors actually do care about whether their students show up.) So another word about how you should dress: Maybe you have a personal style. (We didn’t when we were interviewing for our first law jobs, but you might.) Maybe you’re quirky. Maybe you’re trendy. You have a decision to make here. The safe bet is to dress at least as nicely as the people at that firm dress on their “go to court” days. (Transactional lawyers may dress differently from litigators, but you want to dress the way that the most formally dressed people at the office do.) Maybe the office is “office casual,” but the folks there already have a job. You don’t. “Office casual,” then, isn’t for you—at least not yet, and not unless the scheduler asks you to dress casually.22 You’re likely going to meet some people who are older than you. Way older. Those people will want to see you in a suit—with a tie, if you’re male, and (unfortunately) with pantyhose, if you’re female. It’s better to overdress than underdress, because dressing appropriately is a sign of respect. What if you won’t feel really “you” unless you dress in a particular style, such as all-black,23 or in long flowing skirts or polo shirts, or in the latest fashions. Well, that’s a decision you’ll have to make—is it more important to be “you,” or to make the interviewers feel comfortable? Nancy had a friend with an unusual and striking fashion sense. She wore

homemade, flowery jewelry and fashion-forward dresses. Even so, she still wore a suit for her interview, and she wore a suit or simple dresses when she was a junior associate. She broke out of the pack when she was a better-established senior associate, and she went all-out to follow her own style sense when she became a partner. There’s a time and place for everything. By the way, unless you’ve worked in the very building in which you’re going to go for the call-back, scope out the location of the firm ahead of time and figure out how to get there. Leave time for emergencies like stalled cars or public transit delays. You do not want to be late to your call-back. Get there early on the big day. If you’re too early, go for a walk around the neighborhood or sit somewhere and read until it’s time to go in. E. What About the Schedule of Call-backs? Most call-backs follow the same pattern: They involve meeting with several people (usually by trotting you from one office to another), and they often involve sharing a meal with some of the lawyers. What does this schedule mean for you? You’re going to be asked a lot of the same questions over and over, and you’re going to need to summon up enthusiasm for your answers over and over. And you’d better have good table manners.

What if you don’t know what good table manners are? Lots of people grew up without ever going out to eat at fancy restaurants, and sometimes your

interviewers will take you to the type of place that serves food you’ve never tried before. (One of the firms interviewing Nancy took her to a sushi restaurant, because the lawyers wanted to see how she’d do with chopsticks.24) Our best advice is to follow the lead of the lawyers who brought you to the restaurant. See what flatware they use, and use the same type. (The general rule is that you work from the outside in as the meal progresses.25) And if you need to remember which bread plate is yours, make the OK sign with both hands—if you look, your left hand forms a “b” for “bread” and your right hand forms a “d” for “drink.” Clever, eh? If you have dietary restrictions, tell the waiter and ask what might work. It’s totally OK to admit that you’ve never eaten in a place like the one you’re in, or eaten that type of food before, or are otherwise finding yourself in a new situation. Being candid and a good sport is perfectly fine. F. Things Not to Do During the Meal — Talk with your mouth full. — Order the most expensive thing on the menu. — Order alcohol (well, you can have a glass of wine with dinner—but only one, and only if you can hold your liquor and you’re not the only person ordering alcohol). — Interrupt the other people at the table when they’re talking. — Snap your fingers at the waitstaff. What do you do if you spill something or have an otherwise awkward moment? We think that you should acknowledge it26 and deal with it as quietly as possible. You probably shouldn’t do what Nancy did in one interview: She had Chinese food and ate one of those hot peppers that you are not supposed to eat whole. She then drained every glass of water on her table—hers and everyone else’s. Thank goodness that she already had a job offer with the firm. In any event, most of the interview is going to involve one-on-one meetings and answering questions in people’s offices. You may have heard the questions before (by midway through the interview process of a call-back day, you will have heard the same questions at least three or four times), but the interviewer hasn’t heard your answers to these questions yet—that’s why she’s asking them. So try to give fresh and enthusiastic answers each time, even if you’re sick of answering the questions.27 The best way to keep up your enthusiasm is to remind yourself that the person in front of you hasn’t been following you around all day,

listening to your answers. Staying enthusiastic with a lineup of interviewers is a lot like being willing to tell each of your friends some good news, one at a time: The news doesn’t get less good by being repeated. If push comes to shove, just keep reminding yourself that you like the firm, and you’d like the people there to like you back. G. What Happens If the Interviewer Hasn’t Read Your Resume? Let’s say that Firm X has invited you for an on-campus interview or for a full- or half-day call-back interview. You show up bright-eyed and raring to go. Right out of the gate, the first interviewer asks a question that makes it clear that she hasn’t even read your resume. Aargh! Yes, that’s rude of her. Everyone with whom you meet that day should have read your resume, but some folks are simply too busy (or they’re dealing with an emergency). That happens. Get over it. Your face-to-face meeting is your opportunity to shine. So shine. You need to be ready and willing to carry the freight by asking your interviewers some questions, and you should be ready to answer the standard interview questions as well. H. Some Special Situations You (or one or more of your interviewers) may have some religious prohibitions against, for example, shaking the hand of someone of the opposite sex. If you’re the one with religious restrictions, let the interview scheduler know in advance so that the people at the firm are forewarned. If someone at the firm is the one with the religious restrictions, then don’t feel snubbed if the person doesn’t shake your hand. What if the interviewer asks illegal questions? You’d be amazed at how many lawyers don’t know which questions are illegal. Your best bet is to answer the question that they should have asked, rather than the one that’s illegal. Here’s a cheat sheet:

What if they’re just horrible at asking questions? There’s an old joke about accountants that we think fits here: How can you tell if you’re talking with an extroverted accountant? She looks at your shoes when she’s talking to you. There are introverted lawyers, too. You may have to make more than your fair share of conversation. That’s why you’re going to want to ask some specific questions about the firm. You might also look around to see if there are any knick-knacks in the person’s office that might generate some questions. For example, “I see that you have a Louisville Slugger in your office. Are you a baseball fan?” You need to be prepared to ask each interviewer at least one question about

the firm or his individual practice. Yes, you can assume that each interviewer will talk with his colleagues about you, so you can’t just ask the same question in every interview. You also need to research the firm before you go to the interview. Today, most law firm websites will provide information about the firm, its clients, and its practice areas. Look at this information. It can readily provide you with questions about the firm’s clients and the types of matters that lawyers in the firm are handling. Asking questions also shows that you’re interested in what the lawyers do and how they do it. The best possible “special situation” that you can experience is the one in which you have to choose among competing offers. When Nancy was interviewing for judicial clerkships, she was taking a break from meeting with a judge in Chicago (he had had to take care of official business) when she checked her answering machine for messages. One of her messages was from a judge in San Francisco who called to offer her a clerkship. She called that judge back, said yes, and returned to the interview with the judge in Chicago to apologize, saying that she had just accepted another clerkship. He was very nice about it. The point is that you might be interviewing for more than one position at a time. (Yay, you!) You might even get an offer for one job while you’re still waiting for a job offer from a firm that you prefer. We have two different rules: 1. If you’re interviewing for a judicial clerkship, then you’ve only applied to judges for whom you’d be willing to work, right? Our rule for offers for judicial clerkships is that you accept the first offer that you get and then immediately notify all of the other judges that you’ve just accepted an offer. 2. If you’re looking at a law firm clerkship, you have more leeway. If you have a clear preference, then call up the firm (or send an email to the hiring partner or coordinator) that you prefer, explain that you have an offer, and ask when that firm might be making a decision about you. Depending on that firm’s answer, then you either gamble and wait or decide that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and accept the offer that you have. If you don’t have a clear preference between two firms, then do a little more due diligence. Talk with some of your classmates about their experiences with the firm. Talk things over with the Director of the Career Development Office. Get on the web and see what news articles you can pull up about both firms. And then go with the information that you’ve gathered—and your gut. Typically, someone’s instincts about the “vibe” of a place are correct.

I. Things to Remember in Every Interview There are a few constants in the interview process. Here are some of them. Everyone you meet at the firm matters. Everyone. “Everyone” includes receptionists, assistants, mailroom folks, paralegals—everyone. You don’t know who at the firm has connections with the people making the hiring decisions. For all you know, they’re related.30 And people talk. It’s quite easy, really, for an assistant to say something to his boss about your behavior during the interview, and a smart boss will take what the assistant says to heart. Moreover, being respectful to everyone is just common decency. Be decent. When you’re at the firm, pay a lot of attention to how people behave with each other. Are people’s doors mostly open or mostly shut? Do people greet each other as they pass? Do they know each other? (In the bigger firms, they might not all know each other.) Are they smiling or somber? You are going to get a lot of useful information if you pay attention not just to what people are saying but also to what they’re doing. That’s a keeper of a life lesson right there. Bring a leather (yes, leather—that’s what eBay and consignment stores are 31 for) portfolio with you. In that portfolio, have (1) extra copies of your resume; (2) extra copies of your transcript; (3) extra copies of a writing sample; (4) a pad of paper for taking notes in each interview (so that you can remember what to say in your personalized thank-you notes); and (5) your list of questions. You need to have some questions in mind before you get to the firm, and those questions should be specific to what the firm does. Make a list beforehand, and refer to that list while interviewing. Using a list of (good) questions shows preparation.32 We can’t tell you how many lawyers have complained to us that they interviewed people who didn’t have a clue about what the lawyers at that firm did or the types of clients that the firm had—and the people without a clue didn’t get offers. That’s why, when you were figuring out where to work, you went to the firm’s website or to the smart folks in your Career Development Office. Call-back day is a long, drawn-out process where you get to interview and be interviewed by several people in succession. Additionally, you will likely have lunch or dinner with several folks as a group. We cannot say this more emphatically: You need to be upbeat and interested for each one of these interviews. Yes, you will get tired; yes, it’s a long day. Regardless of how you feel, you need to take each interview as though it’s the most important interview you’re ever going to have. In reality, each interview is critical. It takes only one person to give feedback that you “looked bored and kept glancing at your watch”

for you to be cast aside for another candidate. Every person who meets you will be providing feedback to the firm. If you’ve competed in debate or any type of sport, you know what it feels like to “get up” for the game or contest. Each one of these interviews is that contest. You can relax for a few brief minutes as you walk from interview to interview and office to office, but once you get to the office, “it’s game time.” Walking into someone’s office with that “I’m tired and saying the same stuff over and over” look on your face is not the way to land a job, especially when there are at least three or four other folks who would love to be in your place. There are also two general questions that you should try to ask several people: How do you evaluate how someone is progressing here? What haven’t I asked about that I should have? Both of those questions should lead to some intriguing and useful answers. Finally, if you’re interested in working at the firm, tell the people there that you are—while you’re at the interview. Everyone likes to hear that his own opinion of where he’s working (that it’s a great place) is shared by others, and if you want people to know that you’re enthusiastic about the possibility of getting a job offer, say so. Here’s how: “I really am enjoying my interview, and I sure hope that you’ll consider me for an offer.” That wasn’t so hard, was it?33 After the interview (and after you’ve written the thank-you letters),34 it’s time to sit back and wait. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait and wait and wait. Sometimes, you’ll get rejection letters. (We used to collect them and trade the worst ones.) You’ll get discouraged. That’s human nature. But in a tight economy, a rejection may not have anything to do with you. You might want to check, though. It’s possible that the Director of the Career Development Office may be able to nose around to find out if the economy’s making you strike out or if there are interview problems that you need to address. Maybe a trusted professor can find out for you. It’s better to know so that, if necessary, you can take steps to address the problem. And if you did get a job offer (or more than one), now’s the time to ask the tough questions. Here’s the blunt truth. Firms fail. You want to try to work at one that’s likely to be solvent for a while. You might want to take a look at websites like National Jurist, American Lawyer, ABA Journal, or even Above the Law so that you can get a feel for any gossip about your firm.35 If you hear that the firm’s biggest client has just left, it’s perfectly legitimate to ask someone what the firm’s plans are about replacing the lost income. (One of us did just that.) If you’re interviewing for a summer associate position, it’s also acceptable

to ask how many associate slots are up for grabs once the summer ends. This recession has been brutal, and some firms have thrown entire summer associate “classes” under the bus without extending any permanent offers. Other firms have tendered offers of employment to summer associates, only to renege on those offers later. This is your career and your life; you need to do the research on the various firms with which you’re interviewing. The more you know about each firm, the better off you’ll be.36 There’s a difference between asking about negotiable things and asking about non-negotiable things. We’re both “chart people,” so here’s another chart:

We’re both of the opinion that it’s better to leave a few dollars on the table than it is to alienate people during the negotiation. In a perfect world, you’ll interact with the people on the opposite side of the negotiating table for years. Start that relationship on a good footing now. All set, with a job in hand? Great! But if you’re still having trouble landing a job, take a look at Chapter Two. 1 And by “networked like mad,” we mean that you went through each and every person you know and each and every person your family knows to get some contacts. Then you wrote very nice cover letters to those people, working any connections into one of the paragraphs. For more on networking ideas, see Chapters Two, Seven, and Eight. 2 “Knowing you well” assumes that you’ve taken the time to get to know your professors well, either by speaking up in class or (if you hate speaking up in class) getting to know them outside class, like during those office hours that they say that they hold.

3 True story: When Nancy was looking for her first teaching position, she used the law professor for whom she’d been a research assistant as a reference. He agreed to be a reference, but he clearly didn’t agree to be a good reference. He was, at best, a lukewarm reference, and that caused Nancy a whole lot of angst. 4 Actually, very few people get their interviews through OCI. Most people have to do a lot more legwork than that. 5 Please dress up. If you’re not sure what to wear, ask the very smart folks in your Career Development Office. Yes, each of us knows at least one person who went to an interview all sweaty and casual and actually got a job. But in today’s job market, that’s clearly not the best idea. Besides, you don’t want to stick to the chair in the interview room or leave a lingering aroma after you leave the room. 6 Nancy can’t resist pointing out that student loans are currently nondischargeable in bankruptcy; however, there is some discussion in Congress and the press about once again making them dischargeable. 7 When we wrote this chapter, we checked out the websites of our two “big firm” experiences: mofo.com and hahnlaw.com. One of those sites made it easy to figure out how to apply by listing the name and address of the person who accepted applications. The other one, for some reason, used an interactive cow to lead you through the website. If you know both of us, you’ll figure out who worked where. 8 This initial cover letter can be somewhat generic, but it should reference some firm-specific items in order to demonstrate your interest in the firm. 9 In terms of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), we don’t necessarily mean people who count the number of cracks in a sidewalk or who wash their hands hundreds of times a day. Instead, we mean people who can spot the difference between having two spaces at the end of a sentence rather than having only one space at the end. These are people who debate whether or not to italicize a period. (Note to those people: Periods are round. Even if you italicize them, they’re still round.) 10 Like us. 11 Nancy’s dad taught her that saying. 12 We’re absolutely serious about having a good handshake. Avoid (1) the fingertip shake (what are we, plague-carriers?) and (2) the dead-fish shake. To Jeff, there is nothing worse at the beginning of a meeting than the sensation of a clammy, dead fish placed in his hand. (The worst type of handshake has no responsive squeeze—nothing—just a hand that lies there in your hand like a dead fish.) To develop a good handshake, think “V” for “victory.” The “V” between your thumb and fingers should slide effortlessly to the other person’s “V.” Grasp firmly, shake, then let go. Once you grip someone’s hand, look that person directly in the eye as you say, “nice to meet you,” “good morning,” or some other appropriate greeting. 13 You do not have to wear expensive clothes. One of us (Nancy) spent years shopping at thrift shops and other used clothing stores. She made her clothes look nice by getting them tailored. You’d be amazed at how much better you look when your sleeve lengths hit at the right spot and when your pants or skirt hit where they should. And shine your shoes. Scuffed shoes can ruin an outfit. They stand out, too—remember the scene in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS where Hannibal comments on Clarice’s shoes? 14 Nancy once saw Jeff tap his watch after a speaker had droned on for 20 minutes past his initial “I’ll only speak for 10 minutes” statement. 15 Jeff is not so sure that draping your arm over the chair is a good idea, even if the interviewer’s doing it. You might run the risk that the interviewer thinks that you’re not taking the interview seriously enough. Jeff has served on recruiting committees where the interviewing attorney commented that the student was way too relaxed and acted like she was in a bar, kicking back a cold beer. Some interviewers will expect you to treat the interview as a formal event: Maybe they’ll be relaxed and nonchalant, but they’ll want you to treat it as a formal interview. That’s not really fair, but it’s reality. 16 Jeff is familiar with another verbal habit that he picked up in the military that is not good interview

etiquette: profanity. Granted, there may be a time when that “skill” is appropriate (well, hardly ever in a formal work environment), but certainly, during an interview, you need to guard against letting these little verbal nuclear devices drop unexpectedly onto the interviewing table. 17 She didn’t have a speech impediment or disability. When she wasn’t at the podium, she spoke normally. 18 Malcolm Gladwell’s book BLINK is a fun read, and it helps you understand your gut hunches. 19 Most, if not all, of this information is available in your Career Development Office, so you should have the information in hand before you sit in on the first interview. Although some of that information could be a few years out of date, the gist of what the firm provides for compensation and benefits is readily available without needing to ask the interviewer. Jeff would prefer to have such information before the callback interview, but he recognizes that, at most places, employers only provide that information when they’re giving out offers. 20 Really, really smart people also write thank-you notes to the staffer who coordinated the interview at the firm. 21 We’d love it if you were your nicest self all the time, but if you were, you wouldn’t be human. 22 Not bloody likely, by the way. 23 Hello, people from New York and San Francisco. 24 Being a huge sushi fan, she did just fine with the chopsticks. 25 There’s a great scene in the movie PRETTY WOMAN about how to eat at a fancy restaurant: Hector Elizondo’s character walks Julia Roberts’s character through the various silverware placements and their uses. 26 Unless the awkward moment involves a body sound. Then just say a quiet “excuse me” and try to stop blushing. 27 Let’s be honest: Some questions really have only one response (“I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended X University and Y Law School.”) But you need to maintain the enthusiasm in your responses, even if you’ve just answered the same question twice in one hour. 30 Or are fast on their way to becoming related. 31 Unless you’re a vegan. If you are, then bring something that is as nice as a leather portfolio. 32 Good lawyers take time to prepare for each thing that they do. Start behaving like a lawyer. Don’t “wing it.” 33 If you don’t want to work there, say nice things about them taking the time to interview you. It’s still a huge time commitment to interview people, and every hour spent doing non-billable work, like interviewing recruits, is an hour that has to be made up with billable work later. 34 Yes, letters, and not just emails. As with the earlier advice about emails, make the letters specific to the interviewer so that it’s clear that you’re not just writing a form letter. Here’s an example:

Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me. I really enjoyed our conversation about ______. I sure hope that our paths cross again soon, because I came away from the interview very impressed, and I’d really like to work here.

35 Dewey & Leboeuf is an example of a major firm that failed. Heller Ehrman is another example.

36 If you receive only one offer, then you need to ask yourself whether having that summer experience is better than doing something non–law-related. If you have no real interest in the firm or in the work that it might ask you to do, then consider doing something non–law-related instead. Several of Jeff’s classmates took non-law jobs between their first and second years in school because they made considerably more money as bartenders than Jeff did as a summer associate at a law firm. Obviously, the calculus changes if you have graduated from law school and are still looking for a job. As we discuss elsewhere, having a current job is exceptionally helpful in helping you to get your next job.

SO I’M sure you want a job or, better yet, a stellar career. Luckily, I have some advice on what to do to better position yourself for that dream career. The traditional plan promulgated by Career Development Offices in law schools throughout the country is comprised of an impressive resume, a precise cover letter with no typos, strong grades, and a bit of luck. Although these things are important, many Career Development Offices underemphasize the power of informational interviewing and networking. Even before submitting a resume and cover letter, there is much more that you need to do to better position yourself. You need to establish a network of contacts in order to give your application an edge. An informational interview can help separate you from your peers and can help your application show more of your personality. A. What’s Networking and Why Is It Important? Networking is the initial and ongoing cultivation of long-lasting business and social relationships. These relationships help you grow throughout your career and pay dividends on multiple fronts in unexpected ways. In lay terms, networking means being polite and professional to those around you and taking an interest in who they are and their type of work. Networking never ends; it’s an ongoing activity. It’s similar to watering a plant—even though that plant may be blooming now, it won’t flourish without continual nurturing. Establishing these relationships requires you to cultivate those relationships. Networking, and more specifically the informational interview, is your strongest resource for searching for a legal position. Often, though, the importance of informational interviews as a networking tool is overlooked.

B. What’s an Informational Interview? Informational interviewing serves two primary purposes. First, it’s a process in which law school students and young lawyers can ask more experienced people about various legal disciplines and particular law firms. Second, and by far the most important, it’s a tool that helps you to develop business and social relationships. Most often, an informational interview is where a job seeker contacts certain members of the legal community and asks them to visit (over lunch or in their offices) as a way of garnering valuable information that could potentially lead to a job opportunity. Informational interviews are different from typical job interviews in one primary respect: You are the interviewer, and the partners or associates you meet are the interviewees. Why is this perspective important? The answer is “perception.” In a traditional interview, you must overtly sell yourself and hope that the interviewer will like you enough to offer you the position. In essence, traditional interviews put you under a magnifying glass where partners and associates have only 20-30 minutes to size you up. In stark contrast, during an informational interview, you’re managing the conversation, and there is little to no pressure on you or the interviewee. Your primary goal is to make a positive and lasting impression on the interviewee. The importance of making a great impression is huge, as it will help you come to mind when the lawyer’s firm (or someone else’s) has a position available. In addition, the interviewee has an opportunity to witness how you act in a professional environment, providing him or her a glimpse into how you are likely to interact with future clients and colleagues. Again, informational interviews are not necessarily held for the purpose of getting a job, but rather to develop professional relationships and sustain a network that may lead to employment opportunities. Ultimately, although a strong resume and a precise cover letter are valuable tools, the contacts created through informational interviews can help move your application to the top of the stack. C. Who Should Conduct Informational Interviews? Everyone. Informational interviewing is not simply a tool to garner more information about an area of law or about a particular attorney or firm, but rather an opportunity to grow your network. Even the most well-seasoned attorneys with decades of experience rely upon their professional networks to provide business development opportunities. So, whether you’re a law school student, judicial clerk, or a new associate, it’s imperative that you begin and continue

building your network. D. How Do You Get Started? The first step is to begin brainstorming to identify your general interests. For example, you may have an interest in economics, finance, social justice, public service, health care, equal rights, politics, sports, business and marketing, real estate and construction, visual arts, history, science, engineering, or the environment. Whatever your interest, there exists a related area of law that incorporates or, in some cases, requires familiarity with a particular discipline (e.g., engineering and patent law). We all have some understanding of our basic interests, and it’s important to identify them.1 For instance, if you have an interest in finance and criminal law, perhaps you’re interested in learning more about white-collar criminal law. Once you’ve identified your areas of interests, spend some time putting together a list identifying any related areas of law (e.g., white-collar crime), and any firms or organizations that might intersect with those interests. Then take this list and meet with friends, family, associates, partners, and even law school professors to help you figure out which firms, organizations, or governmental units might be most appealing to you. Remember, you must go into this conversation, as with all future informational interviews, prepared. It’s critically important to ask your contacts for suggestions and referrals and to refer you to partners and associates who either practice in your area of interest or who might know someone who does. Again, your primary objective, and the most important step in beginning this process, is to leverage your current relationships to gather referrals. Referrals, unlike cold calls or emails, provide you an “in” that will dramatically increase the probability of you scheduling an informational interview. A Quick Blurb About Cold Contacts If you must, you can certainly contact partners and associates at firms without a referral. In that case, do as much research on that person in hopes of discovering some common thread (e.g., same school, areas of study, church, birthplace, previous professors or experiences, or hobbies). I recommend making contact via email, as it is less intrusive and much less intimidating. Your email should detail who you are and where you attended (or are attending) school, and it should say that you are interested in learning more about the person’s area of

practice and more about his firm generally. It certainly doesn’t hurt to compliment your potential contact. Just don’t go overboard. For example, conclude your email by stating that, based upon his or her credentials, experience, and accomplishments, you believe your contact has valuable insights into a specific area of law. (Leave out the sentences that say that he or she is the most beautiful, the most fascinating, and the smartest person you’ve ever seen.) E. The Next Step: Making Contact with Your New Referral(s) So you’re driving (or walking) back home, or to school or work, and you’re excited because you’ve just received a handful of great referrals. Once your referral high calms down, the next challenge is when to proceed and how to proceed with these referrals. I’ll address each question in turn. When to Proceed? Immediately! Unless the referral source specifically asks you to wait before contacting the referral, there should be no longer than a 24-hour period from the moment you receive your referral to the moment that you try to contact that person (unless it’s the weekend, in which case you should try to make contact on the next working day). A colleague of mine recently asked, “Well, wouldn’t it be wise to wait a few days to allow the person I just met with to contact the referral, giving him or her a heads-up that I’ll be emailing or calling them?” Though this question has some merit, the best course of action is to take the initiative and to make contact immediately. How to Proceed? First, send an email. It should be very direct and simple to read; save your dissertations for law school. Your email can read something like this:

Good morning, [Referral]: My name is [insert] and [referral source] suggested that I contact you. I recently graduated from [law school] [or I’m a [first-year, etc.] student at [law school]], and I have spoken with [referral source] about my interest in

white-collar criminal law. He [she] suggested your firm as one of the best, and I was hoping to meet with you to find out more about your day-to-day practice and about your firm generally. If you’re able to meet for lunch, coffee, or even in your office this week or next, please let me know. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, [Your name]

After emailing your referral asking the person for a meeting, one of the following “unfavorable” scenarios is likely to occur. First, the person might acknowledge your email and ask you to respond at a later date. Don’t feel defeated. Given how busy most attorneys are, this response is normal, hence the importance of getting started early and gathering a large number of referrals from your initial contacts. But there is something that you can do in the interim between contact periods. Keep the name of this referral handy as you go on informational interviews. Once you ask for introductions from other attorneys, ask the person with whom you’re meeting if he or she knows that specific referral. Because attorneys know a lot of other attorneys, it’s likely that one or more of them will know your somewhat evasive target referral. This additional “connection” will come in handy. When you follow up with your original referral, you’ll be able to reference your new contact in that email. For instance, you can write something like this:

Good morning, [Referral]: I hope that you are having a great week. The last time that we spoke, you asked that I contact you in two weeks to schedule a meeting. I recently had the pleasure of meeting with [new referral source], who, like [original referral source], strongly suggested that I meet with you. Please let me know if you are available this Thursday or Friday for lunch. Thank you,

[Your name]

Second, the target referral might respond by saying, “thanks for the letter, but our firm is not looking to hire.” It’s important to remember that informational interviewing is a networking tool. If a referral responds to you in this manner, don’t be surprised. A colleague of mine recently told me, “I cancelled my informational interview because the partner told me that his firm wasn’t looking to hire.” Remember, you’re using informational interviews primarily as a networking tool and to gather valuable information. So if you get this response, here is your follow-up email:

Good afternoon, [Target Referral]: Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your candor relating to your firm’s current hiring situation. My purpose in wanting to meet with you, however, was to find out more about your area of practice and more about your firm. [Original referral source] suggested that, given your accomplishments, you would be a tremendous source of information about [area of interest (e.g., white-collar crime, intellectual property)]. Again, if you are able to meet later this week or next, please let me know. Sincerely, [Your name]

Third, the target referral might never respond. Whatever the case, you always have the opportunity to ask twice. Unless the referral specifically advises you to reach out to him or her at a later date, I encourage you to send a follow-up email if you haven’t heard from the person in a week.2 Here’s an example of the second email that you might send:

Good morning, [Referral]: My name is [insert], and [referral source] suggested that I contact you. I’m not sure if you’ve had an opportunity to review my email from last week, but after speaking with [referral source] about my interest in white-collar criminal law, [he/she] strongly suggested that I should meet you. I was hoping to meet with you to find out more about your day-to-day practice and about your firm generally. If you’re able to meet for lunch, coffee, or even in your office, please let me know. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, [Your name]

If another week has passed, it’s important to contact the person who gave you the referral to advise him that you haven’t been able to reach that referral. There are two reasons for you to give your original contact a heads-up: (a) it’s likely that your contact will call or email the referral for you; and (b) by doing so, you’re showing your contact that you’re following up and handling the situation aggressively, yet professionally (meaning that you’re taking this process seriously). Finally, just because you can send an email at 1:00 A.M. doesn’t mean that you should. Attorneys are bombarded with emails on a daily basis, and the last thing that you want is for yours to be on the bottom of the list, and for the attorney to think that you stay up all night watching infomercials (even if you do). I suggest sending all contact emails first thing in the morning (i.e., 7 A.M. to 9 A.M.) and never sending contact emails on Fridays.3 Better yet, write the email the night before, and make sure to save it in your “drafts.”4 Once your alarm goes off, review it and check for typos before you click “send.” F. When, If at All, Should You Forward Your Resume? An informational interview is not a formal interview, so don’t forward your resume when you’re making the initial contact with a referral. To do so will give

the impression that your true purpose in wanting to meet is to get a job, not to gather information. I would encourage you, though, to forward your resume in your email confirming your upcoming informational interview. Sending your resume at that stage will provide the attorney with an idea of your past experiences, while giving him a level of comfort about who you are. (Forwarding your resume will, of course, give your referral the ability to forward it to other attorneys within the firm and to other colleagues.) Here’s an example of a “confirmation” email.

Good morning, [Referral]: I am writing to confirm our lunch for this afternoon at [location.] In advance of our lunch, I wanted to send my resume so that you will have some idea of my background and past experience. I’m looking forward to visiting with you. Thank you, [Your name]

G. What to Prepare for the Informational Interview In preparation for your meeting, make sure to (a) prepare a list of questions and (b) study the lawyer’s bio, which you can generally find on the firm’s website. While preparing, keep in mind your audience. For instance, don’t ask a partner who specializes in water law about white-collar crime. Admittedly, most of us leave law school with little knowledge of law firms in our community; therefore, you must be thorough in your research in order to get up to speed. Remember, your biggest resources for gaining valuable information about firms and differing areas of law are local magazines, Google, or even your local telephone book (if you still live under a bush).5 Imagine how embarrassed you’d be (later, when you think about it) if an attorney suggests that you contact a partner at XYZ Law Firm, which just so happens to be the biggest law firm in your community, and you meet that suggestion with a blank stare. First, that attorney is going to wonder if you’ve done any research at all and whether

you’re taking the process seriously; second, your surprise might cause him to reconsider giving you any additional referrals; and third, ignorance about the local legal community will negatively affect your attempts to establish an image of preparedness and competency. You’ve got to do your homework! Remember, the types of questions you ask and how you ask those questions both play a significant role in informational interviewing. Through well thoughtout questions, you can impress a lawyer by demonstrating your preparedness. Keep an upbeat and positive attitude, and don’t give the impression that you’re jaded or a prima donna. For instance, negative questions can leave the person you’re meeting with a sour taste in his mouth. Avoid questions like these: • Do you find your job boring? • What are the major frustrations about this area of law? • How would you rate your firm’s level of prestige in the community? Your goal is to have the lawyer leave that interview with a good impression of you. Again, that impression of you will directly affect whether he refers you to colleagues, remembers you later when a position opens, and even forwards your resume to the hiring partner of his own firm. H. The Informational Interview Itself So, you’ve arrived at your informational interview at least five minutes early—the really, really bright people arrive at least ten minutes early6—with (a) your prepared informational interview questions (see below for some suggestions), (b) a printout of the lawyer’s bio, and (c) a copy of your resume.7 Do not show up late, even by one minute. Remember, a primary function of informational interviews is to begin establishing your image: one grounded in competency, preparedness, and professionalism. The moment that you arrive late, you’ve completely thwarted all of your prior hard work. Just arrive early, period. Make sure that you dress and act as if it were a formal interview (see Chapter One). First, upon meeting lawyers, begin by thanking them for taking the time to meet. Second, don’t be afraid to jump right into your questions. A great conversation starter is “I’m curious—what sort of projects do you typically work on?” or “how did you get started in your area of practice?” Jumping right in as to why you’re there will signal to the lawyer that you came prepared and that you’re taking this process seriously.

I encourage you to spend a great deal of time drafting specific questions related to the particular person you’re meeting with and his or her area of expertise. Here’s a list of possible questions to help get you started, but remember: This list isn’t all-inclusive. Informational Interview with [Referral] About [Referral] and his/her career 1. How did you decide that you wanted to be an attorney? a. What was your pathway? b. Why criminal defense (or ERISA, or whatever field the person’s in)? 2. What do you enjoy most about [area of law]? 3. What job experience helped lead you to your current position? Can you suggest some ways in which I could get this necessary experience? 4. What is the most interesting case(s) that you’ve worked on lately? Any white-collar crime cases or shareholder rights cases (or whatever subset of law the person’s doing)? (If the person’s a transactional lawyer, you can ask about what deal he or she has recently closed.) 5. Describe a typical day in your work life, including how much time you spend in the courtroom (if the lawyer is a litigator), with clients, and with documents. 6. What characteristics does your firm look for in young associates? 7. What about the firm is most appealing to you? Why did you decide to work at XYZ Law Firm? About the firm 1. Does your firm have a formal mentoring program? 2. What type of training do young associates receive? 3. How often are your associates encouraged to observe trials, depositions, negotiations (for “deal” lawyers, you should ask about negotiations and other observable transaction-type experiences)? 4. How soon do your associates start participating in depositions, arguing motions, or drafting arguments? 5. Are your associates assigned to a particular practice area, or do they receive assignments from various practice groups?

6. Does XYZ Law Firm encourage or assist its associates with business development opportunities? General questions 1. What sorts of changes are happening in the [city’s] legal market? 2. What sorts of changes are happening in [e.g., the private criminal defense market] here? 3. What skills are necessary for a successful career in this field? 4. If you were entering this area of law today, would you change your preparation in any way to facilitate your entry into the field? About me 1. My two primary areas of interest: a. Criminal Defense—white-collar criminal defense. b. Corporate Litigation—breach of contract, fraud, partnerships and mergers, breach of fiduciary duties, and securities. 2. Be prepared to provide a summary of your interests, and how you might be able to provide value to the person’s group or firm. Referrals 1. If you were in my shoes, knowing what you know now, who are the people that I should be speaking with to learn more about [corporate litigation and criminal defense] work? [Alternative phrasing] 2. Can you suggest other people in the legal community who may be helpful to me in learning more about [corporate litigation or criminal defense] work? In addition to asking a specific set of questions in order to garner more information and to establish a positive image of yourself, it’s equally important to always ask for referrals at the end of your informational interview. Note that I did not write “referral,” but “referrals.” Remember, referrals are the fuel for your

informational interview’s fire. The more fuel, the more fire. Without them, you’re back at point zero re-asking your initial contacts for help, or worse, being forced to make cold contacts. I presented two different ways (above) for how you could ask for referrals. Once the lawyer gives you a name, immediately follow up with: “Thank you so much for this. I’ll be sure to email [him]. Who else comes to mind that you think I should contact?” If you see your interviewee is struggling to come up with some names, perhaps you can ask, “are you familiar with anyone at ABC Law Firm?,” or better yet, “are you familiar with [original referral that never responded to your email a few weeks ago]?” Moreover, if you’re really impressed with the lawyer’s firm, ask to be referred to another person in the firm to gain a different perspective about various practice areas. This strategy also helps to spread your network within a firm so as to better increase your chances of future employment. It also indirectly expresses your interest in that lawyer’s firm. You’ll need to prepare answers to a list of questions that the referral is likely going to ask you, such as: “why this city,” “why law school,” and “what draws you to this particular practice area or firm?” Make sure to study your own resume before the meeting and be prepared to speak about yourself. One more word of advice: Always offer to pay. You were the one who invited the lawyer to meet with you. I speak from experience when I say that it’s mortifying to be so engaged in a conversation that you fail to realize the check has been sitting there for 30 minutes, and the person you’re meeting with had to call his secretary to come pay the bill because he forgot his wallet in his office (no joke—needless to say, I didn’t make a great impression). So always offer to pay. That’s it! (Just don’t forget to ask for referrals!) The most difficult task in informational interviewing is all the hard work and preparation that you’ll do before and after your meeting. What you do after your meeting is just as important as what you did beforehand. I. What to Do After the Informational Interview ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS immediately send a thank-you note within 24 hours of your informational interview. Anything short of that timing is a complete failure.8 Remember, the informational interview process is not only about establishing relationships, but also about creating an image that you are dependable, trustworthy, and a true professional. By wasting no time in sending a thank-you note, the lawyer’s image of you as a professional will be reinforced.

What Should the Thank-You Note Say? Assuming that the interview went well, make sure to inform the lawyer that, as a direct result of your conversation, your interest in his firm was strengthened, and that you will be submitting a formal application. (Assuming, of course, that the firm is hiring.) In the event that your interview went poorly, or that you walked away from your meeting not interested in the firm (or the lawyer), you must still send a note thanking the lawyer for taking the time to meet with you. Also, as I explained above, take the initiative and quickly reach out to your new referrals. Don’t forget to send an update to the person who originally referred you to the lawyer with whom you had the informational interview. First, people like to know the information that they gave you was valuable and that they were able to assist you during this process. Second, it’s an opportunity to reconnect with someone in your network and to maintain that relationship. Make Sure to Organize All of Your Contacts If you still have a Rolodex™, awesome. (By the way, what’s it like under that bush?) If you don’t use a Rolodex™, use an Excel spreadsheet to help organize all of your contacts and to keep track of who introduced you to whom, where each person works, his or her area of practice, and when you last contacted him or her. Using this contact list will help to ensure that your referrals don’t fall through the cracks. Of course, both the Microsoft Office and Apple platforms have very helpful contact programs and applications. J. Conclusion Before you leap out of your seat and begin the informational interviewing process, I ask you to flip back through the last couple of pages. You’ll notice that only a very brief section of this chapter discusses the informational interview itself. Don’t assume that all the action happens in the meeting; rather, all of the benefit that you’ll derive from informational interviewing is earned through hard work and the preparation done before and after the meeting. Ultimately, the informational interview is a networking strategy that should be used in all circumstances, even when you’ve been a lawyer for several years. Through this strategy, you’ll be able to garner more information about your legal community, quickly expand your network, and establish a respected reputation among your peers.

1 Jeff wants to point out that it’s equally, if not more, important to identify the areas in which you don’t want to practice. Jeff, for example, would have rather scrubbed floors with a toothbrush than do tax work (actually, he did scrub floors with a toothbrush in the USMC, so he can make at least a passable comparison). He has nothing against tax attorneys, and he thinks that tax law is a fine practice area. He just doesn’t want to be the guy doing it. 2 In this case, I also suggest you accompany your follow-up email with your original email. The original email will serve as a subtle reminder that the referral never responded, while showing your persistency. 3 Fridays are difficult because, if your target referral doesn’t respond to your email, it’s highly likely that he or she will forget about you come Monday morning. Emailing your target referrals Monday through Thursday gives them a 24-hour opportunity to read, consider, and respond to your email. 4 Nancy’s tip: Never put the addressee’s name in the draft email until you’re ready to send it. That way, you can’t hit “send” by accident. 5 I’m not sure how people who live in bushes get phone books delivered to them, but a good lawyer tries to think of everything. 6 From Elias: Nancy and Jeff wanted me to point out that, for them, “ten minutes early” is “on time.” They’ve been known to scout locations for meetings a day in advance in order to make absolutely sure that they’re on time. 7 Don’t offer your resume again during the informational interview unless the person specifically asks for it. Remember, this is an informational interview, not a formal job interview. 8 There are differing opinions about when to send a thank-you note. Personally, given the speed of email, sending a thank-you note via email for an informational interview is appropriate. During an informational interview with a partner at a preeminent firm, that partner walked me throughout the entire office and introduced me to six other partners and two staff members. During that time, I was trying to remember everyone’s names so that I could hand-write each of them a thank-you note. It’s the extra touches that set you apart from your peers.

ALTHOUGH WE’LL discuss the nuances of the various clerkships, associate, and partnership positions in the following chapters in more detail, there are certain topics that are common to all of these positions. To us, these topics are the foundation upon which everything else is based. If you drop the ball on one of these topics, you might well end up looking for a new job. A. Confidentiality Confidentiality—of client, firm, or chambers information—is absolutely crucial. You know that Vegas marketing tag line that says “What happens in Vegas [ ] stays in Vegas”?1 Well, what happens in your job stays in your job. Don’t talk about what you’re doing or with whom you’re working with anyone who isn’t in your organization. Don’t discuss confidential information with people who are “walled off” inside the firm.2 Sure, you can talk about your work in very general terms (“I’m doing some work in the securities department” or “I’m trying out litigation now” or even “I’ve been assigned to a really cool pro bono case”), but don’t divulge any client information or anything that might lead someone to deduce that client information. Sometimes, even the client’s name is confidential. Confidentiality is a minefield where missteps can be fatal to your career and to your professional reputation. Do the prudent thing and keep quiet. Chambers business is just as confidential as is client information in a law firm. Prove that you’re trustworthy by being careful not just about what you say but about where you say it.3 Depending upon where you are clerking and the type of information that you might disclose, a breach of confidentiality can carry a prison term or a significant civil penalty. If you breach confidentiality as a law clerk (and get found out), that mistake may well prevent you from ever sitting for any bar examination. There are a lot of people who want to trade on inside information. Some of them get to wear orange jumpsuits and end up being called “inmates.” Keep secrets secret. Don’t wear the jumpsuit.

B. Managing Your Workload Second, some work allocation tips: You’re going to be given more work than you can possibly handle, no matter where you work. Either you’ll have short deadlines or you’ll have monstrously large projects, or both. The basic rule is simple: You shouldn’t decide which of your pending assignments gets priority. The person giving you the assignment gets to do that. You facilitate this conversation when you say “I can do X or Y by the deadline, but I can’t do both.” If multiple people are giving you competing assignments (and, most likely, you’ll be getting assignments from several people at once), you should let them sort out the priorities. It is far smarter to let the assigning attorneys fight it out over whose project has priority than it is for you to make that decision. Rest assured, the partner whose project didn’t get done won’t be happy with you when she finds out that you decided her assignment wasn’t your top priority. The one thing that you shouldn’t do is wait until the last minute to warn someone that you won’t make the deadline. Waiting until the last minute prevents the assigning attorney from shifting the assignment to someone who can meet the requested deadline. The instant that you realize that you can’t finish both projects on time, you need to speak up to resolve the deadline priority issue. Sometimes, you’ll realize the impossibility at the time that you get the second assignment; sometimes, that realization comes later on, when one project takes more time than you (or the assigning lawyer) had expected. Waiting until just before a deadline to say that the project will not be done on time is what we call a Career Limiting Move. C. Deadlines Turn your projects in on time. Period. Even if you know that the person assigning you the work will never use it4 or will start to work on it far after the deadline that you had,5 that’s not an excuse to miss a deadline. And, in fact, you can’t know—when you get the assignment—whether the assigning attorney will use it or whether that attorney has given you an artificially early deadline. There are myriad reasons why someone might ask for something and then not use it— either immediately or ever. Your job is to be prompt and accurate in everything that you do. (See Chapter Six for some more pointers about how important being careful about your work is to your career.) D. Working Long Hours

Not only do you have to be careful about the quality of your work product, you will be expected to work hard. What do we mean by working hard? Simply stated, “9 to 5” is not “hard.” We’re talking “late nights and weekends” hard. From time to time, you’ll cover the entire spectrum from the crack of dawn (meaning before 7:00 A.M.) until late night or early morning (as in 2:00 or 3:00 A.M.—or even longer). Occasionally, you’ll have to pull all-nighters to finish a project on time, and frequently, you’ll have to make do without your normal bountiful sleep schedule. Guess what? All professionals—not just lawyers, but all professionals—are expected to work hard. You’ll be much more pleasant to be around, and you’ll keep more friends, if you don’t whine about it.6 Here is an example that shows your options. Assume that you get to the office at 6:30 A.M. Your assignment is to draft an opinion letter regarding a narrow real property issue as part of an asset purchase for one of the firm’s clients. It’s now 6:00 P.M., and the opinion letter is nowhere near done. You need to email the draft to the client no later than 8:00 A.M. the next day so that the client can review it before tomorrow’s 9:30 A.M. conference call. You have at least two to three more hours of work to finish the assignment. What are you going to do? We see three choices:7 1. Grit your teeth and stay the additional two to three hours to finish the assignment and send it out that night. 2. Leave now, but come back extra early (as in 4:00 A.M.), when your brain is relatively fresh, to finish the project and then forward it to the client when it’s done. 3. Stay as long as you can stand it that night. Come back early the next morning (yep, 4:00 A.M.) to finish the letter when you are relatively fresh and then forward it to the client—or the assigning attorney—when it’s done. Although all-nighters are unlikely for summer associates, this scenario is not remotely unique for a first-year associate. As a baby lawyer, you have virtually no control over your calendar. You’re going to be responding to documents filed and actions taken by the other side. In other words, you’ll help to put out fires that are started by others. You’ll be expected to finish all of your assignments and to do so on time. You will not be able to finish them on time if you work bankers’ hours. If you can’t get your assignments done on time, you’ll find yourself looking for work elsewhere.

We have a few final etiquette tips involving timing. When you want to meet with someone, knock before walking in, even if the office door is open. Knocking before entering is a sign of respect. If the person assigning you work is very busy, ask whether coming back later (and if later, exactly when to come back) would be better. If someone is time-crunched, he or she may not want to be disturbed. E. Mistakes and Feedback Mistakes: You’re going to make them, no matter how hard you try to avoid them. Making mistakes is part of the expected learning curve. The key to moving forward is how you respond to a mistake, and what steps you take to prevent it from happening a second time. Anyone who is constantly pushing his boundaries and trying new things will always make some mistakes. A smart person, though, makes new mistakes each time, rather than repeating the old ones. Because you’re destined to make some mistakes, you’ll need to get feedback both in terms of what went wrong but also about what you might do to avoid repeating the same error in the future. You need to know something up front: Most lawyers are awful at providing feedback. At best, they’re too busy to give you the feedback that you need. Most often, they’re just not focused on you and what you’re getting (or trying to get) out of an assignment. They’re thinking about how you fit into their world, not the other way around. The firm should already have a mechanism for providing you with feedback for every project that you turn in, no matter how small the project seems to be. If the firm doesn’t already have such a mechanism, then you need to be proactive and create your own system.8 It can be as simple as inviting the assigning attorney out for coffee or lunch and asking: “Did I do a decent job? What could I do better?” Most folks will tell you that “no news is good news,” meaning that, if you aren’t getting bad feedback,9 then you’re doing a good job. Unfortunately, the “no feedback” rule provides absolutely no information on how you can improve your work product. You need to seek out feedback regarding your assignments—all of them. You want your assignments to be “well done,” not just “acceptable.” You want to be the “go-to” associate for the senior associates and partners in your area. You don’t get to that status without getting feedback on how you can improve your work product. One of the easiest ways to make that qualitative transition to being a good lawyer is to ask how you can do a better job.

F. When to Go to Work Jeff believes that lawyers at law firms seem to fall into one of two groups: the early birds (the attorneys who get to work at 6:30 to 7:00 A.M. but leave by 6:00 or 6:30 P.M.) and the night owls (these folks roll in at 9:00 or 9:30 A.M., but stay until midnight).10 During the bulk of the day (from, say, 9:30 A.M. until 6:00 P.M.), everyone is usually in the office. At almost every firm, you can be an “early bird” or “night owl” without worrying that your choice is going to hurt your career, but you need to be sure that you’re at work when the people for whom you’re working are also at work. That way, you’re available to them for consultation on existing projects and to receive additional work, and they’re available to answer questions and give you assignments. In fact, you should try hard to get into the office before the person to whom you’re reporting gets in, at least most of the time. Of course, if you’re working with a mix of early birds and night owls, then you should find a way to accommodate both groups.

G. Dating in the Workplace The following is a cautionary word about dating in the workplace. It’s possible that you’ll find your soul mate at work. It’s also possible that you’ll win the lottery. From our experience, finding your soul mate at work and winning the lottery have roughly the same odds. Simply stated, the risk created by dating inside your firm or clerkship office is high, and in our opinion, not worth the risk to your career. Virtually all office romances go south, and then someone has to leave to find a new job. You can’t date “up” (dating someone who outranks you) without being accused of getting, or attempting to get, preferential treatment. You can’t date “down” (dating someone whom you outrank, including junior attorneys and support staff) because that could be construed as sexual harassment (maybe just in hindsight, but it’s a risk, and you’re almost guaranteed to end up in a dispute about how

consensual the relationship really was). You can’t date “sideways” (someone of your same rank) without running the risk of making an enemy after you break up. That doesn’t leave any options, does it? Good. If at all possible, you should do your dating elsewhere.11 If you absolutely must date someone at the firm or inside the judge’s chambers (if you’re in a judicial clerkship), first make sure that you’re not violating any firm or court policies. The more cynical one of us is itching to point out that you’re not really going to have a lot of time to date during the early part of your legal career, but the other one of us thinks that you should and will discover that on your own.12 We understand that, when you’re working 10-12 hour days, sometimes 6 or 7 days a week, you won’t have much time or energy to find your special someone outside the workplace. Additionally, you’ll create some tight bonds and lasting friendships with the folks who are sharing the office with you during those long hours. Nonetheless, we stand behind our position that dating within the firm or courthouse is an extremely bad idea. Now that we’ve briefed you on the common aspects of work, it’s time to describe those aspects that differ depending on where you’re working and on how senior you are. Let’s go! 1 Nancy is irked by the unnecessary comma in the real tagline. She feels better having taken it out of this reference. 2 Sometimes, the firm or court will segregate some of its people on a case from others who might pose a conflict of interest. If there’s an ethical wall (also called, for no apparently useful reason, a Chinese wall), honor it by making sure that you’re not breaching that wall in any way (phone messages, memos, conversations in hallways or elevators, or cell phone conversations). You can get your firm or yourself in serious trouble if you’re not careful. 3 You should, of course, talk with your judge about cases while in the judge’s chambers. That’s how you learn why the judge made a particular decision or what the judge thinks about certain lawyers’ behavior. 4 Although, really, you may never know that some of your work won’t get used somewhere. You just might not hear about it being used, which is an issue about feedback. 5 Sometimes the assigning attorney will simply route your work product to someone else to mix into a larger project that you don’t ever see. Don’t presume that your work went into a black hole never to be read. That kind of thinking will eventually erode your confidence in the assigning attorney and also your desire to keep working at that firm. Unless your firm is churning fees, then someone wanted you to do the work, whether or not your words make it into a final project. 6 Although others can likely exceed Jeff’s “record,” Jeff’s record for “working hard” consisted of working 13 straight weeks without a single day off (and most of those days were of the 10-12 billing hour variety). “Burnt out” is an understatement. But the work needed to get done, and Jeff was the person assigned to do it. He got it done; then he took a one-week vacation in Nova Scotia (awesome place, by the

way). 7 For Jeff, option #1 is not a viable option. He knows that his brain starts to shut down after 12 hours or so in the saddle. He will likely go with option #3 and gut it out until his brain shuts down. After “shutdown,” he knows that he’s better off getting some sleep and starting fresh the next morning. Nancy is likely to go with option #1 because she lives in fear of sleeping through her alarm in the morning. 8 Most firms will assign a mentor to each summer associate. Part of that mentor’s job is to help you get the feedback that you need in order to be successful during your clerkship. 9 Some attorneys can be notoriously loud when providing such feedback—they’re the “yellers.” (If we were nicer, we’d avoid the bad pun “Old Yeller,” but we’re not that nice.) Mostly, senior lawyers’ feedback will consist of statements like “I had to redo that research,” “I was disappointed in the memo that you drafted,” and “I will have to write off your time entirely.” Comments like these hurt, but they also tell you that you’re not giving the assigning attorney what he wanted from you. If you get too many of these comments, then soon you’ll be looking for another job.

Once in a while, you may actually get constructive criticism from an assigning attorney. That person is worth her weight in gold. She will tell you exactly what you could have done better and how to make it better the next time. Assigning attorneys who give good feedback are the folks who will help you be a better attorney. They deserve your attention and your loyalty. 10 Notice our subtle (OK, not so subtle) point that neither type of lawyer is putting in just an eighthour day. 11 Another good aspect of dating outside the office is that it gives you a chance to take a mental break from your work. When you’re working hard, escaping the grind and stress is critical to maintaining a decent perspective on life. 12 Nancy had intermittent attempts at a social life when she was working at her firm, but she had to cancel a lot of plans because client needs came first. As the Marines told Jeff, “if we wanted you to have a life [outside of being a Marine], we would have issued you one.” We’ll bet that your firm didn’t issue you one, so just go back to work.

THERE ARE two very different types of clerkships: the summer “testing the waters with a temporary job” kind,1 and the post-graduation “first legal job, and I get to work for a judge” kind.2 We’ll discuss them separately, but they have one thing in common: How you perform here will set the tone for your entire legal career. We know, we know—no pressure there. But you’re going to form some work habits that can either serve you well or ill. A. Summer Clerkships This is your chance to see if you like the firm and if the firm likes you. If you have the whole summer at the firm, you’ll have many opportunities to interact with the lawyers, paralegals, and support staff—not to mention your fellow summer associates. If you’re splitting your summer between two employers, then you’ll have to make your decision on less information, but we think that you’ll still have enough information to make an informed decision.3 Of course, so will the firm(s). The First Day During your first day (or first few days), you’ll get an orientation to the firm, which typically includes how to bill your time, where the form bank and memo banks are located,4 and how you’ll get your assignments. If the firm rotates its summer associates through various departments, you’ll hear about that, too. If the firm assigns you a mentor, you’ll meet that person. Pay attention, especially to law firm policies and about how to record your time. Here’s a timeline to give you a feel for how billable hours fit into the life of a law firm:5 1. You record your time, describing it in particular detail (not just “research” but “research X”) and in the units of time (e.g., quarter-hours or tenths of an hour) that the firm requires.

2. The billing partner reviews your time and decides whether to include all of it in the client’s bill or to write some or all of it off. 3. The client gets the bill. 4. If the client isn’t happy about the bill, the client talks with the billing partner about the perceived issues with the bill. 5. The billing partner may then redo the bill in accordance with the client’s wishes. 6. The client gets the new version of the bill. 7. In a perfect world, the client pays the bill on time. 8. With income from the firm’s clients, the firm can cover its overhead (yes, that includes your salary, along with payment for everybody else’s salaries and benefits, malpractice insurance, office space, books and electronic databases, etc.) and still make money for the partners.6 So if you do a bad job of recording your time (or, even worse, you fail to record your time at all), you’ve started a ripple effect that will end up with partners not getting as much money as they otherwise should. Partners want to get their money; preventing them from doing so is bad. That would be another Career Limiting Move. The First Week Although some summer associate programs have a very loose and fun feel, the program is designed to sift through the various participants and identify the summer associates that the firm wants to hire for a full-time job after graduation. Take your job seriously; your career with the firm depends upon how you perform this summer. Even if it might not look like it, the firm takes your performance very seriously. Several things will occur during your first week at the firm. You’ll be introduced to far too many people, including attorneys and staff, to possibly recall all of their names. That’s normal. Additionally, you’ll be given lots of “firm network” information, meaning passwords and access methods. Most firms will help you log onto the computer and then will email a lot of this information to you. Try to write it all down. Absent an eidetic memory, if it’s not written down, you’ll forget this information. You will start to receive work assignments from attorneys at the firm. In some cases, the attorneys have been waiting for you to arrive, and the assignment is a time-based priority. Others will come your way as an attorney

sifts through her own day and workload. In all cases, you need to find a way to prioritize these projects so that you can return them to the proper person on time. Your designated mentor can help with the prioritization issues that may arise when you have two attorneys both believing that they are your top priority. At lots of firms, you’ll spend one or two days the first week (and maybe more) going out to lunch with various attorneys. Your presence at these lunches is not really voluntary; you need to be there to interact with the attorneys so that they can get to know you. Take note that these group lunches are not the norm in regular firm life. A normal lunch between associates does not take 1.5-2.0 hours.7 You’ll start getting to know your fellow summer associates and the people at the firm. There may be various social events to attend. Go, even if you’re shy.8 The only way for the firm to get to know you as a person is for you to interact with its people. If you don’t know whom to talk to at the event, find someone who’s standing alone and talk with that person, who’ll likely also be relieved not to be alone any more. Our advice is to ask that person something about himself. From our experience, people like to talk about themselves. More important, you might learn something interesting from the conversation. Conversation starters include “what do you do at the firm?” and “are you from [insert name of city] originally”? If the person isn’t a good conversationalist, then you can excuse yourself after a reasonable time. Firm social events aren’t really optional. The firm provides them as a way of letting the people at the firm get to know you in a different setting. You’ll get to know them, too. Your chance of getting an offer from the firm if you’ve avoided all of the firm’s social functions is virtually zero. Stupid Summer Associate Stunts That paragraph about social events reminds us of a few things that you should never, ever do. Those include: 1. Getting drunk at a firm event. 2. Hitting on someone at an event. 3. Insulting someone at an event.9 4. Hitting “reply all” on a snarky email. Use your imagination. There are a million ways to mess up, and most of them involve consuming too much alcohol. Even if you have a good tolerance for alcohol, limit your drinking at these events to what you know you can

handle. Firm social events are not frat parties. Think of the firm’s social events as part of an extended job interview. If you mess up at one of these events, the lawyers won’t forget. If, like Nancy, a quarter of a glass of wine makes you loopy, just have club soda or tonic water or some juice. Bartenders can make all sorts of non-alcoholic drinks that will still let you have a drink in your hand. One more warning: Don’t drive while under the influence. Being cited for DUI as a clerk is the kiss of death, and it won’t do your bar application much good, either. But there are numerous other ways to mess up at work socially as well. Those include being snide or insulting to the support staff, losing your temper and snapping at the support staff, telling someone that you don’t like her area of work and are doing the project for her under duress, and (we kid you not) wearing a Speedo or a thong bikini to a pool party. (You can just see this coming from a mile off at summer firm pool party events, can’t you?10) There are some things that, having seen them, you can’t get them out of your mind, no matter how much you try. Some firms have adopted the “make the clerks work hard” approach; others have a more relaxed summer associate program. If you work at a firm that lets you have free time after, say, 6:00 P.M., try to avoid gloating if you’re leaving early, especially in front of stressed-out associates who are looking forward to many, many long evenings at work. Rest assured, those associates will remember your gloating when it’s time to turn in their final evaluations of your performance. Working with Support Staff Good support staff can help you immeasurably. They can help you succeed and, to be sure, they can kill your chances of getting hired. Tick one of them off, and you’ll find that the work that you give, say, an assistant, never gets done on time.11 Support staff have to prioritize their work in the same way that you do, so if you irritate them, guess whose work goes to the bottom of the pile and stays there. Many of the support staff—including the assistants—know a lot more than you do about the practice of law. They can help you proofread, show you faster and better ways to work, and generally make you look smarter than you actually are. In other words, they’re allies, unless you make them your enemies. True story: Nancy has a friend who was an assistant in a big office. That friend was so good at her job that she’d correct the Bluebooking errors of her attorneys. One of those attorneys asked her to stop, because correcting cites wasn’t part of the job description. She did, and that attorney’s work product went

downhill fast. The easiest and probably most frequently encountered way to mess up is to do your assignments poorly.12 If you don’t understand what you’re supposed to be doing, find someone to ask. If you’re spinning your wheels, go back and ask the assigning attorney (or a paralegal)13 how else to approach your assignment. If you turn in a memo riddled with errors, the attorney who gave you that assignment will think that you’re not very smart. (And you’ve now given her written evidence to back up that opinion.) Because she will likely have to re-do the assignment herself, she probably won’t want to work with you again. You’ve made her life worse by slowing her down. Rest assured, she’ll also tell other people about the “quality” of your work. Pile up enough people who don’t want to work with you, and you won’t get an offer. Commit the dynamic duo of errors (your work is bad and it’s late) more than once, and you can effectively kiss an offer goodbye. What If You Don’t Like the Firm? If you’ve been at the firm for a while and you don’t like the type of work it does (or the people you’re working with), don’t insult the people at the firm. Don’t tell them how they could do more interesting work or be nicer people. You never know when you’ll see them again, and they have friends in other places. Be as pleasant as you can, and file away the knowledge that you’re going to have to look for work somewhere else.14 Simply stated, burning bridges is a really bad idea. Unless you move frequently, you’re guaranteed to see these folks when you start to practice law. They can, and will, make your life miserable if you insult them on your way out the door. Payback is hell. Finishing Up the Summer At the end of the summer, say your goodbyes to every single person who helped you, from the receptionist to the senior partner. Make sure that all of your projects are done or, if they can’t be completed in time, make sure that you write a detailed memo saying what you’ve already done (including any research that you did) and what still needs to be done. Be professional now, and they’ll remember. What If You Don’t Get an Offer?

Your summer just ended, and you and the other summer clerks are scampering back to their various schools. During your exit interview, the firm tells you that it will let everyone know about future employment prospects by letter15 within a few weeks (the partners need to get together to talk about you and the other clerks). So here you sit looking at a letter from someone at the firm (possibly your mentor, but more likely the hiring partner or hiring coordinator) stating that the firm isn’t going to be able to extend you an offer of employment. The explanatory language is mostly generic but always knifes straight into your gut: “No, thank you.” At this point, you’re thinking one of two things: “I figured this was coming” or “What the HECK!!! Where is this coming from?” In fact, you ought not to be saying the second phrase. Remember, you were supposed to be getting feedback on every assignment that you did during your summer—on every project, no matter how small.16 If you didn’t seek out any feedback on anything you did over the summer, then you also didn’t take any steps to correct any of the numerous potential errors that you were making.17 If you’ve been getting constructive feedback on every project, but you continue to miss critical arguments or deadlines, then it’s not really a surprise that you didn’t get a job offer, is it? However, if all of your feedback involved glowing praise, then you are completely justified in feeling stunned when you don’t get a job offer.18 Maybe the job wasn’t a good fit, or maybe the economy has forced the firm not to extend many offers. If the problem isn’t you, then you might be able to garner some good references out of your summer clerkship. A good reference from your summer employer is going to go a long way for a potential future employer, especially if the reference is one in which the firm states that it was truly sorry that it couldn’t offer you a job, given that you were exactly what the firm would have been looking for in a new associate. Just remember: In most professions (and certainly in law), relationships mean everything. Don’t burn any bridges, even if you’re upset. Maybe, though, the problem is you. There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to ask someone whom you trust if you did something wrong.19 You may not get a straight answer, but it’s worthwhile to try. If you can find out what went wrong, then you can take steps either to prevent a similar situation from occurring at the next firm or to find a different way to do things that may be more acceptable to the next firm. Lots of “problems” can be readily addressed and overcome. If it’s a question of poor research and writing skills, you can fix that. You can also make

a habit of paying attention to the time that it takes to complete a project before a deadline. If, however, it’s a problem of misunderstanding assignments or not doing what you were asked to do, the fix becomes a bit more difficult. Nevertheless, until you know what the problem(s) were, you can’t take any steps to address the situation. B. Judicial Clerkships If you’re reading this chapter because you’re about to start a judicial clerkship, congratulations! Judicial clerkships are hard to get, and, in our collective opinion, they’re one of the very best learning experiences that you’ll ever have. (Jeff learned to construe statutes from his judge, and he’s one of the best “construers” in the country now.20) But there are some quirks about state and federal clerkships that you’ll need to know. There Is No “I” in “Team.” There’s Also No Hierarchy, Other Than That the Judge Outranks You There may be several people in the judge’s chambers, and they may have different titles, but they’re all on the same organizational chart line—below the judge. Just to clarify:

That means that you don’t “pull rank”—ever, and that you respect everyone’s unique contributions to the work of the chambers. What Judges Want

Judges want to get their work done on time, and they want not to be reversed. Unless you’re clerking for a United States Supreme Court Justice (not much of a reversal problem there, right?), you need to do your work carefully and on time. You might have to do a bench brief (explaining what the law is regarding the matter before the judge) or a draft opinion. Figure out the judge’s writing style and preferred format for work product, and stick to it. Nancy and Jeff both asked their judges to give them exemplars for the work product that they needed to produce. They followed those examples in terms of both format and tone to give the judges what they wanted. It should go without saying, but here goes: The judge is the one who wears the robe and signs the opinion. When it’s all said and done, it’s the judge’s name attached to your (edited) work product. Even though you may be absolutely certain that your analysis is correct, if the judge wants to go in a different direction, then you must give the judge what he wants. Jeff’s first judge21 told Jeff that he wanted Jeff to stick to his guns when the two of them disagreed on an interpretation of the law. They would discuss their interpretations of the statute and how they reached their conclusions. Rarely did Jeff persuade his judge to change his mind when they disagreed, but it happened just often enough that Jeff can still tell you what some of those cases were about. Once the judge decides how he wants to rule, though, your time for respectful disagreement is at an end. Everything that happens in chambers is designed to do one thing: Help the judge make the correct decision as quickly as possible. Current case loads are massive. Courts are swamped with work. Making the chamber run smoothly takes cooperation and coordination among the staff in chambers, including the law clerk(s) and externs. As such, there is a burning need for efficiency to get tasks accomplished both properly and timely. Jeff didn’t love every second of his clerking experience over the years, but he is the first to say that it was a wonderful learning experience. (Nancy loved every second of hers, though.) Clerking gives the participant a view of both the law and of the legal system that simply cannot be had anywhere else. What Judicial Assistants Want They want the chambers to run smoothly. (See what judges want, supra.) They also want to do their own work efficiently and to be reasonably helpful to the people who call into the chambers. So when you’re answering the phone, be as pleasant and as helpful as you can. Realize that someone who calls into the

judge’s chambers may well call back and explain to the judge how rude and unhelpful you were. We call being rude a Career Limiting Move. You should find out from the judge’s judicial assistant (often called a “JA” or “JEA”) what the limits of your “helpfulness” can be in terms of telling attorneys who call in what they can and can’t do. Supervising Externs Your judge may allow externs in the chambers. Although your judge may have some interaction with them, you’ll likely have the day-to-day responsibility of supervising them and, in some cases, providing them with work assignments. If you do supervise externs, you should nurture them and give them the benefit of your experience.22 Jeff has supervised numerous law clerks and externs. He viewed his job as acting as their safety net. He provided them all with substantive projects, and let them ask questions—and make mistakes—on the projects. Making mistakes is part of the expected learning curve, and you need to let that happen. Jeff is certain that he remembers his mistakes far longer than the “attaboys” from his work experience. Jeff never let his externs or law clerks get completely stranded, as he checked with his charges frequently to see where they were in their various projects. That is the “safety net” part of supervision. Let them learn by hard knocks; just soften the knocks a bit. Give them as much feedback as you can—after all, you were once a law student, too. Should You Interview for Jobs During Your Clerkship? That depends on your judge’s policy about interviewing during clerkships. Some judges allow it but ask you not to work on any matters for any potential employers. Some flat-out prohibit it. If you’re working for a judge who prohibits it, find out how close to the end of your clerkship term you may start looking for work. If you get a job while you’re clerking, then you absolutely have to stop working on matters for that employer. Should You Sit for the Bar During Your Clerkship? Some judges prefer you to wait until after your clerkship is over before you sit for the bar, and some judges want you to be admitted to the bar before you start work. Most of them, though, don’t care if you study for the bar during your clerkship,23 as long as you don’t slack off during the day. Given how much work

is involved in studying for the bar, you may not have time both to study and do a good job for your judge. Guess which is more important.24 Stupid Judicial Clerk Stunts One of our co-clerks (we won’t say which one of us) had a problem with work. He just didn’t do enough of it. When he did it, it was either late, or too wordy, or just plain wrong. After a while, the judge stopped giving him anything significant to do. He drew a salary, of course, whether he worked hard or not, but he lost the possibility of getting any sort of decent reference from the judge or from his co-clerks. Other stupid clerk stunts include breaching confidentiality, using a bench memo to the judge as a writing sample for another job without first getting the judge’s permission to do so, gossiping, posting things on social media, and being snotty to co-workers. Being a judicial clerk is a position of trust. If you abuse your judge’s trust, you’ve hurt your own career and destroyed the close-knit nature of the chambers. C. How to Leave Your Clerkship on Good Terms First, do an extraordinary job during your clerkship. Your sole job is to make your judge’s life easier. Go beyond what your assignments require and think of the next step that will follow your piece of the puzzle. Don’t just draft a memo; attach a proposed order for the judge to consider as well. If someone else in the chambers is overworked and you have some free time, volunteer to help that person.25 Remember, judges and other court staff talk with each other all the time. You want the people who have worked with you to be able to say good things about your work ethic and your work product. If you had a good year or two of clerking, you’ll hate to leave that job. (The one of us who doesn’t have a crew-cut cried on her last day of work.) Just as with summer clerkships, make sure that you make your goodbyes to everyone at the court who was nice to you, and make sure that you leave a detailed memo about anything that you didn’t finish. Both of us are still friends with people with whom we worked during our clerkships. Chambers are small enough, and courts are a small enough world, that we bonded deeply with our colleagues. We hope that you’ll have the same good experiences that we did.

1 We also discuss summer jobs in our first book, LAW SCHOOL SURVIVAL MANUAL: FROM LSAT TO BAR EXAM (2010) (in Chapter Eleven). 2 And we discuss summer clerkships in the LAW SCHOOL SURVIVAL MANUAL in Chapter Thirteen. 3 A split summer gives the student an opportunity to see two firms, not just one. The only real downside to a split summer is that you will not have as much time to learn about each firm; nor will each firm have a lot of time to learn about you. As such, you’ll need to maximize your available time at each firm to learn as much as you can—as fast as you can. We both know students who originally wanted to do a split summer but decided to stay with the first firm for the entire summer, declining the opportunity to join the second firm. As far as we can tell, the second firm didn’t seem to hold a grudge. 4 We’re “old school,” so forgive us if we sometimes think in terms of saving an actual hard copy of a brief or motion in a filing cabinet. We know that most of these briefs, motions, and memoranda will be located in a folder someplace on the firm’s network. 5 And most law firms still bill by the hour (actually, in increments of an hour), although many clients are pushing for alternative billing arrangements. 6 Sometimes, they’re shareholders and not partners, but the point is the same: They’re the owners, and they get their money last, after everyone else has been paid. 7 For both of us, taking an actual “lunch break” wasn’t a daily occurrence. Normally, we’d dash out for take-out with a fellow associate and then eat at our desk while trying to finish a pressing project. Maybe non-lawyers would consider that daily “let’s dash out for food” gathering as a pitiful attempt at bonding, but we enjoyed having even a brief visit with people who were working as hard as we were. 8 Both of us are shy—though one is less shy than the other—but we try to hide it well. 9 You never know if someone is within earshot, so save the snide comments until you’ve left the area. Insulting someone to his face is definitely a bad idea. 10 Sweating heavily on the partner’s new leather couch is also not a good idea, and yes, that really happened. 11 Like you, these folks are getting work assignments from several different people—all of whom outrank you. They’re the ones who prioritize whose work they do first…and last. 12 To get a wonderful overview on how to impress law firm partners, read Mark Herrmann, This Is What I’m Thinking: A Dialogue Between Partner and Associate…From the Partner, LITIGATION 8 (Fall 1998). 13 Nancy was a paralegal, briefly. Don’t ever insult paralegals in front of her. The same is true of administrative assistants. Yep, she was one of those, too. 14 Nancy has had a record number of “worked with more than once” experiences: overlaps with colleagues at Nebraska and Houston, Houston and UNLV, and even MoFo and a treatise. (The good news is that she really likes each of these people and has been happy to reconnect with all of them.) 15 It’s possible that someone at the firm may tell you in person, but that’s unlikely. 16 See Chapter Three, Section E, Mistakes and Feedback. 17 Making mistakes (as long as they are not career-ending mistakes) is not fatal to getting a job offer. Firms know that you are inexperienced and that you will make mistakes. They’re watching to see what you do after you make a mistake. Did you change your behavior or work product to show that you now understand what is expected from you? If not, that may well convert a minor error into a Career Limiting Move. If you never seek feedback, then you will likely not make the necessary adjustments.

18 Assuming you fit into this category, all is still not lost. Seek out some of the folks from whom you received glowing praise and see if they’re willing to give you a positive reference. They may well have voted to hire you, disagreeing with the firm’s decision. As we said, the legal industry is all about relationships. 19 You may get lucky, and the firm will give you that feedback as part of your exit interview (perhaps accompanied by the rationale for not extending you the offer). Remember, if you’ve been seeking out and obtaining feedback from your projects throughout the summer, you should have a decent idea where you stand before the exit interview. Feedback won’t prevent a business decision that goes against you and your other summer associate compatriots, but if your work was good, you may well get a reference to help you find other employment. 20 Nancy wrote this sentence, not Jeff, and Jeff blushed when he read it. 21 Justice Andrew Douglas, Supreme Court of Ohio. Jeff has clerked or otherwise worked for twelve judges or justices altogether, including all seven of the Supreme Court of Ohio justices simultaneously when he was a Master Commissioner for the Court. 22 Jeff does not really believe in hazing the new guys, as he has been in that role plenty himself, following Nancy from state to state and town to town. 23 Sometimes, you can get a salary bump during your clerkship if you become a member of the bar. 24 Nancy took the bar after her clerkship, and she was perfectly fine working at her firm in the interim between starting work and getting sworn in. She just couldn’t give legal advice until she was admitted, but there was plenty for her to do instead. Her firm gave her some time off to study for the bar, which is something that the judge wasn’t going to do. Jeff took the bar midway through his clerkship with Justice Douglas. He was fortunate that Justice Douglas gave him two weeks off from work immediately before the bar to study. 25 Note: We said “that person,” not “that clerk.” The JA / JEA may need help. An extern may need help. Your judge may know another judge who needs help. Make yourself useful to anyone who could use your assistance.

WE KNOW that you have a lot of questions about how to begin your professional life, and we’re going to walk you through issues that you’ll face in your first year of practice and beyond. First, though, we want to spend some time walking you through some ethics issues that you’ll face no matter where you work. A. Billing Your Time If you’re at a firm that bills its clients by the hour, you should know how to allocate and bill your time.1 Here are some things that you’ll have to learn: 1. In what increments are you supposed to account for your time? Typical examples include tenths of an hour (every six minutes) or quarter-hours. Not only do you need to know the units of time, but you’ll also need to know what makes up the minimum increment for starting a billing entry. For example, leaving a phone message takes roughly 30 seconds. If the minimum increment is six minutes, are you supposed to count that 30 seconds as “free”? As a tenth of an hour? Keep track of it until the cumulative time adds up to six minutes? Find out what your firm wants you to do.2 Find out, too, about things like how to bill travel time (do you bill from your house or from the office?) on client matters and what the rules are regarding expenses. It’s better to know the rules up front than have to redo things. 2. Develop the habit of recording your time contemporaneously. Do something, then write down what you did (in sufficient detail that the client reading the bill can figure out what it was that you were doing)3 and how long it took you to do it. Alternatively, as you begin each new task, write down the client and matter numbers and a brief description of what you’re about to do, so that when you get finished with that task, you

can simply look at the clock and fill in the time that you spent on that task. Regardless of which method you use, if you’re jumping from client to client and doing different matters for those various clients in quick succession, you need to take time every few hours (or more frequently) to capture what you did in billable terms. The longer you wait, the less detail you’ll be able to remember. At that point, one of two bad things will happen: You’ll underbill your time, because you forgot something, or you’ll overbill your time. Overbilling is actually called “fraud.”4 3. Don’t block-bill your clients; most clients require a detailed and separated bill. From time to time, Nancy works as a fee examiner in large chapter 11 bankruptcies. One of the rules about billing time in those cases is that time descriptions shouldn’t be lumped together as a single block. For example, a block-billed entry looks like this: “prepare for and attend hearing and draft memo to file re same, 5.6 hours.” You should be breaking your time entries down to their component parts, like this: “prepare for hearing (3.9 hours), attend hearing (1.2 hours), draft memo to file regarding hearing outcome (.5 hours)”). This level of detail helps the client (or, in chapter 11 cases, it helps the court) reviewing the bill to decide if everything that you did took the amount of time that it should have. When Nancy has asked professionals in her cases to un-lump their time, she’s always been skeptical about the result. The odds of really being able to remember how much time it took to do something, months later, approach zero. Here’s a quick billing quiz: Write down everything that you did yesterday, in tenths of an hour. You can figure out some things pretty easily: • Brush teeth, 0.1 (See? We understand that some tasks have to be “rounded up” to the closest unit. We’re not really expecting you to brush your teeth for a whole six minutes, although—if you also floss—your dentist will be very proud of you.) • Eat breakfast, 0.5 (Are you sure?) • Read newspapers, 0.7 (Same question here: Are you sure that you didn’t spend 0.4 reading the papers? 0.9?) • Drive to work, 0.3 hours. The rest of your day is likely a fuzzy haze. (How many phone calls did you get, and from whom? What did you talk about, and for how long?) Some items are easy to recreate because you can look at your email and see what you received

and what you sent. But how long did it take you to draft each email or to read the emails that you received? You get our point. Going back and recreating your day yesterday will be an imprecise task. Asking someone to recreate a week’s worth of time sheets is simply not possible, unless you have a photographic memory, and not many of us fit that category. Record your time contemporaneously, and you’ll be much better off (and more honest). Virtually every computer today will allow you to run multiple applications simultaneously. Jeff kept his time sheet on the desktop at all times and filled out the sheet as he slogged his way through each day. At the end of the day, the program totaled the time. All he had to do was hit “save” after each entry (he never wanted to lose a time sheet) and send a copy to accounting by email. Remember: Your billable time doesn’t exist if you can’t prove it (so keep a copy of the email to accounting, too). Jeff never had his paycheck withheld5 for failing to turn in his time sheets on time. Speaking of “honest,” no matter how much pressure you’re feeling to bill ever-higher amounts of time, don’t lie about your hours.6 If you think that you spent too much time on a particular project (and we guarantee that, sooner or later, you will have this feeling), that’s an issue for the billing partner to address with the bill to the client. The firm needs to know what you’re doing at work. The firm, billing partner, and your mentor all want to get a feel for your learning curve and how you’re progressing as an attorney. Turning in accurate time sheets will provide a ballpark glimpse of how you’re doing. And if you’re not billing enough time to keep the firm happy,7 lying about your hours by padding them (.1 extra here, .2 extra there) is, well, fraud.8 Don’t do it. Now that we’ve gotten the ethics issue of billable time out of the way, we want to spend some time coaching you about the people that can help you stay on the straight and narrow and who can facilitate your rise in the firm to partner or shareholder. B. Mentors and Sponsors—Why You Need Both Everyone talks about having mentors, and there’s a good reason. Mentors tell you the truth, give you frank feedback, and good advice. They can help you model your own behavior and show you how to be an ethical and successful lawyer. The firm may assign you a mentor, but you should also find at least one more on your own. Look around for a while, and look for someone who’s a straight shooter. (Mentors don’t all have to be lawyers, by the way.9 A mentor can be anyone who can give you smart advice.) You need to find someone in

whom you can confide and with whom you can decompress from time to time. Don’t monopolize the mentor’s time (that’s why you’ll need more than one), and show your gratitude frequently. (That doesn’t mean that you need to buy the mentor expensive gifts. But a cup of coffee or some lunch now and then is a nice gesture.) Mentor vs. sponsor. So what’s the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? Sponsors actually put you in situations in which you’ll shine. They’ll recommend you for projects, help you get speaking gigs, and generally move your career forward. A person can simultaneously be both a mentor and a sponsor, but those are different skill sets, and not everyone has both of those skill sets. Show your gratitude to your sponsors, too. If you can recommend them for things like a speaking engagement or conference, that’s a good way to return the favors that they’ve been bestowing on you. The most important way to return the favor, though, is to perform at the top of your game. If someone’s recommending you for something, and you do a bad job, your performance hurts your sponsor, too. C. Navigating the Waters of a Small Firm or Going Solo Whether you’re at a big firm or a small one (or you’ve started your own solo practice), there are some additional ethics issues for you to consider. These issues include the concepts of competence and diligence. Maybe you went to a law school that taught you enough about how to practice law that you feel competent right away. We didn’t.10 Although the concepts of competence and diligence apply equally to all firms regardless of size, the population of people who can and will provide you with assistance to prevent you from committing malpractice is dramatically larger in the medium-sized and large firms. We’ll discuss the small firm first in order to emphasize the potential for problems related to the limited scope of the safety net located inside the firm. Other than that, the issues discussed below regarding large firms apply to smaller firms as well. Competence Every state’s ethics rules require a lawyer to serve her clients competently. That means that you need to know the current law (or affiliate with someone who does) and that you should understand the facts of your client’s matter. Clients rarely come to you and say, “I think I have a section 365(n) issue. Can

you fix it?” Unless they, too, are lawyers in the same field that you’re in, the chances are good that they’ll come to you with a problem that needs your help to solve. You’re going to have to diagnose what problem(s) they have, which means that you’re going to have to ask them the types of questions that get at their issue from several different directions. Good lawyers spot issues that their clients may never even have considered. Here’s an example. Let’s say that you are doing consumer-side debtor work, and someone comes into your office for help in filing a bankruptcy petition. Not only do you have to ask that person a lot of questions about what he has and what, if anything, he wants to try to keep (so that you can help him figure out which Bankruptcy Code chapter he should use), but you’re going to have to figure out if he’s given anything away (and, if so, when and to whom) or paid any creditor recently. He’s not going to give you any useful information if you ask him if he’s done any fraudulent transfers or made any preferential payments. He might, though, be able tell you if he’s given anyone any gifts or asked anyone to hold any property for him during the bankruptcy. If you listen to the answers he’s giving you, maybe you’ll be able to figure out if he has anything of value, like an autographed baseball or a mint-condition baseball card collection. To get to that, though, you’ll need to ask him if he has any hobbies. You’re going to have to avoid legalese and speak “human-ese”—and you’re going to think hard about what he tells you. That’s part of being competent. The smaller the firm, the fewer people there are who can answer your questions. If you’re in a small firm that specializes in a particular area of law, then you’ll have more people to help you than if you’re in a general practice firm in which everyone may be practicing in a different area of law. You may be able to get advice from people outside your small firm (and without breaching confidentiality). There are bar association groups that specialize in your legal field—or those that help new lawyers. You’re going to want to meet other people in your practice area, anyway. If you can join a specialty “Inn of Court,”11 that will also get you in regular contact with people who want to help you become a good lawyer. Diligence The smaller the office, the less support staff you may have, which may affect your ability to produce work product on time. If you don’t have someone else helping you keep your deadlines straight (“calendaring”), then you have to be extra careful about blocking off not just when something’s due but when you

need to start doing it. (More about this in Chapter Six, including a juicy horror story from Nancy’s past.) The smaller the office, too, the more prepared you have to be before you can take a vacation or deal with emergencies. Someone has to tend to your clients’ needs when you’re gone. You need to have a plan in place to be able to hand off things to someone who can handle them in your absence (and who doesn’t have a conflict of interest problem when you hand those things off). You’ll also need to take special care to keep your clients’ confidences. Especially if you have a small staff (or a small office, physically), you need to make sure that you keep papers, phone messages, and files away from prying eyes. Visitors to your office can be devious, and while you’re chatting with someone sitting on the other side of your desk, she might well be reading some of what’s on your desk, even though it’s upside down.12 Remind your team to keep things out of sight if the public can access their areas. Remember: It’s really not that difficult to read something upside down, is it? Get our point? We thought so. Our last point is about the people in your firm. (If you’re truly a solo, with no support staff, it’s OK to skip to the part of this chapter about working with different cultures.) If you’re working with other people, their behavior is your business, because (1) they could commit malpractice, (2) they could violate some laws, including some ethics rules, and (3) you’re in a joint venture of sorts with them. You’ll want to work only with people you can trust. The smaller the practice group, the more you’re going to need to like and respect your colleagues. D. Navigating the Waters of a Large Firm Even if you’re at a large firm, you’ll face some of the same issues that the small-and-solo folks face if your practice group is small. (So don’t skip that part of this chapter.) The scary part to both of us—as former big-firm lawyers13—is that you’re likely never going to know everyone at your firm after the firm size passes a certain point. For all you know, some of the people with whom you’re working will want to cut corners (or they’re already cutting them), or will mess up a deal or a case, and you won’t even know unless you’re directly involved somehow. You’re still going to have to worry about keeping things confidential, being competent, and being diligent, but you can add “boy, I hope the hiring

folks know what they’re doing” to your list of worries. We know of several instances in which someone at a law firm discovered someone else doing something unethical and the bigwigs let the matter slide.14 If you find that someone’s inflating his billable hours—for example, by making up work that he never did—you need to report up the chain: first to people in your practice group, then in your section, then to the firm’s management committee, if need be. Yes, the harsh truth is that it’s very likely that someone will retaliate against you for reporting the unethical behavior. Still, though, retaliation isn’t as awful as losing your own ability to practice law because you tolerated or even condoned (by silence and acquiescence) unethical behavior. And there will be some people who will see you as a hero. In addition to making sure that you’re doing your “lawyer stuff” well, you’re going to have to do your “people stuff” well, too. You’re going to need to relate to a wide variety of people during the course of your career. Here are some pointers for you. E. Working with Different Cultures You were raised in one type of culture, but you’re going to work with people from many cultures, and you won’t always be able to pinpoint what those cultures are when you first meet those people. For example, Jeff’s the second of four kids raised in a middle-class household in Columbus, Ohio. Nancy’s the rather15 pampered only child of two parents who gave her all sorts of advantages, and she’s from a small town near Houston, Texas. She was raised on ballets, operas, and symphonies. Nancy didn’t play any team sports in high school. She had the good fortune to have parents who paid not only for her undergraduate education but also her legal education. Jeff was raised on team sports. He was popular in high school,16 and he put himself through college and law school after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and working as an Ohio State Trooper.17 If you saw Jeff at a party, you’d wonder if he was still in the military (crew cut and, when he’s not at work, “camos”). Both Nancy and Jeff are baby boomers and “DINKS.”18 In other words, our backgrounds—which shaped us as much as yours shaped you—affect not only how we view the world, but also how we react to people. Not surprisingly, we can be side-by-side and view the exact same event at the exact same time and see two completely different things. Our differing backgrounds come into play in how we process and view different inputs. It’s as if we each have sunglasses with different colored lenses. Jeff may see the event

as “red with brown tint” based upon his background, while Nancy sees it as “green with a touch of blue” based on hers. In short, our different perspectives cause us to react differently to the exact same situation.19 Here’s our life lesson about law, which is, after all, a service profession: Once you start working as a lawyer, it’s no longer all about you.20 It’s all about the people with whom you’re dealing, whether they’re your clients, your colleagues, the judge or arbitrator, or your opposing counsel.21 Part of your job as a lawyer is to make others feel reasonably comfortable working with you. You may relate well to some of your clients, and you’ll feel completely at odds with others. Some of your colleagues will feel like new friends, and others will rub you the wrong way simply by being with you in the same room. But here’s our point: You have to adapt to them. If they’re what Nancy would call Good Ol’ Boys and you’re a Manhattanite, you need to learn to speak a little “Bubba.” Maybe when you were growing up, people adapted to you, but in the real world, you’ll get along a little better if you’re aware of others’ cultures and try to make them feel at home. (Yes, even your opposing counsel.) If many of the people with whom you’re dealing come from other countries, do yourself a favor and read up on the cultures of those places. Unintentionally insulting your client is not a very good way to build a long-term working relationship. We can’t give you a breakdown of how to deal with every culture, but there is one group about which we can provide significant advice: baby boomers. This is our group. In no particular order, here are our tips on how to deal with boomers: • We like hierarchy, so don’t greet us by our first names unless we ask you to do that. • We worked our butts off to get where we are.22 We believe that everyone should do the same, so we don’t quite understand the concept of work/life balance or why you care so much about it. • We can read things online, but sometimes we like to see hard copies of written work. Literally speaking, our brains were trained to view work in a certain way, and although we are still re-training them, it’s sometimes easier for us to look at paper than at computer screens. • We know that you can pull up all sorts of useful things on the Internet, but we don’t trust the veracity of everything that you find. • We prefer actual grammar and spelling to the kinds that you’ve developed by texting.

• Although some of us like to text, few boomers consider texting a good way to communicate at work. Until you’re in charge, you actually need to pay attention to the boomer culture and adapt to us. We’ll appreciate it, and you’ll improve your odds of moving ahead. Just as there are microclimates,23 there are microcultures where you work, and you need to pay attention to them. One of the most important microcultures for you is the one that you form with your mentor, sponsor, and (especially) your assistant. F. Your New Best Friend: Your Assistant Unless your assistant is as new to the firm as you are, he or she will be able to clue you in to many important things, from law firm politics to law firm policies and lots in between. That person can help you prioritize your work and suggest faster and better ways to do that work. In fact, if you have a good assistant, that person can teach you how to do some parts of your job better.24 If you’re lucky enough to work with an assistant who goes above and beyond to help you out, show your gratitude—often.25 Of course, given that most assistants work simultaneously with several lawyers, your assistant can also push your work to the bottom of the pile, forget to give you messages, and tell people who want to find you that he has no idea where you are. Stated bluntly, your assistant can make your life better or much, much worse. How that relationship goes is, at least in part, up to you. It’s possible that you’ll have a sadistic assistant who will torment you no matter how you treat him, but barring some serious psychological problems, most assistants will want to be helpful. There’s a big “if,” though: Your assistant will help you only if you treat him with respect. One of our all-time favorite quotes is this one, which sets the tone for working with your assistant: Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. —General George Patton Here’s a little perspective: When you’re a newbie lawyer, your assistant is more valuable to the firm than you are because he knows how to get things done.

Over time, you and your assistant will both contribute equally to the firm’s success, because you’ll get better at being a lawyer. Treat your assistant as your teammate, use those magic words of “please” and “thank you,” and ask your assistant for advice, and you’ll have a trusted colleague who has your back. It’s critically important to keep saying “please” and “thank you” to everyone who’s helping you, even if the “help” is routine. Demand things at the last minute (especially when you could have planned ahead), tell your assistant how to do his job (unless it’s the first time he’s done something, and you actually know what needs to get done), or speak condescendingly, and you’re off to a very bad start. To be more specific, here are some classic “don’ts” for you to remember: • Don’t blame your assistant for your mistakes, especially in public. • Don’t give your assistant something to do at the last minute that you could have given him earlier in the day. There are actual emergencies in the practice of law, but not everything is an emergency. Self-created emergencies will not win you any friends.26 • Don’t assume that someone who’s working for you is not as smart as you are, or—if he or she doesn’t have a college degree—that you know more than that person does. • If you’re having a bad day, don’t take out your frustrations on your assistant. • Don’t forget that your assistant will have some personal emergencies and overall bad days, too. Cut your assistant some slack. • Don’t lie to your assistant. (Or, for that matter, to any of your other colleagues, either.) Based on our years of experience, we know that the cover-up is worse than the mistake.27 • Don’t assume that some task is “beneath you.” Sometimes, you’ll have to make copies or collate something. • Don’t be a slacker. People who work 8-5 jobs (or 7-7 jobs) don’t respect slackers. If you work hard and your team uses its collective wisdom to help you, then you’re likely to form some strong bonds that will last you years (even after you or they have left the firm). Keep this mantra in the back of your mind: Always do everything you ask of those you command.

—General George Patton G. If You Want Honest, Diligent, Competent, Timely Work, Model That Behavior Yourself What if your assistant messes up? If he messes up once in a blue moon, that just means he’s human. If he makes repeated errors (or really big ones), there are two things that you should remember. First, under every state’s ethics rules, you’re responsible for supervising the people who report to you. If you let work product get out without proofreading it, it’s ultimately your problem, not your assistant’s problem. And, second, there are ways to help people learn from their mistakes. Some of those ways are good (“Tell me what happened so that we know how to approach this next time”), and some of those ways are bad (yelling at or otherwise humiliating him, especially in public). You motivate more people by treating them nicely than you will by treating them poorly. If, after trying things the nice way, your assistant (or, later on, any other colleague who reports to you) still isn’t getting it, then it’s time to start putting some reprimands on the record.28 Most of the time, though, informal and (yes, we’re beating a dead horse here) respectful conversations will do the trick. H. Playing Well with Others29 Not only will you be interacting with your assistant, you’ll be interacting with paralegals, receptionists, mailroom people,30 law librarians,31 other members of the support staff, and, of course, other lawyers. You need to make sure that you’re friendly with everyone—it’s useful to get to know something about each person and his or her family—because even though there are a lot of lawyers in the world, the world of law practice is smaller than you’d think. Reputations (and rumors) get around. If you want cooperation from all of your work colleagues, then you’re going to want to be nice. You don’t have to be a pushover, though. Some of these people will not be nice to you. Some of them may be pathological. And you shouldn’t choose sides on any internal battle before you’ve watched the firm’s politics over time. Although people will want to get you involved in their long-term feuds, it’s better to stay neutral for as long as humanly possible. Our rule is that we try to be civil to everyone, even the crazies and the malcontents, because civility has fewer bad consequences than retaliation does. Bide your time. Karma usually gets the people who are mean to you or who use you as a pawn.

Speaking of alliances, it’s important to have friends at work. You’ll need some safe places to decompress.32 But don’t date your clients. Ever.33 I. Client Management Speaking of clients, more than one of our friends has told us that practicing law would be heavenly but for the clients, and we can identify: We’ve each had clients who drove us batty. (We’ve also had clients who later became close friends of ours.) But if you’re going to be successful as a lawyer, you’re going to have to treat your clients well. Here are some basic rules. • If at all humanly possible, return client phone calls or emails within 24 hours of receiving them.34 If someone’s done something nice for you, you should send that person a thank-you note (also within 24 hours). • Keep your clients apprised of what’s going on with their matters.35 • If your client wants to be chatty, be chatty, but don’t bill all of that “chat” time. Clients expect you to bill for the work you’re doing, not for talking about the previous night’s ball scores or TV shows. If the client is spending too much of your time chatting, try a gentle joke about “having to start billing for the visits if we keep this up.” That almost always works. • Your client may be bigoted, dumb, or just plain annoying. By and large, you should put these types of problems aside and do the best job possible that you can for your client. You don’t have to like your clients to do good work. But if you just can’t overcome a severe dislike of your client, then it’s time to ask your assigning attorney to replace you on the matter. If you’re a solo, remember that it’s OK for you to “fire” your client.36 Just be careful about timing—you may have to ask court permission to withdraw from a case, and you can’t withdraw if withdrawal will materially prejudice your client’s matter. • If your client wants you to do something that you shouldn’t do, or that you think is a mistake, sort out whether what your client wants is (a) dumb or (b) wrong. If it’s just dumb, and if you’ve spoken to your assigning attorney about the client’s idea, and the assigning attorney says that it’s OK for you to do it, then you should probably do it (with a memo to the file saying that you tried to advise the client not to do it). If it’s wrong—if it’s illegal or unethical—don’t do it. We mean it. Don’t do it. We guarantee that doing something that’s illegal or unethical is going to

backfire on you, either because you’ll be blamed for it later or (worse yet) you’ll be disciplined for it later. If, for example, your client wants you to make a dumb argument, but it’s a relatively reasonable construction of what the law is or should be, that’s one thing.37 If your client wants you to call the judge names in a pleading,38 or to refuse to agree to opposing counsel’s reasonable request,39 just say no. One of your most important tools as a lawyer is your ability to talk your clients out of making really bad mistakes. Hone that skill. We have one final topic for you, and it involves your relationship with reporters. J. Dealing with the Media You may end up on high-profile cases or deals. You may have a reporter call you about one of your matters or about a matter that involves a firm other than yours. Your firm should have a policy of who’s allowed to talk to reporters on matters involving the firm (typically, that policy will exclude first-year associates), and your state’s ethics rules will govern the limits of what you can say, even if you’re allowed to speak for the firm. What if you’re asked by a reporter about a case or deal that doesn’t involve your firm? Here are some pointers. • The mike is always on. OK, maybe not literally, but you need to treat every conversation with every reporter as though the mike was live. You don’t want to be the person whose casual aside gets put on national news or in a YouTube clip. Recently, Nancy called in to a court hearing and, while she was waiting, she heard some of the lawyers say some pretty embarrassing things when they thought that the call-in mike was off. • Even if you say something’s off the record, that doesn’t guarantee that the reporter will honor that request. If you give an interview and tell the reporter that something is off the record, then most reporters will honor your statement that it’s off the record. You still need to be very clear about which parts of your interview are on the record and which ones are not for attribution.40 If a reporter doesn’t honor your request, then you know that she can’t be trusted, and you should never give her an interview again. • If you want to be quoted, speak in sound bites. Even if you’re being interviewed by someone reporting for print media, your comments are

more usable if they’re (a) short, and (b) clear to someone who doesn’t understand the subject that you’re discussing. And if you’re going to be on television, radio, or podcast, you want to make sure that what you say, if edited later, still will make sense. Longwindedness is never good, but it’s especially bad when talking to reporters. • If you want to be quoted, return the reporter’s phone calls right away. Lots of people give interviews. The ones who get called again and again are the ones who talk to the reporters when the reporters want to talk, not when the interviewee wants to talk. Remember that the news media have deadlines. Waiting too long to return the call guarantees that the reporter who called you will find an alternative source for her story. • If you want to sound good in a telephone interview, stand up while you’re talking. Why do most litigators stand when they’re speaking in court? Because if you stand, you’re more conscious of the fact that you’re speaking and you (theoretically) pay more attention to what you’re saying.41 • If you want to become a recognized expert in a field, start by publishing something in that field. You probably won’t be an expert in anything during your first year, but if you want to build your professional reputation, publish something in a bar journal or an organization that specializes in the type of work that you’re doing. Then publish some more. Then speak on panels. Eventually (if you return reporters’ phone calls), folks will start to know your name. Got all that advice? Are you ready to play well with the other members of your team? Excellent! Then (metaphorically) rub your hands together and turn to the next chapter. It’s time to start practicing law. 1 Even though some law firms do some alternative billing (things like flat rates), most firms bill most of their clients by the hour. The notable exception is the type of firm that works on contingency fees. 2 If your firm wants to count every 30-second message as a six-minute increment, we recommend that you think about finding another job. The ethics rules require you to charge reasonable fees, and no matter what your firm tells you to do, you’re responsible for your own behavior (except in really, really close cases). Overbilling clients is one sign that the firm might have serious ethics issues. 3 “Research” isn’t a sufficient description. 4 A partner at a law firm where Jeff worked would wait until the end of the week, then look at the various pink phone messages that were on his desk. He would then “recreate” his workweek and produce

time sheets from the phone messages. We are both more than a little skeptical about how accurate his endof-week time sheets tracked the reality of his workweek. Simply put, padding your time sheet is no different from walking into your client’s office and taking her wallet from her purse or pants pocket and removing the money. You didn’t earn that money; you took it by deception. 5 Yes, some firms used to withhold an attorney’s paycheck until the late time sheets were submitted. We don’t know what law firms do now, given the prevalence of direct deposits. 6 One of Nancy’s former research assistants, Kirk Homeyer (now a lawyer who’s thriving at a good law firm), had this point to make about billing: One thing I have learned…from my fellow associates is that I should never worry about how much or how little I am billing. While it may take me 8 hours to draft a motion that a 6th year could draft in 3, that is okay. First, my low hourly rate justifies the time I’m allowed to draft the motion. Second, if a partner thinks it took me too long, let the partner cut the time off the bill. There is a huge difference between billables and collectibles. Also, I like to view my billables as more of a measure of my experience and improvement rather than my contribution to the firm’s income statement. Billable hours aren’t that intimidating if we stop looking at them as dollar signs. 7 See Mark Herrmann, This Is What I’m Thinking: A Dialogue Between Partner and Associate…From the Partner, LITIGATION 8 (Fall 1998). 8 In 2011, someone sued his firm, claiming that the firm had a 3,000 billable hour requirement, which required him to commit fraud. See Debra Cassens West, Suit by Fired Lawyer Claims Law Firm Encouraged Fraud with 3,000 Billable Hour Quota, ABA J. (December 12, 2011), available at http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/suit_by_fired_lawyer_claims_law_firms_3000hour_billable_quotas_ encouraged_/. 9 Some will be clients, and some will be colleagues. Two of Nancy’s best mentors happen to be her assistants—her current one and one of her past assistants. 10 Jeff had a bit of an edge based on his law school education. He at least knew a little bit about trial work and had had the chance to draft a complaint, answer, and some discovery requests before graduating from law school. But there’s a lot to learn that law school can’t teach you. 11 http://home.innsofcourt.org/. 12 Nancy is an expert at reading things upside down, and she’s really nosy, too. She and Jeff both recommend that you not read your own boss’s work while it’s upside down, though, unless your boss tells you that you may. 13 We’ve both worked at small firms, too, so don’t think that we’re big firm snobs. 14 Nancy’s written about this problem. You can read some of her thoughts on the matter here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1017627. 15 Jeff wanted to take out the “rather,” but Nancy won. 16 Jeff’s not sure about the “popular” part (Nancy won this one, too), but he did play lots of sports and knew a fair number of people (and he’s still in contact with some of them to this day). 17 Nancy went to school on what she calls a “parentship.” 18 Dual income, no kids. 19 That’s part of what keeps our marriage interesting. 20 If you know Nancy, you know that this statement was incredibly hard for her to make; she grew up as the center of the known universe in her family. Even today, Jeff feels that gravitational pull into her vortex.

21 Jeff is of the opinion that it’s the people in your practice group who make a firm a good or bad place to work. All good lawyers work hard, and all firms are constantly looking for clients and more work. The “grind” of day-to-day practice will be there whether you’re in a big firm or a small one. If you don’t like the people with whom you work, then the work itself becomes virtually intolerable after a point. If you like your co-workers, you can endure a lot of stress, long hours, and hard work. The people make it worthwhile. Without them, it’s time to find a new job or new career. 22 It’s a sad but true statement that Nancy and Jeff have been licensed to practice law longer than most law school students have been alive (since 1987). 23 Including different parts of our house. 24 Back in the dark ages, Nancy learned from a person in the firm’s word processing group how to dictate her work more efficiently. Even though they haven’t worked together since 1991, they’re still friends. 25 This point reminds Jeff of something at one of his former firms. For months on end, he had been running around like a crazy man because of the brutal workload. Luckily for Jeff, his amazing assistant, Courtney Moore, was always asking what she could do to help. One day, Jeff said, “Draft these letters to opposing counsel—saying X, Y, and Z—and show them to me when you’re done.” Courtney’s drafts were very good, and from then on, she drafted letters to folks on Jeff’s behalf. He’d review the most important letters before he signed them, but for all unimportant letters, Jeff just told Courtney to “sign and initial my name, and make sure you put a copy in the file.” Thanks to Courtney’s skills, she saved Jeff untold time and effort. By the way, Jeff never billed a client for work that Courtney did on his behalf. He did, however, take Courtney to lunch or bought her lunch fairly often. Nancy had an assistant like that at her old law firm, too. Rheta Eaton sat outside Nancy’s office. (Yes, we know that “sat outside” is funny-sounding, but that’s “law firm speak” for where people’s workspaces are located.) Rheta was so good that she’d often hear Nancy’s side of a conversation and then prepare a draft letter almost as soon as Nancy hung up the phone. 26 Maybe you have heard the phrase “lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” There is more than one website devoted to this concept. Here, go buy the T-shirt: http://shop.cafepress.com/your-lack-of-planning-is-not-my-emergency. Lack of planning is easy to spot, and no one appreciates being put under the gun to meet a deadline because of your inconsiderate behavior. One of the most important skills that a young attorney learns is how to juggle multiple and overlapping deadlines. 27 Remember Watergate? Well, we do. 28 If you’re going to go to the trouble of reprimanding someone, then do it in writing, even if that writing is just an email to him to confirm the discussion that you just had. Simply stated, if it’s not in writing, the reprimand does not exist. 29 But trying hard not to sleep with any of them. We’ll stop nagging you about this from now on. 30 Think that the mailroom people aren’t going to be important to you? Take a look at this story: Adam Liptak, Court to Hear Case Stalled by Mistake in Mailroom, N.Y. TIMES (Mar. 21, 2011) (involving a death row appeal to the Supreme Court), available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/us/22scotus.html?_r=1. 31 If you’re lucky enough to work at a place that has them. Law librarians can help you a lot when you’re feeling lost while working on an assignment. 32 Again, decide who those friends will be after you’ve watched people behave for a while. 33 If your now-finished love affair causes the firm to lose a multi-million dollar client, we suspect that you’ll be soon looking for another job. In addition, our crystal ball sees the malpractice suit that gets filed against you and your firm if the project goes sideways and your client does not obtain an expected result.

34 Lack of communication with your client is one of the top reasons that a client will file a complaint against you with the bar association. 35 See n.34, supra. 36 After all, clients can fire you, too. 37 Counterargument: Your reputation is on the line each time you appear in court. If you make too many dumb arguments, you’re going to be stuck with the reputation of actually being dumb. 38 This really happens. See, e.g., www.bitterlawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/…/dreher-order.pdf. 39 This really happens, too. See, e.g., www.nvb.uscourts.gov/downloads/ …/bam-07-15189martinez.pdf. 40 When Nancy is saying something off the record, she actually says “off the record” and later “back on the record.” 41 Also because most judges prefer that lawyers stand when addressing them.

WELCOME TO the practice of law. You’ve just started working at your law firm, and we can pretty much guarantee you that, more often than not, you will feel: STUPID. GROSSLY UNPREPARED FOR PRACTICE. LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER. Yep. So did we. It’s normal to go into a bit of shock when you first start practicing law. Unless you were born and raised in a multi-lawyer family, so that you could wander about a law firm and see how it truly runs, the practice of law is going to feel foreign and a little shaky for a while. How shaky? Nancy once asked her mentor at the firm when she’d feel comfortable and secure giving legal advice. He told her that good lawyers never feel entirely comfortable with their advice, because they always think that they might have missed something important. But he did reassure her that, after a few years, she’d get more used to giving legal advice. And she has. But sometimes, both she and Jeff feel as if they’re where they are now because someone slipped up and hired them by mistake. That’s more normal than you realize. A. The Impostor Syndrome (Revisited)1 You might have learned about the impostor syndrome in law school—that feeling that you shouldn’t have been admitted, that you don’t have what it takes, and that eventually everyone will figure out that you don’t belong. If you experienced the impostor syndrome in law school, it was probably at its worst during your first year. Well, just as law school is a bit like high school (lockers, homeroom/sections, gossip), the first year of practice will give you flashbacks to the first year of law school (offices, sections, gossip). Even if you managed to get past this feeling in law school (or, more likely, figured out a way to get that feeling somewhat under control), it may resurface with a vengeance early in

your legal career. You’re now in the big leagues. Clients are actually going to rely on what you tell them.2 Knowing that they will do so places more stress on you than you had in school. It’s understandable that you will feel the pressure. Good news, though: The newness will wear off at some point. We promise. As you put those “imposter” feelings aside, let’s walk you through some of the issues that you’re going to face in your first year. First, though, go back to Chapter Four (clerkships) and re-read the part about how law firms make money. You’re going to become acutely aware of your billable hours and how they relate to the firm’s bottom line as you progress through the firm. Then re-read Chapter Five and its discussion of how to bill your time. Now you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get started as a first-year associate. B. The Law Firm’s Culture To make sure that you know how your firm works, you’re going to need to study its culture. Every organization has a culture. It expresses that culture in how it talks about itself, how its people behave, and even what its people wear. You need to figure out the non-verbal cues about what your law firm values. Some pointers: What Do the People at the Top of the Pecking Order (Not Just the Senior Partners, But the Successful Associates) Wear? You don’t have to wear designer duds (Nancy was a master at thrift shop wardrobe-building), but whatever you do wear should be well-tailored3 and neat. Various parts of the country have different senses of style. Not to be too stereotypical here,4 but you’ll see more big hair in Dallas and more all-black wardrobes in San Francisco and New York. You want to dress to fit in, at least until you’ve proven yourself and can then trot out some individuality. If you’re not sure what to wear, many department stores have personal shoppers who are happy to help you. (You don’t have to buy anything that the personal shoppers show you; you can pick and choose, or just get ideas from them.) Do People Keep Their Office Doors Open or Closed? Some places encourage more informal interactions than others do. (Those are the open-office-door firms,5 in case you were wondering.) They may host

lunches or dinners.6 They may have softball teams. Other firms are more “keep your head down” types of firms, where people don’t interact as often. There’s no one “right” style of working, of course, and your style might be different from the majority of people at your firm. You might be an open-door type of person in a closed-door world, or vice-versa. The most important thing is to figure out what arrangement helps you do your work best, and to figure out how to get to know your colleagues as people while you’re getting your work done. Are the People with Whom You’re More Likely to Work Early Birds or Night Owls? Sure, we live in a 24/7 world (lawyers certainly seem to work in one), but there’s no substitute for face-to-face contact with the people you need to get to know. If most of them come in early,7 then shift your schedule to come in early. If they’re night owls,8 shift your schedule accordingly. (You’ll get much better “face time” that way.) If there’s a mix of night owls and early birds in your practice group, then try to hit the midpoint of when folks come in and leave.9 Your section colleagues are your closest working allies and, generally, your best firm friends will come from this talent pool. Until they get to know you, you need to adapt to their schedules, not vice versa. We covered this topic a lot more in Chapter Three. What Does the Firm Announce? What a firm announces (in publications or in email blasts to its employees) will actually tell you a great deal about what it values. Does the leadership of your firm pass around a spreadsheet with everyone’s monthly billable hours on it?10 Does the leadership send out emails about someone’s community service? Does it share news about clients? What gets attention at the firm is what’s going to get rewarded. Pay attention. We can’t make this point more emphatically. What the firm values (which you can discover by its actions) is what the firm rewards. How Do the Higher-Ups Like to Communicate? There are “pick up the phone” or “drop by” people, and there are “text and email” people.11 You may be a text and email person, which is great when you’re

the one in charge. But if the people to whom you report (or the people to whom they report) have a preference for one type of communication over another, use that style if you want to keep them happy. If you respond to them in the same format in which they communicate with you, you’ll likely be fine. This rule is, of course, trumped by an email that says “call me when you get the answer.” Give them what they want; it’s the only way to get ahead in this game. If the Firm Is Going Through Some Rough Times, Does the Leadership Address the Problems Directly or Pretend That They’re Not Happening? We’d both rather be at places with a firm grasp on reality than at places that are hanging on by the thin thread of fantasy. If billable hours are down because there’s no work, then we’d want the firm leadership to tell us that and have us start networking like mad, so we can bring in more billable work. If the firm leadership goes around with a “what problem?” attitude when you know that things don’t feel right, then start brushing up your resume and get out—fast. You don’t want to be the one who missed the lifeboats when the ship was going down.12 Problems don’t go away just because people hope that they will. Studying the firm’s culture will take months, but we want you to make sure that you start doing it as soon as possible. As the firm is evaluating you, you need to be evaluating the firm. At some point, you’ll want to be able to decide whether the firm is the right place for you, but you can’t do that until you know the firm fairly well. For associates, there seems to be an exodus from firms after the first year, then again after the second or third year, and then finally just before they would expect to go up for partnership.13 See Chapter Seven for a more thorough discussion of life as a second- and third-year associate. Next, as you’re studying the culture, you can start to get a feel for the people who are going to either make you a better lawyer or make your life miserable. You might not be able to control which way those interactions go, but we have some advice to get you started. C. Some of the Types of Lawyers That You’re Likely to Encounter at Your Firm14 The absentee assigner. This person gives you an assignment (typically, one that will require you to check in with her several times) but she will always be on the phone or out of the office when you need to touch base or ask a question. How do you deal with the absentee assigner? You’re going to have to be

aggressive about getting in to see her. Camp out at her office door while she’s on the phone. Ask for her assistant’s help in getting in to see her. Leave copious voice mail and email messages expressing why you need to stop by. One good aspect about sending emails about trying to see an absentee assigner is that you’ve created a paper trail proving that you’ve made every effort to get the assigner’s input on the project.15 If the absentee assigner really ducks your every attempt, you’re going to have to enlist a partner to deal with the situation, but that’s your last resort. The screamer (or thrower). Yes, there really are people who throw tantrums when they’re angry. Sometimes, they even throw objects along with the tantrums. Law firms shouldn’t tolerate this behavior, but when the partner is bringing in a lot of business, sometimes firms look the other way. Personally, neither one of us would put up with this behavior. We’d tell the head of our department. We’d tell firm management. (Had Above the Law been in business when we were practicing in law firms, we’d have told Above the Law, too, if the firm had ignored our complaints.) Life’s too short to put up with bullies. The unforgiving partner. There are some people who have a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Then there are others with a “one strike and you’re out” rule. You are going to be very, very nervous about working with this person, especially because this person will have a say in the vote on your partnership. Our advice? Do your best to find out who these folks are when you are new to the firm. Sometimes you can avoid taking work from them by loading up on work from others in your group. Most firms will allow an associate to say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t take on that project because I have X projects due during that time frame.” If the unforgiving partner insists on giving you the work, remember that you can talk with the partner of a competing project and ask the two partners to hash out their priorities. Odds are that you’ll eventually have to take on a project for the unforgiving partner. That will stink, but you really don’t have much of a choice. Do the best work that you can. If you do acceptable work for the unforgiving partner, then you can do acceptable work for anyone.16 At least, that will give you a bit of a confidence boost going forward. The passive-aggressive person (lawyer, member of the support staff, or even client). How can you tell if someone’s passive-aggressive? There’s this old joke, modified slightly for this book:

How many passive-aggressive people does it take to change a lightbulb? Oops. I can’t believe I broke the last one. I guess you’ll have to sit in the dark. Passive-aggressive people say all the right things, but they truly excel in undermining you (and they enjoy it). We can’t tell if passive-aggressive people act the way that they do because they hate conflict17 or because they’re just mean (or both). But we promise you that you’ll be caught unaware by a passiveaggressive move more than once during your career. There may not be any easy way to spot these folks. Rarely do they wear the “PA” lapel pin, brooch, or blazer patch on their suits. Fairly often, you can find out who the passiveaggressive folks are simply by watching and listening to what’s going on in the firm.18 No one likes being thrown under the bus, but it’s bound to happen to you sooner or later. Try to learn your lesson and not have it happen more than once with any particular person. The partner with no real power. This person’s a partner, but he may not be an equity partner (meaning that he’s not really an owner), or even if he is, he’s not one whose opinion sways his other partners. He may be a lot of fun to work with, and he may teach you a lot about how to be a good lawyer, but if you need an advocate among the partners, he won’t be much help. One of Jeff’s earliest unofficial mentors fit this category. He was an excellent attorney and exceptionally smart. Other partners showed their confidence in his abilities when they chose him to litigate on behalf of the firm when the firm’s building was mostly destroyed by a fire.19 But this partner wasn’t politically connected inside the firm in any real respect, and eventually he left the firm because of a shift in the internal dynamics that shut him out. The upward-climbing associate. There are people who get ahead by hard work (and a bit of luck), and then there are people who get ahead by using you as a stepping stone. Nancy worked with one of these: He traded in gossip by telling stories about his fellow associates to the partners, and he flat-out couldn’t be trusted. Nancy and her friends called him “Iago” behind his back. He is, of course, a partner now. Just as the passive-aggressive person will push you under the bus, so will the upward-climbing associate. Be wary of them both. The natterer (also known as the “time vacuum”). We’re relatively friendly people, and we like taking breaks during the day, the same as everyone else. But

there are some people who want to take their breaks in your office, while you’re busy working. Forget about non-verbal cues: not looking at them, continuing to type, mumbling something about being on a deadline. It won’t work. Nothing short of leaving your office and heading down the hall to the bathroom (best when dealing with an opposite-sex natterer) will work. Even then, there’s a risk that the person will wait for you to come out of the bathroom to resume the “conversation.” The sadist.20 Heading home on a Friday night? Not if the sadist can find you first. Going on vacation? Count on the sadist to call you every single day that you’re gone just to check on things. Sleeping peacefully on a Sunday morning? Not when the sadist can ask you to come in and proofread something that “can’t wait until Monday.” This person delights in watching you suffer. You’re going to need some pretty senior allies to survive working with a sadist— or you’re going to have to switch working groups (or leave the firm). The micro-manager. Typically an insecure person, the micro-manager is terrified that you’ll make a mistake on “her” project. To compensate for her insecurity, she’s going to give you step-by-step directions21 that are completely unnecessary, just to reassure herself that you’ll do things right.22 She might also insist on some seriously quirky changes at the last minute. (Nancy worked with one of these people, who asked her—back in the days when runners had to go to court to file things in person—to hold off on a down-to-the-minute filing to remove everyone’s middle initials from the brief. Nancy complied, but she was a bit stunned at this last-minute level of detail.) The screw-up. Some people aren’t cut out for the law firm life. They miss deadlines; they make serious mistakes. Two things for you to remember if you’re working with a screw-up: (1) your clients’ needs come first, so you need to be part of the solution even when your co-worker causes the problem; and (2) don’t be standing right next to the screw-up when the fecal matter hits the air circulation device. As best you can, make sure that the higher-ups know that whatever disaster has just occurred isn’t your fault—and that you did everything in your power to fix the problem. The credit-stealer. The best people for whom we’ve worked are people who shared credit when things went well and took responsibility when things didn’t. We’d have walked through fire for them, figuratively speaking. On the other

hand, there are people who wouldn’t share credit if their lives depended on it. We call those people “lonely”—among other things. They rarely have friends in the firm. If you want to build up the trust of your colleagues, remember this quote: A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says, “I was beaten”[;] he does not say, “My men were beaten.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The sad sack. There’s always someone who’s the long-suffering, “see what I go through to do this” kind of person. It doesn’t matter if the person’s dealing with cancer (a legitimate reason to be upset) or a hangnail. Everything is a downer for this person,23 and it’s easy to be pulled down the sad streets with him. Be nice—this is an unhappy person having an unhappy life, after all—but try to remember that life is, in fact, worth living most of the time. It’s much easier to find yourself adopting the “woe is me” approach when you are completely burned out and fried after a crazy week or two at the firm. Give yourself a chance to rest on Sunday afternoon, and try to come back at it with a fresh perspective on Monday. The truly nice and helpful person. Believe it or not, you’ll meet a lot of these people at the firm.24 If you’re not meeting any of them at work, it’s time to consider switching jobs. You’ll spend a huge portion of your non-sleeping life at work. You should (mostly) enjoy it. No matter how many types of lawyers you experience during your first year of legal practice, never gossip about them or engage in bad-mouthing. Our detailed descriptions of lawyer “types” should be your private reference list to help you better navigate life as a first-year associate. If your gut suggests that you should speak to a higher-up about problems with a certain type of lawyer, we recommend doing so in a very deliberate and respectful manner. Now that we’ve given you a taste of some of the types of people you’ll encounter at your firm, it’s time to talk about some skill sets that you’re going to need to develop in the first few years. D. How Do You Figure Out How to Do the Assignment, Once You Get It? The first thing that you need to do, when you realize that someone’s giving

you an assignment, is to take notes. Lots of notes. (Lots of decipherable notes.) The problem with getting an assignment, at least in your first few years, is that the person giving you the assignment knows what she’s talking about (after all, she sees the big picture of how your assignment fits into the overall project)— but you, on the other hand, likely have no clue. When you’re a baby lawyer, getting an assignment often sounds like this: We’re involved in the BLAH BLAH BLAH matter for Major Client. You need to YADA YADA YADA the THINGAMABOB. Don’t forget to BLEEBEDY BLEEBEDY BLEEB when you YADA YADA YADA. Got it? Excellent. Oh, yeah: I need the draft in two days and a final version of a client opinion letter by the end of the week. In a perfect world, you’ll be able to ask the assigning attorney what exactly you should be doing at every step of the way, and the attorney will be able to give you clear answers. But we don’t really live in a perfect world. You may think you know how to begin your assignment, and you may discover that you’re lost. You may not even know where to begin. What should you do? If there’s a more senior associate working on the project, you can try asking that person for advice on how to do your job. If there’s a law librarian, that person might be able to help you, too. You might have some fellow junior associates who have done this type of project already.25 If you have no one else to ask, you’re going to have to go back to the assigning attorney and admit that you’re having problems with the assignment. Sure, you’ll feel dumb. You might be embarrassed. But your job is to do good work for the client, and you can’t let your insecurities get in the way of doing your best possible job. That’s true even if the assigning attorney is annoyed by your questions—and even if he or she complains about them. E. Writing and Research Skills Depending on the type of firm you’re in (big, small, solo), you may be doing mostly research memos and simple change-the-name tasks your first year. Alternatively, you may be drafting complaints, discovery requests, and opinion letters, conducting trials, or doing deals all on your own. No matter where you’re working, your writing and research skills need to be top-notch. If you have problems remembering rules of grammar or how to spell certain words, fix those problems. Now. Find a book that can help you.26 You’ll probably want to

perform these double-checks before turning in your work to the assigning attorney: • Do a global search for “its” and “it’s.” Make sure that you’re using “it’s” only when you mean “it is.”27 • While you’re at it, do a global search for all homonyms you might have used, such as “their/they’re” or “you’re/your.” • Make sure that you haven’t tried to make a singular noun plural by adding an apostrophe and an “s.” • If you use “this” or “that,” add the noun after the “this” or “that” to finish your thought (e.g., “this argument”; “that file”). There’s nothing that will make you look as dumb as poor writing, except maybe poorly done research that’s also poorly written. And “dumb” isn’t an adjective that you want to have folks use in referring to you. There’s also the issue of how your assigning attorney wants you to present your work to him or her. You may not have been paying attention during your legal writing classes or your seminars, but the professors who taught those were giving you building blocks for your first real-world tasks as a newly minted lawyer. Those briefs and memos gave you a framework for laying out your analysis and arguments, and if you were also lucky enough to draft a contract or two, that’s great.28 Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg: Mr. Maryk, you may tell the crew for me that there are four ways of doing things aboard my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. They do things my way, and we’ll get along. —THE CAINE MUTINY (1954)29 Just as jazz musicians are better improvisers if they learned music basics first, though, you’re going to have to use your research and writing basics and adapt them to your work for the firm. For one thing, your firm very likely has specific formats for the way it wants memoranda and briefs to look. The assigning attorney may not want a “question / short answer” part of the memo, and she may want you to use more active voice (or, heaven forbid, more passive voice), when you write. She may be fine with you using contractions, or she may want you to write more formally. Our point is that your first audience is the

person for whom you’re doing the assignment. Until you’re more senior, write the way that that person wants to see the work done. You can always ask the assigning attorney for a recent example of the way that she wants your project to be formatted. Alternatively, you can ask her assistant for a recent example of the format. (That’s one example of how getting along well with support staff will help you do your job better.) But there are other audiences that you should consider as well. If you do a really good job, the assigning attorney or someone else on the team might just forward your work to the client as is. That’s why your “draft” work is never, ever a first draft.30 Stated slightly differently, don’t ever turn in an actual first draft, even if the assigning attorney says, “Just give me a draft.” The reality is that the assigning attorney wants a finished product, and you will regret giving her a rough “first draft.” You don’t know how that draft will be used or by whom, and you don’t want your work to see the light of day while it’s incomplete or incorrect. One rule that you’ll need to follow religiously is that your writing should be clear enough that someone doesn’t have to read one of your sentences twice in order to be able to understand it. Short, simple declarative sentences usually make for easier reading than long, multi-subordinated-clause, comma-laden, convoluted ones.31 Clear writing will help you for another reason: Depending on the type of writing (non-privileged) you’re doing, you also may end up seeing it blown up into very large type as part of a trial exhibit. (Nope, that’s not a fun moment, but you may well have one of those someday.) Or someone could post your work and then blog about it.32 Get our point? You need to make sure that whoever sees your work sees only good work. And by good work, what we really mean is writing that “sings”—writing that captures (usually in short, declarative sentences) not just the idea but also the image that you want to portray. Here’s an example. When Nancy was a baby lawyer, she was working on a brief in response to a debtor’s argument. The debtor was arguing that the court should apply a balancing test to decide the issue. Nancy wrote the following sentence, which she still thinks is the best thing she’s ever written:33 The problem with the debtor’s balancing test is that it has set the fulcrum in the wrong place. Geeky? Sure. You’d have to know what a fulcrum is to get her point. (Even though she wasn’t a science or engineering major, she did go to Rice, and she

therefore must have absorbed some physics by osmosis.) But that sentence captured what was wrong with the debtor’s argument. Jeff doesn’t have an example of any of his best sentences, but he agrees with this concept in every respect.34 A well-written brief is easy to read and understand, regardless of how technical or convoluted the facts of the case are. Once in a while, the planets align, and you craft a truly great sentence.35 If you can give your reader language that’s clear and concise, then your reader is more likely to read what you have to say. Write poorly, though, and your reader’s eyes will glaze over. A prime example of what “poorly written” means to Jeff is the sentence that is five or six lines long, contains several clauses separated by commas, and requires the reader to either chart it out on paper or read it at least twice to try to parse through what you’ve said. When you write like that, you not only lose whatever persuasive momentum your document had, but you also are more likely to confuse your reader than sway him to your viewpoint. Another example of poor writing is a sentence that makes use of “the voice that is passive,” which, in turn, induces Jeff to be crazy.36 Stated otherwise, passive voice makes Jeff crazy.37 Jeff guarantees that your written product will be easier to read and understand if you use active voice in all of your writing. And it’s not just good writing that matters. You need to be correct in what you say, which means that your research has to be thorough—and right. We’re sure that you asked, at least once in law school, how you’d know when you “finished” researching something. Here’s how both of us know when we’re “done”: We keep turning up the same things that we’ve already read. Once you hit “no new information,” you can start figuring out what to do with the information that you’ve gathered. Outline your memo before you write it. Look for logical holes: Have you gone from “A” to “E” without taking the reader through steps “B,” “C,” and “D”? Accuracy is key, too. Careers have been royally sidelined by failing to Shepardize or cite-check (and by failing to think about how what you’re reading actually applies to the facts in your case). Don’t rush the thinking process, and don’t wait until the last minute to start (or revise) your written work. We know— you’ll feel as if you’re painfully slow. You are; that’s OK. It takes a long time to have the knowledge base and skill sets to do top-notch research and writing efficiently. An ethical law firm will “write off” (discount to the client) the time you spent on the project. But if you do a poor job, all of your work will be worthless. It’s better to feel like you’re taking too long and get the project done correctly (but on time!) than it is to do a job that doesn’t help anyone on the team.

F. Working Efficiently and Competently Right after we’ve told you that good writing and research will take some serious time, we’re going to tell you to work efficiently as well. For a first-year lawyer, those may well be mutually exclusive terms. What will later take you a quarter of an hour is going to start out taking you two or more hours. Even a one-page client letter will take way, way more time than you think that it should. But there’s no way to learn how to do something except to do it. Here are some tips that might help you speed along the learning process. Few Things in Law Involve Totally Original Thinking Most things that you’ll do as a lawyer will involve building on someone else’s previous ideas, which means that, for what you’ll be doing, there’s a form or some prior work product that you can use to help get you started. Let’s say that you want to draft a motion for an order shortening time. Sure, you could take the time and effort to draft one out of whole cloth, but it’s significantly faster for you to pull up one (one that worked) in the jurisdiction in which your case has been filed. Copy the format from that example. (Ask a law librarian, if you have one, or the assigning attorney how you’d find an OST in the proper jurisdiction, or better yet, how to find one that has actually been filed in your case.38) If you can’t find a form in your jurisdiction, go to a form file or a form book.39 Use the same process if you’re a transaction/deal lawyer: Find something like what you’ve been asked to do, and start with that for the correct format and the basics of what types of items and topics you need to discuss in your document. Whether you’re using a former pleading or transaction document, don’t just adopt all of it without thinking about whether it applies to your particular task. There’s boilerplate in all sorts of documents, but not all boilerplate applies to your matter. Be aware of what will and won’t work, as well as what is required for your particular situation. Here’s an example: Let’s say that you find an old asset purchase agreement, and you decide to use it as a model for drafting a new asset purchase agreement. In the old APA, the firm represented the buyer, and the document contained roughly 37 different representations and warranties, many of them involving whether the seller actually had the rights to what it was selling. The sole remedy in that old APA for breach of those representations and warranties, though, was the return of the downpayment. (Note how important it is to pay attention to the

link between obligations and the remedies for failure of those obligations in contracts.) Now you’re drafting an APA on behalf of the seller; you likely do not want to include all of those reps and warranties from the old APA in your draft. You need to understand what your deal’s terms are and what your client is looking to be specifically protected from and against. Don’t just borrow language from the old form without asking yourself if that language applies. Or let’s say that you’re drafting a motion to appear pro hac vice. The best exemplar that you can use is one from the same case in which you plan to file yours, so that you can see if there are special local rules with which you’ll need to comply. The worst exemplar would be from another type of court entirely (e.g., using a state court form from a different state to draft a pro hac vice motion in federal court). As Ronald Reagan used to say, “trust, but verify.”40 No one expects you to know everything right off the bat, but everyone expects you to think about what you’re doing as you’re learning. Even Though Few Things in Law Involve Totally Original Thinking, Don’t Just Recite What the Law Is—Think About the Ramifications of Your Research as You Draft The second biggest complaint that we hear from lawyers41 is that the newbie lawyer isn’t applying her research—she’s just regurgitating it. Clients don’t actually want to know what the law is, in abstract. They want to know how the law applies to them in the situation for which they’re seeking advice. If they want to know what the law is generally, they’d just ask you to copy cases or law review articles for them. The most difficult transformation for a first-year lawyer is the one that moves you from telling a client “here’s what the law is” to telling the client “here’s what I think you should do, given what the law is.” Even if you’ve just been asked by a partner or senior associate to tell him what the law is, you’ll make more of an impression if you spend a paragraph or two talking about the ramifications of your research.42 (For that matter, you should know the basic facts of the case or deal before you start doing research, or you’ll be spinning even more wheels. There is no such thing as good legal analysis if you don’t know the facts.) Absent your use of the facts and your application of the law to those facts, your memo is simply a statement of the current status of the law. Cover Your Butt—and Do So in Writing

That last comment we made—the one about knowing the basic facts of the case or the deal? There’s yet another reason to know those basic facts. You’re going to want to put in your memo something on the order of “you have asked me to research X in connection with Y matter. The facts are as follows: fact 1, fact 2, etc.” (You should also put your research trail in the memo: “I did this, then this, then this.”) The reason that you want to spell out what you’ve been told is that, if the person giving you the assignment was wrong, he or she can’t pin that mistake on you. If you’d have been right, based on the information that you received in the assignment, that CYB memo will help you later if your research backfires. And putting the research trail in writing’s just good policy.43 If you have to go back later, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off. There are more CYB actions that you can take. “You have asked me not to do X.” These types of “you’ve asked me to ‘stand down,’ so I’m standing down” emails or memos to the file will, again, help to protect you if someone’s blaming you for something. If Reagan is known for saying “trust, but verify,” Jeff’s known for saying “don’t trust until the person has proven himself to be trustworthy.” ’Fess Up When You Make a Mistake You’re going to make mistakes—a lot of them.44 You will make mistakes even when you’re a senior lawyer. There are two things that we want you to remember about mistakes: • Try not to make the same one over and over again.45 • It’s better to confess a mistake and propose a solution than it is for someone else to discover your mistake. Unless you’re doing death penalty work,46 almost all of your mistakes are fixable, either by actually fixing them or by paying the person harmed by the mistake some money (a/k/a malpractice insurance). If you’ve done something wrong, and you catch your error, and you can fix it in time (and you do), then you can think about how you might not want to ‘fess up right away. (We prefer, though, to work with people who are honest with us, and we’ll bet that your colleagues do, too.) But if you can’t fix the mistake right away,47 then tell someone higher up the food chain and enlist her help.48 Want to feel better? Here are some of our old (and not so old) boneheaded mistakes:

• Missing the leading case in a research memo. • Mailing out a plan and disclosure statement in a bankruptcy case and forgetting to send out the ballots so that the creditors could cast their votes. • Filing a comment on a proposed rule with the Department of Justice and then realizing that you missed some pages on your PDF. • Sending out copies of documents that originally were two-sided, but you only copied one side (meaning that you copied every other page). Feel better? And our number one boneheaded mistake?49 See the next section. G. Why You Need to Develop a Good Calendaring System As you acclimate to the practice of law, the two things that you will need to check religiously will be your email and your calendar.50 Most firms require that certain types of scheduling items be calendared on the firm’s omnibus calendar.51 The firm’s mandates are normally a one-for-one pass-through requirement from the firm’s malpractice carrier. Simply stated, if certain things are not put on the firm’s calendar and the deadline passes, your malpractice carrier may disavow coverage when the firm gets sued by a thoroughly tickedoff client. You do not want to be that associate who drops the ball on calendaring a significant event and then misses the due date.52 That is a Career Limiting Move. True Story: One day, Nancy happily went to work and opened her calendar for the day to see what she was going to do. Her calendar said, “file motion.” That would have been fine if Nancy had remembered to calendar in, weeks before, “draft motion.” Bad day for Nancy. What lesson did she learn? Don’t just put due dates on your calendar. Put start dates in, too. Jeff’s calendar included initial reminders. For example: • Motion for Summary Judgment, Client X, due in 2 weeks. • Motion for Summary Judgment, Client X, due in 1 week. • Motion for Summary Judgment, Client X, due in 2 days. • Motion for Summary Judgment, Client X, due today. It was not unusual for Jeff to disregard the two-week notices (except for large projects that were going to be very time-intensive), as there were generally more

pressing matters (bigger fires to put out, and with shorter deadlines); however, the one-week notices would get his attention, especially if he knew that he needed to do substantial research. The two-day notices were four-alarm-fire notices for him if he hadn’t started the draft yet. The main reason that your firm (and its malpractice carrier) will demand that you calendar these items is because you will forget them if you don’t give yourself an automatic reminder about the deadline. A significant aspect of practicing law involves juggling a very busy schedule. Absent those reminders in your calendar, you will forget meetings, projects, and deadlines. Missing deadlines because you forgot to calendar them is not going to be well received by either the client or the assigning attorney. And while we’re at it, you need some system of backing up your work in case the server at your firm fails catastrophically. Check with your firm’s management53 about using a system like cloud storage, because you’ll need to protect your clients’ confidential information. But if you can keep your drafts and your calendar in a safe and backed-up place (for example, your laptop), then you’ll be in better shape than Nancy was on that horrible day.54 H. Assignments: Getting Them, Doing Them Well, and Balancing the Workload Different firms parcel out work differently. Some use a central assigning attorney (or a central assigning attorney in each department); others just let people give you work directly; still others expect you to walk the halls and ask for assignments. How do you know when to say yes to an assignment and when to say no? Your default rule is to say yes, even to types of assignments that you don’t think that you’ll like. (Your parents were right: You don’t know if you’ll like something unless you try it.) Here are some reasons to say yes: 1. You’ll learn something. 2. Work is not an optional event. You take on the work that your firm needs you to do. 3. You’ll get to know your colleagues best by working with them. 4. The more people for whom you work, the more people who can comment on the quality of your work. 5. You’re not the boss. You’re an employee.

Here are some reasons to say no: 1. You have a conflict of interest regarding the particular matter and have to be walled off from it. 2. There is no physical way possible to add this assignment to your workload. Note that we used the phrase “no physical way.” What does that phrase mean? It means that, even if you pulled several all-nighters in a row, you still couldn’t complete the assignment on time. “No physical way” doesn’t mean “you’d have to give up concert tickets” or “you’ve got a hockey game tonight.” Let’s be blunt: Your firm doesn’t care if you’d miss something in your personal life. Client work has to get done. There are some exceptions, of course. You could be in labor, or you could be partnered up with someone who’s in labor. Your parents could be having their 50th anniversary celebration. And there’s that whole work/life balance thing to consider. True story: Nancy was a mid-level associate working on a transaction on a weekend, and the partner in charge needed an extra body to do some work. He called up one of the other associates and asked him to come in. The associate explained that he was being prepped for surgery and couldn’t come in. The partner then asked, “Well, is it elective surgery?” Work/life balance wasn’t a large part of where Nancy worked. Some days or months were slower than others, but on the whole, everyone at the firm worked very hard, most of the time. We’re both of a generation that isn’t very good at work/life balance. We work hard. Both of us had more than one 300+ billable-hour month at our firms. (Jeff once had three in a row.) We equate hard work with being good lawyers. Guess what? The leaders at your firm do, too, because they’re our generation or older. They weren’t raised to consider work/life balance. So if you want to have a more balanced life, you’re going to have to set some limits, and you’re going to have to accept that there may be work-related consequences for setting those limits. One good way to have work/life balance is to take yourself off the partnership track. If you’re good at what you do, your firm might want to keep you doing it, even if you’re not going to become a partner some day. Typically, people who aren’t on the partnership track are called “contract lawyers.” Some are called “of counsel,” depending on the culture of the firm or the region. Jeff’s experience with contract attorneys was generally very positive (in terms of the

quality of their work product and attitude). They didn’t have to work the 60-70 hour weeks on a continuing basis. Instead, they worked 50-60 hour weeks. Back to when to say yes or no to assignments: What should you do if you’re not sure if you can take on the new assignment and still do a good job on your current assignments? Rule #1 is that you shouldn’t make that decision yourself: Let the person asking you to do the new assignment check with the lawyers who already have given you assignments, and let them work out which ones you should do and which ones you don’t need to do (or don’t need to do as quickly). Rule #2 is that Rule #1 will be much easier to do once you’ve already earned a reputation as a hard worker. How do you get that reputation? You turn in good work. You turn it in on time. You work long hours, and people see you at the firm when they get there and when they leave for the night. You turn in your work without any glaring typos or overturned cases or mismatched cross-references. And you turn it in with a smile on your face and no chatter about how hard you worked on it. Do your work well and cheerfully, and you’ll get more slack when you really need it. What if you’re running short of work? Don’t wait until you’re completely done with all of your assignments (tempting though that may be). Wait until you’re almost done (when the end’s in sight), and let people know that you’ll be free for another assignment soon, or for a follow-up to the assignment that you just finished. If there’s really no work to be had, make yourself useful. Write an article for a bar journal or an organization in your field. Ask to do some pro bono work. Read up on recent cases in your area of law. Don’t just sit at your desk playing computer games. I. Make Yourself Useful I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done. —General George Marshall In most organizations, people get ahead fastest when they think beyond what they’re supposed to be doing and think about what else needs to get done. If you’re doing a research memo in which you conclude that you’re going to have to file a particular type of document in all 50 states, you might also want to offer to draft all of those documents as well. There’s a fine line between doing

your job well and doing unnecessary billable work, but unless you demonstrate some initiative, the people who assign you work won’t think of you as someone with the type of imagination to become a truly great lawyer. Don’t, however, go ahead and do the next logical step in the assignment without asking your assigning attorney first. Your assigning attorney might have already asked someone else to do it, or the client might not want to make a public move yet. Jumping ahead of the game is one of the many boneheaded moves that can cost you some goodwill at the firm. J. Boneheaded Moves (or the Types of Horrifying Mistakes That First-Year Lawyers Tend to Make) Ah, the boneheaded moves that we’ve made—the list could go on forever. We’ve spoken of some of them earlier in this book, but here are some specific ones for litigators and deal lawyers.55 Boneheaded litigator moves. These include not leaving yourself time to draft pleadings and not leaving yourself time to get those pleadings (and draft declarations or affidavits) to your assigning partner or to the client. (When someone’s swearing to certain facts, he or she needs time to review the affidavit or declaration so that he can tell you if you misunderstood something and so that he can testify truthfully.) Other boneheaded moves include not complying with filing and other deadlines in local court rules; forgetting to prepare a certificate of service and forgetting actually to serve the documents on the appropriate people; redacting something without preparing a privilege log or showing where you made the redactions in the documents; reviewing documents carelessly, so that you miss the (one in a million) smoking gun; producing documents carelessly and including privileged information among the produced documents; and filing a stipulated agreement on the court docket before the other side has actually agreed to it in writing. Boneheaded “deal lawyer” moves. Deal lawyers need to be OCD56inclined: They need to be able to make sure that every single cross-reference in every single part of a deal document is correct, and that every single number or description in the document is correct as well. Miss a decimal point in a document, and you’ve just committed malpractice.57 Cross-reference the wrong paragraph? Malpractice again.58 Sure, your eyes are going to cross when you read documents that are several hundred pages long. But that’s part of what deal lawyers have to do. The other boneheaded mistake that we see a lot is the newbie lawyer who doesn’t understand a deal and tries to document it. If you don’t

understand what the client wants to do, then you won’t know which forms to use to begin drafting. More important, you won’t know which parts of the forms to ignore. No one expects you to be a deal lawyer on day one of your job, so admitting that you don’t know what a reverse triangular merger is won’t ruin your career. Blowing the documents for that reverse triangular merger just might. Remember, no one truly does these things on purpose (or at least we hope that’s true). From our view, these are examples of things that happen when people are highly stressed and overworked. Simply stated, bad things tend to happen when you are sleep-deprived and under a significant time crunch. K. A Word About Electronic Communications (or How You Can Embarrass Yourself on a Global Scale) Lawyers are addicted to email (and even more to their smart phones). Because the competition for clients is so tight, most good lawyers have to distinguish themselves by providing obsessively good customer (client) service. That’s why practicing law has started to feel like a 24/7 job. Clients want to be able to reach you at all times. So do your assigning attorneys. Therefore, you’ll be sending and answering emails at some pretty odd times of day, and for some of those email communications, you’re likely to be sleepdeprived. Be careful of that shoot-from-the-hip legal advice that you give late at night. Emails are letters, but without the paper. They become evidence in lawsuits, and there’s at least one famous example of an email bringing an entire company down.59 Assume that your worst enemy is going to use your email against you, and draft accordingly. Avoid these three mistakes, and watch for three other email issues. Using an Unnecessary “Reply All” The first mistake—and you know this one already—involves “reply all.” “Reply all” is hardly ever a good idea. As Coach Darrell Royal is supposed to have said, “Only three things can happen when you throw a pass—and two are bad.”60 Well, the same thing’s true of hitting “reply all.” The Angry Response The second email issue involves you sending something when you’re angry. We’re all tempted to do it, but anger is never, ever a good reason to send an

email. Oh, you can draft an angry email. (Angry emails and angry letters—in draft form—are emotionally satisfying documents. Nancy starts hers with “Dear Mush For Brains.”61) But we recommend that you sleep on anything that you write in anger, rather than send it out right away. Often, you’ll find that you want to revise that draft when you have a clearer head. Tone (Probably the Most Important of the Three) The final email issue that we want to raise involves tone. Emails are tonedeaf; they really do not have a tone at all. You can’t tell when someone’s joking, or sarcastic, or sincere. (And for goodness’s sake, don’t use emoticons unless you’re sending a message to friends or family, or you’ve known the recipient so long that the person is, basically a friend or family member.) Putting “(grin)” in an email isn’t exactly the most professional of communications. Moreover, there are some words that don’t translate at all in emails. (For example, if you want to tell someone that you’re sending a previous email again and you write “I resent the email,” you’re going to confuse the recipient, at the very least.) And when you’re reading an email to yourself before you send it—and you always should —the tone and emphasis that you’re hearing in your head will not translate at all when the email’s sent. If you have a tricky communication, it’s better to pick up the phone or see the person face to face, where you can communicate tone more easily.62 We wish it went without saying that some of the communications that you make when you use social media like Facebook or Twitter will manage to make their way back into your working lives, whether you want them to or not. Our basic rule is that you shouldn’t put anything anywhere on the Internet that you don’t want your bosses, your clients, your family, and your enemies to see. It’s not just what you put out there in the ether. It’s what your friends tag after drunken parties or what your colleagues retweet. The Internet is that permanent record about which our generation’s grade school teachers kept warning us. The things that we put up on Facebook now—given that we’re both established in our careers and have good reputations—we wouldn’t have done as new lawyers.63 Until you’re well known (and even then), be careful. Oh, and about “friending” people you don’t know? Guess what? Some of them are shills for people whom you don’t want as friends. The reality is that social media is just that: It’s for social interaction. Professional interactions and discourse should be kept in a professional arena. Find a way to keep your professional and personal lives separate on social media; you’ll likely regret it over time if you don’t.

L. Becoming a Rainmaker (Yes, Now) You need to have a good network of contacts that you’ve developed out of your professional work. The coin of the realm in law practice is having a book of business (a list of clients who want to keep using you for their billable work). In Chapter Eight, Amee McKim provides a lot of suggestions for how to network. She points out that you’ll never catch up to the folks who are senior to you. When you’re senior, they’ll be even more senior. If you get to know people as individuals—remembering their birthdays and their kids’ names—you’ll be a good networker, even if you tend to be shy. So as you get to know people, through working on their matters or at bar meetings or other business gatherings, make a note about the personal information that they tell you. (Nancy texts herself the information as soon as she has a moment to herself, and then she puts the information in her email contact list. She also calendars people’s birthdays and wishes them happy birthday, mostly because she’s nice but also because she thinks that people like to be remembered.) We’ve heard that the single best predictor of networking success is the number of contacts that you have in your personal database. (We used to hear that it was the number of names in your Rolodex,™64 but that was in the old days of—gasp!—pen and paper and typewriters.) You never know when you might want to ask a favor of someone. It’s easier to ask that favor if you’ve been nice to the person all along. “But I just moved to a new town and I don’t know anyone yet.” We feel your pain. We’ve been there. It’s difficult to get to know people after you’ve relocated. So here’s our suggestion: volunteer. You’ll meet all sorts of people if you volunteer. Staff your local bar association’s pro bono intake night once in a while. Serve on a non-profit board. Join a group of people with similar interests,65 and do some of the scutwork for the group66 (but don’t do any legal work until you’ve gotten your firm’s OK). Volunteering will make you feel good, and it may also bring you some clients. You can’t meet very many people when you’re locked down in your office at the firm or hiding at home. With the advent of social media, it’s possible to interact with huge numbers of folks from the confines of your house or the office. But we both find it easier to generate business face to face. (That’s probably a generational thing, but it’s likely still true.) If you attend and participate in the local bar association’s events, you’ll meet folks who are practicing in your area of law. These are opportunities to “talk shop” and interact. Eventually, everyone will be conflicted out of a case or two (or three). You want to be that person whom someone calls when he gets conflicted out of a

case. Along the same lines, you’ll need someone to whom you can send a case if you’re conflicted out. Actively participating at the bar association increases your opportunities in a number of ways. M. Taking Time Off—Vacations, Sick Days, and Errands One of the things we liked best about being lawyers is how flexible the day’s schedule could be. (Of course, we both used to joke that we could work “any 80 hours a week we wanted,” and we weren’t completely kidding about the 80 hours.) Depending on what you’re doing and with whom you’re working, you might be able to go to work very early and leave at a reasonable time, or go to work later in the day and leave, well, much later in the day or in the early morning. The point is that most law firm jobs don’t require you to clock in and clock out. If you need to get a haircut during the day, you can. If you need to see the doctor, you can. If you absolutely need some retail therapy, you can shop for a bit. As long as you (1) get your work done well and on time and (2) let your assistant know how to reach you when you’re away, you’ll have more job flexibility than most people do. Vacations, though, will require some advance planning,67 both because you’ll have to make sure that you’re not going to miss any important deadlines that require your attention and because you’re going to have to send out a memo to everyone with whom you’re working. That memo should tell them when you’re leaving, how to reach you, when you’re returning, what you’ve been working on, and where the necessary documents are. The good news is that no one’s really indispensable. The bad news is that you’ll annoy a lot of people, and possibly jeopardize some of your clients’ matters, if you don’t do a vacation memo ahead of time. What should you do if you’re sick—should you come to work, or should you stay home? As with pretty much every other answer in law, the answer to this question is, of course, “it depends.” Don’t come in if you’re contagious. Don’t come in if you’re so muddled from your cold (or your cold medication) that you can’t think straight. Don’t come in if you’re going to expel any nasty bodily fluids. (Ew.) But if you have a sniffle or a headache? That’s why cold medicine was invented. Come in; do your work; then go home and rest. Your assistant doesn’t have the luxury of staying home every time he’s feeling ill, and neither do you. N. Bonuses and Billable Hours

Remember what we said about billing time? For some of you, the decision of how much (real) time to bill will affect your take-home pay. Some firms pay bonuses for increments of billable hours above a certain threshold. Those bonuses are the single best demonstration of what we learned in our microeconomics courses about marginal cost and marginal utility. At some point, you’ll have to decide whether you want to put in the extra time, assuming that you have some discretion about your workload. There are lots of things to like about bonuses. But if you want to have a life outside the law firm, those extra hours are going to come out of what might have otherwise been your free time. Only you can decide if the bonus is worth the extra work.68 The bonus pool is decided by folks above your pay scale. You won’t know how much the pool will be nor the way that it’s going to be allocated. Work hard, and don’t worry that you might or might not get a bonus. The decision to award a bonus is not in your control, so don’t worry about it. We’re going to reemphasize that point: You need to worry about the things that are actually in your control. Worrying about the things that you can’t control will only make you nuts. O. Having Friends and Family Because the practice of law is not a 9-5 job, it’s not easy to juggle work and a personal life at a law firm. You’re going to have to work hard as a lawyer, and for lots of people. You’ll work harder and for longer hours than you ever did before. Moreover, your work hours won’t always be predictable. Unpredictable hours will mean that you’ll have to cancel some plans with your favorite people. Here’s how a fictional character handled that risk in THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (1995):69 Lewis Rothschild: I tell any girl I’m going out with to assume that all plans are soft until she receives confirmation from me thirty minutes beforehand. Robin McCall: And they find this romantic? Lewis Rothschild: Well, I say it with a great deal of charm. You can say things like this with all the charm in the world, but after a while, it will wear pretty thin on the listener. So at some point, you’re going to have to decide where to draw the line between working hard as a lawyer and working so hard that you’ve eliminated any hope of a social life.70 Nancy’s dad used to tell her that every organization would test the limits of its workers to see where they draw the line. If she didn’t say “no” from time to

time, her bosses would keep piling the work on, right until the ER workers carried out her body on a stretcher. You need to figure out how and when to say “no” so that you can honor your commitments to the people who love you. If you’ve already established a good work ethic early on, it’s easier to say “no” when “no” is the right choice. Where this issue comes up most often is when lawyers have children. Unlike cats, children need a lot of attention.71 You don’t want to be that lawyer who surprises his children by coming home once in a while when they’re still awake. (“Daddy, what’s wrong? You’re home!”) If you want to spend time with your children (or with other loved ones), figure out if some of your work is portable, so that you can take it home and do it after everyone’s asleep. Figure out what time-wasters you’ve developed at work, so that you can make your days as efficient as possible. Those people who tell you that you can have it all? They’re lying. You can have almost everything, but you can’t ever have it all at once. Don’t even try. If you work efficiently and well, and if you start learning what you need to know to become a good lawyer, you’ll probably make it past the first year. (Congratulations!) For your remaining career as an associate, see Chapter Seven. 1 We discussed the imposter syndrome in Chapter One of our first book, LAW SCHOOL SURVIVAL MANUAL: FROM LSAT TO BAR EXAM (2010). 2 The good news in a small, medium, and big firm is that your recommendations will almost assuredly be vetted by someone more senior than yourself. These senior associates and partners are making sure that your suggestions are correct. So, at least for a bit, you’ll have the benefit of a safety net to protect your clients from possible mistakes. 3 Nancy’s buddy Kirk Homeyer puts it this way: I am not trying to make your book a fashion magazine, but one wardrobe piece of advice I always give is: always, always, always have your clothes tailored. Doesn’t matter the price or size; tailor it. Heck, even MEN’S HEALTH has been promoting that notion…. I think a tailored wardrobe increases confidence. Is my shirt a 15.5”, 34-35? No, my shirt size is Kirk. It is all me. 4 Well, maybe a little. 5 Well, that’s what we call them. 6 If they also have beds and showers, start worrying. That means that the firm expects you to work late a lot. 7 By “early,” we mean that they are generally at their desks by 7:00 to 7:30 A.M. To Jeff, that isn’t early, but, then, he gets up daily at 4:00 A.M. Seriously, he does (not by choice, but that’s a long story.) 8 To Jeff, the term “night owl” means someone who generally arrives at work at roughly 9:00 to 9:30

A.M. and doesn’t leave the office until generally 10:00 P.M. or later. 9 That is, unless one of them is particularly powerful in the firm. If she is, then follow her schedule. 10 Jeff worked in a firm that did this (but on a quarterly basis). We both see this behavior as a bad sign. Firms like to think this feedback is a good motivator. Jeff’s experience was that this “feedback” mechanism triggers both competitive and aggressive reactions by the associates whose hours are being compared. Circulating everyone’s time usually means that the firm is driven by the almighty dollar and values billable hours above pretty much everything else. High billable hours, by the way, don’t necessarily spell “quality.” High billable hours may also mean that someone was a lollygagger. 11 Not all boomers are “phone” people. Nancy much prefers texts and emails to talking on the phone. 12 Dewey & LeBeouf is a good example of this scenario. Rumors of its impending demise were circulating long before it actually died. The first external sign of discontent and internal strife was when several of the major partners walked away. If partners are leaving your firm in droves and taking their affiliated associates with them, be afraid. Be very afraid. And look out for yourself, as no one else at the firm is generally going to take on that task. Jeff has a saying: “Look in the mirror. The person looking back at you is the only one who has your back. Your friends are your friends, but landing you a job when your firm implodes is not in their job description.” 13 This final exodus of associates involves those who stayed at the firm hoping to make partner but have now concluded that a partnership isn’t going to happen for them (or who have been told straight out that they will not make partner). A good firm will tell an associate that the associate won’t make partner well before the partnership vote is cast. The firm will do so because it allows the associate to save face and leave on his or her own. A really, really good firm will help its exiting associates with outplacement. After all, some former associates become potential clients or sources of referrals. 14 Some of these folks fit into more than one category. 15 The same person who has not given you the time to get clarification will likely punish you when the project is late or not done to his satisfaction. Creating and using the paper trail is your survival technique: You can show that paper trail to your mentor or to the section head when folks start asking questions about why so-and-so’s project was not done properly or on time. 16 It’s a bit like that old song: “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.” 17 You’d be amazed by how many lawyers hate conflict. 18 Jeff’s recommendation is to play nice with everyone when you get to the firm for as long as you can. Although it’s good to make friends early in your career, you really should try to avoid joining any particular clique or sub-group, until you’ve been around long enough to figure out if these are the people with whom you truly want to be associated. 19 The firm said that Jeff would find life at the firm exciting when he got there, but he’s pretty sure that no one had any idea that the place would literally catch on fire and burn down two weeks after Jeff started his job. 20 Here’s a story from one of our buddies (made anonymous to protect that person’s identity): I’m constantly working with an attorney that epitomizes this trait: “I need this motion, and I need it tonight, and don’t [eff] it up” (assigned at 7:00 P.M.). Three weeks later, the motion still hadn’t been reviewed by the requesting attorney. I have had heated mental debates with myself on how to deal with this. Finally, I won the debate with myself. Sadist attorney asked me to do some research as I was walking out the door Friday night; that attorney needed it “Saturday.” I already had plans to go to the mountains on Saturday. I mustered up the courage to tell that attorney that I had plans, and that I could do it on Sunday if the attorney would still like the research done. Voila! The assignment wasn’t really a Saturday emergency. The attorney responded: “Sure, any time on Sunday works for me.” The point? I have no problem staying late, working

weekends, and doing the overtime when requested. It’s a part of the premium that’s built into my salary. But we’re all still people, and we all have separate lives. Moreover, with just a small nudge or subtle reminder, most people, even the sadists, understand that first-years are humans, too. It was the first time that I’d said that I couldn’t do something that minute, and the attorney had no problem with it. I make it a habit of saying “yes, I’ll do it,” and when it comes time that I really can’t do it, I’ve gotten no grief from the sadists. 21 We saw a classic micro-managing direction the other day at our gym. The laminated (we kid you not) instructions for how to use a computer to make an ID card started with “sit down at the computer.” 22 It is possible, but unlikely, that she thinks that you’re a complete idiot and is only giving you the project to prove to herself that you are, in fact, an idiot. Alternatively, she might have been told to give you work because you’re the new guy. In reality, it doesn’t matter why you received the project. You need to do your best to give her back a perfect work product. 23 Think in terms of Eeyore from WINNIE THE POOH. 24 According to one of our buddies, you can train attorneys to be nice and helpful by getting them to show off their knowledge to you. Ask them questions. Listen to their answers. (You may not follow their advice, but listen and consider doing what they’re suggesting.) After a while, they’ll probably be comfortable helping you because you’ve developed that mentor-mentee relationship. 25 Be careful, though. Some of your colleagues may not be trustworthy. One of us trusts people until proven wrong; the other one doesn’t trust anyone until provided with clear proof of trustworthiness. 26 Although there are numerous books you can use, we like WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. & E.B. WHITE, THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE (4th ed. 1999) and LYNNE TRUSS, EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES: THE ZERO TOLERANCE APPROACH TO PUNCTUATION (2004). 27 And for goodness’s sake, repeat after us: There is no such thing as the plural possessive of “its.” 28 Even litigators need to know how to draft contracts. (Those are called “settlement agreements” in litigator-ese.) 29 Quotation available at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046816/quotes. Of course, Jeff heard this phrase differently: “There’s a right way, and that’s the Marine way. Period.” 30 Legal irony might also explain why “briefs” aren’t brief, either. 31 The irony of how long this sentence is, and how convoluted it is, is not lost on us. 32 We’re not kidding: See Brian Baxter, Crowell Hit with Ethics Complaint over Inbreeding Comment, AM. LAW DAILY (Oct. 7, 2011), available at http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2011/10/crowellethics-complaint.html. 33 Too bad she peaked so early. 34 Jeff had the benefit of working for two individuals (back-to-back) who were adamant about using short, declarative sentences in legal writing. The first was Justice Andy Douglas of the Supreme Court of Ohio; the second was Jerry Tiniano, then a partner with Hahn Loeser & Parks. With their guidance, he believes that he generally writes clearly and succinctly today. 35 Jeff thinks that, in his entire career, he has created maybe 10 such sentences. Even today, when he reads some of his old briefs, he will comment (mostly to himself), “Wow, that is a great sentence.” 36 Please, please, please let the cat jump onto the table, instead of having the table be jumped on by the cat. 37 Passive voice gives Nancy hives. She refuses to admit that hives are given to her when voice that is passive is used. 38 There’s at least one court out there that thinks that copying pleadings is plagiarism. See Tiffany

Kary, Borders Wins Approval of $505 Million Bankruptcy Loan, BLOOMBERG (Mar. 15, 2011), available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-15/borders-wins-approval-of-505-million-bankruptcy-loanfrom-geec-led-group.html. We think that that court is mistaken about the plagiarism part, but we understand why the court didn’t want the lawyer using the form to make the client pay full price if what the lawyer did was, essentially, a cut-and-paste job. 39 Some courts have suggested forms of orders and motions in their local rules, so you may want to look there also. 40 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify. 41 Poor writing and research skills remain #1 on the complaint list. 42 Don’t forget: Until you’re admitted to the bar, you can talk with a lawyer inside your firm about possible legal advice, but you can’t actually give legal advice, or sign letters or pleadings, or otherwise act as a lawyer. 43 As our buddy Kirk Homeyer points out, most of the research that first-years get to do is of the “find a needle in a haystack, even though we’re pretty sure there’s no needle” variety. Spelling out what you did to research is a good way to show the assigning lawyer that you’ve covered all of your bases and that the reason you spent so much time on the matter was that you did a lot of work. 44 Back when Jeff was still working in a firm, he kept a box under his desk. That box contained the various mistakes and goofs that he had been “fortunate enough” to create or do. He called it the “Box of Shame.” He saw that box every time that he sat at his desk, and he kicked it every time that he stretched his legs. The point of the box was to remind him that he could and would make mistakes. It tended to keep him fairly humble. 45 We still do. But we don’t like to make them, and we’re trying hard to change. Someday, Nancy will learn that hitting “4” instead of “2” on the house alarm makes for some very unhappy cats when Jeff later comes home. 46 As a first-year lawyer? Have you read that ethics rule about competence? 47 Even if you can fix it right away, you’ll want to tell your supervisor or mentor. The reality is that hiding the ball will hurt you far worse than making a simple, fixable mistake. Your partners and senior associates need to be able to trust you to tell them if you’ve dropped the ball. Hiding the mistake will always come back to haunt you. Tell your mentor and the person who assigned you the project; tell them as soon as you find the mistake or as soon as you fix it, assuming it’s a quick fix. 48 Jeff’s Box of Shame contained evidence of his various mess-ups. Even though some of those mistakes couldn’t be fixed (and his clients suffered financially as a result), not one client ever yelled at Jeff or the firm for making the mistake. Upon learning of the mistake, Jeff would immediately call the client and explain what had occurred. He’d tell the client what, if anything could be done to fix the mistake, and he’d offer to fix it if there was any way possible for that to happen. (Sometimes, Jeff would talk with the billing attorney first, but he always called the client very quickly after learning about the mistake.) Most clients took Jeff’s news better than he’d expected because they were glad that he’d taken the initiative to tell them up front. They weren’t happy about the mistakes, but they seemed to understand that sometimes mistakes happen. One more point here: Obviously, don’t send the client a bill for something that you messed up. 49 We’re going to give you a lot more examples of boneheaded mistakes later in this chapter. 50 Jeff never trusted computer systems. Not only did he calendar his own deadlines, he also asked his assistant to put every due date in her calendar, with the hope that at least one of the calendars would be accurate and provide timely notices of the various tasks that needed to be accomplished on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Jeff’s assistant printed out his weekly calendar every Friday for the following week, so that they could review it to see which critical projects were rapidly approaching their due dates.

51 These items can vary, but litigation docketing deadlines are certainly among these required items. Other examples include response deadlines for negotiations in business deals or filing deadlines for corporate documents (annual reports, votes, and minute books) at the state and local levels. Realize that the firm’s calendar is different from your personal calendar. Sometimes, each department in a firm has its own special “area calendar.” Other times, the firm just has a unified calendar for everything. Either way, the calendar works like this: The names of all of the attorneys who need to be given notice of a certain event are included in the calendared event, and each will receive an email reminder on the date of the event. For example, if four attorneys are listed as being involved in a certain case, they will each receive a “notice” email the day that an answer is due in a big piece of litigation.

Most calendars will let you prioritize notices so that the major dates go to everyone on the case and the secondary notices go only to specific people on the case. But the email system is the internal noticing mechanism—hence the requirement that you check your email daily. Although the notices are sent by email, they appear visually on the calendar itself. You can look at calendars monthly, weekly, and daily. As such, you can glance at your entire week when you get to work on Monday (or, more accurately, when you left work on Saturday) and see how crazy the next week is going to be. 52 That’s why Jeff always used a duplicate system inside his own calendar program so that if the firm’s server went down, his calendar would still provide the necessary notices. 53 Easy to do if you’re a solo practitioner. 54 She got the motion done because—luckily—there wasn’t much to put in the motion in that particular case. But she never forgot that mistake. 55 We’re not trying to hide the ball regarding other bonehead moves that attorneys may make. It just turns out that we were litigators and business attorneys, and we have more experience in these particular areas of the law. 56 OCD is obsessive-compulsive disorder. 57 For the worst horror story we know about typos in a deal document, see David Margolick, At the Bar: How Three Missing Zeros Brought Red Faces and Cost Millions of Dollars, N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 4, 1991), available at http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/04/news/bar-three-missing-zeros-brought-red-facescost-millions-dollars.html?scp=1&sq=How%20Three%20Missing%20Zeros%20Brought%20Red% 20Faces%20and%20Cost%20Millions%20of%20Dollars&st=cse. 58 A “scrivener’s error” in one opinion letter was a contributing factor that cost a law firm $10 million. See Via Technologies, Inc. v. SONICblue Claims, LLC, 782 F. Supp. 2d 843, 847 (N.D. Cal. 2011). 59 That email was from Nancy Temple, Arthur Andersen’s inside counsel, to David Duncan, the lead person on the Enron account. (See news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/enron/tmpl2dunc101601eml.pdf.) In that email, it appeared that Ms. Temple was advising Mr. Duncan to change something discussing Enron’s accounting. Ultimately, that email—sent at 8:39 P.M.—was crucial evidence in the case against Arthur Andersen. After the Department of Justice won its obstruction of justice case against Andersen (later reversed on appeal by the Supreme Court), the jurors were polled, and every one of them mentioned Ms. Temple’s email as key. Personally, we don’t read that particular email as Ms. Temple telling Mr. Duncan to lie. We think that she was concerned about one of his conclusions, and she dashed off an email in the hope of fixing a problem. But that’s not how the jury read that email. 60 According to an obituary of Coach Woody Hayes, Coach Hayes was supposed to have said, “But I’ve got news for Darrell. Four things can happen—and three are bad.” See Woody Hayes, Ohio State

Legend, Is Dead: Controversial Football Coach Dies in His Sleep at 74, Apparently of Heart Attack, L.A. TIMES (Mar. 13, 1987), available at http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-13/sports/sp-5391_1_ohio-state. 61 Nancy’s dad starts his by not putting anything at all in the “To” field. That way, he can’t send it by accident. 62 If it’s a tricky situation and you need the CYB protection of the writing, call first and then send a confirming email regarding the content of the telephone conversation. 63 Think that your Facebook privacy settings are foolproof? True story: Nancy was speaking at a conference, and the judge who introduced her used one of her ballroom dancing photos that she’d posted on Facebook (and it was one in which Nancy was in a backbend). How’d he get that picture? One of Nancy’s Facebook friends was that judge’s former law clerk. (Good thing that it was a flattering picture.) 64 Google “Rolodex” yourself. We’re feeling old, but we assured Elias that we don’t live under a bush. 65 Jeff goes target-shooting (no animals are involved) a few times a month. 66 For example, Jeff runs a monthly shooting competition for his group, and he participates in several other events run by others. 67 After several successive 300+ billable hour months, Jeff once put in a vacation request at his firm asking to take the weekend off. We think that he made his point, even if we’re not sure that the partner at his law firm had a sense of humor. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, Jeff says that the partner likely didn’t appreciate his memo. (Jeff’s memo is yet another example of the type of potentially bad decision-making you’ll do when you’re completely exhausted and haven’t had a day off in nearly 14 weeks.) Nancy, on the other hand, thinks that Jeff’s memo was a great idea—simultaneously snarky and funny. 68 That decision might, of course, have something to do with the fact that student loans aren’t normally dischargeable in bankruptcy. 69 Who doesn’t love a good Aaron Sorkin script? You can find this quote, and more, at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112346/quotes. 70 Nancy has a friend who made the considered decision to focus on her job as a lawyer at a big firm. The attorney describes herself as a “partner at firm X” when you ask her about herself. Neither of us defines ourselves as attorneys first. We earn a living practicing law (or teaching people how to practice law), but our careers don’t define us as people. Unfortunately, when you work at a hard-driving law firm, you must sacrifice much of your social life and your social contacts in order to do a good job. Eventually, you’ll need to make a decision about what you want in life and what that means for you in terms of working in a law firm. But your first year is not the time for that decision. 71 Actually, so do our cats, but they certainly don’t need as much attention as, say, a baby would.

WELL, YOU MADE it through the first year of practice without quitting to find another career. That’s good news! (If you’re already chomping at the bit to leave, though, you might want to skip ahead to Chapter Eleven.) Now it’s time to get you through the next several years as you develop more experience and move up the ranks. What will you need to succeed? You’ll need people skills, political skills, legal skills, and common sense. Although there are differences in how you may approach work and life at various stages of being an associate (and certainly how the firm’s expectations of you evolve at each of those stages), a lot of what we’re going to discuss in this chapter is a continuation of the building blocks that we started in Chapters Three through Six. Not surprisingly, you’ll use the same skills and approaches as both a junior associate and a senior associate, and even as a partner. Junior associates have a steep learning curve. They learn rapidly but are generally subject to fairly close supervision during the process, because there is just so much for them to learn. Junior associates face a lot of “firsts”: first project, first client contact, first hearing or closing. Senior associates have fewer “firsts” because of their experience with the work, and they also (well, they should also) have developed some self-confidence. The firm will have significantly different expectations for senior associates. Senior associates are nearly partners, and the firm will expect them to think and act like partners. Rather than duplicating the discussion on each of these topics for junior and senior associates, we’ll discuss a topic and then articulate, where necessary, the differences between the expectations that a firm may have for junior and senior associates.1 We also lay out some of the differences in Appendix A. A. People Skills We’ve already nagged you about the importance of being polite and treating

all of your colleagues with respect, so we’re not going to rehash those points here. We do want to alert you to two particular people skills that you’re going to need: emotional intelligence and an understanding of how (most) clients think. Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman is one of the people associated with the concept of “emotional intelligence,” although he (very properly) credits two psychologists, John Mayer and Peter Salovey,2 with developing that theory.3 If social intelligence involves understanding how to work with people, emotional intelligence (sometimes called “EQ”) is “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.”4 Your parents called this concept “empathy,” although there are nuances about the difference between the two concepts that are of absolutely no importance to you here. How would you use EQ at work? Let’s say you come into work and, before you walk into your office, you pass your assistant’s desk. He’s got his head in his hands and his back is shaking. Do you: (a) Ignore what’s going on with your assistant and ask him to bring you the Dweezledub file? (b) Ask quietly if he needs anything? If you picked (a), then you might not have the most highly developed sense of EQ ever observed. Let’s try another one: You’re trying to prepare your client for a deposition. Instead of focusing on answering your questions, she keeps looking at her watch. Do you: (a) Demand that she stop looking at her watch and focus on what you want to do, which is to make sure that she’s prepared for her deposition? (b) Ask her if she’s running late or needs to make a phone call? If you picked (a) again, then you should find a job in which your contact with people is limited. Maybe county coroners need lawyers. Maybe their dead clients do. But you should limit your interaction with live people until you sharpen up your ability to understand what their non-verbal cues are telling you. EQ helps you understand how to deal with your colleagues, and it helps you

understand how to negotiate with opposing counsel. (It also helps you keep your personal relationships healthy.) The more sensitive you are to others’ emotional cues and to the ones that you’re sending, the better able you’ll be to work well with others. A couple of particular EQ things to remember at a firm: First, your personal life is just that—personal. Your co-workers do not want to hear about how much money you make, how drunk you got at a party, or how sad you are about a recent romantic breakup. Second, the staff members charged with doing the accounting at the firm don’t want to have to chase you down to get your expense receipts or your billable hour reports. Show them the proper respect and get your information to them—probably via your administrative assistant—on time.5 All associates—junior, mid-level, and senior—should exhibit EQ skills. (So should partners.) Speaking Fluent “Client” One of the things that we’ve noticed over the years is that most clients have a higher tolerance for risk than most lawyers do. Law school tends to breed any tolerance for risk right out of you. “Well, what if this bad thing happens? What if that bad thing happens?” Law students learn that the best way to serve clients is to minimize their exposure to risk. The problem with that lesson is that clients don’t always want you to minimize their exposure to risk. They want you to identify the risk(s), give them options on dealing with the risk(s), and let them sort out how much risk they want to tolerate. To accomplish this effectively, it’s really important to learn how their business works (or the ins and outs of their case) before you offer advice that might be wonderful in the abstract but totally useless to them. The best lawyers that we know are the ones who understand a heck of a lot more than the law. They’re also the ones who know their client’s businesses and who care— sincerely—about their clients’ well-being. Pay attention to your clients, not as abstract notions, but as real people. If your client wants to take dumb risks, though, then you have to make a decision. Is the risk a dumb, legal, but embarrassing risk or a dumb, illegal, destructive risk? (Of course, most risks will fall in between those two extremes.) Before you give your client carte blanche to follow his own instinct, ask yourself two questions: (1) have you warned him about the risks (in writing), and (2) have you distanced yourself from anything that has a whiff of illegality or unethical behavior? You’ve invested too many years and spent too much money

to let a wrong-headed client take you down. As you progress from new associate to senior associate, your “risk meter” will become honed. You’ll also get to know the firm’s comfort level with risk. As between your comfort level with risk and your firm’s comfort level, your firm’s comfort level trumps. In that regard, you’ll be expected to voice the policies of the firm, even if your personal view is different. Early on, you’ll get a feel for the firm’s risk tolerance from your assigning attorney, either directly (“We don’t do that here”) or indirectly (“Let’s talk about the changes I made to your draft”). Either way, you will see how the firm evaluates client-centric risk. Later, when you have your own clients, you may well be in a position to advocate your own risk tolerance views to the client. Until then, you’ll need to adhere to the firm’s risk tolerance level. Before we move on to political skills, we have one last bit of “people advice” for you. No one does everything well. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses. If you know what you’re good at doing and what you’re horrible at doing, then you slowly can work your way toward a job that lets you use your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.6 No one likes working on his weaknesses and almost no amount of working to improve weaknesses will turn them into strengths. At best, you can work on your weaknesses to avoid absolute disasters. For example, if you’re a horrible proofreader, then you should work on getting better (and on finding people who can help you proofread). You should probably not do the type of law that requires 12 hours a day of detailed proofreading.7 If you’re great at interacting with people and you make friends easily,8 then you’re probably going to be a good rainmaker. Know what your strengths are. Develop them. Not only will you have more fun working on your strengths, but you’ll go further in your career if you link your strengths to your job duties. This concept does not diminish as you progress through a law firm. To the contrary, as you make progress, you’ll be expected to fully understand your weaknesses and take some steps to eliminate them (if possible) or to otherwise shield clients and other attorneys from the possible fallout from those weaknesses. For example, as a senior litigation associate, you will be expected to be able to draft (or edit a draft from a junior associate) and file (or draft and send to opposing counsel) certain types of documents and pleadings without supervision from other attorneys. If grammar is a weakness (and it is for Jeff), then you need to have in place a system where you can get input from someone before you send out the various documents. The same is true for drafting and proofing transactional documents, opinion letters, wills and trusts, etc.

Although junior associates are not given a free pass on finding their weaknesses, they are subject to considerably more scrutiny and review than is a senior associate. Junior associates are still finding their way through the practice of law. As we discussed earlier in Chapter Three, the feedback loop involving your assigning attorneys will quickly flush out some of your main weaknesses. These weaknesses will become topics during your annual review. Good junior associates try to avoid having the same weaknesses identified in successive annual reviews. B. Political Skills Now that you’ve proven to yourself that you have (or are getting) people skills, let’s kick things up a notch. Even if you’re good at dealing with people on a one-on-one basis, you work in an organization (unless you’re a solo), so you’re going to need some understanding of office politics. First, some basics. Partners Aren’t the Only People with Political Power One of the biggest mistakes that people make is assuming that a person’s title equals that person’s power. Not so, at least not always. Yes, if the person happens to be one of the founding partners or her name is part of the firm’s name, then probably she has a fair amount of power. But not every partner has power, and not every non-partner is without power. Let’s rule out the “power because of sleeping together” issue. If someone’s powerful because of a romantic relationship, you obviously know not to tick off that person or the person with whom he’s sleeping. Some of those relationships last; most don’t. Either way, until the relationship is over, each party needs to be handled as though he or she is the one with the power. Some of the power comes from the ability to move work along or bring it to a standstill. That means that assistants, paralegals, proofreaders, and the office manager all have some degree of power. Treat them with respect. The rumor mill will tell you which lawyers have power. Listen for things like “he made one mistake in his first year, and she prevented him from making partner” comments. Those people are powerful and, worse yet, they know it. Heaven help you if you find yourself a pawn in a power struggle between partners. Try to stay as neutral as possible, and let Godzilla kill Mothra,9 or viceversa. We don’t want you to be obsequious to those with power, just respectful—

and careful. But blithely assuming that your good work is enough to help you navigate in the firm is both wrong and foolhardy. A Word About Your Own Power Some people will report to you, and you’ll have the power of those people’s performance evaluations in your hands. Don’t abuse that power. You may not feel that it’s there, but the person reporting to you certainly does. Don’t ask your assistant to do personal favors for you. If he volunteers, great, but don’t over-use that offer. Our rule is a rough 1:1 ratio: In other words, if he brings you coffee, then next time, you should get coffee for him. Just because you and he have different ranks within the firm doesn’t mean that you outrank him as a human.10 We often think of this closing scene in the movie WORKING GIRL (1988), where Tess’s new assistant is trying to figure out what Tess is going to want her to do:11

One more thing: At some point, you’re going to start dealing with opposing counsel. Sometimes, you’ll be dealing with a person who is roughly the same rank as you; depending on the way that your firm runs, you might find yourself dealing with someone who’s more senior than you are (perhaps even a partner). You don’t want to be a pushover, of course, but you don’t want to come off as obnoxious, either. Our basic rule has always been to treat the people on the other side with courtesy and respect—unless they don’t treat us that way. If either of us found ourselves opposite someone who played games or was downright rude to us, we engaged in what psychologists call “operant conditioning.” We stopped agreeing to extensions. We stopped agreeing to anything, in fact, that wasn’t in writing. And when the person who triggered the change in tone asked why we were no longer being cooperative, we told him (again, in writing). We did everything that we were legally and ethically required to do, but not a whit more. On the other hand, both of us enjoyed very good professional relationships with most people on the other side of the deal or litigation. Being professional engenders professionalism from most opposing counsel and from most of their clients. Why did being professional matter when dealing with the other side? In

later matters (cases or deals), the opposing counsel who respects you might well suggest to a client that he bring you in as well (assuming no conflicts of interest exist). You’d be surprised at how much new business comes from being hardworking, respectful, and fair. As you evolve from junior associate to senior associate, you will gradually have a larger area of influence. We don’t necessarily equate this to “power.” But to those who report to you, your increasing area of influence sure will feel like power. As a young associate, you’ll receive virtually all of your work from other attorneys, and they’ll review your work before it goes out to the client or opposing counsel. A lot of the time, you’ll be doing “piecework” (a single piece of work inside a much larger project). From your perspective at the bottom of the totem pole, you can’t always see the entire picture. In some cases, you may never know where your piece fits in. That’s normal. There are times when knowing the whole picture, though, will help you do your piece of the project. Most of the time, it’s OK to ask for more information if you don’t understand how your assignment fits into the whole project.12 On smaller projects, the attorney may tell you to take a case and “run with it” or to “just keep me informed.” That attorney is telling you that you have the reins; it’s your case to manage. Generally speaking, but not always, these instructions also carry an unspoken mandate that you need to see the assigning attorney before making big decisions or formulating case-level tactics. As a young associate, it’s safer to assume that you might want to check in with the assigning attorney—just to keep him informed—before making global decisions, unless he makes it clear to you that he wants you to make those types of decisions.13 Sometimes, an assigning attorney will tell you to “do X and send it out,” meaning to send it out without having him review it first. When the assigning attorney does that, you’ll know he’s developing trust in both your judgment and in your skills. Good for you! You’re moving up in the world. As a senior associate, you’ll have fewer people reviewing your work. At this level, you play a bigger role in all projects that involve you, including developing case strategy and tactics. You’ll start to push some of your work downhill to the more junior associates, and you’ll supervise them and review their work as they do a project for you. You’ll start to develop your own clients and may hand some of those clients’ work off to other attorneys if that work is outside your area of practice. In a very real sense, having your own clients creates your power within the firm. (See Section D below.) If you can develop enough clients to keep you busy at work, you’ll never have to take work from

anyone else. Being beholden to no one else’s client base is power at a firm. C. Are You at the Home Office or a Branch Office? Not only do you have to worry about power in your own office, you need to worry about the power structure of multiple offices, if you’re in a firm that has them. Traditionally, the home office is the locus of power, which is why it gets to set all sorts of policies. A branch office founded by a powerful partner from the home office comes next in the power lineup. An outpost founded by an associate who couldn’t figure out a way to say no comes last. The most important lesson for you is that, if your firm has multiple offices, then you need to do everything that you can to work with partners from all (or most, or at least most of the key branches) of those other offices, either on paying work or on non-billable firm work.14 If people in the other offices don’t know you and your work, then they won’t be able to argue with whatever picture someone in your office paints of you when you’re coming up for promotion. That means that, if you make an enemy in your office and you don’t counterbalance that partnership “no” vote with a lot of other “yes” votes, you’re toast.15 Speaking of offices, the difference between the “mother ship” (main office) versus the “branch office” is very real. You disregard this reality at your own peril. As we discussed above, junior associates receive the vast majority of their work from other attorneys. If you’re located at the branch office, you are likely working primarily for the branch office’s attorneys. When you get a chance, you should try to seek out work from people at the mother ship, or at another office if there are more than two branch offices. You can get work from attorneys in other offices by volunteering to work for others in your practice group who happen to be at other offices. Many firms with branch offices will hold practice-area meetings by conference calls or video chat. During those meetings, you’ll have a chance to interact with folks from other offices. That’s your chance to pipe up and offer to take on work from those other attorneys. (You’ll need to be a bit delicate in how you ask, especially as a junior associate, because attorneys in your office may well want to keep you fully engaged with their work.) The flipside of this “mother ship/branch office” coin is also true, but to a lesser extent. If you work at the mother ship, you’ll want to get to know and do work for the folks at the branch office, in addition to working for your local attorneys. Good working relationships can mean everything inside the firm. It’s not unusual for a person at one of the branch offices to rise to great power within

the firm. Simply stated, you want to do as much work for as many attorneys as you can. Not only will working for many attorneys give you a breadth of work experience, but it will also allow you to get to know a lot of people within your firm. As a senior associate, your opportunities to reach out to other branches will increase automatically, simply because you’ll have been around a while and will have gotten to know a lot of the firm’s attorneys in your practice area. Additionally, you’ll have a bit more autonomy in how work comes your way. That’s not to say that you can pick and choose your work, because that is almost never the case. But you will have an opportunity to make direct contact with attorneys from other offices. As a senior associate, you’re going to be coming up for partner fairly soon, and you’ll need to be able to count on people from the other offices to cast their votes in your favor. The more attorneys who know you and know the quality of your work, the greater opportunity you’ll have to get voted into the partnership.16 How Did the New Partners Get Ahead? If you want to know how to behave if you’re going to succeed somewhere, pay attention to the people who most recently got where you want to be. In particular, pay attention to the most recent class of new partners. Do a little anthropology. Take a look at how they dress, how they act, and their work habits. If you can identify some themes, then you’re likely going to get some valuable information about what works well at your firm. D. The Coin of the Realm In every law firm, the coin of the realm is your book of business. The more business you bring into the firm, with loyal clients who will follow you to the ends of the earth, the more powerful you’ll be. Period. Junior associates—say, those who are second- to fourth-years—are generally not expected to develop clients (although the better ones are already interacting with clients enough to have happy clients refer new matters to them). We understand that junior associates are generally too busy working to try to develop clients on a major scale, but we still think that you should make yourself available to current and potential clients in a way that might lead to client development down the road. True story: Jeff developed his “temp agency” clients when he was a thirdyear associate by volunteering to speak at a conference of local temp agencies.

He was doing commercial contract litigation work, among other things, at the time. He talked about the contents of the various agency agreements that he had seen in litigation and how certain terms in the agreements had proven to be problematic. The focus of his talk was that proactive modification of those terms might foreclose certain claims from being brought. He eventually integrated himself into the firm’s business area (although he was technically a “litigation” associate) by explaining to the head of the business practice area that writing better contracts prevented bad situations from arising and eliminated the need to conduct protracted litigation when a dispute did arise. Senior associates, on the other hand, are expected to try to bring in business. Every firm wants its senior associates and its partners to bring in business. Some firms look at an associate’s book of business when deciding if that person should become a partner. Now, you can still make partner (at many places) as a non-business generating attorney. Jeff knows several attorneys who made partner in their respective firms without generating a lot of client business. These lawyers were exceptional attorneys. Their firms looked past the lack of business generation to see that it was important to keep these attorneys on. But it’s better for you if you can bring in business. In your firm, you’ll know people who seem to have the Midas touch— every person that these people meet will somehow become a client of the firm. Others can’t generate clients regardless of how hard they try. The “Midas touch” attorney can’t possibly do all the work brought into the firm by his clients, so he’ll hand off some of that work to others. Without the non–business-generating attorneys, the new clients wouldn’t have anyone free to do their work. You’ll want to do your best to generate as many loyal clients as you can. By “loyal,” we mean those clients who would follow you to another law firm, so that you can still be their attorney. As you get more senior as a lawyer, that book of business will be the single biggest deciding factor if you’re considering a move to another firm.17 E. Headhunters and Competing Offers Sometime in your second year of practice, you’ll start to get calls from headhunters. (Trust us.) The headhunters will want you to leave your current firm and go to work for another firm. (If you’re like us, you’ll think, “I don’t even know how to do anything yet, and someone else wants to hire me?”) You’ll keep getting those calls throughout your time at the firm. In the old days (meaning when we were associates), we could tell headhunter phone messages a

mile away, because they only left their name and number, never any detail about what their call was about. If you think that you might want to switch firms, then hear them out, but remember that they have a vested interest in placing someone at the new employer, because they usually get paid a portion of that new position’s salary as compensation for the placement. That compensation structure tends to create incentives for sugar-coating some of the information that you’ll need in order to make an informed decision about joining a new firm. You’re going to need to do your own due diligence on any new firm. If you’re lucky, you might know someone already working there (or someone who has left the potentially-new-toyou firm) and you can simply ask what they think of the firm.18 In any event, you need to understand that the headhunter is working mostly for the firm that’s looking to recruit you. Even if you’re mildly unhappy where you are, you don’t want to do a lot of shopping around for a new job. (If you’re very unhappy, skip to Chapter Eleven.) The risk of your current firm finding out increases exponentially with the amount of exploring that you do. Even a nice firm might have people in it that would like to retaliate against you for having the temerity to look elsewhere. If you don’t want to switch firms, then tell the headhunter, “I’m happy here right now, but thanks.” Be nice to the headhunter. You never know when you might change your mind. Let’s assume that you’re exploring an opportunity (whether generated by a headhunter or your own inquiry), and you get an offer. The question then becomes whether you should tell your current firm before or after you accept the pending offer. Neither of us is a fan of the “use the offer to bargain for better treatment where you are” style of negotiating.19 If you really can’t decide whether to stay or go, talk the issues over with someone at the firm whom you trust and who might be able to help you change some things about your job.20 But typically, if you’ve got an offer, and it’s one you like, take it. We strongly suggest that you don’t go back and forth between the two employers. You’ll end up ticking both of them off. If, on the other hand, you leave your current firm on friendly terms, then you may be leaving yourself an opening to come back later, should your circumstances change. In this context, “on friendly terms” means that you give plenty of notice of your departure date, and that you don’t send nasty emails to the partners or associates whom you dislike. When people ask why you’re leaving, it’s OK for you to be honest, but try to be honest in a way that isn’t critical of your current firm. If you’re leaving to take a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity (for example, as a deputy White House Counsel), then that’s what you should say: You had an exceptional opportunity that you had to take. Find a way to leave without creating new enemies; it leaves you the flexibility to try to come back later if you decide that the grass wasn’t really greener elsewhere. OK, we’ve given you a primer on the people skills and the political skills that you’ll need to survive. Now let’s talk about developing your legal skills. F. Legal Skills Your goal is to become more and more useful to more and more people. You get more useful if you work hard, get a lot of different experiences under your belt, and think beyond your current assignments to how they fit in to the bigger scheme of things. Here’s our patent-pending21 Map of Usefulness, which we based on something Nancy’s dad taught her: The bigger your sphere of influence, the more valuable you are to your organization and the less likely it is that you’ll be the first to go. In our map, you want to be in the outmost ring.22

So how do you get to that outmost ring? First, you work your butt off. Part of the reason for networking inside the firm as a junior associate is to take on projects from as many people as possible. These projects will normally fall into a variety of subject areas. You can and should try to cast a wide net. Take on every project that you can—from as many different attorneys as possible. Take on projects in as many different areas as you can. One of the reasons for taking on a variety of projects is that you may well stumble upon a subject area that truly

interests you. When you do, it’s time to drill down hard on that area. Finding something that fascinates you is the Promised Land. When you like doing what you are doing, it seems less like work. Nancy’s dad has always told her that to find something that you love doing is the essence of success. Granted, you won’t always have the opportunity to exclude other projects or devote your time to the “Promised Land” area. But as you slowly move up the ranks, nothing prevents you from filling every scrap of free space in your schedule with sought-after projects in this area.23 We see this kind of targeted project-hunting as applying to both junior and senior associates. Senior associates have an edge because they have a bit more control over their schedule, but the approach works equally well for both. You also do favors (not personal favors—just work-related favors) for people inside and outside your practice group. Take on their projects, and help them finish projects. Assist them in writing papers and articles when they’ve signed up to speak at CLEs or conferences. As you delve deeper and deeper into your chosen area, you’ll make a name for yourself by becoming an expert in some area of the law, even if that area is fairly narrow.24 As you develop your expertise, you should write articles in that area and search out and attend conferences in that area. By attending these conferences, you’ll spread your name and reputation to others who practice in that area. Write a few articles and attend enough of these conferences, and eventually you’ll be asked to speak at a conference yourself. Finally, you network. (Think of networking as giving you that work/life balance that you still hope to have. See Chapter Two.) In addition to networking within the firm, join the local, state, and any subject-area related bar associations. Going to those conferences that we mentioned will give you invaluable networking opportunities in your chosen area. Networking is something all lawyers do—even junior associates. G. Preparation, Preparation, and More Preparation I have studied in detail the accounts of every damned one of his battles. I know exactly how he will react under any given circumstance. He hasn’t the slightest idea what I’m going to do. Therefore, when the day comes, I’m going to whip the hell out of him.

—General George Patton We know that preparation takes a lot of time, and at most firms, time = money. The good news? The more you prepare, the more billable hours you’ll have. The bad news? The partner who sends out the bills to the client will probably exercise some good billing judgment and write off (zero out) many, if not most, of the time you bill—at least for the first year or two. For that first year or two, you’re not efficient, and the billing partner knows that an entry like “draft a single-page letter to the client enclosing some research, 2.5 hours” is going to evoke a bad reaction from the client. Nonetheless, you should still bill your time to make sure that you’re prepared for the work that you need to do. Additionally, it shows the various partners what you’ve been doing with your time. Don’t understand how an asset purchase agreement works? Read some articles about APAs. Don’t understand how to determine what facts are not materially disputed for your summary judgment motion? Read some cases; ask a more senior associate; go to some CLEs.25 Meeting with a client? Review the research that you provided. You don’t want to have that “deer in the headlights” look when someone asks you a relevant question. Look: We know that it takes several years to understand just what you’re supposed to be doing and how what you’re doing fits in with what other people at your firm are doing. We don’t expect you to be a prodigy who knows everything when you walk in the door. But we also know that you’re not stupid, and that the best way to get better at something is to do it, over and over, until it becomes second nature to you.26 After a while, you won’t have to look up so many things, and you won’t have to review every single concept. But remember: The better-prepared lawyer will always have a huge edge. Preparation applies equally to junior and senior associates. The only thing that changes is the type of preparation that you might be doing. A junior associate might meet with clients to explain case or deal strategies, or with opposing counsel to discuss settlement, or to attend and take depositions on her own. (Well, not the most junior folks, but you’ll be doing those things sooner than you might think.) But generally a junior associate isn’t likely to make an oral argument at the state supreme court or in federal court on any sort of crucial matter.27 Regardless of what you are preparing to do, be it a meeting with your client or opposing counsel, or in chambers with the judge or magistrate, you must never walk into that appointment unprepared. Simply stated, failure to adequately prepare is called malpractice, regardless of whether you are a second-

year associate or a senior partner.28 H. No Dithering—Make a Decision A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. —General George Patton29 As you’re learning how to be a lawyer, you’ll find that you’re pretty darn indecisive. You’ll want to do more research, even after you’ve covered all of your bases. You’ll hesitate in giving your clients legal advice, because you’ll be afraid that your advice will be wrong or incomplete. But at some point, you’re going to have to make a decision, even when you’re not sure if that decision is completely correct. Clients don’t have the luxury of waiting months for a simple answer. Nor do they have an unlimited budget to allow you to look under every rock and glean all the wheat from the chaff to give them the perfect answer, if there even is such a thing as a perfect answer. That transition from “here’s my research” to “here’s what I think you should do” is the transition from having a J.D. to being a lawyer. Lawyers exist to help their clients solve problems. The problems can involve lawsuits or doing deals. They can be happy problems (“I just took my company public and made a fortune, so how should I spend, invest, or protect my billions?”) or sad ones (“I just got indicted”). Clients are looking to you—to your training, your brains, your creativity, your common sense, and yes, your ethics—to help them. You need to be able to think through options and then rank those options from best to worse. Here’s the scary little truth: You may never, ever be sure that you’ve given the right advice. You definitely won’t be sure when you first start out as a lawyer, and you probably won’t be sure, even as a seasoned lawyer, when you’re doing something (or creating something) for the first time. But—after a while— you will become better at giving advice. Think of giving advice this way: Imagine that you’ve gone to the doctor to ask her about some odd thing that’s been happening to you. Your doctor says that it could be this malady, or it could be that malady, or it could be something else altogether. Then she just stares at you. She doesn’t suggest a course of action, and she doesn’t give you options. (Or she says that you could do about a million different things, without ranking them in terms of either their usefulness or their cost-effectiveness.) You’re not happy. You’re paying your doctor for her

knowledge and her wisdom, and you want her to use her knowledge and wisdom to help you. Guess what? That’s what your clients want, too. Even though it sounds like you’re going to be making decisions for your client, that’s not the whole story. Granted, some decisions are allocated to the attorney, such as what kind of (and how much) discovery to do in a given case. Sometimes, though, the client needs to make the decisions. Your job is to provide sufficient information for the client to make an informed decision. You’ll tell the client that she has X number of options, and you’ll walk the client through the pros and cons of each option. Even after you walk the client through the options, though, she’ll probably still want some help in making the decision. You’ll have an incredible amount of influence. Of course, you’ll have less front-line responsibility as a junior associate, because you will probably have a senior associate or partner acting as the lead in the matter. But you may be handed a smaller matter from time to time and be expected to “run with it” and “handle it.” When your time comes, you need to be objective and try to see the matter from all sides. After you size up the pros and cons of each option for the client, you’ll make a recommendation. Ultimately, it’s the client’s decision but, in our experience, most clients seem to follow the recommendations that they get. I. Teamwork The [M]arines have a way of making you afraid, not of dying, but of not doing your job. —Capt. Bonnie Little You might not think of teamwork as a legal skill, but we do, and so does your firm. On the biggest projects, the highest ranking partner working on a case will delegate some work to the next highest ranking partner, who will in turn delegate some work, and so on, until the work that’s appropriate for your skill level gets delegated to you. Or several equally high-ranking lawyers in different areas might get together to make use of their distinct knowledge bases to work on a particular project. Even if you’re a solo practitioner, unless you’re literally the only human in your office, you’ll have at least an assistant with whom you’ll work. Lawyers tend to work in teams, at least on the bigger transactions and cases. Don’t be misled. Teams are different from groups. Groups may have

complementary skill sets, or they may be composed of people who all have the same skill set. A practice group at a law firm is a good example of lots of people who generally share the same skill set (or at least overlapping skill sets). But teams always have complementary skill sets.30 That’s why we think that, within a team, everyone should value every other person’s contributions. Here’s an example: Jeff’s firm integrated him into the business group for many of its transactional negotiation meetings. Jeff’s view of the world was different from that of the other business attorneys sitting at the table. He was a commercial litigator, and he looked at everything from a litigation perspective (“how will all of what you’re planning fall apart and lead to a lawsuit?”). He liked the experience. It made him a better litigator. He also thinks that it made the transactional documents better—at least they weren’t as ambiguous as they would have been had he not been in the room. You don’t want your teammates to let you down, of course, but you should want to avoid letting them down, too. Your goal, after all, is to best serve your clients’ needs. If someone else on your team can’t do something, and you can, you should pick up the slack. You’ll want to work in a place at which everyone cares enough to do a good job. You have a role in making your workplace a good one. We don’t view good teamwork as differentiating between seniority levels. It applies across the board, regardless of your status and tenure at the firm. J. Judgment and Experience Judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. —Simón Bolívar As we’ve said before, you’re going to make mistakes, and the important thing is that you learn from them. But making a mistake because you’re doing something new and making a mistake because you didn’t think about what you were doing are entirely different things. We want you to have some common sense. You’d be amazed how many smart people manage to make it through the day without displaying any evidence of common sense. You need to make sure that you’re not one of those people. Being a good lawyer involves more than knowing the law (which keeps changing on you, anyway). It means having good judgment, too. It’s a tautology that your experience increases the longer that you practice

law. Your firm hopes that your judgment is improving as you move up the ranks as an associate. It’s one thing to have a significant amount of experience, but if your experience isn’t coupled with good judgment, you’re not going to make partner at your firm. No one gets to be a partner simply because he or she has been at a firm for the requisite number of years. Good judgment is easy to talk about and virtually impossible to explain as an abstract. Some folks are overly aggressive. Some are too timid. Some have no common sense at all. Good judgment involves knowing when to be aggressive, when to be timid, when to speak up, and when to listen instead of talking. Here are some common mistakes to avoid during your years of practice. We think that most of them are self-evident, but we recognize that we live in a world in which hair dryers now carry labels that say, “do not use in shower or while sleeping.” Hence, our list: Stupid Stunts by Lawyers Who Were Experienced Enough to Know Better • Lying. • Using firm letterhead for personal business. • Writing articles or giving speeches that go counter to your firm’s biggest clients’ interests without first clearing your articles/speeches with the firm’s leadership. • Failing to keep up with news about your clients. Read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and your local paper, for goodness’s sake. • Being late to meetings, with projects, returning a call, etc., on a regular basis. • Reading your email or texting when meeting with other people (especially if you’re not even trying to hide what you’re doing). • Gossiping. • Assuming that whatever the opposing counsel is doing is an intentional affront to you.31 K. Your Career, Yourself32 We’ve seen a lot of people who have tarnished their careers. There are many reasons why someone’s career craters. Ethics reasons are among the most common career-destroyers, although it’s possible to rehabilitate some of those

bad decisions. Sloth and avarice are logical explanations, too, as is lust (if the lust is with a client or colleague).33 But a lot of careers crater not because of big, obvious problems, but because someone didn’t take charge of his career. He just coasted along, letting his career “happen.” Unfortunately, when you don’t make the effort to make things happen, they usually don’t. Don’t be that person who just lets things happen to him. Take charge of your own career. That means: • Don’t just do the work that’s assigned to you. Figure out what else needs to be done, and offer to do it.34 • Figure out which senior lawyers are doing work that you might want to do, and “run into them” to tell them that you’d love to work with them on a project. • Figure out an elevator pitch35 (or two, or ten). (This bullet point relates well to the previous one.) If you’re actually in an elevator when you’re making that pitch, don’t forget about the ethics rules on confidentiality, though. • If there are ways to serve on committees or projects within your firm, volunteer to do that; volunteering demonstrates that you actually care about the firm as an enterprise, rather than just as a collection of independent contractors. • Ask questions. Although there actually is such a thing as a stupid question,36 most of them aren’t, and asking sensible questions does two things for you. It demonstrates that you’re interested in learning, and you actually will learn something. • Figure out what type of clients your firm wants, and figure out how you might be able to network your way into bringing some of those types of clients in by yourself. If your firm likes big banks, start to meet junior people at those banks. As they get more senior, and you get more senior, you’ll be able to continue those relationships, which may well blossom into matters that you can bring into the firm. You want to become the go-to lawyer, not just in your firm, but in your field. You can’t get there without good work, but good work alone won’t get you all the way there. Partners always say, “Think like an owner.” Well, you own your own career. Take charge of it. In summary, you need to:

• take projects from as many people as possible; • take projects from as many branch offices as possible; • network both inside and outside the firm; and • find a niche that you like and develop an expertise. None of these items applies only to either junior or senior associates. Take charge of your career now (and take a look at Chapter Eight). 1 Obviously, people are different, with varying levels of maturity and experience. Not everyone fits readily into the boxes that we discuss, but for purposes of some of our discussions here, we felt compelled to separate the junior associates from the senior associates. 2 See Peter Salovey & John D. Mayer, Emotional Intelligence, 9 Imagination, Cognition and Personality 185 (1989-90), available at http://heblab.research.yale.edu/pub_pdf/pub153_Salovey,Mayer1990EmotionalIntelligence.pdf. 3 See http://danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/. 4 Salovey & Mayer, supra n.2, at 189. 5 Both of us remember the rule at our firms regarding receipts for expenses. If the expenses weren’t “in” by 30 (or maybe it was 60) days, they were not getting reimbursed. No client wants to see expenses that lag the rest of a monthly bill. 6 If you don’t know what your strengths are, you might try the book Now, Discover Your Strengths, available at http://www.google.com/search?q= now%2C+discover+your+strengths&ie=utf-8&oe=utf8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla: en-US:official&client=firefox-a; or the website called Clifton Strengths Finder, http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx. 7 We’d be remiss here if we didn’t praise our copyeditor’s painstaking work on this book. She was fabulous. Thanks, Renee! 8 OK, they’re really acquaintances, not friends, at first, but we won’t quibble. 9 Or Bambi. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpBkc2jK-6w. 10 Remember—when you first start at a firm, you don’t know the behind-the-scenes connections and dynamics that exist at a firm. For example, your assistant might just be the son or daughter of the firm’s managing partner (regardless of last name) or of someone who runs the firm’s biggest client. 11 http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/workinggirl.txt. 12 There’s a fine line between puzzling out by yourself where your assignment fits in (and wasting time and the client’s money) by not asking for help. 13 Depending upon how many projects that you’ve done for this particular attorney, the more conservative approach is the safer approach. If you have worked with him on several projects and you know that “it’s all yours” means just that, then go for it. If it’s your first case or project with this attorney, then checking in is never a bad idea. 14 If your practice group is spread across several of these offices, then you can get some visibility by working with the attorneys in those other offices.

15 The first year of practice is a tad early to start keeping track of those votes, but keeping a rough mental tally isn’t a bad idea. By the time that you hit your third or fourth year, you’ll need to have a sense of the number of people who will support or oppose your potential vote for partnership. The last thing that you want is to go into a vote without having a good idea of where you stand. You are far better off voluntarily leaving for greener pastures in your fourth or fifth year than facing and losing a partnership vote—and then being asked to leave. Many firms have an up-or-out policy. They might let some people stay on as contract attorneys or “of counsel” lawyers, but up-or-out is the norm. 16 The corollary is also true. If you haven’t worked for anyone outside of your branch, and no one knows who you are or anything about the quality of your work, the vote for your partnership isn’t going to look very good. 17 The second biggest deciding factor is whether that book of business presents some possible conflicts of interest for the new firm. 18 You need to be able to trust the person that you’re asking. By confiding that you’re thinking of leaving your current firm, you bear the risk of disclosure, and the person you’re confiding in has nothing to lose (except good karma) by leaking that information. 19 We’ve seen both approaches, and both have some merit. Unfortunately, if you leverage your current employer to match the pending offer, and your current employer does match the offer, it may well look at you as someone who held it hostage and forced its hand. That result isn’t really in your best interest, long term. 20 We use this wording intentionally. If you were perfectly content at work, you wouldn’t be looking for a different job. Other than possibly your salary, most of the things that would drive you to seek alternative employment are not readily changeable. If they were, you would have tried to change them already. You might be able, though, to compel the firm to let you switch into a different practice group (one that actually wants you, of course). 21 Not really. It’s not an invention. Maybe it’s “trademark-pending”? 22 The map assumes that you start at the middle and work your way out. To reach the next ring, you must first master the ring that you’re in: It’s rather like a video game with various levels. In fact, maybe one of you will come up with a lawyer version of “Angry Birds.” “Angry Associates,” anyone? 23 One way to ensure that you can find more projects in your favorite area is to go up to those partners and senior associates who do that kind of work and ask them for more work. Let them know that you’re very interested in the area and want to take on their projects whenever you have time to do so. They’ll keep you in mind and steer work to you when you can take the project. In fact, Jeff made it a habit to send periodic emails to certain partners and senior associates that he was looking for work from them, even if his current schedule was jam-packed. He didn’t want them to forget that he wanted to do work with them and in their area. Nancy followed around the partner in charge of her favorite area like, well, a bit of a stalker, but she did finally get her wish to move to his area. 24 One of Nancy’s areas is bankruptcy ethics. Try getting narrower than that. 25 “CLEs” are continuing legal education seminars. 26 You can supplement this learning curve in some cases by reading deposition transcripts and talking to the attorneys who took the deposition or tried the case. They’re generally happy to explain their approach (unless they’re under a deadline for something else). Let other folks show you the best way to proceed down the path to experience. 27 Jeff was actively involved in appeals, and he made appellate arguments even as a second-year associate. He readily admits how unusual it was to get to argue appeals so early in his career, but he had previously clerked for the Supreme Court of Ohio and had considerable appellate experience as a result of

that job. One of Nancy’s favorite colleagues, though, did appear at the Ninth Circuit as a fourth-year associate—mostly because everyone else senior to him on that brief had left the firm by the time that the argument occurred. And, yes, Perry won. 28 We have both seen last-minute substitution meeting attendees profess ignorance of the situation or particulars because they were just told minutes earlier that they were going to attend the meeting. Neither of us believes any of those excuses about being unprepared; nor does the client who is paying hundreds of dollars an hour for that attorney to sit in a meeting. If you go to a meeting, you go prepared, even if that means prepping in the hallway, in a cab, or on the subway. 29 Yes, we really, really like General Patton. Are you actually that surprised? 30 Jeff is a sports guy, so here’s his analogy: Nobody can play every position in soccer, basketball, baseball, or football. If anyone tried to play all positions, he or she would have to ignore some other, equally important skill sets, and the team’s performance as a whole would suffer as a result. You want to have complementary skills on the team. 31 From one classic movie: Michael Corleone (to Sonny): “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.” The Godfather (1972), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/quotes. 32 With apologies to Our Bodies, Ourselves, available at http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/. 33 And sloth, avarice, and lust can morph into ethics violations faster than you’d realize. 34 Because you don’t know if someone else is going to do that work, it’s best to ask, rather than to jump right in and do it. 35 An elevator pitch is a short (30 seconds or less) conversation in which you express your interest in, and your ability to do, something that the other person may want. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_pitch. 36 Take this quote from A Fish Called Wanda (1988): Airline Employee: Aisle or window, smoking or non? Otto: What was the part in the middle?

NEWER LAWYERS are particularly susceptible to making mistakes, but one of the best ways to avoid a few of them is to learn from the mistakes of others. Below is a list of ten frequent mistakes that lawyers make—mind you, these are not the mistakes of the legal malpractice variety (although some of the errors below can certainly lead to those). These are mistakes that result in lost opportunities to grow and enhance your career and to thrive in the legal profession. They are also all mistakes that actual lawyers make time and time again. A. Losing Touch with Law School Classmates You shared study sessions, professor gripes, and classroom experiences that ranged from humiliating to humorous with your classmates. You confided your law school angst, life dreams, and career goals, experienced a little friendly competition here and there, and shared the world events that happened while you spent three years1 in law school. It almost goes without saying that you should take the time to stay in touch with your law school classmates after law school is over. A precursor to this lesson is to be friendly with as many people as possible in law school. Those who seem to be a bit lost or seem “least likely to succeed” may surprise you with their accumulated successes as the years go by. It sounds so easy and so trite to stay in touch with your law school classmates, but unfortunately, it’s easier to let those bonding experiences and the friendships you forged in law school fall by the wayside. Let’s face it: Life in law school seemed busy, but life in practice is, unbelievably, even busier. And while you are busy establishing your career, working a lot of hours, and trying to preserve some personal and family time in your life, staying in touch with your law school classmates may fall to the bottom of your list. They are just as busy establishing themselves as you are, so you aren’t at the top of their list, either. When law school classmates graduate and disperse among employers, cities, states, and even countries, it takes affirmative effort to stay in touch. The effort required these days is much less than the effort required before the days of email,

social and professional networking, video conferencing from your computer, or smart phones, so you have no excuses. Get yourself the contact-tracking tool of choice and take at least a few minutes every day to work your law school network (and don’t forget those law school faculty members and administrators while you’re at it—they can be equally instrumental in your future success). Time and time again, seasoned and successful partners tell me that one of their biggest mistakes was not staying in touch with their law school classmates through the years. Because you are all at approximately the same level in the food chain as your classmates, they are your peer group and a likely source of interesting connections and possible business down the road. As you progress through the years, some of you will stay in law firms and move up through the ranks to become partners. Others will move through the tiers in government, public interest, or corporate settings. And many of you will have multiple career successes in more than one venue. By staying in touch and congratulating your connections on their successes, you not only maintain a robust network but, as you graduate to the level at which you are expected to bring business to the firm, the people in your network will likely have progressed to an equally senior level that allows them to provide business or other opportunities for you. Don’t be one of those partners who lament the needless lost opportunities 20 years down the road. B. Overlooking That Your Partners Are Also Your Clients You are in a professional service industry—your livelihood depends upon the quality and value of the legal services that you provide to others. When you are a new lawyer in a large law firm, you are expected to work a certain number of hours (about 2,000 in most firms) that can be billed to clients. Billable hours that are logged by very junior lawyers are not all billed to the client—some of those hours are typically “written off” for a variety of reasons, such as your learning curve, the inherent inefficiencies of a new lawyer, or the need to maintain good client relations by reducing some bills.2 Even though the work that you do is generally on behalf of external clients, make no mistake about the fact that the internal lawyers who assign you work are also your clients and should be treated as such at all times. Most new lawyers would never dream of subjecting an important external firm client to the behaviors below, but they often don’t think twice about engaging in these same behaviors with a law firm partner or senior associate:3

• telling the client that you’re too busy to get to his or her matter today; • providing the client with a draft containing typos, incomplete analysis, or other mistakes, knowing that he or she will catch the errors for you, instead of providing an error-free final document in the first place; • failing to meet a court filing or other client-imposed deadline; • failing to respond to voicemails or email messages the same day that you receive them;4 • becoming overly informal in emails and not treating emails as the written representation of your professional work product; • providing advice without a full grasp of all of the relevant facts and law in the case; • complaining about workload, firm policy, or personal issues; and • leaving for vacation without ensuring that there is appropriate coverage of the matters assigned to you, along with a way to reach you in case of an emergency. The lawyers who assign you work are every bit as important to your career as are the firm’s external clients.5 They have the power to make or break you by providing feedback on your reviews, and more important, by giving you more work and new and interesting developmental opportunities that are critical to your success. If you don’t treat them with the same high-quality service and professionalism that you treat your firm’s external clients, you will soon find that the choice assignments aren’t coming your way. When partners and senior associates impose deadlines on you that fall well in advance of a hard client deadline, it’s because they need the time to review your work, synthesize your work with the work of others, and generally ensure a complete and error-free final product for the external client. Thus, you should meet your deadlines or start conversations about any difficulties you may be having well in advance of the deadlines. Good client relations depend on having strong communication skills, being highly responsive, and providing excellent work product—for both your internal and external clients.6 Make the effort to keep your partners and senior associates informed; reach out to them in between assignments; and work to develop a very strong relationship with them as well as with your external clients. They will quickly come to depend on you and will provide you with many essential opportunities along the way. C. Failing to Take Ownership of Your Career

Who cares most about your career development, opportunities, and progression? OK, your parents, spouse, or significant other may have a vested interest, but bottom line, no one should care more than you do. You have the most at stake, and the most to gain or lose, so take ownership of your career. When you first start working, it might be tempting to be a passive receptacle for work assignments, but in addition to doing great work for the lawyers who request your services (see Section B, above), you should seek out other partners and senior associates, make it a priority to meet those who have a strong reputation for mentoring and providing opportunities, and ask for the types of work assignments that you’d like to receive. If your firm provides a competency framework for your professional development (a list of skills that you should have for each year of work that you’re at the firm), you should ensure that you’re developing those competencies and gaining the key necessary experiences in your practice area each year. If your firm doesn’t have a competency framework, you should create your own development plan (and don’t despair that it hasn’t been handed to you on a plate—it will have more personal meaning if you develop it yourself, and it will be more individualized than a one-size-fits-all competency framework). Ask your supervising partners, mentors, and others whom you trust at the firm about the skills that you should be developing and the milestones that you should be achieving at various points in your career. Have a Formal Plan Whether required on not, you should draft a yearly development plan for yourself that maps out the experiences and skills that you intend to master in the coming year. Share this plan with your supervising partners and your mentors. They will be in a position to add insight and to push you a bit or manage your expectations, as necessary. At all points in your development, it’s important that you do some work in your comfort zone (admittedly, that comfort zone will be very narrow when you first start practicing) and some work in your “stretch” zone—those projects, tasks, or items that feel a bit too advanced or even completely foreign to you. Often, the stretch projects provide the most opportunity to grow and develop. It’s good to have a healthy mix of work that leaves you feeling seasoned and competent, but also aware of how many new skills and techniques there are to learn from more senior lawyers.

D. Not Seeking or (Worse Yet) Ignoring Feedback Most lawyers have healthy egos. We are taught to exude confidence, to analyze and then argue on behalf of our client, and to be passionate advocates. It’s no wonder that we struggle a bit to accept feedback in a positive and meaningful way. However, as discussed above in Chapter Three, Section E, obtaining feedback is essential, and not just the “pat on the back” variety. Meaningful and sometimes critical feedback is what will most help you improve and hone the skills necessary to your profession. Here’s the hard truth: If you don’t automatically receive feedback, it’s your job to go to the lawyers who assign you work and ask for it. And when those lawyers take the time to share feedback with you, solicited or unsolicited, listen carefully, ask questions, take notes, if necessary, and work to incorporate the feedback into your future assignments. Being open to and seeking out critical feedback is a challenging but necessary part of a lawyer’s development. E. Discounting Professional Development and Networking Opportunities As we discussed in Chapters Two and Six, a major part of being a successful law firm lawyer is bringing new business to the firm. Few law students grasp the “sales and pitch” components (yes, “sales” and “pitch” differ from each other)7 of life as a lawyer in private practice. As a newer lawyer, however, it is highly unlikely that you’ll bring much business to your firm, nor will your firm expect you to do so. In most firms, though, an offer of partnership is dependent either on bringing in business or being positioned to do so in the next few years. So how do you go from being a new lawyer learning his or her craft to being a successful rainmaker with strong client relationships? You do so by systematically developing your career and legal skills and, at the same time, building a strong and vibrant network (starting with Section A, above). Making the time to take advantage of the various professional development and networking opportunities that are out there will go a long way toward your end goal. Too many associates put their heads down and focus solely on billing hours (quantity over quality). Yes, it feels like that’s also what the firms are encouraging—many compensation systems are still largely based on billable hours—but don’t be fooled or complacent. You don’t want to be passed over for partnership down the road because you haven’t developed a sustainable practice and planned for the time when you’ll need to bring business into the firm. Non-

billable hours, pro bono opportunities, and in-house and external training sessions are all valuable and necessary to career development and to rainmaking. No one has time to do everything, though, so this is where your annual professional development plan comes into play; you need to be thoughtful and discriminating about how you spend your non-billable time. Each year, your plan should include training for skills that you want to improve. You should also look for opportunities to become involved in bar, community, civic projects, and professional associations, and you should seek out pro bono opportunities to take advantage of those smaller cases that might not be available in a larger law firm. And don’t forget to be flexible enough to take advantage of unexpected opportunities throughout the year. The more you learn and the more you connect with others inside and outside your firm, the better lawyer and rainmaker you’ll be. F. Neglecting to Treat Support Staff as Valuable Colleagues Who Play a Critical Role on the Team Lawyers are highly educated, highly trained professionals who have worked hard to achieve career success in a field where simply gaining entry to law school is a highly competitive process. Unfortunately and possibly as a result, some law students and lawyers develop a strong sense of entitlement. This sense of entitlement doesn’t serve them well as they make unreasonable demands on those around them; keep people waiting or fail to appear at meetings and other appointments because something “more important” came up; and generally act as if their needs, desires, and wants take precedence over all others, whether or not a true client deadline is driving such demands. As we discussed in Chapter Five, Section F, law firms could not run effectively without the support staff: the professional assistants, the paralegals, the librarians, and all the departmental staff, from accounting, marketing, and recruiting to business development and human resources. These staff professionals are an important part of the legal services team. Not treating them as such or developing a sense of superiority or entitlement is a mistake that too many lawyers have made. Early on in your career, your assigned assistant knows more than you do about being successful in the firm, and he or she can be a valuable resource in navigating the firm and its personalities. As you progress in your career, making sure to share the spotlight with those who helped you when you receive recognition ensures that you’ll continue to receive a high level of support. And if you want to get the quickest possible results with everything

from getting a check cut, legal research support, or a client pitch, you’ll definitely catch more flies with honey than vinegar. A simple thank-you for a job well done will earn you many points among the staff, and the way that you act, particularly in a stressful or pressure-filled situation, will be noticed and remembered. You definitely want to be remembered for your grace under pressure and for treating the staff as the valuable colleagues that they are.8 G. Disregarding the Importance of Learning the Business Aspects of Law The fact that law school doesn’t require any particular undergraduate degree or coursework prior to matriculation contributes to the diversity of backgrounds and experiences that lawyers bring to bear on legal problems requiring their expertise. Lawyers are just as likely to have majored in English or Sports Management as they are to have majored in Political Science or Business. Just because you didn’t major in Business as an undergraduate, though, does not excuse you from the necessity of understanding the underlying business aspects of practicing law. In order to achieve success in a law firm, you should know and understand the metrics and statistics upon which you are judged and how your efforts contribute to the bottom line. More than just your billable hour requirement, you should know and understand what your realization rate is and how it is calculated, how your hours are annualized, and what your billable rate is and how it will change as you progress. (In other words, it’s not just enough to bill time. You need to bill time competently and efficiently, adding sufficient value that the firm’s clients actually pay for your time. There’s a big gap between sending out bills and collecting on bills.) It’s important to know when your time is being written off without being billed to clients and to understand the reasons. Be aware of the fee arrangements between your firm and the clients for whom you regularly do work and how that may affect your metrics.9 You should also recognize the overhead that goes into paying your salary and benefits, and supplying you and the rest of the firm’s lawyers with offices, laptops, and BlackBerries or smart phones, as well as the administrative expertise in everything from accounting to human resources. To the extent that your firm shares financial reports with non-partners, take the time to read and understand them, and to ask intelligent questions about them. Know your firm’s fiscal year and how the time of the year can affect the business decisions that the firm makes. Recognize the changes in workload, headcount, and collections, and look for any trends in them. As you progress toward partnership, obtain as much information as you can about partnership

prospects, criteria, and the requirements for junior partners.10 If you are offered partnership, then before you sign on the dotted line, be sure to read and understand your firm’s partnership agreement as well as the tax consequences to you as you transition from an employee to an owner. (See Chapter Nine.) Lawyers in private practice who don’t take the time to understand the business aspects of practice will make mistakes, sometimes critical ones. They can miss areas of opportunity, and they won’t have a solid foundation for partnership and for negotiating profitable work and fee arrangements with clients. H. Not Developing Your Leadership and Management Skills Early and Often Although being a successful lawyer in private practice used to depend solely on the lawyer’s intelligence and ability to practice law, today’s profile of success requires a more robust package. Leadership and management skills are at the forefront of this package, and failing to develop those skills will cost you in the long term. With the complexity of legal problems, most firms use teams of lawyers to service their corporate clients (whose issues span both multiple practice areas and the globe). Managing diverse legal teams located in varying time zones to provide excellent client service on a cost-effective basis requires tremendous team management and leadership skills. Before leading a team, you need to know how to be an effective member of a team—working side by side with your colleagues (including your support staff) to service your clients. There isn’t room for grandstanding, hogging the spotlight, or solo performances on effective teams, and knowing how to play well with others is the first step in learning good leadership and management skills. Working well with others has the added benefit of ensuring both that you will know how to cross-sell to your clients down the road and that those crossselling opportunities will be presented to you by your colleagues. It’s often easier to win new kinds of work from existing clients than it is to convince a new client to give your firm a try. Beyond being a team player, you can hone and grow your leadership and management skills through your involvement in bar associations, on boards, and in a variety of other professional groups or associations. As you progress in your career, even during the first few years, you are more senior than the brand new lawyers coming in the door at your firm. Take an interest in mentoring them and helping them to grow and develop. Helping others to be successful is always a

good step in developing your own leadership and management skills. And don’t forget about the professional staff in your firm (see Section F, above), because they can also benefit from your growing leadership skills as you work together on client matters. I. Not Maintaining a Professional Brand at All Times The line between a lawyer’s personal and professional lives has become murkier in the last few decades. Separation between the private and public spheres of life used to be a fairly simple endeavor, but with the prolific use of social media and lawyers being connected to work 24/7, lawyers’ work and private lives are largely integrated. Many lawyers have forgotten this essential fact and have slipped up. Such mistakes can cost a lawyer some clients, her job, and even the ability to practice law, depending on the nature of the mistake. Your job as a newer lawyer is to develop a professional brand, and more seasoned lawyers need to grow and enhance the brand that they have already developed. As such, your firm bio, bar association directory entry, profiles on social media sites and blogs, and any other web presence should all paint a consistent picture of you as a professional and a lawyer. A consistent brand is also a great opportunity to tastefully and subtly market your practice and skill. To the extent that you maintain personal social networking profiles, blogs of a personal nature, or another non-work related on-line presence, they should be carefully secured, and even then, the content should not be objectionable if, for example, a firm client were to read it.11 And don’t forget to update your brand and web presence frequently. An outdated profile is not an effective branding tool. The expression “it’s a small world” is very apt,12 and the legal community is even smaller. As a lawyer, your reputation is your stock in trade.13 Guard your professional brand zealously. J. Losing Passion for the Work You Do There are a lot of unhappy lawyers out there, and their unhappiness doesn’t just affect them. Unfortunately, it spills over to their families, colleagues, the professional staff with whom they work, and the newer lawyers joining the ranks. Don’t become one of them. Life is too short, and lawyers in private practice work way too many hours to hate what they do—it’s an untenable situation that will eventually lead to casualties. Many seasoned lawyers have told

me that their single-minded devotion to establishing their careers cost them their marriage or the growing-up years with their children, during which they missed family event after family event, and now that they are partners, they wonder if the sacrifice was worth it. You may not love being a lawyer right out of the box. The first few years have a tremendous learning curve, and they can be stressful and full of anxiety. But if you aren’t coming into your own by year three or four, and if you still don’t enjoy what you do as you become more seasoned and experienced, then it’s time to take stock and figure out what changes will lead to career satisfaction. It might be that a change in the type of legal work that you’re doing or a change of colleagues will bring more day-to-day satisfaction to your job. It may be that you need a firm of a different size or culture to make life enjoyable again. Or it may be that private practice isn’t for you. There’s nothing wrong with that discovery. There are multiple roads to career happiness, both within and outside the law. You can and will find the one that is right for you, as long as you keep looking and don’t resign yourself to a career or profession that you don’t really enjoy or that isn’t the best possible match for your strengths and skills. And please take note: There are also a lot of very happy and satisfied lawyers out there. Talk to them, and be sure to surround yourself with those lawyers and learn from them at every opportunity. Remember, you are the one with the vested interest in your career. It’s your job to ensure that you love and are passionate about the work that you do. 1 Or four years, if you went to law school in the woefully misnamed “part-time” program. 2 Legal news stories abound these days regarding clients’ downward pressure on bills. 3 What do good senior associates become in a few years? That’s right: They become partners. Your mantra should be that anyone who is assigning you work is an internal client. 4 Why do you think that your employer wants you to have a BlackBerry or smart phone? So that your employer knows that you’ll get any messages as quickly as possible. 5 In many respects, they’re more important, because clients don’t get a direct vote in whether or not you will make partner at the firm. Clients do have an informal say in your partnership track, though, when they send the firm more work and ask that you be the attorney to do that work. 6 Remember what we said earlier: You never really want to give an assigning attorney a rough draft of any project. 7 “Sales” involves developing business and sales opportunities by networking and maintaining contacts. “Pitch” means to ask to be selected for a particular matter in some form or fashion.

8 There’s also an ethics issue here. Never blame the support staff for your mistakes. As an attorney, it’s your responsibility to supervise the behavior of people who report to you, so their mistakes literally are your mistakes. Moreover, if you stick to the rule that you’ll take the blame for mistakes and share the credit for successes, you’ll find that your team will stay loyal to you. 9 A life lesson from one of Nancy’s friends: He was asked to first-chair a malpractice case brought against his firm, which was all non-billable time. He was exceptionally successful—not only defeating the claim but collecting a million dollars for his firm—but because the time he spent was non-billable, it took him a lot of extra work to convince the partners voting on his partnership that he was “productive.” All’s well that ended well, but the extra angst that he experienced because the firm’s metrics didn’t count “saving the firm from a malpractice claim” was horrible. 10 See n.9, supra, for a cautionary tale. On the one hand, Nancy’s friend was shaken by his experience. Nancy has another friend, though, who billed 1,400 hours of pro bono time one year and still made partner, in part because that firm counted pro bono time as billable time. In other words, the firm’s particular metrics count a lot. 11 We’ll bet that your employer has rules on what you can and can’t do on social networking sites. Make sure that you know and follow those rules. Even if your firm doesn’t have any established rules on social media, you should be careful about what you’re doing. If you want to be considered a professional, then you’ll need to begin acting like one (at least on social media). Do you really need to post that picture of you at the holiday party wearing the lamp shade and sitting on top of the copier screen with your pants down around your ankles? 12 If you’re singing “It’s a Small World, After All” to yourself right now, you have too much Disney on your brain. 13 It takes only a few seconds to destroy a reputation that you worked for years to develop. It will take even longer to resurrect a reputation that you tarnished.

A. Partnership You thought that it would happen. Your mentor was cautiously optimistic for the last two years regarding your chances of making partner at your BigLaw firm. And then it happened! First, you are contacted by the firm’s managing partner, who tells you the good news. Next, the new class of partners is officially announced firm-wide in a congratulatory email. A firm reception follows after work and then you celebrate at a great dinner with your friends and family. But now what? The next day, you get up and walk in the office as a newly minted partner. Although many things will certainly change, most things are (for now, at least) the same. Time sheets are due. Your client calls first thing in the morning, congratulates you, and then asks, “When will we be getting the next draft of the merger agreement?” And your car still needs to have its brakes fixed. At first blush, nothing has changed. Yet it has, in so many ways. So, what does it mean to be a partner? If you had a crystal ball, what would you see if you could look one, five, ten, fifteen years into the future? With that glimpse and insight, what do you do to prepare for what you can foresee? In this chapter, we will discuss life as a partner and how you can chart a path to success in these uncharted waters. You have been living in the glow of being a new partner for a day or two before it hits you like the Gatorade bucket over the head of a victorious coach: “What does all this mean?” You’ve been working with your firm’s partners for several years, but do you really know much about the beast that is “partner”? You’ve focused so intently on being the kind of lawyer and counselor that could get the brass ring that you may have failed to consider the implications and responsibilities that go with holding this new post. Some seemingly simple but important questions begin to work their way past your deadlines and client

demands. You know how to succeed as an associate—be a diligent, responsive, and dedicated legal professional who exceeds your annual billable hour requirements. But how is success measured in the partnership ranks? The simple answer is that, as a partner, your focus will need to rapidly shift from the “billable hours” model to a more holistic view of the business of law. Some of this necessary change in focus from being a timekeeper to being a proprietor will happen for you naturally, because you’re now included on the regular email distributions discussing the financial outlook and results of your firm. But simply being included on these “partner-level” reports does not provide you with a complete roadmap of the things that will now measure success in this new role. Many law firms judge the effectiveness of a partner by evaluating performance in two major financial categories: working attorney revenues (i.e., the money that you successfully collect from clients for the work that you personally take on) and revenues collected from client origination activities (i.e., your “book of business”). A new partner generally has greater control over his working attorney revenues versus revenues from client origination activities, as it is often easier to bill and collect your fees from the firm’s existing clients than it is to bring new paying clients to the firm. Therefore, we’ll discuss this aspect of the “business of law” first. Before becoming a partner, your profitability to your firm might have been somewhat unclear to you. As a partner, understanding how “profitable” you are is an important step toward grasping the business of law and how efficiently you are achieving your working attorney revenue goals. A strong command of fifth-grade mathematics principles will help you determine how your hourly work turns into profits for you and your partners. Although firms may differ with respect to the exact way to measure a partner’s financial effectiveness, the following calculation may be a good “back of the envelope” way to determine how your work is translating into collections for your firm: Your Realization Rate: (Annual Collections Attributable to You) ÷ (Annual Billable Hours Worked × Hourly Billable Rate) × 100 = Your Realization Rate For example, if you had 2,100 billable hours for the year in question, and an hourly billing rate of $450.00, and you collected $800,000 for the year, your realization rate calculation would look like this: $800,000 ÷ (2,000 × $450.00 = $900,000) = .888 × 100 = 88.8% realization rate. Your realization rate can tell you a couple of important things. First, if your realization rate is very high (i.e., 90% or above), this is a good indication that

your clients, your hourly rate, and the level of work you are doing for them are in balance. If your realization rate is on the low side (i.e., 75% or below), this may indicate that either your hourly rate is too high for the clients for whom you’re working or that other members of the firm are discounting your work before billing it to the client. The point here is to keep a close eye on how your hourly work is turned into collections and to make adjustments as soon as you notice that your firm is not realizing most (if not all) of the fruits of your labor. Client origination is often another way that law firms evaluate the effectiveness of their partners. Who “originated” a client or a matter relating to a client is often determined by the culture of your firm. Some firms may take the all-or-nothing approach, under which only the partner who brought a client into the firm will receive any origination credit. Others may take a more liberal approach to allocating such credit by giving the benefits of origination not just to the partner who initially brought the client into the firm but also to those partners who have expanded the scope of the firm’s representation of the client. It’s not uncommon for partners in a BigLaw firm to receive a certain percentage of the revenue collected from a client for which the firm deems such partners to be the originating attorneys. At this stage, you need to understand whether your firm compensates its partners based on client originations. If it does, you need to understand how that system works so that you can benefit from your work as a “rainmaker” in training. B. Buy-ins and Taxes and Distributions, Oh My!1 In addition to understanding how your performance will be measured as a new partner, it will also be very important for all but the independently wealthy to have a working knowledge of how partner compensation works. As a senior associate, your compensation process was likely fairly straightforward. You went to work, did a good job, and once every two weeks, you received a paycheck that had all the normal stuff taken out of it (e.g., state and federal taxes, Social Security and Medicare payments, and retirement plan contributions). You’d use what was left over to meet your monthly expenses. Well, you aren’t in Kansas anymore.2 Not long after you become a partner, someone in the firm’s accounting department will begin asking you about when and how you will make your capital contribution to the firm. Depending on the firm and its approach to capital contributions for entering partners, you could be asked to write a check for between $50,000 and $100,000 to your firm shortly after being accepted into the partnership. There goes your bonus from last year. It’s not

uncommon for firms to have arrangements with one or more lending institutions so that you can get a loan to make your capital contribution. Such arrangements can ease the immediate liquidity impact on your finances, but make no mistake: Your capital contribution remains one of your financial obligations. Another thing that you must understand is that you are no longer an employee of your firm, a fact that has real economic consequences. As a partner, it’s likely that you will now be characterized by state and federal taxing authorities as “self-employed.” You will quickly notice that being self-employed has its financial drawbacks. First, as an employee, your firm paid half of your annual payment obligations for Social Security and Medicare. Now that you’re self-employed, you owe both your half and the employer’s half (yep, that’s you) of these contribution obligations. Second, your firm no longer withholds state and federal taxes from your pay. As a self-employed person, you will now be required to make estimated tax payments, which are generally required to be made on a quarterly basis. As a partner, you will typically receive a monthly draw that, on an annualized basis, will equal between 60 and 70 percent of your yearly compensation. The remainder of your compensation will be in the form of distributions that are paid to you on a periodic basis determined by your firm. So, in short, you will likely have large quarterly payments due to multiple taxing authorities, and you will be receiving substantially less cash than you are used to in the form of monthly compensation. For the first few years as a partner, this scenario of less monthly pay coupled with significant quarterly outlays of cash for tax payments could create a cash-flow issue for your personal finances. Therefore, if you expect that you will be elevated to your firm’s partnership in the next year or two, it would be a good idea to have some money set aside to meet the liquidity crunch that you may experience in your first few years as a young partner. No discussion of the compensation changes for a new partner would be complete without mentioning your new status as a taxpayer in the various states and countries in which your firm has an office or significant operations. As a partner in a firm that derives income from operations in states and countries in which you are not a resident, you will often be designated as a nonresident taxpayer in such jurisdictions and, therefore, will be required to pay income tax in each such state or country. In light of these increased tax obligations, a new partner would be well served to engage a personal accountant with significant partnership tax experience and also to seek out the financial manager of his or her firm to make sure that the right plans are made to meet these obligations.

C. Will I Make More Money as a Partner? Ever heard the joke about how you tell a senior associate from a new partner? The senior associate has a nicer suit and fancier car. To this point, we have discussed (in detail) some of the financial “challenges” that you may face as a new partner, but if partnership were without a significant upside, no one would do it. Put bluntly, will you make more money as a partner and, if so, when? With the caveat that firms differ greatly on compensation matters, the answer to the question is that you will likely experience a modest increase in compensation during your first few years in the partnership but, over the long term, a partner who is fully engaged in providing excellent services to clients and in developing business for the firm can expect to receive compensation commensurate with a successful law practice at a prominent firm. As a new partner, you’re starting at the entry level of an organization of highly successful and experienced professionals, so you should expect your compensation to increase at a level consistent with your success and experience as a partner. The reality of partner compensation is that there is usually one person or a small group of people within your firm who will decide how the members of the partnership will be rewarded for their services. It would therefore be in your best interest to understand what these decision-makers believe are the aspects of a partner’s practice that are most valuable to your firm. A solid understanding of the compensation practices of your firm will likely provide you with important guidance needed to set individual goals for your practice. In addition to understanding the practical considerations and implications of being a new partner, a young partner should also begin to formulate goals and expectations that will allow him or her to navigate the demands and rewards of being a partner at a great firm. Lawyers, by nature, are goal-oriented people or, if not goal-oriented, at least success-driven. If you’ve been admitted into your firm’s partnership, it’s likely that becoming a partner was one of your important career goals. Congratulations: You can cross this very important goal off your list. What’s important now, though, is to begin to craft new goals as you become more familiar with your role as a partner in your firm. The next part of this discussion addresses the importance of goals and planning during this new phase in your career. D. The Sprint Is Over: Are You Ready to Run a Marathon? Maybe it’s an overstatement, but many younger partners have heard older partners proclaim: “Being an associate is a sprint. Being a partner is a

marathon.” The marathon analogy has some validity. Typically, lawyers are associates for seven to twelve years. Yet it’s quite common today for lawyers to work until they are 70 years old and thus not uncommon to be a partner for 30plus years. A great deal has been written about lawyers who burn out, develop any number of physical, psychological, and emotional issues, and either leave the practice of law voluntarily or are asked to leave their firms because they no longer add value. The question is: “How do I become the partner who enjoys getting up every day, enjoys my practice area, my peers, and my work until I decide to play more golf, work for my favorite nonprofit, or sit on a beach and learn Italian?” Over the years, we’ve noticed that associates don’t generally take up marathon running as a pastime. If they’re inclined to get up on a Saturday and run a race, they tend to run 5Ks (3.1 miles) or maybe a 10K (6.2 miles), but seldom a marathon (26.2 miles). There are two reasons for this phenomenon. First, what associate has the time to run two hours on a Wednesday after getting off work at 8 P.M., or who has the energy to get up at 6 A.M. on Saturday after a long week to run 10 miles? As you know, it is hard enough to get your work done, visit with friends, and rest up for the next week. Second, we think that running is boring! Running a marathon takes goal-setting, planning, inspiration, and creativity. We’ve observed that the same traits and tools that it takes to run a marathon are traits that are necessary to have a centered, successful, and interesting partnership career. Is working with the same people, doing the same work, and maybe being at the same place for years boring? It can be. But a number of partners who have either run marathons or the professional equivalent (e.g., been a real estate lawyer for 30 years, or maybe been with the same firm for their entire careers) have successfully completed their journeys by quietly setting their goals and then doing what needed to be done to achieve them. And, yes, even if you successfully complete a marathon or have a wonderful career, you can’t avoid some repetition or tedium. It’s simply a part of modern life. We end our chapter with this section to give our guidance about how to run the partner marathon. Some of this advice has come from personal experience, but just as much has come from observing successful people right down the hall. There are no trade secrets or intellectually protected material here. We assume that you can get this information from any number of successful lawyers at your firm. This is our formula, a formula that we continue to tweak and refine. The formula comes from trial and a lot of error. Before we give you our formula, we need to discuss the elements that will

be a part of the calculus. In addition to financial security, we believe that professional and personal enjoyment or success is what most lawyers want out of their careers. Everyone has his own notion of success, and that notion often changes dramatically over time. It may be difficult for one person to tell another person exactly what he envisions as success, but we believe that it’s much like Justice Potter’s definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”3 To achieve professional and personal enjoyment (“PPE”) over a career, we believe that it’s necessary to have well-defined goals (“G”), inspiration (“I”), and creativity (“C”). If you’re mathematically inclined, you might calculate your professional and personal enjoyment as follows: PPE = G × (I + C) The I and C elements of our formula are seldom discussed in law firms, especially on your first day when you’re filling out the paperwork to be an associate or even at your partner orientation. Why aren’t they? Frankly, one could argue that the I and the C are not particularly important to an associate and aren’t particularly necessary to be a competent partner. But if you’re going to spend 30-plus years doing something, competency seems like a pretty low hurdle for a career. Of course, to make partner or to be a successful associate, one needs to be inspired and creative to some extent. An associate has to find a way in his first two years to stay focused and interested in reviewing the schedules to countless merger and acquisitions of the manufacturing plant in Ohio, the tech company in Palo Alto, or the energy company in Houston. You have to find some way to get your arms around the rule against perpetuities, when everyone told you that you would never have to use the concept in the real world. All of these unattractive tasks are part of our jobs as lawyers, but for the most part, if an associate works hard, learns the law, understands the tournament theory of advancement and partnership, and the economy and the firm are on an upward trajectory, becoming a partner does not require enlightenment by the Dalai Lama or coming up with a new theory of relativity. A sprint doesn’t take a lot of inspiration or creativity: You just need to do it. Choosing to run a marathon is much more of a nuanced and complicated undertaking. But once you become a partner, the tasks, responsibilities, and years of commitment to your partners, your firm, and your clients will require heavy doses of inspiration and creativity. Where does a tax lawyer find inspiration and creativity? Some tax lawyers find it in the Internal Revenue Code. (OK, perhaps we shouldn’t use tax lawyers

as an example of how and where a lawyer finds inspiration and creativity.4) It is our experience that the I and the C in our equation can be found in several different venues. It might be a partner we admire or a client we have met, but often—very often—we have found that law firms in general are not particularly rich sources for inspiration and creativity. Nor is a hospital a good place to find the next new drug, nor an engineering company a good place to create a breakthrough technology. Law firms, hospitals, and engineering companies are places where people show up to do a job. Frankly, even the most ambitious people don’t always have the time or the DNA to inspire or create. Merely to be competent, one does not need heavy doses of inspiration or creativity; to be really good, though, some inspiration and creativity can obviously be helpful. But to be an expert or someone who moves the needle in her career or firm, a great deal is needed, and in regular doses. So, if you want to be one of those people who is outstanding in your firm or in your practice area, where do you find inspiration and creativity, if not at the office? Luckily, it’s all around us! In speaking with countless successful partners, we discovered that they often get their inspiration for developing business or maintaining (or even growing) their enthusiasm about practicing law from a variety of people, books, or experiences that have absolutely nothing to do with the law or law firms. What inspires someone at a given moment may have provided no such spark at another time in our lives. You may find inspiration in an article in The Harvard Business Review on management or in a book about THE ART OF HAPPINESS.5 In Appendix B, we’ve described a couple of books that have inspired us. Walter Isaacson’s biography on the life of Steve Jobs, one of the founders and the former CEO of Apple, is a perfect example of how something totally unrelated to what we do recently offered us healthy doses of inspiration and creativity.6 Jobs grew up in Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Silicon Valley was a middle-class ghetto, full of dutiful engineers who went to work for companies like Hewlett-Packard. But Jobs’s inspiration and creativity for the design and functionality that came to be Apple’s hallmarks did not come from the hordes of engineers who went to work every day from 9 to 5. It came from other things around him. Jobs’s obsession with clean lines and user-friendly devices, and having beautiful finishes even in the guts of a computer, was inspired by a builder who built simple, moderately priced homes for the middle class in the Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Those homes were functional, full of glass, with numerous friendly features. Jobs’s obsession for details and craftsmanship was inspired by his adoptive father who lived in Silicon Valley, and who only had a high school education. Jobs’s father was a carpenter who taught him that a

cabinet should not only look good on the outside, but also on the inside, where no one would see the craftsmanship. Jobs thought that a computer should be inviting, not foreboding. He kept emphasizing that Apple’s products should be clean and simple. He wanted them bright and pure and honest, rather than have a heavy industrial look of black, black, black like Sony. He felt that simplicity was the ultimate sophistication. The architecture of constructing a takeover, a defense of a white-collar defendant, or the writing of a will has some of the issues that Jobs faced when he started to change how engineers and others involved with ordinary products approached their use. Lawyers tend to use the same form of will, earnest money contract, or settlement agreement that they have used for 10 years. Yes, if the law changes, they dutifully add or delete a provision if necessary, but how often do they sit back on a Saturday morning and ask, “How can I change this? How can I make this better for my clients and my firm?” Applying the “Steve Jobs” view of the world, today’s large law firms strongly resemble the large and somewhat inflexible computing giants of his youth: hordes of good technicians showing up every day to do a job. HewlettPackard did not create Apple. Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Jobs’s colleague (the engineer to Jobs’s visionary), did. When Jobs and Wozniak began fooling around with computers in their garages, Silicon Valley was the epicenter for engineering in the United States. Wozniak went to work for Hewlett-Packard, enjoyed it, and did not want to leave a safe, well-paying job to work out of a garage. It took Jobs’s begging, cajoling, crying, and bribing to get him to leave that environment, even when the two of them were starting to be successful. Many partners and their law firms are the legal equivalent of Silicon Valley. Many of us have access to the best group of legal engineers in the country. It’s a wonderful pool of talent, money, and security. But whether we’re talking about Hewlett-Packard in the 1970s or an AmLaw 100 firm today, inspiration, creativity, and changing the status quo do not come easy. So, in recent months, Walter Isaacson's biography about a man in an arena that could not be more alien to the legal work that we perform has inspired us to reconsider how we approach what we do. E. Old Mantra: Billable Hours; New Mantra: Exercise, Nutrition, Commitment, and Billable Hours7 All this talk of a marathon may be tiring, but we’ll continue with the analogy for a while longer to illustrate the importance of embracing the “long

view” as a partner. Preparing for a marathon takes good nutrition, plenty of sleep, moderation with alcohol or other artificial forms of relaxation, and physical endurance. Unfortunately, when you look at the senior associate pool at most firms, many of the successful associates who are on the right track lack a lot of these tools, especially sleep and physical endurance. Who has the time? Actually, if you’re honest with yourself, you really did have the time during the last seven to ten years, but most of us justified our poor maintenance practices by saying (or thinking) that we didn’t. Young lawyers, like young doctors or investment bankers, typically don’t perish because they are five pounds overweight or fuel their bodies with Starbucks and take-out pizza, or neglect exercise. Thank goodness, history has shown that we can survive beating ourselves into the ground. But we shouldn’t keep on that track. This inattention to physical and mental health is not the firm’s fault. Period. Your partners and your CFO love to see you have those big billing months—that is one of the reasons you have been rewarded and promoted—but most firms now get it. They know that being a lawyer is a hard job. They know that it’s stressful and repetitive. They’ve seen partners burn out or slow down because they continued the same lifestyle as when they were associates. The extra five pounds becomes an extra twenty-five pounds, the cholesterol that was a little high starts to climb higher, and even though there’s money in the bank, partners often aren’t sleeping like they should. They’re facing psychological and physical challenges that hinder their enjoyment of being a partner. Law firms and their partners have a financial and cultural incentive to have healthy partners. Most firms have health plans that cover a partner’s medical expenses and pay for all or part of an annual physical. The attention to a partner’s physical and psychological health is not just about squeezing out more billable hours. A healthy partner is more likely to be a more pleasant person to have around the office and to manage client relationships. If we could give one suggestion to young partners, it would be to spend more time on your physical and psychological health. It is the lifestyle equivalent of business development. Most firms ask their partners to track their business development. Typically, firms don’t pay you to take clients to ball games or to give seminars to a large client, but experience has shown that doing these things year after year will lead to business, which leads to retainers and billable hours, which generate fees. All of these activities then (we hope) lead to bonuses or an income partnership percentage increase. Sometimes it may take a couple of years for the payoff, but without the spade-work, it is surely not going to happen. The key is not merely a matter of joining a gym to lose those extra five

pounds or playing tennis or starting to jog. Rather, it is a bona fide expression of a mantra: “Exercise. Nutrition. And commitment.”8 Appendix B discusses two books that we think will help you find a more balanced life. We hope that you find this discussion regarding life as a new partner helpful as you prepare your path to partnership, endure the changes associated with your new role, and set a healthy and inspired course for what will likely the most fulfilling years of your professional life. It’s worth noting that your path will be just that—your path—so take what you like from this offering and leave the rest. We wish you the best of luck. 1 Nancy and Jeff want to point out that, if you don’t understand this paragraph’s references to THE WIZARD OF OZ, you have some baby boomer and pre-boomer catching up to do. 2 See? Another WIZARD OF OZ reference! 3 Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring). 4 Apologies to our tax partners. 5 DALAI LAMA XIV & HOWARD C. CUTLER, THE ART OF HAPPINESS: A HANDBOOK FOR LIVING (1998). 6 WALTER ISAACSON, STEVE JOBS (2011). 7 Frankly, this mantra applies to everyone, from first-year associates to senior partners, but it’s the brand-new partners who seem to forget the mantra when adapting to their new position. 8 CHRIS CROWLEY & HENRY S. LODGE, M.D., YOUNGER NEXT YEAR: LIVE STRONG, FIT, AND SEXY—UNTIL YOU’RE 80 AND BEYOND 14 (2007).

WOW! YOUR CAREER IS SKYROCKETING. In the 1970s and 1980s, we called you a “junior partner.” Today, you might be a partner, an equity partner, a shareholder, or something else. Although those distinctions are technically important, the bottom line is this: You have made the cut and are now a part of the law firm Borg. You are one of the chosen few. You have been recognized by the senior partners for your skill, diligence, and potential. Now get over it. You still have a lot of work to do. Permit me to pass along a few lessons that you may have missed during your all-night drafting sessions and those marathon closings that you had as a senior associate. A. Your Long-Term Value to the Firm and Your Clients In the traditional view, junior partners are classified as “finders, minders, or grinders.” Associates are usually grinders. They do the legal work itself (analysis, documentation, and litigation). You started your career as a grinder. You learned the tradecraft of the lawyer. You did discovery and motions, and you worked as second chair at trials. You read the fine print on the closing documents for the 14th time. Some lawyers never progress beyond this grinder stage. Too bad. Junior partners must morph into minders. Minders handle existing client matters in a competent manner. A “minder’s” job includes much more than “grinder” legal work, but not as much responsibility as a “finder.” Senior partners are “finders.” They find and nurture clients for the firm. Finders assist the clients with strategy and tactics, in light of the clients’ diverse business and legal needs. Finders trust their best junior partners to handle the underlying paperwork and litigation. Finders might try a case now and then—but only the “bet the bank” types of matters. As a junior partner, you must aim to become the “go to” lawyer for the most

respected senior partners in your law firm. Starting now. Simultaneously, you need to nurture your rainmaking skills. Doing so will take your money, your time, and some entrepreneurship (as discussed below). You do want to become a “finder” and a senior partner, don’t you? B. Rainmaking1 Development of new clients is valuable to every law firm, even if your firm does not “require” (or even discourages) this talent. Your clients are the best insurance against law firm mergers and recessions and intra-firm political turmoil. So allocate at least 10 percent of your time and your new paycheck to making new acquaintances and developing clients. Remember: Three years from now, you should be bringing in enough work to keep yourself fully occupied. Five years from now, you should be bringing in enough work to keep yourself and a few associates fully occupied. Get to Know Your Clients and Their Businesses The firm’s clients are your clients. Clients really, really care about their businesses. You should, too. Clients run interesting businesses. Every client has a success story. Every client has problems. What are the top concerns for each of your major clients? How does the economy affect your top 25 clients? Are your clients’ businesses regulated? If so, by whom? Learn everything you can about each client’s business. Read every page on the client’s website. Read all the press releases. Read the industry trade journals. Attend the annual conference in your client’s industry. Take a college extension class or two on the industry or related matters. Ask for the chance to visit (at no charge) your client’s warehouse, manufacturing facility, or headquarters. Ask questions of the client representatives. Learn the unique concerns of your client. Take and retain notes in your client’s “contact” listing, so that you remember what you learn. Open up your contact listing when you speak to the client, so that you can see your notes. Get to Know Your Clients as People Business clients are people, too. They come in all shapes and sizes. Ask about your clients’ special interests and hobbies. Photography? Cross-country skiing? Rocketry? Coaching their kids’ baseball team? Ham radio (still thriving

in the 21st century)? The local sports team? People welcome the chance to talk about the non-business aspects of their life—just don’t bill them for it. Get to Know Your Partners Read every page of your law firm’s website. Read every partner’s biography (on the website and on Martindale Hubbell). Study each partner’s area of practice. Then, when the opportunity comes up, you can casually remind your clients that “your firm has the second largest admiralty practice in California” or whatever. During your first year as a junior partner, take every other local partner to lunch. (Pay the lunch bill.) Get to know each of them personally. Ask for “career tips” and guidance, but don’t be a pest about it. Prepare for Meetings with New Clients and Senior Partners If a client or senior partner sets up a meeting with you, take time to prepare for the meeting. Read about the client. Read about the client’s recent litigation and settlements. Search for the latest press releases on the Internet. Review the senior partner’s biography and client list. Read the last article that she published. C. Care and Feeding of Associates Hey, the associates work for you! Get to know them. Nurture them. Read their biographies. Ask them about their lives, children, hobbies, goals, and career targets. Be generous with praise. Be frugal with blame. When the associates come to you for help, don’t treat their requests as interruptions. Your job is to train the next generation of junior partners. (The senior partners are busy and can’t remember how to write up a solid motion for summary judgment; don’t hold this against those old folks.) When you edit and revise an associate’s work, share your editorial suggestions. You can share those suggestions by passing along your changes (using “compare documents” on the computer or a few notes in red pen on a draft). Or you might pass along your thoughts in a weekly working lunch in the office. Cater deli sandwiches and pick up the tab. Be sure to listen to the comments from the associates. They can tell you how you’re doing. That type of information will help you succeed. If you have a superstar associate, be happy. Help him or her shine. That

person might eventually overtake you in terms of rank or power, but superstars2 can only help the law firm. Send interesting articles to the client, partners, and associates. If you read a story in a magazine about your client’s industry or hobby, cut it out and mail it to the client. You might send a cover letter that says simply, “I thought you might find this to be of interest.” This polite gesture shows that you are always thinking of the client, and it reminds her that you are still alive. If you read about something that might affect the law firm or a key practice area, circulate the article to your partners. If you read something that can help your associates become better lawyers, send it to them. Keeping associates informed is a part of your teaching role. Not every client interaction is a billing opportunity. Log all your lawyer time (as always). But take the opportunity to put “no charge” by around 5 percent of your time entries. If your bill shows up with multiple “no charge” entries, that courtesy will show the client that you think about him as a person (not just as a walking dollar sign). This simple step will go a long way to avoiding discussions regarding adjusting your bill. Bill promptly. Your firm’s goal should be to invoice the client at the beginning of the calendar month, every month. Don’t delay. If the bill is going to be a large one, call the client ahead of time. Warn her that the bill is coming, and remind her why the bill is larger than normal. Provide a projection for the next month’s legal work while you’re talking with her. Address any billing questions as soon as possible. You are now responsible for billing and collections, even if a senior lawyer is going to review the invoices. Don’t let a problem fester. If there is a billing question, present your case fairly. Then ask the client to make a proposal to resolve any issue (followed by the client’s check, today, for the adjusted amount). Send a messenger to pick up the check. If you can’t resolve the billing issue, assist the client in a transition to another law firm. For some reason, larger firms tend to let billing matters go on for several months. No bill should go unpaid for more than 30 days. Project management. Project management is important. Don’t send a draft declaration to the senior partner or client a few hours before the filing deadline. Provide a few days for everyone to review and comment on critical documents. You need to start working on your deadlines at least two weeks before the due

date. Calendar and start the project on time. Become an expert. Why should any client pay your new (higher) hourly rate? In the long term, every attorney must strive for distinction. There are two common paths. You could become an expert in a well-defined subject matter area (e.g., commercial real estate, business bankruptcy, banking, admiralty, patents, labor, tax). How do you do this? Join all the local and national bar associations. Go to the local, regional, and national conferences. Read the specialty journals. If there is a certification available for your field, become a state-sponsored or nationally certified specialist. California has 14 certification areas. Texas and Florida have more. Check out the many certification programs listed by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Specialization (americanbar.org) (e.g., American Board of Certification at abcworld.org). Alternatively, you can become an expert in a client’s business (e.g., mobile home manufacturing, banking, bottled water industry, agriculture, entertainment law, aircraft leasing). Learn everything you can about the legal areas that affect the client (e.g., labor issues, import-export issues, regulatory framework, antitrust issues, anti-pollution laws). Publish articles and speak at industry seminars. Don’t be afraid to pay your own travel expenses to the conferences where you are speaking, if the law firm or trade association doesn’t offer to do so. Develop a personal brand and presence. Good legal work, responsiveness, and a good attitude will go a long way. But you need something else. What is your special something? How will people remember your name? When I passed the bar, I started wearing a rose in the lapel of my suit. I still do. After I wrote and published a number of songs (287 to date), I started passing out guitar picks imprinted with my personal web portal (bovitz.com) in lieu of traditional business cards. I still do. (I also carry regular business cards for the unhip folks.) You don’t need to wear a flower or pass out guitar picks, but you need to consider what makes you unique and how you can stand out from the crowd. At a minimum, develop a micro-“elevator speech”: One sentence on what you are and do. “I am a bankruptcy litigator.” “I represent pharmaceutical companies.” “I handle accident cases.” “My firm is a national leader in labor law.” “I was the shortest lawyer in my class at law school.” (OK, maybe this last one won’t work.) Return your calls and emails promptly. Court clerks, clients, partners, and associates all want to talk to you. They will never remember your vacation,

travel, or out-of-the-office days. Return your telephone calls every day. Return your calls even if you have to call back in the evening after trial or after your visit to another Italian cathedral on vacation. When traveling, I carry my cell phone and a satellite phone. (You can rent the satellite phone.) I am always in touch. There is nothing more impressive than the following: “I am returning your call from a hut in Zimbabwe. Can your matter wait until I return on the morning of August 22?” Return your email messages. Every day. Even if you just say, “I will look into that matter next week, after my trial is complete.” If you can’t sort through your spam, let your assistant do so. Keep a separate email address for non-work items. D. Your Written Work Here are some simple rules: • Never write anything that cannot be presented to a jury or your spouse five years down the road. • Don’t put bad jokes in your written work. • Don’t use impolite language. • Don’t use informal statements—clients come to you for formal, “lawyerly” writing.3 • Proofread to avoid typographical and grammatical errors. Your written work (briefs, letters, and emails) will live forever. Especially your flirty notes to the senior partner’s good-looking assistant. E. Some Final Pointers Your personal website and social media. In this era, the Internet (the cloud) is your “permanent record.” Do not post any photos, text, or chats that you do not want your mother4 (or a jury) to see in five years. Don’t forget your family. At this stage of your career, you might find it convenient to forget about your family. So: • Make a date with your spouse or “better half.” Make it a priority every week. Put it on your calendar.

• Schedule other family appointments/ballgames on your calendar; don’t cancel a family appointment without good cause. • If you have children, set up “kid time” on the calendar as well. Keep healthy. If you are an unhealthy person, you’re going to have a short career. If you’re a runner, keep running. If you’re a basketball player, sign up for a lawyer league and play on Tuesday nights. You should schedule your gym/flag football/hockey league games on your personal calendar. If you are a desk-bound slug, change your life today (while you’re still young). Community service is good, but don’t do anything just to meet clients. Community service is a great thing, but if you volunteer to serve on the board of the local symphony even though you don’t really enjoy classical music, you will not enjoy your tour of duty on that board. Pick something that you like for your community efforts. If you volunteer to serve on the board of a charity, but you don’t attend all the meetings or you can’t finish the charity business that you take on, the other board members will decide that you are too busy for their small business matters, too. You won’t make any friends or land any clients. If you decide to volunteer, do it because you like it and because you are going to treat this work like a real (though non-paying) job. More meeting tips. Don’t be late to meetings. If your meeting is set before 10:00 A.M., bring bagels or muffins for the meeting. If your meeting starts in the late morning, eat a big breakfast to hold you over. But when the clock approaches noon, offer to treat the meeting participants to sandwiches or lunch at a local restaurant. (Have menus ready for the crowd, if the meeting is at your office. Offer to have food brought in.) If your meeting is set in the afternoon, bring some sugary treats (e.g., cookies). If your meeting is set for late afternoon —you guessed it—have menus ready from the local take-out restaurant. If the meeting breaks up in the late afternoon, be ready to ask your client and colleagues to dinner (as your treat). Meals with the client. Never let the client pay for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Don’t try to split the bill with the other lawyers. Discreetly give your credit card to the waiter before the check arrives at the table. Drinking. If you are meeting a client or the senior partners at a restaurant, should you drink? That’s a personal question, but unless you’re at a postsettlement or post-closing celebration, you should not drink with clients or senior

partners. If you do drink, drink in moderation. If you’re having dinner with friends, moderate drinking is permissible, but only if you have a designated driver. Parking. If you work in a place that validates parking, always ask your visitors if you can validate their parking. If your firm has a policy of not validating parking, buy some validations. Validate your client’s parking out of your own pocket. The Golden Rule. During this phase of your career, there will be moments when you won’t be sure of the “right thing” to do. A senior partner may have some guidance for you. But, if not, just follow the Golden Rule. (According to Wikipedia.org, the Golden Rule is: “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.”) Be civil to the other side—the other lawyers and their clients. Be polite to everyone. The person with the least important job is still a human being with likes, dislikes, wants, and desires. Do the best work you can, every time, despite tight budgetary and time constraints. Never misrepresent (or overstate) the facts or the law. Be the lawyer you want to be when you grow up. Keeping your word and being honest. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. And when you make a promise, do everything you can to keep it. Your client may ask, “How am I doing?” In response, be truthful, fair, and empathetic. The client came to your firm for advice and assessment. The nasty letter from the other side. So what about the really impolite (threatening) letter from the other side? Your response should be even-tempered and direct. “I have your letter of December 23. Respectfully, my client and I do not agree with the factual allegations or legal conclusions in your letter.” You do not need to address each false allegation in detail. Politics. Don’t assume that the senior partners, clients, or associates share your politics, sexual orientation, or religion. If you want to have a meaningful discussion on these “hot topics,” tread very carefully. It is better to avoid these areas, at least at this stage of your career. An exception can be made if you are a deacon in your church, a leader in the alternative lifestyle community, or a famous porno star.5 The law is full of educated and interesting people. The law is a great career. You will meet lots of well-educated, diverse, and successful people. People just

like you. Enjoy (or at least learn from) your interaction with these folks. You will face new puzzles almost every day. The law is complex and growing more so. Enjoy these challenges. Your advice is never complete and never final. There is uncertainty in the law. This point bothers some lawyers. If you can’t know everything, how can you give perfect advice? Well, you can’t. You can never know enough about the facts of the case or the law itself. So your advice will never be complete or final. You will always be giving your best analysis at the moment, subject to revision as you go forward and learn more. Always be willing to stop and reconsider previous advice, if needed. But try to get all the facts you can before you render any crucial opinion. Keep up to date. Read at least one daily legal journal cover to cover. At least once a week, you will mine a nugget that is critical to one of your active cases. Read at least one monthly journal in your specialty area of the law. You will usually learn something new. Or at least you will learn that you are on the correct path. Read the trade journals for your important business clients. You are a business student; study the basics. Read a general newspaper or the electronic equivalent. This will make you a better conversationalist. At least once a month, go to a dinner meeting with lawyers to hear a presentation on a topic in your field. (I go to several.) Don’t sit with people from your firm. Instead, make it your goal to sit with two new people at each meeting. First, ask them about themselves; only then ask them about their work. Making mistakes. You aren’t perfect. You (and your team) will make mistakes in your legal career. It’s your job (as team leader) to “make it right” with the client, with your partners, and with the associates. Don’t blame anyone else for the problem; you are the captain of the ship. Delivering bad news. Junior associates do not get to speak to the client. Senior associates are permitted to pass along minor good news to the client. (Senior partners will insist on passing along all the really good news to the client.) Junior partners are relegated to passing along the bad news. Buck up. Remind the client of her alternatives after delivering bad news. Include a rough budget for the legal work on the alternatives. Slow but steady. The law is (like many professions) just one long

apprenticeship. Nothing happens overnight. But you can measure your progress over time. You will see it in your salary or partnership share. You will see it in the growth of your client base. You will see it when your colleagues and clients listen to you when you state an opinion. Aim to be the best you can be. Learn from everyone, including the other side. Don’t get too high over your (client’s) victories. Don’t be depressed by the defeats. Your job is to survive, learn, and lead. Now get back to work. That motion is due tomorrow. 1 This book discusses client development in a bit more detail in Chapter Six, Section L (becoming a rainmaker). 2 Nice ones, anyway. 3 Nancy and Jeff are making Scott use some contractions here against his will. Scott is nice enough to let them do that. 4 Nancy uses the “father” test. Her mom let her get away with a lot more stuff than her father did. 5 Long story.

You just slip out the back, Jack Make a new plan, Stan You don’t need to be coy, Roy Just get yourself free Hop on the bus, Gus You don’t need to discuss much Just drop off the key, Lee And get yourself free. —Paul Simon, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover THERE ARE numerous reasons that someone might want to leave a law firm. No one reason will dominate, except possibly the one that starts out “I am completely burned out and want to chuck it all and do [insert your dream job here].”1 Regardless of your rationale, there are a few realities that you should address before you put on the parachute and jump out the door. A. Why Exactly Are You Leaving? This question sounds simple, but it isn’t, once you begin to wrestle with the reality of leaving your current position. First, let’s acknowledge that if you currently have a job as a lawyer, you’re already a step ahead of lots of your law school classmates.2 Additionally, being employed helps you to find your next job. It’s easier to look for a job while someone is still paying you and giving you an office and a phone. Yet the fact that having a job is useful isn’t enough to keep you locked into a completely horrible job. If you are seriously unhappy but smart enough to know that you want to have a new job before you walk away from your current job, then let’s take a look at some issues to make sure that it’s your particular job that you don’t like, rather than law jobs in general. On the other hand, maybe it’s not yet time to leave. You might have the type of burnout that can be cured by switching practice areas. Learning a “hot” new practice area can make you very valuable to your firm. Maybe, too, you’re

burned out not because you don’t like your job but because you don’t have any outside interests. (When people bill over 2,500 hours a year, it’s difficult for them to have any outside interests.) One of the most important life lessons is that “wherever you go, there you are.” It might not be your current firm that’s the problem. You might need to work on yourself a bit. If, though, you’ve tried switching practice areas or getting a new hobby and you’re still miserable, then you were right the first time. It’s not you; it’s the firm. B. Are You Running Away from Law Firm Politics? First off, all law firms, and we mean every single one of them, have internal politics. People are people. You can’t escape politics by jumping from one firm to another firm. The new firm will have its politics, too; the only difference will be the names on the player roster.3 Non–law-firm jobs have internal politics as well. Leaving a law firm to go to a government agency or an in-house position with a company won’t help you avoid having to deal with internal politics. Government agencies and corporate entities are just as political, sometimes even more so.4 Speaking bluntly,5 don’t be naïve; every workplace has internal politics. You need to learn to adapt and deal with it.6 The only way to avoid onthe-job politics completely is to work by yourself: no support staff, no associates, no partners—just you. Second, a good lawyer learns from the situations that he encounters. Don’t step into the same political trap at your new firm that you may have encountered at your prior firm. Everyone makes mistakes; the key to survival is to avoid repeating the same ones over and over again. The easiest way to avoid stepping on that same landmine is to take things slow in the second firm. Be nice to everyone. Hold off as long as you can before making alliances and friendships.7 Look around and see what the landscape truly looks like from within. As you might have figured out from your first law firm experience, your initial impressions may not be accurate. C. How Do You Know That It’s Time to Go? Let’s assume that you just don’t fit in, or that you want a change and now is a good time to make that change. For some people, the recognition that they should move on has been a long time coming. For others, the recognition is faster. No matter how long it takes you, there are some symptoms that tell you

that it’s probably time to look around for either a new job or possibly a new career entirely. Some of the rather obvious signs that it’s time to go are: • You’ve developed a chronic inability to sleep because you can’t stop thinking about work. • You have frequent nightmares about work. • You dread going to work. • Your firm wants you to do something unethical. • You’ve been drinking to excess or taking illegal drugs in order to forget about or cope with work. • You’ve become clinically depressed and that depression is related to your work and not other events in your life.8 • You hate (not just dislike, but truly have a burning hatred of) pretty much all of the folks with whom (or for whom) you work.9 • None of the other options (becoming “Of Counsel” with the firm10 or becoming a contract attorney there) work for you or for the firm. With any luck, you will have people at your firm whom you can trust. You’ll want to confide in them that you’re looking elsewhere, because they’re going to be the first line of references that any new employer will call. Eventually, the fact that you’re “looking” will leak out beyond your circle of confidants: Any new employer worth its salt will do some cold calls for references with other people at your current firm. But you want the fact that you’re looking for a new job to leak only after you’re well on your way to a new position. There’s no shame in moving on from one job to another, as long as you leave your old firm in a responsible manner, with memos about what’s going on (and what’s due) in each of your matters and a clear understanding of how to handle clients with whom you have a good relationship. To return to THE GODFATHER (1972), “it’s not personal; it’s business.” D. How Miserable Are You…Really? Let’s be honest for a second. If you’re utterly miserable at work, whether from the crushing workload or the hostile and competitive work environment, or if you just hate the work that you’re doing,11 then you need to leave. No job is worth the physical and emotional toll that such conditions will ultimately take. Granted, you need to pay the bills (including those nondischargeable student

loans), but once you can get out, that’s what you need to do. Sometimes, you take a job knowing that you’re not going to be there for a long time. A judicial clerkship is one of these jobs.12 For the vast majority of folks who take a judicial clerkship, their clerkships will end one or two years later. As a result, from the time that a judicial clerk first sits down in her office, she knows that the light at the end of the tunnel is coming and that, at some point before her term ends, she’ll have to start looking elsewhere for employment. Sometimes the planets align and you get a job opportunity that is so good you simply can’t turn it down.13 But how do you know if it’s a “golden opportunity”? For Nancy and Jeff both, golden opportunities are rarely about the money.14 Some folks are prompted to move for more money; we’re not. We’re much more interested in the working environment, the people with whom we’ll be working, the type of work that we’ll be doing, and the quality of life that we might have.15 As Nancy’s dad has said on several occasions, if you love what you’re doing for a living, it won’t feel like work, and you won’t mind the long hours or missed weekends. Success is loving what you do. E. Where Do You Want to Go and What Do You Want to Do? Let’s assume that you’ve decided to leave your law firm job. What are your other options? You can do law-related work, or you can walk away from the practice altogether.16 In most situations, your opportunity to get a job is enhanced, not constrained, by your law degree. We both have done a variety of law-related work. We were both law clerks to judges. (Nancy clerked for a federal judge, and Jeff has clerked for both state and federal judges.) Jeff has also worked in-house with two different government agencies.17 Nancy is a law professor who occasionally finds herself being the dean of a law school.18 All of these options can provide you with an excellent career opportunity. Not all are equal in terms of annual compensation but, then again, not all require the same time commitment on a day-to-day ongoing basis. F. So What Are Some Options? Downsizing to a Smaller Firm For many attorneys, practicing law in a big or medium-sized firm eventually becomes tedious and draining. It’s possible that part of this burnout

arises from the politics that exist in any large working environment, or possibly the burnout comes from the internal competition among the various attorneys. Another part of any big firm reality is that big firms uniformly require very high hourly billing requirements and goals. Big firms = big overhead. Regardless of the underlying reasons, a fairly large number of attorneys seek to move from a bigger firm to a smaller firm, without stepping completely outside the boundaries of practicing law. Of course, as we noted earlier, small firms have their own politics, too—just in a much smaller-sized pool. If you’re moving to a smaller firm because you’re looking forward to practicing with particular colleagues, though, then the change in firms can create a dramatic upgrade in your perceived quality of life. If you choose to go solo, of course, then you’re entirely in control of the quality of your worklife. The financial reality of any law firm is that the firm must generate enough income to pay all of its employees19 their salary (and bonuses) plus its overhead (rent, utilities, paperclips, etc.) before it shows any profit. The profits are shared by the partners (or shareholders) pursuant to their partnership (or shareholder) agreement. Therefore, the firm must bring in significant revenue before it starts to show a profit. The bigger the firm, the more income the firm needs in order to break even. Big firms tend to pay higher salaries, on average, than do smaller firms. Not surprisingly, what accompanies these larger salaries is higher billable hour requirements. Smaller firms have fewer employees; hence, they have less overhead to cover before showing a profit. As a result, a smaller firm can generally produce a profit from a far smaller revenue stream than can a big firm. One of the relative benefits of working at a smaller firm is that many smaller firms have a slightly lower billable hour requirement as a quid pro quo for the slightly lower salary.20 Only you can answer the question of how much money is enough and what you’re willing to do to earn that money.21 But “small firm” doesn’t always mean “smaller paycheck.” There are several well-known small boutique specialty law firms that generate enormous profits for their partners. You can do very well financially at a small firm. Fewer people may have heard of your small firm’s name, but then again, people who aren’t lawyers themselves or who don’t hire law firms regularly probably don’t know the names of the top BigLaw firms, either. Government Work Government work occurs at the federal, state, county, and local municipal

levels. All of these groups need lawyers. Some have their own in-house lawyers, or they might share lawyers via other governmental agencies; others hire private law firms on a contract basis. “Government work” itself can have several different definitions. It can mean working in-house with one agency, as an employee of that particular agency—which is, by the way, what judicial law clerks do. Government work can also mean working as an employee of one agency to act as counsel to a different government agency, which is what Jeff did when he worked as an Assistant Ohio Attorney General and represented the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Another example of this concept is the United States Attorney’s Office, which represents virtually every federal agency in that agency’s litigation. Regardless of the employee/employer configuration, working at a governmental agency can be extremely rewarding, especially when you enjoy the area of law that you’re practicing. Jeff, for example, loves the energy and utility practice.22 When asked, he’ll tell you that working with the Ohio Attorney General and representing the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio was one of his all-time favorite jobs. Another one of his favorite jobs was being the only inhouse attorney for the 800+ employee adult probation department in Harris County, Texas.23 As a government insider, you’ll have the opportunity to see public policy crafted and, potentially, to make a difference in crafting that policy. Generally speaking, you’ll also get a chance to assume more responsibility and handle larger matters faster as a government attorney than you otherwise might in a large or medium-sized law firm. Although the pay won’t be the same as what you’d expect at a firm, the hours aren’t normally24 as long, either. Sometimes, as with Jeff’s job at Harris County, you get to do a variety of completely unrelated things all in the same day.25 So how do you go about finding a government job? You can start by talking with your law school’s Career Development Office.26 You can go on websites like USA Jobs or surf specific sites like the “careers” page of the Department of Justice or the similar postings of your state or city government. And—you knew we were going to say this—you can network. Be creative. But be aware that there are some restrictions that come with government employment. You can’t speak at meetings or events without making clear that your comments aren’t those of your department. Your lawyer friends can’t buy you lunch any more. There is a lot of bureaucracy that you’ll need to navigate. And if and when you decide to leave the government, you’ll have some

restrictions on the type of work that you’ll be able to do right after you leave. Still, government lawyers get to do some very exciting things, and although we don’t want to be hokey about this, working for the government is a good way to serve your country. It’s an option worth considering. Working In-House with the Client Working in-house with a company can also be a great change from working at a law firm. After all, when you’re inside the company, you won’t have the pressure of trying to build the same book of business (getting your own clients) that you would eventually have to do in a law firm. Of course, you’ll still have internal politics to navigate, but these politics might take on a different tone. Now the politics can flow in two directions: (1) among the lawyers of the company, and (2) between the non-lawyers and the legal team. In fact, there’ll be times when management at the company will view you, the conservative attorney trying to prevent management from going to jail, as the enemy who is just getting in the way of the simple desire to generate more profits for the company. Welcome to the company. How do you go about getting an in-house job? It’s not easy. Virtually all companies want lawyers who have had several years of experience. You can check the job postings if you have particular companies for which you might want to work, but the best way to hear about these jobs27 is to network. Network like mad. Go to industry meetings, just the way that Scott Bovitz told you to do in the last chapter. Speak at CLEs on panels with in-house counsel. Write articles for the state bar association on issues related to the industry (industries?) in which you might want to work. And the #1 way to get noticed by an in-house attorney? Do superior work for that attorney while you’re at your firm. Becoming a Law Professor There are two guaranteed ways to give a law professor a nervous tic. Law students give their professors nervous tics when they ask if something’s going to be on the exam.28 Lawyers give law professors nervous tics when they say that they want to be law professors when they retire. The life of a law professor is satisfying if (1) you don’t mind doing a lot of your work by yourself, rather than with a team; (2) you genuinely like law students and are prepared to spend a great deal of time teaching them; and (3) you don’t need to become rich.29 But contrary to popular belief, it’s not an easy

job. Writing well takes time and a fair amount of isolation. Preparing for class can take upwards of five hours of prep for every hour of classroom teaching. You’ll also have to grade papers and exams, and you’ll have faculty committee work to do. You’ll have to read and comment on your colleagues’ scholarship. You’ll have to present your scholarship at your school and, often, around the country or internationally. You’ll work your fair share of nights and weekends.30 Good law professors work around a 60-hour week, given all that they have to do.31 And, to introduce a bit of sober reality for lawyers who want to retire to law teaching, there are far more people out there who want to be law professors than there are open law professor jobs. And, of course, there are internal politics in every law school as well. What do you need to become a law professor? First off, you need a J.D. or similar degree. You don’t need a Ph.D., although many law schools have been hiring a slew of people with Ph.D. degrees recently, and having one may increase your odds of getting hired. You will need some significant publications —not bar-journal types of publications, but some actual scholarly work.32 Gone are the days when law schools hired people without a list of publications. (If you think you’re busy now, try writing one or two articles on top of what you’re already doing.) Although having teaching evaluations, maybe as an adjunct, is a nice addition to your CV,33 almost all law schools will care most about your ability to write and think. Law schools often post tenure-track job openings with the AALS (the Association of American Law Schools). The AALS is the scholarly organization of law schools. The ABA has the job of accrediting law schools, but the AALS runs the Faculty Recruitment Conference. The FRC34 is a once-a-year recruiting event where entry-level professors and some professors who want to make lateral moves come for interviews in 30-minute time slots. Most tenure-track candidates pay the fee to circulate their background information with the AALS in order to get invited to interview during this recruiting event. If you have particular schools in which you’re interested, you might also consider sending your CV to the chairs of those schools’ appointments committee. (You can ask those schools for the contact information of their appointments chair.) As for the interview process itself, you can find all sorts of helpful information on the AALS.org website. Something Else The goal of our book is not to try to offer you a complete list of your non-

legal job opportunities. That would be impossible (and it’s not what this book is designed to do). Literally speaking, you can do anything that your brains and your diligence will let you do. You can start a business. You can become a consultant. You can go back to school and start another career. What we love about the law—besides the law itself35—is that law gives you limitless options to use your brain. So think creatively about how you want to change jobs. Do the research. Do informational interviews, like the ones that Elias George described in Chapter Two, with the people who are doing what you want to be doing. And tell everyone you know about your career goals.36 Most important, don’t give up. Be stubborn. Being stubborn about your goals is extremely useful. G. How to Avoid Burning Bridges on the Way Out We know that you’re going to want to stop by your nemesis’s office on your last day and give that person a big chunk of what has been on your mind for months, if not years. Don’t do it. Law has a sneaky way of creating repeat players. You never know what’s going to happen down the road. That nemesis may well end up in your new firm as a senior partner, department head, or (yikes!) the managing partner. Especially today, attorneys are mobile and often don’t stay in the same place for their entire careers. Firms merge, dissolve, and reconfigure themselves. You just don’t know what’s going to happen or where you’re going to be five or ten years from now. So what you really want to do is to leave on good terms. You want the firm to regret that you’re leaving and to want you to come back sometime down the road. A civil, professional departure can benefit you in several ways, not the least of which is that no one at the firm37 will be saying bad things about you behind your back. “Leaving on good terms” means that you should send out a short departure memo that says that you learned a great deal from your time there and that you certainly hope that people will stay in touch with you at your new address (which, of course, you’ll include).38 A nice departure memo, along with a nice exit interview (if your firm does one), goes a long way toward leaving people with a good impression of you. Your old law firm might send you clients. There may be hundreds of thousands of lawyers out there, but the world is smaller than you might think. Be a mensch.39

1 Neither of us has a burning desire to practice law at a law firm again. For Jeff especially, it would take a special firm indeed for him to step back into that world. 2 You can’t throw a virtual stone without finding articles on the Internet about how law schools are churning out more graduates than there are law jobs. Here’s one: Lincoln Caplan, An Existential Crisis for Law Schools, N.Y. TIMES (July 14, 2012). 3 Sometimes you can find out what the internal politics are like in your potential new firm—how prevalent they are and potentially who the power players are—before you take the leap of faith and join the firm. You can try talking to some of the current or former associates, especially if you already know one or more of them. We doubt that you can talk to someone during the official interview process and get a straight answer. The folks with whom you’re talking during an interview aren’t likely to tell you that the place is riddled with internal strife, angst, and backbiting. That’s the kind of information that you might get from your friends who are current lower-level associates or who were “former” associates and partners. Be aware that a former employee may well have an individual axe to grind, so be a bit skeptical about what a former employee says. 4 Jeff immediately thinks of political or other appointees who sit in lower- to mid-management level positions and may or may not have any qualifications other than being the nephew or niece of a senator or of a member of a powerful board of directors. 5 Jeff’s superhero moniker is “BluntMan,” with a Capital “B” on his chest. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he will tell you exactly what he thinks. The other 1 percent occurs when Nancy is watching him. 6 We’re big believers in “sucking it up” and relying on ourselves. You need to look in the mirror and admit that the only person who can protect you from the politics in the firm is the person looking right back at you from that mirror. No one else is going to protect you from the internal firm politics unless you’re one of the nephews or nieces that we mentioned earlier. 7 You may not have offended anyone at your new firm, but that does not mean that your newly chosen friends don’t have their own baggage. They may well have stepped on toes and bruised some egos to get where they are. Joining their circle invites you to share in the reprisals that they may face down the road. 8 For some people (like Nancy), depression is a genetic reality. For others, depression can be the result of extreme stress and pressure—that’s called situational depression. Both usually can be treated with therapy and prescription medication. Given the suicide rate for lawyers, being depressed is not something you should ever take lightly. 9 Ding, ding, ding: It’s reality check time once again. You will not like everyone with whom you work. It’s simply not possible, especially if you work in a firm that has more than one or two attorneys. If you leave because there are some folks whom you don’t like, then you’ll probably be no happier at your next firm (unless you’re opening your own solo shop). 10 “Of Counsel” status varies with the legal community in which it’s used, but most places translate “Of Counsel” to “not a partner but more experienced than the average associate.” Some Of Counsel positions indicate a holding pattern (“not a partner yet”), and others indicate that the not-a-partner-but-stillexperienced lawyer is just not on the partner track at all. 11 You might be able to fix the “I hate my work” problem within your firm if your firm lets you transfer to another practice area. If not, then it’s time to pack your bags. 12 Some judges use “permanent” clerks instead of “term” clerks. Permanent clerkships can last as long as the judge and his clerk agree to work together. 13 These “golden” opportunities are extremely rare. When you get one, you’d better go for it. It may never come around again.

14 As with all generalizations, this one, too, has an exception. If you were to, say, offer Jeff a mediocre job, but also pay him a million dollars or more a year to do that job, he would come to work for you (at least for one or two years). 15 Once Jeff changed jobs to take a 50 percent pay cut. That job also happened to also include a 60 percent reduction in his work hours. At that particular time in his life, Jeff was in desperate need of some quality of life. He found it and became a calmer and happier person to be around. He also took up golf and cycling. 16 We both made a conscious decision to leave our respective law firms and seek out alternative employers. Notwithstanding that fact, we are the first folks to admit that lots of people love working in a law firm. We just weren’t two of them at that point in our lives. 17 Jeff worked for the Ohio Attorney General but was physically located with its client, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Jeff also worked as the only in-house attorney for the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department (the adult probation department in Houston, Texas). You may also find positions inside a business as an inside (“in-house”) attorney or as someone who works outside of the law department at the business. 18 She also serves pretty frequently as an expert witness and as a fee examiner in some large chapter 11 bankruptcies. She also still does some pro bono work. She likes being a lawyer; she just likes being a law professor even more. 19 In a law firm, the employees include the associates, paralegals, assistants, and everyone else who is on salary or on hourly compensation. 20 We’re speaking generally here, but the hourly billable difference may be on the order of 300 fewer billable hours (or more) a year required at a small firm versus one of the big national firms. 21 If someone says, “I will pay you 50 percent of what a big firm will pay you, but you only need to work 50 percent of the hours that big firms work their associates,” would you take the job? Jeff’s answer is a solid yes, provided the work is challenging and intellectually stimulating, that the people he will work with are good people, and that the pay is enough to cover his monthly bills. To Jeff, “quality of life” is far more important than the size of his paycheck. 22 When you work in (or represent) a government agency, you’ll end up having some unique “client” issues. For example, few of a law firm’s clients will be subject to “open records” or “FOIA” mandates to turn over information to the general public. 23 Jeff’s probation job was extremely stressful, as he was constantly jumping from topic to topic in multiple areas of the law and interacting with elected officials at both the state and county level. If you don’t love running around with your hair on fire from the second you walk in the door until the minute you turn off the lights, this type of job isn’t for you. Jeff both loved it and hated it every day. His tenure in this position was made bearable by several people on whom he relied almost daily for professional and personal support: Donna Battenfield, Winfred Dean, and Adrienne Gasser (the legal extern—now a partner in a small law firm). Jeff threw Adrienne head-first into the deep end of the pool when she started working with him, and she kept him from drowning in the daily workload. Donna, Winfred, and Adrienne, we held it together and made it work because of you. You guys rocked—thank you. 24 Everyone works hard at times, regardless of where he or she works. The question is how frequently you’re putting in 60-80 hour weeks. 25 For Jeff, that meant working on agency-based statutory matters; helping HR with employee policy development, implementation, and disciplinary matters; and representing the department in front of the EEOC. On any given day, he could be talking with multiple judges about the state standards for interstate transfers of probation supervision, responding to “open records” requests by attorneys, talking to TV personalities about the department’s policy regarding undocumented immigrants, or attending hearings to

protect court records from disclosure in criminal court cases. 26 You’re an alumnus. Take advantage of the fact that your school is still there for you. 27 And all jobs, really. 28 The answer: yes. 29 You’ll make a very good living, but big-firm lawyers and investment bankers are the ones who get rich, not law professors. 30 We’re just describing regular tenure-track jobs here. Clinical law professors will help their students represent live clients. In essence, they’re running a law firm inside the law school. Legal writing professors will have to provide frequent feedback to their students and will often have to spend significant amounts of time teaching their students (even students at good law schools) basic writing skills before being able to teach them how to do legal writing and research. 31 Bad law professors, on the other hand (those who don’t spend time prepping for class or writing articles or books), earn an astonishingly large hourly rate. But we think that they’re cheating the system. 32 If you don’t want to be a tenure-track law professor, then your experience may count as much as, or even more than, the quality and quantity of your scholarship. 33 We are still mystified why law schools don’t just call CVs “resumes.” 34 Old-timers still call the FRC the “meat market.” 35 Which makes us nerds. 36 Nancy is still vying to be on Disney’s board of directors. Seriously. 37 Except maybe your nemesis. 38 You will not call people at your about-to-be-former firm sadists or masochists, and you will not make fun of the people who are staying at the firm. You will not send out a cutesy memo, one that rhymes, or one that says that you plan to do anything in the world other than practicing law. Show some respect for yourself, and be concise and civil. You will run into some of these people again in your life, or you will run into people who know these people. If you want to badmouth a particular person, do it with your best friend, and don’t do it in writing. 39 Yiddish for being a nice, righteous person.

We hope that you’ve found this book useful and perhaps funny.1 Although some big law firms have been losing ground— reducing their workforce and, well, going out of business—most law firms have been hanging in there. Here are our last words of advice.2 • Do the best quality of work that you can, as often as you can. • Treat everyone with whom you come into contact with respect. (Kindness won’t hurt, either.) • Keep in contact with everyone you’ve met along the way who has been nice to you. Calendar their birthdays, anniversaries, and their kids’ birthdays. Send them holiday cards. Make an effort to reach out to them from time to time. Nice people exist, but there aren’t so many of them out there that you can afford to throw away collegial relationships. Moreover, you never know when someone from your past will come back into your life. If you treat your former colleagues well, then reconnecting with them will come as a happy surprise. • Try to make friends at work. You see these people the vast majority of the time that you’re awake. • Try to find ways to have a good belly laugh almost every day. • Work doesn’t replace friends and family. Don’t relegate your loved ones to last place in your life. • Be honest. Your brains and creativity can help you succeed, but your reputation is the bedrock upon which your career is built. • Find the job that lets you do the work that you love, with people whose talent and credibility you respect. 1 We’re shooting for “hilarious,” but we don’t want to oversell. 2 Not really. You can always email us: [email protected] or [email protected], and you can visit our blog that links to this book at lawfirmjobsurvivalmanual.blogspot.com.

Law firms will want different things from you at different stages of your development.1 Some of them will have a list of “core competencies” that they’ve developed for their various departments; others will just have a vague sense of what you should know by the end of each year of practice. Nancy did a little survey for this book, and she found that the three most important “keys to success” at her respondents’ firms were (1) communication ability; (2) writing ability; and (3) ability to anticipate necessary tasks without being told. “Communication ability” was the top “key,” and the other two were tied for importance. For lawyers who have just one or two years of experience, the abilities to communicate well and do good research were the most important. Communication ability stayed pretty constant in the survey up until the respondents started talking about the keys to success as partners. Not surprisingly, “getting business and keeping business” ranked #1 and #2. If you want to talk about the results of the survey with her, you can reach her at [email protected]. We’ve researched the core competencies in other ways, too.2 Think of the core competencies as building blocks. You’ll start with some basics, then you’ll get better at those and add new skills. Here’s what some of those core competencies might look like:3

Here’s our tongue-in-cheek version of the same building blocks:

1 Professor Neil Hamilton recently completed a study of what law firms expect from their associates in terms of competency. See Neil Hamilton, Law-Firm Competency Models and Student Professional Success: Building on a Foundation of Professional Formation/Professionalism (working paper 2013), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Results.cfm. 2 There are some very good books out there for you, including SCOTT A. WESTFAHL, YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE: LAWYER DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKS AND EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS (NALP 2008) and AMEE R. MCKIM, MAXIMIZE YOUR LAWYER POTENTIAL: BUSINESS ETIQUETTE AND PROFESSIONALISM FOR LAW STUDENTS AND LAWYERS (Thomson West 2008). 3 Some of these are jazz riffs off Scott Westfahl’s book. 4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World.

1. CHRIS CROWLEY & HENRY S. LODGE, M.D., YOUNGER NEXT YEAR: LIVE STRONG, FIT, AND SEXY—UNTIL YOU’RE 80 AND BEYOND (2007)1 YOUNGER NEXT YEAR deals with a number of topics that you’ll need in order to create a road map, no matter what your age, to a healthy lifestyle. Many of our friends who have read the book commented that they wished they’d have read or seriously thought about the issues raised in the book 20 years ago. We hope that you can also see the wisdom of finding an easy-to-read book, written by two people who have complementary roles in discussing the important topics covered in YOUNGER NEXT YEAR. The authors of YOUNGER NEXT YEAR offer two different perspectives. Henry Lodge is a medical specialist. He is a board-certified internist in New York City and on the board of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Though the book contains the essential medical information to lay the predicate for several important topics, Dr. Lodge explains them in a straightforward approach, without talking down to the reader. Maybe his coauthor, Chris Crowley, kept him in check. Chris Crowley was a litigation partner with Davis Polk & Wardwell until he retired in 1990. Chris lends a commonsense approach to fitness and lifestyle, and he tackles the problems that people may face as they focus on their health and their careers.2 This short book (320 pages) has several chapters that may be relevant to your multi-role existence as a law partner, parent, spouse, and friend, such as the sections that deal with The New Science of Aging; Life Is an Endurance Event: Train for It; The Biology of Exercise; The Biology of Nutrition: Thinner Next Year; The Limbic Brain and The Biology of Emotion; and Connect and Commit. Although we believe the book is worth reading cover to cover, if you were the student who successfully used store-bought outlines or someone else’s notes, we’ve got you covered. Here are Dr. Lodge’s rules for living a vigorous life:

2. TIMOTHY FERRIS, THE 4-HOUR BODY: AN UNCOMMON GUIDE TO RAPID FATLOSS, INCREDIBLE SEX, AND BECOMING SUPERHUMAN (2010) Back when we studied the Uniform Commercial Code, we remembered that the UCC allowed for certain amounts of puffery (i.e., legal exaggeration) in commonplace transactions between parties. Ferris, the author of the New York Times bestseller THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK, doesn’t have a medical degree and doesn’t pretend to be the definitive word on the plethora of matters covered in this encyclopedia of topics, but it’s clear that he does have a good lawyer. This book, with its catchy and sexy title, has elements of puffery. Prior to giving you advice, facts, figures, and theories, the author gives what he calls Tim’s Disclaimer: “Please don’t be stupid and kill yourself. It would make us both quite unhappy. Consult a doctor before doing anything in this book.”4 Although YOUNGER NEXT YEAR is a kinder, gentler, yet medically based little book with a lot of common sense, THE 4-HOUR BODY is a more in-your-face kind of book that many Type A lawyers, investment bankers, hedge fund partners, and others find to be a wonderful tool for getting advice on everything from The Slow Carb Diet I: How to Lose 20 Pounds in 30 Days5 to Ultra Endurance I: Going from 5K to 50K in 12 Weeks.6 We, along with several of our colleagues, have read parts of Ferris’s book and have found some inspiration and useful tips to jump-starting a more healthy lifestyle. The key to the book is to understand the author and his approach. If you understand that, you can decide if this book might be for you. Tim Ferris’s first hit, THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK, is not about how literally to work four hours a

week and be successful. It’s a series of lessons for working smart and outside the box, and it presents some anecdotes that show how one can approach her work more efficiently and creatively. In the introduction to THE 4-HOUR BODY, titled Thinner, Bigger, Faster, Stronger, you get a feel for Ferris’s approach to this encyclopedia. Ferris is a self-diagnosed time-management geek. According to Ferris, he has recorded every workout he has done since age 18 as well as his more than 1,000 blood tests performed since 2004.7 He doesn’t apologize for not being a doctor or Ph.D. Instead, he writes: I am a meticulous data cruncher with access to many of the world’s best athletes and scientists. This puts me in a rather unusual position. I’m able to pull from disciplines and subcultures that rarely touch one another, and I’m able to test hypotheses using the kind of self-experimentation mainstream practitioners can’t condone….”8

Ferris doesn’t see himself as a prophet but as a collector of information on a series of topics that he presents for your consideration. In the introduction, he suggests,” Most people won’t need more than 150 pages to reinvent themselves.”9 (Remember, puffery is allowed under the UCC.) Ferris suggests that you browse the table of contents, pick chapters that you find appealing, pick one goal, and then go get it done. Not a bad strategy. Just as Dr. Lodge had his rules, Ferris gives the reader his five rules for reading his book:

These rules pretty well sum up how you might use this interesting text, and it’s our belief that you will glean some useful information to help feed your need for the “exercise, nutrition, and commitment” that are prerequisites for the partner marathon.

1 And, by extension, Nancy and Jeff. 2 See CROWLEY, F. LODGE, About the Authors. 3 See FERRIS at appendix. 4 See id. at page following title page. 5 See id. at 79-99. 6 See id. at 367-85. 7 See id. at 4. 8 See id. at 5-6. 9 See id. at 10. 10 See id. at 10-13.

AALS (Association of American Law Schools), 197 Absentee assigners, 86–87 Accounting. See Support staff Accuracy in writing, 97 Alcohol, use of, 180 All-nighters, 42–43 American Bar Association (ABA) faculty recruitment and, 197 Standing Committee on Specialization, 177 The American President (film), 116 Anger, 110–111, 181 Announcements of firms as signals, 84–85 Apple, Inc., 168–169 Articles, sharing with associates, 176 The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (Dalai Lama & Cutler), 168, 168n5 Assistants. See also Support staff behavior to avoid, 74–75 ethical considerations, 72–75 Associates first-year attorneys, 81–117. See also First-year attorneys junior associates, 119–144. See also Junior associates senior associates, 119–144. See also Senior associates Association of American Law Schools (AALS), 197 Attorneys first-year attorneys, 81–117. See also First-year attorneys junior associates, 119–144. See also Junior associates new partners, 159–171. See also New partners partners, 173–183. See also Partners senior associates, 119–144. See also Senior associates

Baby boomers, working with, 71–72 Bad interviewers, 17 Balducci, Christian, xix Bar examinations, 59 Battenfield, Donna 193n23 Behavior to avoid assistants, 74–75 associates, 142 first-year attorneys, 108–109 judicial clerkships, 59 summer clerkships, 50–51 Billable hours

block-billing, 62–63 ethical considerations, 61–65 first-year attorneys, 115 fraud in, 64n8 honesty in, 64 increments, 61–62 new partners, 169–171 partners, 176–177 precision in, 63–64 summer clerkships, 48–49 Block-billing, 62–63 Body language at interviews, 6–7 Bolívar, Simón, 141 “Bonehead moves” assistants, 74–75 associates, 142 first-year attorneys, 108–109 judicial clerkships, 59 summer clerkships, 50–51 Bonuses, 115 Bovitz, J. Scott, xiii, xix, 173-183, 195 Branch offices vs. home offices, 128–130 Brown, Carol, 128 Burning bridges, 198–199 Burn-out, 165 Business aspects of law, 153–154 Businesses of clients, familiarity with, 174–175

The Caine Mutiny (film), 94 Calendaring systems, 68, 103–104 California, certification in, 177 Call-back interviews, 10–11 Capital contributions by new partners, 162 Career development offices, 3, 9, 21, 23, 194 Career mistakes, 145–157 business aspects of law and, 153–154 feedback and, 150 formal career plan and, 149–150 law school classmates, losing touch with, 145–146 leadership skills and, 154–155 loss of passion for work and, 156–157 management skills and, 154–155 neglect of support staff and, 151–152 networking and, 150–151 ownership of career and, 149–150 professional branding and, 155–156 professional development and, 150–151 treating partners as clients and, 146–148 Certification, 177–178

Cica, Dawn, xix CLE (Continuing legal education), 135–136 Clerkships, 47–60 deadlines, 41 interviews for, 18 job performance in, 60 judicial clerkships, 55–59. See also Judicial clerkships leaving on good terms, 60 summer clerkships, 47–55. See also Summer clerkships workload management in, 40–41 Client development. See also Rainmakers associates and, 130–131 firms, expectations of, 201–207 Clients businesses, familiarity of partners with, 174–175 ethical considerations in client management, 77–78 familiarity of partners with, 174–175 in-house work with, leaving firms for, 195 partners, long-term value of, 173–174 treating partners as, overlooking, 146–148 Cold contacts, 26 Communication in firms, first-year attorneys and, 85 Community service by partners, 180 Compensation of new partners, 162–164 Competence ethical considerations, 66–67 of first-year attorneys, 97–102 Competing offers associates and, 131–133 job interviews and, 17–18 Confessing to mistakes, 101–102 Confidentiality common issues, 39–40 in judicial clerkships, 59 Constructive criticism, 44n9 Contacts, organizing, 38 Continuing legal education (CLE), 135–136 “Cover your butt” (CYB) principle, 100–101 Credit-stealers, 91 Crowley, Chris, 171n8, 209 Cultural differences, 70–72 Culture of firm, 82–86

Dating in office, 45–46 Deadlines, 41 “Deal lawyer” mistakes, 108–109 Dean, Winfred, 193n23 Decision-making by associates, 138–139 Diligence, 67–68

Docketing deadlines, 103n51 Douglas, Justice Andrew, 57n21, 59n24, 96n34 Downsizing to smaller firms, 191–192 Drafts, 95 Dressing for job interviews, 6, 10–11 Drinking, 51, 180, 188 Duncan, David, 110n59

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Truss), 93n26 Eaton, Rheta, 73n25 Efficiency of first-year attorneys, 97–102 Electronic communications and emails angry responses to, 110–111 first-year attorneys and, 109–112 informational interviews, 27–31 promptly returning, 178 “reply all,” 110 tone of, 111–112 The Elements of Style (Strunk & White), 93n26 Elevator pitches, 143, 143n35 Ellis, Billie J., Jr., xiv, xix, 159-171, 209-212 Emotional intelligence, 120–121 Ethical considerations, 61–80 assistants, 72–75 baby boomers, working with, 71–72 billable hours, 61–65 client management, 77–78 competence, 66–67 cultural differences, 70–72 diligence, 67–68 firms, expectations of, 201–207 interpersonal relationships, 76 in large firms, 69 media relations, 78–80 mentors, 65–66 modeling ethical behavior, 75 “playing well with others,” 76 in small firms, 66–68 of solo practitioners, 66–68 sponsors, 65–66 time recording, 62 Expertise, 135, 144, 177–178 Expressions of interest at interviews, 20 Externs, supervision of, 58 Eye contact at interviews, 5–6

Facebook, 112n63 Faculty Recruitment Conference (FRC), 197 Family life, 115–117, 179

Favors by associates, 135 Feedback, 43–44, 150 Ferris, Timothy, 210–212 Firms addressing problems, 85–86 announcements and communications, 84–85 confidentiality, 39–40 culture of, 82–86 dating in office, 45–46 expectations of, 201–207 informational interviews, 34 large firms, ethical considerations for, 69 leaving, 185–198. See also Leaving firms open-door vs. closed-door firms, 83 partners, long-term value of, 173–174 small firms. See Small firms First impressions at interviews, 5–6 First-year attorneys, 81–117 absentee assigners and, 86–87 announcements of firms, 84–85 behavior to avoid, 108–109 billable hours, 115 bonuses, 115 calendaring systems, 103–104 communication in firms, 85 competence of, 97–102 computers, using, 103n50 “cover your butt” principle, 100–101 credit-stealers and, 91 culture of firm and, 82–86 dating in office, 45–46 deadlines, 41 “deal lawyer” mistakes, 108–109 docketing deadlines, 103n51 efficiency of, 97–102 electronic communications, 109–112 emails, 109–112 expectations of firms, 201–207 family life, 115–117 feedback regarding mistakes, 43–44 hours of work, 44–45, 84 impostor syndrome, 81–82 litigator mistakes, 108 long hours, 41–43 mere recitation, avoiding, 99–100 micro-managers and, 80 mistakes by, 43–44, 101–102 natterers and, 89 nice and helpful persons and, 91 note-taking, 92–93

open-door vs. closed-door firms, 83 original thinking, 98 overview, 81 partners, expectations of, 83 passive-aggressive persons and, 88 personal errands, 113–115 powerless partners and, 88–89 problem solving, 85–86 as rainmakers, 112–113 research skills, 93–97 sadists, 89–90 sad sacks, 91 screamers, 87 screw-ups, 90–91 senior associates’ expectations, 83 sick days, 113–115 social life, 115–117 throwers, 87 time off, 113–115 “time vacuums” and, 89 unforgiving partners and, 87–88 upward-climbers, 89 usefulness of, 107–108 vacations, 113–115 work assignments, 92–93, 105–107 workload management, 40–41 writing skills, 93–97 A Fish Called Wanda (film), 143n36 Florida, certification in, 177 Follow-up after interviews, 9–10 Formal career plan, failure to make, 149–150 Fouret, Dianne, xix The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman (Ferris), 210–212 The 4-Hour Workweek (Ferris), 210 Fraud in billable hours, 64n8

The Godfather (film), 142n31 Gasser, Adrienne, xix, 193n23 George, Elias P., xxiv, xix, 23-38, 113n64 Goldman, Perry, 137n27 Golden Rule, 181 Goleman, Daniel, 120 Goolsby, Gordon, xix Government work, leaving firms for, 193–194 Group interviews, 19–20 Gross, Jennifer, xix Gut reactions at interviews, 7



Hahn Loeser& Parks, 3n7, 73n25, 96n34 Hamilton, Neil, 201n1 Handshakes at interviews, 5–6 Hard work by associates, 134–135 Harris County, Texas, Community Supervision and Corrections Department, 191n17, 193–194 Hayes, Woody, 110n60 Headhunters, 131–133 Health importance of, 169–171 partners and, 179–180 Herrmann, Mark, 52n12 Hewlett-Packard Corp., 168–169 Hiring interviews. See Job interviews Home offices vs. branch offices, 128–130 Homeyer, Kirk, xix, 64n6, 83n3 Honesty, 64, 181 Hours of work billable hours. See Billable hours common issues, 44–45 first-year attorneys, 84 long hours, 41–43 Human resources. See Support staff

Illegal questions at interviews, 15–16 Impostor syndrome, first-year attorneys and, 81–82 Increments of billable hours, 61–62 Informational interviews, 23–38 applicants, questions regarding, 35 cold contacts, 26 contacting referrals, 26–31 defined, 24 emails, 27–31 firms, questions regarding, 34 general interests, identifying, 25 general questions, 34–35 initial considerations, 25–26 job interviews contrasted, 24 meals during, 36 as networking, 23–24, 28–29 organizing contacts, 25–26, 38 overview, 24, 38 persons conducting, 25 post-interview considerations, 37–38 preparation for, 31–32 process, 33–36 punctuality, 33 questions regarding referrals, 33–36 resumes, 31 thank-you notes, 37

time considerations, 27 In-house work with clients, leaving firms for, 195 Interpersonal relationships between clients and associates, 122–124 ethical considerations, 76 between partners and associates, 176–178 with support staff, 76 Interviews informational interviews, 23–38. See also Informational interviews job interviews, 1–22. See also Job interviews Isaacson, Walter, 168

Job interviews, 1–22 bad interviewers, 17 body language, 6–7 call-back interviews, 10–11 for clerkships, 18 competing offers and, 17–18 cover letters, 4–5 dressing for, 6, 10–11 expressions of interest, 20 eye contact, 5–6 first impressions, 5–6 following up, 9–10 by groups, 19–20 gut reactions, 7 handshakes, 5–6 illegal questions, 15–16 informational interviews, 23–38. See also Informational interviews job offers at, 21 during judicial clerkships, 58 meals during, 12–14 negotiable vs. non-negotiable items, 22 overview, 1–2 portfolios, 19 post-interview considerations, 8–10 preferences, 3 pre-interview considerations, 2–5 references, contacting, 10 rejection letters, 20–21 religious restrictions and, 14 resumes, unread, 14 scheduling, 11–13 screening interviews, 5–8 special situations, 14–18 support staff, interaction with, 18–19 thank-you notes, 8–9 verbal tics, 7 Job offers

competing offers, 17–18, 131–133 at interviews, 21 summer clerkships, not forthcoming after, 53–55 Jobs, Steve, 168–169 Judges, expectations of judicial clerkships, 56–57 Judgment of associates, 141–142 Judicial clerkships, 55–59 bar examination during, 59 behavior to avoid, 59 confidentiality in, 59 externs, supervising, 58 hierarchy of, 56 job interviews during, 58 job performance in, 60 judges, expectations of, 56–57 judicial assistants, expectations of, 57–58 leaving on good terms, 60 overview, 55 Junior associates, 119–144 behavior to avoid, 142 career mistakes, 145–157. See also Career mistakes client development, 130–131 clients, interpersonal relationships with, 122–124 competing offers and, 131–133 dating in office, 45–46 deadlines, 41 decision making by, 138–139 elevator pitches, 143, 143n35 emotional intelligence of, 120–121 experience of, 141–142 favors by, 135 feedback regarding mistakes, 43–44 firms, expectations of, 201–207 hard work by, 134–135 headhunters and, 131–133 home offices vs. branch offices, 128–130 hours of work, 44–45 judgment of, 141–142 legal skills of, 133–135 long hours, 41–43 mistakes, 43–44 networking by, 135 overview, 119–120 partners, interpersonal relationships with, 176–178 people skills, 120–124 political skills, 124–127 preparation by, 136–137 taking charge of career, 142–144 teamwork and, 139–141 workload management, 40–41

Junior partners. See Partners

Large firms, ethical considerations in, 69 Law firms. See Firms Law schools classmates, losing touch with, 145–146 professorships, leaving firms for, 195–197 Law students classmates, losing touch with, 145–146 judicial clerkships, 55–59. See also Judicial clerkships summer clerkships, 47–55. See also Summer clerkships Leadership skills, failure to develop, 154–155 Leaving firms, 185–198 burning bridges, avoiding, 198–199 clerkships, 60 downsizing to smaller firms, 191–192 future desires as factor, 190–191 on good terms, 60, 198–199 for government work, 193–194 for in-house work with clients, 195 knowing when to leave, 187–189 for law professorships, 195–197 misery, evaluating level of, 189–190 office politics as reason, 186–187 other options, 197 overview, 185 reasons for, 185–186 Legal skills of associates, 133–135 firms, expectations of, 201–207 research skills, 93–97 writing skills. See Writing skills Librarians. See Support staff Litigator mistakes by first-year attorneys, 108 Little, Capt. Bonnie, 139 Liggins, Demetra, xix Lodge, Henry S.,171n8,209 Long hours, 41–43

Management skills, failure to develop, 154–155 Mann, Nettie, xix, 65 Map of Usefulness, 133–134 Marketing. See Support staff Marshall, General George, 107 Martinez, Kerry, xix Maximize Your Lawyer Potential: Business Etiquette and Professionalism for Law Students and Lawyers (McKim), 201n2 Mayer, John, 120 McKim, Amee R., xiv, xix, 112, 145-157, 201n2

Meals drinking at, 180 during informational interviews, 36 during job interviews, 12–14 partners dining with clients, 180 during summer clerkships, 50 Media relations, ethical considerations, 78–80 Medicare tax, new partners and, 162–163 Meetings, preparation of partners for, 175, 180 Mental health importance of, 169–171 partners and, 179–180 Mentors, ethical considerations, 65–66 Mere recitation, avoiding, 99–100 Micro-managers, 80 Mistakes behavior to avoid. See Behavior to avoid “bonehead moves.” See “Bonehead moves” career mistakes, 145–157. See also Career mistakes common issues, 43–44 confessing to, 101–102 “deal lawyer” mistakes, 108–109 litigator mistakes, 108 Model of ethical behavior, 75 Moore, Courtney, 75 Morrison & Foerster, 3n7, 53n4 Motions, calendaring systems for, 104 Moving on. See Leaving firms

Nancy's dad, xix, 5n11, 111n61, 116, 133, 134, 190 Natterers, 89 Negotiable vs. non-negotiable items at interviews, 22 Networking by associates, 135 discounting importance of, 150–151 informational interviews as, 23–24, 28–29 New partners, 159–171 billable hours, 169–171 burn-out, avoiding, 165 capital contributions by, 162 change in focus of, 160 client origination and, 161–162 compensation of, 162–164 creativity of, 166–169 dating in office, 45–46 deadlines, 41 expectations of firms, 201–207 feedback regarding mistakes, 43–44 getting ahead, 129–130

health, importance of, 169–171 hours of work, 44–45 inspiration of, 166–169 long hours, 41–43 Medicare tax and, 162–163 mental health, importance of, 169–171 mistakes, 43–44 nutrition, importance of, 169–171 overview, 159–162 physical health, importance of, 169–171 professional and personal enjoyment as, 166 realization rate of, 161 revenue, control over, 160–161 as self-employed, 162–163 Social Security tax and, 162–163 sprint vs. marathon analogy, 164–169 taxation of, 162–163 workload management, 40–41 Nice and helpful persons, 91 Note-taking, 92–93 Nutrition, importance of, 169–171

Offers competing offers, 17–18, 131–133 at interviews, 21 summer clerkships, not forthcoming after, 53–55 Office politics leaving firms due to, 186–187 partners and, 181 Ohio Attorney General, 191n17, 193 Open-door vs. closed-door firms, 83 Original thinking, 98 Ownership of career, 149–150

Paralegals. See Support staff Parking, partners and, 180–181 Partners, 173–183 anger, avoiding, 181 articles, sharing with associates, 176 associates, interpersonal relationships with, 176–178 billable hours, 176–177 businesses of clients, familiarity with, 174–175 certification, 177–178 clients, familiarity with, 174–175 community service by, 180 drinking by, 180 expertise, acquiring, 177–178 familiarity with other partners, 175 family life and, 179

first-year attorneys, expectations of, 83 Golden Rule and, 181 health and, 179–180 honesty and, 181 long-term value to firm and clients, 173–174 meals with clients, 180 meetings, preparation for, 175, 180 new partners, 159–171. See also New partners office politics and, 181 overview, 173 parking and, 180–181 political skills, 124–125 powerless partners, 88–89 professional brand, developing, 178 project management, 177 promptly returning calls and emails, 178 as rainmakers, 174–175 social media and, 179 specialization, 177–178 treating partners as clients, 146–148 unforgiving partners, 87–88 websites, 179 writing skills, 179–183 Passion for work, losing, 156–157 Passive-aggressive persons, 88 Patton, General George, 73, 75, 136, 138, 138n29 People skills of associates, 120–124 Personal errands, 113–115 Physical health importance of, 169–171 partners and, 179–180 “Playing well with others,” 76 Political skills of associates, 124–127 of partners, 124–125 Portfolios at interviews, 19 Powell, General Colin, xxi Powerless partners, 88–89 Precision in billable hours, 63–64 Preparation by associates, 136–137 for informational interviews, 31–32 meetings, preparation of partners for, 175, 180 Pretty Woman, 12n24 Problem-solving approach, 85–86 Professional brand failure to maintain, 155–156 partners developing, 178 Professional development, 150–151 Professorships, leaving firms for, 195–197

Project management by partners, 177 Promptly returning calls and emails, 178 Proofreading cover letters, 4–5 Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 191n17, 193 Punctuality at interviews, 33

Rainmakers. See also Client development first-year attorneys as, 112–113 partners as, 174–175 Reagan, Ronald, 99 Reasons for leaving firms, 185–186 Recording of time billable hours. See Billable hours ethical considerations, 62 summer clerkships, 48–49 References, contacting, 10 Referrals contacting, 26–31 informational interviews, questions at, 33–36 Rejection letters, 20–21 Religious restrictions, interviews and, 14 “Reply all,” 110 Reporters, ethical considerations regarding, 78–80 Research skills firms, expectations of, 201–207 first-year attorneys, 93–97 Resumes informational interviews, 31 unread, 14 Rodriguez-Shapoval, Marisa, xix

Sadists, 89–90 Sad sacks, 91 Saint-Exupery, Antoine de, 91 Salovey, Peter, 120 Scheduling of interviews, 11–13 Screamers, 87 Screening interviews, 5–8 Screw-ups, 90–91 Self-employed, new partners as, 162–163 Senior associates, 119–144 behavior to avoid, 142 client development, 130–131 competing offers and, 131–133 dating in office, 45–46 deadlines, 41 decision-making by, 138–139 elevator pitches, 143, 143n35 experience of, 141–142

feedback regarding mistakes, 43–44 firms, expectations of, 201–207 first-year attorneys and expectations of, 83 headhunters and, 131–133 home offices vs. branch offices, 128–130 hours of work, 44–45 interpersonal relationships with clients, 122–124 interpersonal relationships with partners, 176–178 judgment of, 141–142 legal skills of, 133–135 long hours, 41–43 mistakes, 43–44 overview, 119–120 people skills, 120–124 political skills, 124–127 preparation by, 136–137 taking charge of career, 142–144 teamwork, 139–141 workload management, 40–41 Senior partners. See Partners Sick days, 113–115 Simon, Paul, 185 Small firms competence in, 66–67 diligence in, 67–68 downsizing to, 191–192 ethical considerations in, 66–68 Social events during summer clerkships, 50 Social life of first-year attorneys, 115–117 Social media Facebook, 112n63 partners and, 179 Social Security tax, new partners and, 162–163 Solo practitioners competence as, 66–67 diligence as, 67–68 ethical considerations of, 66–68 Specialization by partners, 177–178 Sponsors, ethical considerations, 65–66 Standing Committee on Specialization (ABA), 177 Steve Jobs (Isaacson), 168n6 Stolberg, Layke, xix Students judicial clerkships, 55–59. See also Judicial clerkships summer clerkships, 47–55. See also Summer clerkships Summer clerkships, 47–55 behavior to avoid, 50–51 billable hours, 48–49 first day, 48–49 first week, 49–50

job offers not forthcoming, 53–55 job performance in, 60 leaving on good terms, 53, 60 meals during, 50 overview, 47 social events during, 50 support staff, working with, 52–53 time recording, 48–49 unpleasant firms, dealing with, 53 work assignments, 49 Support staff interpersonal relationships with, 76 interviews, interaction with, 18–19 job interviews, interaction with during, 18–19 neglecting, 151–152 summer clerkships, working with, 52–53 Supreme Court of Ohio, 137n27

Taxation of new partners, 162–163 Teamwork, associates and, 139–141 Temple, Nancy, 110n59 Texas, certification in, 177 Thank-you notes, 8–9, 37 The Ohio State University, xiv, xivn1,xix, xvn1, 110n60. This is What I’m Thinking: A Dialogue Between Partner and Associate…From the Partner (Herrmann), 52n12, 64n7 Thorson, Todd J., xv, xix, 159-171, 209-212 Throwers, 87 Time off for first-year attorneys, 113–115 Time recording billable hours. See Billable hours ethical considerations, 62 summer clerkships, 48–49 “Time vacuums,” 89 Tiniano, Jerry, 96n34 Tone of electronic communications, 111–112

Unforgiving partners, 87–88 Uniform Commercial Code, 210, 212 United States Attorney’s Office, 193 Upward-climbers, 89 USA Jobs, 194 Usefulness of first-year attorneys, 107–108

Vacations by first-year attorneys, 113–115 Verbal tics, 7 Vitatoe, Vincent, xix



Websites of partners, 179 Weekend work, 42 Wilson, Dana, xix Work assignments first-year attorneys, 92–93, 105–107 summer clerkships, 49 Working Girl (film), 125 Workload management common issues, 40–41 firms, expectations of, 201–207 Wozniak, Steve, 169 Writing skills accuracy in, 97 “cover your butt” principle, 100–101 drafts, 95 firms, expectations of, 201–207 first-year attorneys, 93–97 mere recitation, avoiding, 99–100 original thinking, 98 partners, 179–183 “singing,” 95–97

You Get What You Measure: Lawyer Development Frameworks and Effective Performance Evaluations (Westfahl), 201n2 Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy—Until You’re 80 and Beyond (Crowley & Lodge), 209–211