The Nuts and Bolts of Practicing Law
January 17, 2007
American Bar Association, The Women Advocate
by Nan E. Joesten, Farella Braun + Martel LLP
It's one thing to have completed the educational and licensing requirements for the practice of law, and it's another thing entirely to succeed at the nuts and bolts of practicing law. If you didn't have significant exposure to the legal profession prior to law school, or only spent a month or two at a law firm or legal department during your law school summers, you will soon find that you may have very little knowledge about what you really need to know substantively about representing your clients. Where to start?
The first place to look is within your new law firm or in-house legal department. Many places have a wide variety of training opportunities specifically designed to get new attorneys off to a strong start. Whether it's a weekly lunch session with more senior associates or partners, or a week of "boot camp" devoted entirely to teaching new skills and imparting useful information, don't overlook these early and relatively easy chances to speed your adjustment into your chosen profession. In addition to the standard topics related to the law-specific aspects of law and motion, drafting and responding to written discovery, or developing case strategy, many organizations also recognize the value of utilizing resources efficiently, and also provide guidance on how to best work with your administrative assistant, what research tools are favored and why, and tips for managing your time. Take advantage of as many of these opportunities as you can, even when you think you already know the topic. Beyond the very real possibility that you don't know as much as you think you do, you will also likely find out that this office's typical practices are in some ways different than the firm where you were a paralegal. Your participation will also help in growing your relationships with your new colleagues, who are either giving of their time to share with you what they think is important, or are going through the process of practicing law for the first time alongside of you.
You Get What You Give
Skill building training can be particularly helpful for new attorneys. The ability to take and defend a good deposition is one that few newly minted law school graduates inherently have, and the best way to learn is by doing. Attorneys should be rushing to participate in any opportunity for hands-on training, and willingly investing the time needed to get maximum benefit from the course. Where a firm offers opportunities for mock depositions, negotiations, trials, or other typical situations where litigators are required to think on their feet, by all means, participate. The effectiveness of role playing trainings requires the participants to review and master the fact patterns that are typically provided in advance of the training. There's not much benefit to a trainee to show up for training on taking a deposition without understanding either what the mock case is about and how this witness theoretically fits into the case. Likewise, you won't learn much about how to defend a witness if you don't know in advance what the potential pitfalls are for your theories of the case and what role the witness played in the key events of the case. And not only will you not learn much, your fellow trainees will be hampered by your lack of preparation, and you will also lose the chance to really test your wings by trying different strategies and tactics as you go through the exercise. In any deposition that you take (or defend), there are three depositions after it's all over: the one you took, the one you planned to take, and the one you wished you'd taken! Don't waste the training opportunity where it's provided to improve the likelihood that the deposition you take in the future will be as close as possible to the one you wished you'd taken.
The same reasoning applies to mock trials. While more involved than a mock deposition of one witness, the opportunity to try a small case in front of a fact finder, be it jury or judge, and to become experienced with the rules of evidence while effectively examining and cross-examining witnesses should not be missed.
Seek Mentors And Ye Shall Find
Finally, you can also use these training opportunities as vehicles for finding potential mentors. There's no substitute for the valuable pointers shared by a veteran litigator when the two of you are working side-by-side on a case, but until you are in that situation, you aren't limited to sitting on the sidelines. Attorneys who make time to participate as faculty in in-house training programs such as mock depositions or trials, or even just as leaders of a group discussion over lunch about the rules of civil procedure, are demonstrating to you their interest in your development as a lawyer. You can in turn express your interest in benefiting from their experience by asking questions, offering to help on their matters, or just inviting them to lunch to get to know more about them and their practice. First impressions count, and it's a rare lawyer, even an experienced veteran, who doesn't enjoy the sincere attention of an enthusiastic new attorney eager to learn.
Most of all, throw yourself into your new profession wholeheartedly and welcome the opportunities and challenges that await you. You've chosen a great career, and there's no time like the present to get started.
Nan Joesten is a co-chair of the Mentoring Sub-Committee of the Woman Advocate Committee, and a partner in the Intellectual Property and Technology Department at Farella Braun & Martel LLP in San Francisco, California, where she is also the chair of Farella's Women's Initiative. Her practice focuses on patent litigation and complex technology disputes. She can be reached at njoesten@fbm.com.