Kelli Lanski - Law Firm Life: What to expect and what to do to excel during your first few months in private practice

Copyright 2022 by Kelli Lanski

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

L ater in the book, I reference an assignment worksheet to guide you through all the questions to ask when getting a new assignment. Click here to get your copy: https://thecareerfiles.com/law-firm-life-free-assignment-guide/

W elcome to the legal profession. After three years of law school, you can finally call yourself a lawyer. You have briefed hundreds of cases, spotted countless issues during more exams than you care to remember, and studied for and taken the bar exam. If youre like most recent law graduates, your legal education focused on teaching you how to think like a lawyer. And while youve probably had a couple of internships, summer jobs, and clinical experiences practicing at the actual work of being a lawyer, you may be feeling some anxiety about transitioning from school to full-time work.

This book is meant to ease that transition by sharing the qualities your senior attorneys expect you to demonstrate, while helping you get off to a great start during your first few weeks of work, including some steps you can take before you begin work to set yourself up for success.

The advice in this book is geared to junior associates in law firms specifically, although much of it will be helpful if you begin your career in a public interest, government, or other position.

During the 10+ years Ive been practicing law as a litigator, Ive worked at legal aid and two big law firms. I graduated just as The Great Recession was taking hold, plunging law firms into years of belt-tightening and staff and attorney lay-offs. It was a time of great uncertainty for many lawyers, including soon-to-be-lawyers like me, who had been thrilled to accept full-time offers of employment with big law firms, only for many firms to begin rescinding those offers after the economy tanked. I graduated from law school as one of many deferred associatesmeaning our firms had pushed our start date back by several months and given us the option of spending our first year of practice at a public interest organization instead of the firm. As someone who went to law school interested in public interest work but ended up getting a firm job through OCI, I jumped at the chance to begin my career in New York Citys Legal Aid Society, before joining Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP as a litigation associate. I stayed at Dewey until its collapse and bankruptcy a couple of years later (a story for another day) and then moved with a group of litigators to another large firm, where I remained before leaving to start The Career Files LLC ( https://thecareerfiles.com ), a business dedicated to helping young lawyers succeed at work and build the legal careers of their dreams.

All of that is to say: Ive been in your shoes as a recent law grad, worked in a variety of legal environments during the more carefree days pre-recession, and made it through the scarier times afterward. I hope my tips will be useful whether you find yourself working in a big law firm, as a solo practitioner in Ohio, or working at a legal aid organization in California.

Of course, there are many paths to being a great employee and lawyer. I hope that by reading this book, you will find oneor the inspiration for onethat works for you. Tailoring what you read here to what works for you is key. There is a misconception in this profession, especially at law firms, that young lawyers are merely cogs in the machine. To a limited extent, it is true that associates are somewhat fungible. Junior attorneys tend to start from the same basic knowledge base. But if you succeed at the everyday tasks assigned to you, you will build trust in the eyes of senior attorneys. As you progress, you can become a go-to associate on the team and at the firm. And if you decide that your current gig is not what you want to do forever, this book should help you to succeed in any workplace.