Description
Knowing When to Ask, Who to Ask and Making Connections in Your Firm Life
Speaker 1:[00:00:00] This is sort of a day-to-day question about.. Is this too specific, or should I ask what the expectations are?
If someone doesn't ask, how quickly should turnaround an assignment then typically then you want to ask. The other thing is, you should always ask what the expectations are.
This just sounds like a question of a summer associate or something. The worst thing you can do is make errors, be sloppy, and not think through things and not be careful and give wrong answers.
That's how people make mistakes. So a lot of times, especially when you don't have legal training, you get an assignment and you're in a real hurry to give an answer. And then so people will do everything they possibly can, to very quickly give an answer because they're really eager to show it to the teacher. But at the same time, that's not what law firms want. They want you to think through it. They want you to proof it, even if it's memo. They want you to make sure you have the right answer. They want you to double check things. They want you to produce a perfect product. And this is just the way it works.
And you don't want to spend too much time on something, but typically the best way to do things is to, especially [00:01:00] the summer associates, the best way to do things is to ask junior associates that you're working with, junior, mid level and senior people. And so they are your friends and typically the junior are most helpful. So ask them what to do. And if you ask them then they, they will talk to you all day and give you the rules. They've been through all this before. The worst thing you can do at any law firm really, is try to do everything on your own.
Now there's a thing called vulnerability, and junior associates and mid-levels love to feel important. You would too. Love to give advice, to feel important and help. You need people on your side. Ask questions, and you can ask them for input. They will help you. That's one of the most important piece of advice I can give for you if you're a summer associate or a new attorney. Just ask questions of other attorneys and find people that seem to be liked by partners and so forth.
If people that you're talking to, if they start talking negatively about the firm, what's not good about it and who left may and everything's negative [00:02:00] and when you start relating to them at lunches and stuff, just to avoid negative people. There's different ways of looking at the world, and there's people that will look at things positively and negatively. You need to surround yourself as a young attorney with people, that see the bright side of things, because good things are going to happen to you. Negative people always leave and they'll always have problems. Not always, but most of the time. That's some advice.
And then positive people help you. Many times, there may not be a connection. They may not connect with you. They may be overly formal and you may not feel like you're getting the right sets of input. Just find people that you identify with and take an interest in you. Trust. And you don't know who to trust by the way. Find people that you trust. Don't get too personal with them. Do not talk about your personal life in too much detail, or actually you can talk about your personal life, but If you're having too much fun, which a lot of people do in the summer, you going out and drinking and doing other things and having crazy experiences, I wouldn't talk too much about that. But, if you're engaged in some crazy behavior. But most people aren't. But that's how I'd recommend that.
