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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom to Courtroom podcast, where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney. And of course, where we make the practice of law fun. And today, we’re going to look at building support and taking accountability in your legal practice.
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Scott Benton: Today, in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle, which is what we talk about on this podcast to help you learn and perfect the actual practice of law, that’s a subject that’s not taught in law school, we’re going to talk about building support and taking accountability in your legal practice.
In the legal profession, you often face complex cases, tight deadlines and high stakes decisions. Now navigating these challenges can be daunting. It can be overwhelming, especially when you’re just starting out as a new attorney. So that’s why seeking support and accountability from colleagues and mentors becomes essential.
It’s how you really learn the skills you’re going to need that informs your to do lists that you put together for your cases. And then of course, delivering the. excellent level of legal [00:02:00] services that you deliver to your clients. Having a strong support system not only helps you tackle daily obstacles, but it also keeps you motivated and it keeps you focused on your goals and reaching and exceeding your minimum billable hourly requirement.
So the first thing you want to look for is a mentor who can offer guidance and advice. Now this is usually probably going to be a more experienced attorney, someone that’s been around for several years, maybe even decades at your firm, who’s going to help you avoid the more common pitfalls, which in turn helps inform the strategic decisions that you make in navigating the cases that you’re working on.
Now keep in mind that there is a Difference between formal mentors and informal mentors. Sometimes you’ll have an official mentor that you’ll be reporting to, such as a senior level attorney. And then other times when it comes to more informal mentors, These are just going to be other attorneys that you have built relationships with who you can go to and that offer valuable [00:03:00] feedback on your cases just in your normal conversations.
Then you’re going to need some peer support, which is usually going to come from the younger attorneys at the firm and people who you’ve developed a connection with.
Those peers will also be able to provide you with a useful level of support and they can act as a sounding board for processing case related legal services that you’re currently working on. So, for instance, there might be a complicated form that you need to fill out to file a motion and it’s one that you just say you’ve never seen it before.
So you might ask for advice on filling out this form from one of the other younger attorneys who’s already been doing these over and over and over again themselves and been filing these forms successfully. Keep in mind that a legal practice can be stressful and as having a support system helps manage the emotional toll of working on your cases, finding a way to decide Discuss your challenges of navigating your workload with others who are usually outside of the firm can also be tremendously effective as a [00:04:00] tool so that you can better focus on delivering legal services to your clients.
So as there are literally countless configurations of outside help that you can choose from to incorporate as an emotional support layer, you want to pick whichever one works best for you and build that layer into your overall support system.
And most importantly, don’t forget to celebrate your wins. Now, this is a subject that comes up all the time on this podcast, and it’s one that’s easy to forget. So we like to stress it over and over and over again. But whenever you have a win, however big or small that win is, you really want to take a moment to celebrate.
Now, this is important because of the stress that working as an attorney can bring. Celebrating wins is a reminder that the work you’re doing is important and that every single day that you’re making a difference to the lives of your clients. So that over time, all of those small wins, they really add up to one very large, big win.
And if you don’t believe me, go and [00:05:00] read a book called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, which lays this idea out really, really well, especially when it comes to your ability to grow substantially in your legal career.
Now, after getting all of that support from your mentors and your peer group, let’s touch briefly on the idea of maintaining accountability. Now, this is going to help you take 100 percent responsibility for the work that you do and for sharpening your skill set and your ability to deliver legal services with nothing short of pure accountability.
First, you always want to set your goals and make sure that you have a clear objective when you’re working on your cases. And then you want to meet with your mentor periodically to make sure that you’re keeping yourself on track. That means you want to have regular check ins scheduled on your calendar to go over your case list.
And then when you update your mentor, you want to discuss how well you’ve moved those cases forward. You want to maintain that progress and you want to stay motivated and continually build momentum so your cases don’t [00:06:00] flag or stall or just flame out completely. Your mentor will help you avoid all the many traps that can potentially sabotage the progress of a case, which in almost every instance will give you invaluable lessons that you’ll want to store in your mind for use on your future cases.
And lastly, don’t forget about soliciting constructive feedback from your mentor. Your mentor in most cases is going to have years and years of valuable legal experience that they can provide feedback through.
So you don’t want to miss out on this valuable opportunity to let their sometimes decades worth of legal experience inform the foundation of your own legal career trajectory. As you start your new attorney position, make sure you’re looking for support in the form of a mentorship and from your peers and that you’re taking accountability and feedback.
Full 100 percent responsibility for creating a high quality of legal services that you perform on all of your cases. The [00:07:00] guidance that you’re looking for is going to be there. You just need to identify it and make sure you’re tapping into all of those many valuable resources. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
Thank you so much for dropping by and spending some time with us on this episode. If you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two courtroom. com where you can send us a message to keep in touch or you can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs we have available for law school students.
You can come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
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