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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional life and your professional career as an attorney and where we like to make the practice of law fun. And today, we’re going to answer the question of how do you learn best as an attorney?
[00:00:27] Scott Benton: How do you learn best as an attorney?
[00:00:29] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] As I’m sure you probably already realize, When you start your first job as an attorney, there’s just going to be a whole lot of stuff that you’ve got to learn. And you’ve got to learn how to get up to speed on how to practice laws as an attorney, which we talk about a lot on this podcast.
[00:01:34] Scott Benton: We use the success cycle, that’s what comes up over and over again, and we discuss in depth. And It’s also, by the way, that’s exactly what this podcast is here to show you how to do. We’re here to show you how to get up to speed as a practicing attorney and how to do that practice.
[00:01:50] Scott Benton: So tune in for more and learn everything you need to learn before you make it into your job as an attorney. Your first job and your second job. You’re also [00:02:00] going to have to learn how to work in the particular practice area that the firm provides legal services for. And you gotta do that if you’re not already an expert.
[00:02:09] Scott Benton: And frankly, if you are an expert, sometimes there’s, little kind of nuances that you may or may not know that you want to make sure you’re up to speed on. In any case, the practice area is something when you start at a firm, either as a new attorney or maybe you’ve just started, been practicing for a couple of years, you want to make sure that you’re aligned with the type of law that firm is practicing.
[00:02:31] Scott Benton: And the other thing that you’re going to have to learn is the business systems that the law firm is using. Those are probably going to be different from law firm to law firm. So for the most part, it might take a little while for you to master different databases and the different platforms they’re using.
[00:02:47] Scott Benton: Maybe they’re using, you Like that the Google platform, everything is on Google, or maybe they’re using Microsoft, or whatever. There’s all kinds of different platforms, and chances are there’s gonna be a platform or two, or three [00:03:00] or four, that you’re not all that familiar with. You need to be able to master those quickly, efficiently, as soon as you can.
[00:03:07] Scott Benton: So that you can just simply do your job now when it comes to learning all of this new material and not to mention it’s going to be new material. It’s going to come along all the time, so you can’t really discount that. There’s going to be new processes and maybe new platforms that the law firm starts using.
[00:03:25] Scott Benton: So you need to make sure that you’re in the best possible mind space for you to learn all that you need to learn and as quickly as you can, because after you learned all this stuff, you started your job. It’s not like you don’t learn anything anymore. There’s going to be all kinds of new stuff that comes along all the time.
[00:03:43] Scott Benton: So you have to learn how to learn. You have to learn how to learn. fast because that’s going to have a significant impact on how well you do as an attorney. And remember that no matter how personable and likable you are, and you are [00:04:00] personable and likable, I certainly think you’re personable and I think you’re likable.
[00:04:04] Scott Benton: Even with those qualities, if you’re at 100 percent on those qualities, it’s still your responsibility to bill for time. It’s your responsibility to meet and exceed your minimum billable hours. When people say that you have to meet your minimums, it really means you have to go above your minimums. But you have to definitely meet the minimums, but you want to go and shoot for going above your minimums.
[00:04:30] Scott Benton: You also, by the way, you need to generate revenue from your cases. You’re selling legal services for time, or you’re selling time to do legal services. That’s what your clients are paying for. And you want to produce a profit for the firm that you’re working for. All businesses are in business. All companies, let’s say, all firms, they’re in business to make a profit.
[00:04:54] Scott Benton: So if you’re in a position where you’re not picking up everything that you [00:05:00] really need to master, then you should probably stop what you’re doing and figure out what the best place is going to be for you to learn new material. As you might know, in recent years, there’s been this massive and significant push towards remote work where attorneys will work from home for sometimes it’ll be like a portion of the week or some attorneys.
[00:05:24] Scott Benton: It’s the entire week. They just work from home 100 percent of the time or as much as possible. Now, one of the reasons that working remotely became so popular because people realized. That they saved a lot of money on car expenses all that wear and tear they also they felt more productive because cutting down on their commute time meant for them Lower stress levels because they’re not driving for 45 minutes to you know an hour every direction That shaves off a lot of wear and tear on your car And and it shaves off [00:06:00] just a lot of stress time By the way, if you haven’t figured this out already The one way to beat traffic, so if you’re driving half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, longer, I hope not, but let’s say you are, because sometimes people are in that position.
[00:06:15] Scott Benton: The one way to beat the traffic is to start listening to audiobooks, if you can. If you can listen to audiobooks, I prefer business audiobooks, non fiction stuff. Occasionally I’ll listen to fiction, but mostly I try to sharpen all my business skills by listening to audiobooks. It’s a great way to absorb information.
[00:06:34] Scott Benton: Podcasts do it as well, but I find that audiobooks, especially, by the way, those by Nightingale Conant, check them out, nightingale. com, or you can just find them on Amazon. Those are, that’s some of the best. Business material I’ve found out there and and you might benefit as well. So that’s the problem with driving and people have figured out That not driving reduces their stress levels as i’m sure you’ve probably [00:07:00] experienced when you haven’t had to drive somewhere Now one of the problems with working remotely Could be that because you’re now not in the office every day, that when changes are made or new information comes along, you don’t necessarily see those changes right away.
[00:07:18] Scott Benton: And you might not have really even any context for why the change took place. And you might have I don’t less access to people in your office who can help you cut through a lot of wasted trial and error time sitting at home trying to figure this stuff out. But the point is, and I’m using remote work here as an example, this may not be the best way that you learn. It’s possible. You need to make a change and that change might include going into the office every single day until you’ve been able to master whatever subject you’re working towards. and working towards understanding and figuring out how to now incorporate that new information into your work [00:08:00] processes.
[00:08:00] Scott Benton: So figuring out how you learn best is going to be all about maximizing your ability to absorb information that’s the whole key. You want to learn a new subject that you know nothing about as fast as possible. And now but let’s flip that scenario around completely. Maybe instead of working at home, you work in the office all day long, every day.
[00:08:24] Scott Benton: And you’re finding it’s actually not the best way for you to learn. There’s just too many distractions and Trying to find a good 45 minute chunk of quality time to be able to focus on a single subject is a tall order. That’s pretty difficult to come by. If that’s the case for you, then you really need to figure out where you learn best.
[00:08:46] Scott Benton: So you might want to think back, as an example, to when you were in law school and you were a student and you might remember, you probably did this, I did, going to a particular coffee house that you loved. And you’d go and get [00:09:00] an Americano, or a latte, and you’d sit down, you’d put in your earplugs, and you’d get to work.
[00:09:05] Scott Benton: And before you knew it, five hours passed, and you didn’t even notice it was five hours. You got five hours of solid work under your belt. Now, maybe after you graduated, you stopped going to coffee houses and you tried to learn everything you needed to in your office or maybe at home and you’ve got like a chaotic home or something like that.
[00:09:25] Scott Benton: It’s just both environments are chaotic and learning anything, it’s just simply not working. And it’s possible. Also, by the way, if you don’t know this and we’ve conditioned yourself a little, you’re missing your Americanos, which somehow triggered your brain to snap into a focused work mode and how it was that you were entering that place of just complete flow where there’s really no time.
[00:09:51] Scott Benton: So maybe what you can do is go in the evenings after work or on the weekends or early in the morning. To that or another coffeehouse, [00:10:00] wherever you are, wherever, whatever is appropriate, whatever if it’s open or whatever. And you can sit down and get your work done that way. The other option, of course, if you can sneak away from work during the day, if that’s an option, then you can go over to a nearby cafe or something, get your Americano, plug in your earplugs, and get into that zone of productive learning.
[00:10:22] Scott Benton: Whenever you have to do that, I probably not every day, but maybe there’s something you really need to focus on and at work. It’s just, there’s just not an opportunity. So figuring out where you’re most productive is going to be an exploration that’s well worth taking.
[00:10:37] Scott Benton: The parallel is this. So for book writers, let’s say, there’s been a long tradition of figuring out how to create the best writing conditions possible for them. They call it a ritual, really, is what they do, and sometimes they’re weird. They’ll they have little figurines and stuff they’ll put out.
[00:10:54] Scott Benton: They might play with the time of day. So they might get up really early and write early in the morning when it’s [00:11:00] still dark outside. Or sometimes they’ll wait till it’s super late at night, like 2 a. m. Something just depends on their wake sleep schedule. But they’ll try all kinds of different ways to figure out what the ideal environment is for them to get the writing done.
[00:11:17] Scott Benton: Sometimes they’ll do things like light a candle. I had one friend who would pour himself a glass of wine. Other people, I’ve heard of people, they’ll do the invocation of the muse by T. E. Lawrence to they’ll bring the muses in to inspire them, to inspire their writing, so they’ll recite the invocation of the muse.
[00:11:35] Scott Benton: T. E. Lawrence is Lawrence of Arabia and that will put them in the proper mind space that makes them extremely productive and very creative. So I hope that’s helpful in thinking about how you learn best as an attorney and then consciously working towards providing that productive space for yourself.
[00:11:57] Scott Benton: Now, as I’m sure especially if you’re still a law [00:12:00] student, that Really, there isn’t a whole lot of time available for you to not keep your mind as up to date as possible. You can’t let that go. You have to find a space, you have to carve out a space for yourself to be able to absorb new information because there’s just simply so much of it.
[00:12:18] Scott Benton: So you’re going to have to find a way to minimize the amount of time that it generally takes for you to absorb new materials. That’s that speed learning idea. So again, I hope that’s been helpful. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
[00:12:31] Scott Benton: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope it was enjoyable. If it was enjoyable and you like the material that we’re putting together and you wanna receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom 2 courtroom.com. That’s classroom the number two.
[00:12:47] Scott Benton: courtroom. com. Leave us your contact information. You will get an alert when we put out a new episode. Also, if you like this material, don’t forget to share and subscribe. That will incidentally also help you stay on top of our newest episodes. And [00:13:00] until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
[00:13:05] Scott Benton: Thank you so much.
