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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law easy and fun. And today, We’re going to look at how to quickly improve as an attorney, how to quickly improve as an attorney.
[00:00:27] Scott Benton: That is a very important skillset for you to have.
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[00:01:19] Scott Benton: Now there’s a lot to think about when you start your first job as an attorney. And as we talk about in other episodes on this podcast, you’ve got to really switch your mindset. The moment you start your first job from a passive law school student, that’s one mindset into an Active professional attorney mindset, which is not always the easiest thing to do considering you’ve had decades of The school system where you are more in that passive mindset But now that you are working as a professional as an attorney, you need to be able to make that switch Hopefully you’ve been listening to this podcast long enough that you know That’s going to be something that you’re going to have to do and you can get used to Switching over to that [00:02:00] more active mindset You’ve also got to quickly learn how to practice law.
[00:02:03] Scott Benton: That is a subject not taught in law school. And the message that you typically receive in law school is that practicing law, it becomes the law firm’s responsibility to teach you that part. However, the law firms on the other hand, expect you to already know how to practice law. So there’s this weird middle ground that you’re supposed to know, When you start your first job as an attorney that you likely aren’t going to know and it’s why this podcast was created in the first place.
[00:02:33] Scott Benton: We’re covering everything law school doesn’t teach you about practicing law. So you get into your first job and you’re starting to get the hang of things and what you’re doing. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you’re probably using the success cycle. The success cycle is what we talk about all the time, or a component of the success cycle.
[00:02:51] Scott Benton: And that success cycle is composed of three parts that you repeat simply over and over again. As you do your casework and those three parts are there’s the [00:03:00] to do list that you make whenever you have a case you put everything down on that to do list in no particular order at first then you want to reorganize them so that they the highest priority is probably at the top or however you Manage to create that system for yourself.
[00:03:14] Scott Benton: The point is that you need to create a to do list and you’re listing everything out that you’re going to need to do for a case. And then from that to do list, of course, you’re going to start performing the legal services in order of their priority. Most likely, and then every time you finish one of those legal services, one of those tasks that’s on your to do list, you’re going to bill for your time and you’re going to get paid and then you’re going to start all over again and go back to the to do list and you’re going to pick the next item and perform that legal service.
[00:03:44] Scott Benton: So that’s a broad overview. That’s how you successfully practice law and that’s something that we get into. In detail on this podcast. So if you’re listening to these episodes any sort of Lingering questions or gaps that may be there in your mind [00:04:00] about using the success cycle is going to be more than filled in then there’s another area that you’ve got to incorporate if you want to improve yourself as an attorney as quickly as possible. And the sooner you start, the faster you become an excellent attorney. And I know that’s exactly what you’re looking for and why you’re listening again. to this podcast So now that you’ve got your feet planted in your career as an attorney, the next step is to get exceedingly good at your job and to continually improve your skill set.
[00:04:29] Scott Benton: The idea is that you want to concentrate on getting one tiny percent better at your job each and every day. And if you do that, Then over time, you’re going to accumulate a significant amount of progress in a very short period of time. In fact, there’s a really good book you should take a look at by Darren Hardy called The Compound Effect, and it goes deep into the subject if you want a closer look at the idea of gaining small, even almost completely imperceptible improvements on a consistent or [00:05:00] daily basis to bring about significant results in a short period of time.
[00:05:04] Scott Benton: And on this podcast, we’re going to talk about a. A few of those ideas for you to make that steady progress. Now first off, as you may already know, attorneys need to complete a certain amount of CLE credits, or that stands for Continuing Legal Education. And those are credits that are a great place to start to focus on taking classes in the areas that you know that you’re going to really get the most benefit from.
[00:05:29] Scott Benton: So as an example, if you’re working in a litigation law firm, for instance, and you know that you’re going to find yourself representing a client in a trial, let’s say, some point in the future than taking every CLE class that you can about trial prep and how to conduct yourself in a courtroom and when to speak and when not to speak and understanding who everyone is in a courtroom and what information they have that might be of benefit to you.
[00:05:55] Scott Benton: Just really learning everything. Everything about the trial process is going to become [00:06:00] really important, and it’s going to be a significant step towards improving your core abilities and quickly turning you into a rock star attorney, not just an excellent attorney, but a rock star attorney. Now, you’re also going to want to be inquisitive with your colleagues and with your senior attorney supervisors, and you want to probe their minds about the cases that you’re working on as often as you’re able to.
[00:06:22] Scott Benton: Attorneys who’ve been working in the legal field for 20 or maybe 25 years or longer, They’ve seen it all, and there’s no reason you can’t learn from their expertise and from their very long experience as an attorney. And frankly, the secret to their success, as you’re going to find out over and over again, is that they learned from each and every mistake they made, something that you’re probably going to want to do as well.
[00:06:47] Scott Benton: whenever mistakes for you come up. When a mistake comes up, make sure you’re learning from it. That’s how you become an excellent attorney as fast as possible. As painful as that sounds, and it’s painful for everyone. It’s not just attorneys, it’s [00:07:00] everyone else too. Now there are also any number of books that you should probably pick up and start reading.
[00:07:06] Scott Benton: And if you’re going to come up with that. Tired excuse that you’ve been reading all day long as an attorney So the last thing you want to do when you get home is sit down and read some more then fine I understand everyone gets it. You’ve been reading for hours and hours that day You’re probably fatigued from reading but on the other hand you somehow need to find a way to get that information deep into your brain and if you haven’t already discovered it one of the best ways to do that is to get the Audiobook versions and start listening to those while you’re driving to and from work Also, there’s a great book by a writer named Mark Herman who it was or is an attorney That you should probably take a look at there’s no audiobook version For this book.
[00:07:49] Scott Benton: So you’re probably gonna have to order the book. It’s a little expensive. It’s about 30 bucks or so for the Kindle version or for the hard copy version, the printed version, it’s a smaller book, but it’s [00:08:00] an important book to make your way through. It’s called the curmudgeon’s guide to practicing law, which it’s going to give you.
[00:08:05] Scott Benton: It’s going to give you just an enormous amount of information that you need as you begin your career as an attorney. We. Reference that book from time to time on this podcast. There’s just so many good ideas in it. And whenever possible, I like to mention this book just because it’s such a great source of information, especially because this book, the curmudgeon’s guide to practicing law, it’s written for new, Lawyers and it has several ideas that are also going to take you to that attorney rockstar level that you’re trying to reach So there’s many ways for you to improve your skills and your knowledge and your abilities as an attorney and to meet and even exceed your imperceptible 1 percent improvement goal per day And as you’re going to find in an extremely short period of time, you’re going to be able to look back and see how quickly and how far you’ve improved as an attorney.
[00:08:57] Scott Benton: I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the classroom 2 courtroom podcast. [00:09:00] Thank you so much for listening to our show and for listening to this particular episode. If this is information that you like and you’re enjoying and you’re finding value in and you’d like to get an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website.
[00:09:12] Scott Benton: Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com. You can leave us your contact information. We’ll send you an alert whenever we put out a new episode. And also don’t forget to share and subscribe. That’ll also help you stay on top of all of our new episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
[00:09:33] Scott Benton: Thank you so much.
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