Mentoring New Attorneys on Internal Systems

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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Batten 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 like to make the practice of law fun.

And today we’re going to take a look at mentoring new attorneys on internal systems.

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Scott Benton: Today, In order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle, especially where providing legal services is concerned, we’re going to take a look at mentoring new attorneys on the internal systems of a law firm.

So you spent three years in law school and after you graduated, you spent several months studying for the bar, which you passed. So all in all, you’ve invested about four years of time so you could eventually start your first job as an actual attorney.

So you show up on your first day of work and you quickly realize that you don’t know how to operate any of the internal systems the law firm uses to run their business. Now even though you had experienced other law firms as a legal student, this law firm uses systems that you’re not familiar [00:02:00] with.

In fact, if you went to 10 different law firms, you would see that they were all set up differently, which would require a significant learning curve just so you could log time, perform legal services, and reach your minimum billable hours.

So this is where mentoring comes in. Now somehow, you need to learn how to navigate the document management service. You need to be able to find legal templates. You need to be able to bill for your time. You need to be able to conduct research. No matter how much you learned in law school, you still need to know how to operate all of those internal systems of the law firm that you work for.

For the most part, senior attorneys are responsible for mentoring associates and new attorneys and helping them learn how to use all the internal systems to perform the legal services and to practice law.

Many new attorneys come into the legal profession with a strong academic background, but they often lack the practical understanding of the firm’s specific tools that they’re going to need to [00:03:00] operate.

They might know a few programs or platforms the law firm uses, but most of them will likely be unknown to a new attorney. That means, as a new attorney, you need to be properly trained on the internal systems so that you’re compliant with the firm’s best practices.

Your goal as a new attorney is to master all of the internal systems so you can manage cases effectively and add value to the team. As a revenue generator, your job as an attorney at a law firm is to add value to the legal team. The high quality legal services that you deliver keep the law firm in business, they keep it growing, and ultimately it’s going to keep you employed. One of the first things that you’re going to want to understand is how to use their document management system where you can access and store all the documents that you’re going to be creating for your cases.

Your senior attorney or someone at your law firm is going to walk you through everything you need to know to navigate the document management system and to make sure you understand the best [00:04:00] practices since you’re likely going to be handling live case files. The document management system is where you’re going to find templates specific to the firm for pleadings, motions, and client communications to ensure consistency and efficiency, not only between the cases that you’ll be working on, but also so consistency is maintained between all attorneys at the firm.

You want there to be a similar appearance from one attorney to the next. You want to make sure that you’re categorizing your own files properly so if someone else is looking for them, a paralegal for instance, they can easily be located. And make sure to familiarize yourself with the different templates and that you know where customizations can be made on those templates.

You’re going to also want to make sure that you know how to work with the legal research database, whichever legal database they utilize. Now, as there are several, and typically a law firm will generally have one or another, sometimes they’ll have more than one, but usually it’s just one, [00:05:00] if you’re not already familiar with the legal database that you’re using, make sure you receive the proper mentoring so you’re not wasting any time conducting legal research.

At the very least, if you know the firm that you’re going to work for uses CEB, let’s say, let’s say, But you only know Westlaw from while you were in law school, then you want to do everything you can to learn how to use CEB before your first day of work. Also, keep in mind that how you use the internal systems can directly tie into other tasks, such as billing entries, client communication, or case management, without you knowing that these more automated processes are affected.

And in case you get stuck somewhere along the line, you want to make sure that you know who to go talk to for help, especially when you’re just starting out.

The learning curve is pretty high wherever you go, but when you start, you may become overwhelmed with all of the new systems you need to learn, and you don’t want to get stuck for very long. But if you do get stuck, you want to make sure to break down the larger systems training [00:06:00] into more manageable sections and take it piece by piece.

And don’t resist asking for help. It’s going to pay off in droves later on and save a lot of time. New attorneys often hesitate to seek out assistance because they don’t want to appear incapable of doing the job. But the more you ask the questions that you need to ask, the faster you’re going to become a productive and highly valued revenue generator for the firm.

In fact, the senior attorneys want to be able to hand over a case list to you as soon as possible. But the senior attorneys also know that you first must learn how to navigate their internal systems before you can begin to work with the clients. So besides graduating from law school and passing the bar, learning how to use the internal systems of a firm is probably the most important thing you can do because it’s essential for ensuring you’re able to contribute effectively to the firm’s work culture and to the billing processes. With strong mentorship, you will develop the confidence and competence that you’re going to need to manage cases, to build strong client relationships, and to [00:07:00] handle billing with precision.

So make sure that you not only learn from your mentor, but that you know who else to ask in order to help you solve problems or utilize one of the firm’s internal platforms. As we like to say at the law firm that I work for, you don’t want to twist in the wind for any more than five minutes before you go ask for help.

So make sure you aren’t twisting in the wind for very long before you look for assistance. It’s going to be the fastest and most efficient way that you can learn all of the internal systems for any firm that you work for. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for checking out this episode. I hope it brought you a lot of good information. Now, 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, or you can send us a message to keep in touch with us, or you can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs that we have available for law school students. You can apply to come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and [00:08:00] subscribe to stay on top of all of our latest episodes.

And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.