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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hi 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 also like to make the practice of law fun. And today we’re going to answer the question of What is the void?
[00:00:26] Scott Benton: after law school? What is the void after law school?
[00:00:29] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] The void that we’re going to talk about in this episode on the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, it’s the very reason and it’s the essence of why this podcast exists in the first place. In fact, over the years, as I’m sure most law firms have also probably observed, we’ve noticed that when a lot of recent law school graduates come into our firm or other firms that as law clerks are Even attorneys, they quickly come to the realization that what they’ve been doing in law school over the previous three years, it’s nothing like working in a law firm where they’re busy making to do lists, performing legal services, and then [00:02:00] billing for those legal services and getting paid, or what we on this podcast like to refer to as the success cycle.
[00:02:05] Scott Benton: We talk a lot about the success cycle on this podcast. It’s the very key that you’re gonna need before you start your first job as an attorney. It’s the piece of information that usually takes people a lot of time to figure out in order to get up to speed and really become an effective attorney as far as delivering legal services go.
[00:02:26] Scott Benton: Now, many of those differences that recent graduates notice between law school and working at a law firm it often hits them like a ton of bricks, because they realize that the void or the gap in knowledge that they’ve fallen into between the two settings is a it’s fairly massive. Some of those differences that become abundantly clear are that while law school is done mostly in the classroom style format where, you know the format.
[00:02:54] Scott Benton: You’re reading books, you’re reading papers, you go to lectures, you take notes, then you study for your midterms and [00:03:00] finals, and you have to just jam an enormous amount of information into your brain for those midterms, for those finals. And then once you get into a law firm and you start practicing as an attorney, you’re going to notice that three years of largely passive activities are no match for what you’re doing at a law firm.
[00:03:20] Scott Benton: In a law firm, you are delivering legal services. This is active work as opposed to more passive work that you do in law school. And that’s entirely different. It’s a completely different idea altogether. So the entire purpose of listening to the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast before you start your first job as an attorney is going to help you be able to quickly recognize the existence of and fill up that void before you get into your first job as an attorney.
[00:03:53] Scott Benton: Now we don’t want you to show up to a firm and start practicing law and because your law school just [00:04:00] really never taught you anything in the first place about actually practicing law, that you then suddenly find yourself falling into the void and over and over again, because that takes a long time to Climb out of and some people just never climb out of it at all and they end up leaving.
[00:04:20] Scott Benton: Trust me, we’ve seen people, they get into their attorney positions, They don’t have any understanding of the skills that you yourself are learning about on this podcast. And instead, they quickly, they get intimidated, they throw in the towel, that means they quit. And they put themselves back on the open job market once again.
[00:04:41] Scott Benton: But it doesn’t have to be like that. That job, it was a perfectly fine job. They just didn’t have the information. that you’re learning on this podcast. They didn’t know, for instance, about the success cycle. No one in law school taught them how to practice law as an attorney. [00:05:00] That’s why we started this podcast.
[00:05:02] Scott Benton: It’s going to give you that skill. Now, inside that void, you’re also going to find a confidence problem that you’re going to have to grapple with.
[00:05:10] Scott Benton: It’s one thing to study and understand the trial process in a classroom, but it’s quite another to go into your first trial as the lead attorney. And unless you’ve had some experience with trials, you’re going to discover that you’re way in over your head and you might not even be able to sleep the night before simply because of nerves.
[00:05:32] Scott Benton: Some attorneys have talked about how much their hands shake. And that was early on when they started going in the trial. They were just they couldn’t believe their hands were just vibrating and they would go in with the fear of failing or just freezing up in a courtroom. And that fear contained them.
[00:05:51] Scott Benton: And then on the flip side, those same attorneys, they’re going to tell you that after completing several trials, and they learned valuable lessons from each [00:06:00] one, they would sit down and they’d analyze their performance, what they did right, what they could have done better. After a while, they didn’t feel the same kind of anxiety.
[00:06:09] Scott Benton: It didn’t contain them. When they first got into the law firm, They pretty much fell into the void. A lot of people do, and they would fall into it over and over again, and they likely felt like they were hit with a ton of bricks. But after completing several hearings or several trials, and that takes time.
[00:06:27] Scott Benton: It’s not just something you do in a couple of days, but after completing several of them over a period of time, they were finally able to climb out of that void and stay out of the void as far as trials and hearings go. So when it comes to gaining experience as an attorney, part of it’s going to be about really just learning what you need to do beforehand.
[00:06:50] Scott Benton: Part of it’s going to be about honestly just diving into the deep end, such as going into a hearing or a trial as the lead attorney. And as time [00:07:00] goes on, that’s going to get easier and easier because it becomes familiar. It’s still hard work, of course, but it’s not nearly the same kind of pressure cooker that you stepped into the first time when you went into a courtroom. And for a lot of what you do, at a law firm, it’s going to feel very unfamiliar at first. So one of the best solutions that we’ve heard about making that transition out of law school as a law school student and into the real world.
[00:07:31] Scott Benton: of practicing law as an attorney is that there is an importance placed on the skill that you need to develop of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. You just have to accept that you’re going to be uncomfortable over and over again.
[00:07:46] Scott Benton: So you’ve got to keep in mind that finding yourself in an uncomfortable space is not only going to happen to you in the beginning of your legal career, but realistically all the way through from start to finish. Now knowing [00:08:00] this is going to help you manage the anxiety and it’s going to help you build the necessary skill set to, as one book title tells us.
[00:08:08] Scott Benton: You want to feel the fear and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Dive into the deep end. Now, you don’t even need to read that book. You can, but you just need to internalize the book title. Feel the fear and do it anyway. So I hope that helps, and I hope that answers the question and identifies exactly what the void is.
[00:08:29] Scott Benton: that you tend to experience after law school, especially when you started a firm as an attorney for the first time. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and for tuning in. Now, if this is material that you’re finding is helpful and you want to get an alert every time we put out a new episode, You can go to our website.
[00:08:48] 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 out an alert whenever we put out a new episode. And [00:09:00] if this is valuable information for you, of course, don’t forget to share and subscribe. That’ll help you stay on top of our newest episodes as well.
[00:09:08] Scott Benton: And until the next time we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place. One client at a time. Thank you so much.
