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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 fun. Now today we’re going to answer the question of, it’s an important one, who teaches you how to practice law?
[00:00:27] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Who teaches you how to practice law? That’s a very good question, and it’s entirely why the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast was put together in the first place and why it even exists. It’s to answer that central question. And it’s a question that you’ve got to answer. We can’t answer it for you. No one can answer it for you.
[00:01:34] Scott Benton: And you would do yourself a massive favor if you’d answer that question long before you start your first job as an attorney at a law firm, and I’ll tell you why. Now, as you’ve probably found out by now, law schools often place the burden of teaching you how to practice law on the law firms. And some of that is partially true, which I’m going to explain.
[00:01:58] Scott Benton: But for the most part, [00:02:00] telling law students they don’t need to learn how to practice as an attorney until they actually become an attorney, that’s going to put you in a future awkward position if you don’t have the skills to function as an attorney. That’s also why we came up with a tool for you to use that we’re not only giving out for free, I mean we’re talking about it on almost every episode, but we’ve also built this entire podcast around that tool which is called the success cycle.
[00:02:28] Scott Benton: Now the success cycle is going to come up over and over and over again on this podcast because it’s what’s going to set you apart from every other new attorney out there who didn’t learn. how to practice as an attorney before they started their first job as an attorney. You simply need to know this stuff.
[00:02:46] Scott Benton: Now, law firms, they’ll happily teach you all about their systems all day long because while they largely do the same thing as other law firms, which is to provide legal services, all law [00:03:00] firms They’re not set up identically. You can’t just go from one to the other and immediately know what to do.
[00:03:06] Scott Benton: They have different systems, and they have different online platforms, and different processes, and they might be in different states, which have different requirements, and You’re going to have to use all of those systems and you’re going to have to know all of those specifics to that firm and they’re definitely going to want to teach you how to run those things how to run their systems and platforms and What their processes are but they’re not going to teach you how to practice law as an attorney or at least You don’t want them to teach you that part now.
[00:03:37] Scott Benton: They might teach you because Essentially you’ve put them in a position where they have to teach you but You don’t really want them to do that. And they don’t want to do that. They want you to come in already knowing How to practice law as an attorney. So by using the success cycle, you’re going to find yourself so far ahead of your classmates that you went through law [00:04:00] school with, who don’t use the success cycle, that for law firms who hire new attorneys, you need to know that their expectation is that you’ve already had experience.
[00:04:10] Scott Benton: Experience practicing law and that you’ve learned everything that you need to know from various the internships You’ve been in maybe you worked as a law clerk and in those capacities The assumption is that you work closely with attorneys but the truth is that working as an intern or working as a law clerk, it’s still largely a passive activity because you’re waiting for someone to give you assignments to complete that you then complete. You turn around, you give it back to the attorney and then you simply go back to your desk and you wait for the next assignment to come along.
[00:04:43] Scott Benton: That’s definitely not practicing law, not by a long shot. So if law school isn’t going to teach you how to practice law, and they’re going to place the burden on law firms to teach you how to practice law, and then law firms expect you to already know how to practice law when you first come [00:05:00] in, and considering both of them are Completely wrong.
[00:05:02] Scott Benton: Then who exactly is it that teaches you how to practice law as an attorney? The answer is that you do. You’re the one that ultimately teaches you how to practice law. But how do you do that if law school isn’t going to teach you, and law firms don’t want to teach you, what’s left? Well, that means somehow it’s going to be up to you to learn this skill of how to practice law as an attorney.
[00:05:26] Scott Benton: And you’re either going to learn it before you get your first job as an attorney or you’re going to learn it after you get your first job as an attorney. And if you do it that way and you learn it after you get your first job as an attorney, then you’re going to have to learn it at the law firm and learning how to practice law once you get.
[00:05:44] Scott Benton: Your first attorney job, it’s going to be much much more difficult as a process to go through because it becomes fairly clear that you don’t have these skills. If it becomes clear that you don’t have these skills, it slows down your ability to deliver legal [00:06:00] services and it becomes a financial hardship for the firm since you’re probably not reaching your minimum billable hourly requirement.
[00:06:08] Scott Benton: That’s really just, it’s not a good first impression that you want to make when you’re starting out at building your legal career. You want to come in strong. You want to deliver high quality legal services right off the bat. And you want to get stronger and more knowledgeable from that point forward.
[00:06:25] Scott Benton: You don’t want to show up weak and then grow slowly. And keep in mind, you have a choice about how you want this to go. So, if it’s up to you to teach you how to practice law, how do you do that? You don’t know how to practice law. No one taught you, no one’s gonna teach you.
[00:06:42] Scott Benton: How are you going to teach yourself? Well, it’s so obvious that it’s easy to overlook, but here it is first. You need to know that you have to learn this skill. You’ve got to do everything you can to learn it from multiple sources. Now that means. [00:07:00] There might be books you need to read. There are going to be professors you need to go talk to, other attorneys, maybe people in your family who know this material, maybe their attorneys themselves.
[00:07:10] Scott Benton: There might be workshops that you can look for online and go do those. You can, there’s all kinds of areas that you can go to in order to learn how to practice law as an attorney. And also, if it isn’t already obvious, You can listen to this podcast because we talk about the success cycle all the time.
[00:07:29] Scott Benton: We’re giving you the skills and the framework to make you a stronger and more aware attorney, and we’re making it fun and easy in the process. Now, the answer is found in the three steps of the success cycle. We’re not hiding any of this. We’re wearing it on our sleeve. It’s the whole point of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
[00:07:52] Scott Benton: You’re going to make a to do list. You’re gonna deliver the legal services and you’re gonna bill for those legal services, and you’re gonna get paid, [00:08:00] and then you’re gonna start all over again to-Do list, do the services account for your time and get paid. That’s it. And then inside of that success cycle, of course, there are infinite, infinite episodes that we’re putting together to really go in and talk about all the nuances of the success cycle.
[00:08:18] Scott Benton: So we explore that area in depth on the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast and why this is going to be such a valuable resource for you. So I hope that’s helpful information for you to make that transition from a law school student into a rock star attorney, not just an attorney, but a rock star attorney who enjoys every single moment of their work and who can’t wait to get up every Monday morning and go in.
[00:08:42] Scott Benton: And do it all over again. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
[00:08:48] Scott Benton: If you’re enjoying this material and you’d like to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com. You can put in [00:09:00] your contact information. You’ll receive an alert every time we put out a new episode.
[00:09:04] Scott Benton: And if this is valuable information for you, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe. That’ll also help you stay on top of any 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. Thank you so much.
