Congratulations! You’re a young attorney at law who wants to show the world how good they are as a lawyer. After leaving grad school and entering the legal industry, you are undoubtedly excited. I’m sure you also feel a little bit overwhelmed as well. Not to worry, because learning how to succeed as a new lawyer is not something that needs to be stressful. As long as you know what to do and not do, you will find the whole process pretty easy, and even enjoyable.
If you want to know how to succeed as a young attorney, I’ve got you covered. We’re going to look over some of the best advice for anyone who is new to the legal industry. When you follow these tips for how to succeed as a young attorney, you will enjoy a very successful -career.
Ask Questions
If you’re a young lawyer, you may be apprehensive about asking questions. Shift that habit as soon as possible! You don’t have to worry about looking stupid. There are no stupid questions. Other more experienced lawyers will understand that you are trying to learn the ropes of the industry. They will be receptive to your questions and gladly advise you.
The only way you will ever learn anything is by asking questions upfront. If you turn in poor work, you will not be looked at as kindly as you would have been. You’re a young lawyer, which means you don’t know a whole lot just yet. Every other attorney has been in your shoes. Nobody expects you to be a guru right out of the gate. It’s best to avoid going down the wrong path due to not knowing what you’re doing. Ask questions and don’t worry that you’ll be wasting someone’s time. Your peers will want you to succeed.
You should, at a very minimum, be asking questions pertaining to your assignments. Make sure you’re clear on what is expected. However, you should also be aware of when something is beyond your ability to do it well. These are moments you will run into here and there. They are ideal opportunities to ask for some assistance and guidance from other attorneys. You will want to ensure that all the work you do is of the highest quality that it can be. Also, asking for help will lead to you becoming a better lawyer at the end of the day.
Receive Feedback
The more experienced attorneys you will be around will be great sources of feedback for a young attorney like yourself. If you want to know how to succeed as a young attorney, these are the people you should go to for helpful feedback on your work.
Never hesitate to ask the Old Guard about what they think of your work. You need feedback to continuously improve in the future. When you ask for feedback, it shows that you care about the case and about how successful you are as an attorney.
Accept and Welcome Criticism
This ties into receiving feedback. Don’t expect all (or even most) of the feedback you receive to be positive, especially when just starting out. This is because you’re new to the legal industry and are bound to make mistakes. I’m sure you’re highly intelligent and savvy. However, this can come with the downside of finding it challenging to accept constructive criticism. After all, you’ve graduated from law school and passed the bar exam, so your confidence is sky-high.
One of the best methods of learning something is to listen to constructive criticism. Relax and don’t take criticism so personally because it isn’t personal. In fact, it can turn into one of the best tools you have in order to become the best attorney you can be.
Keep On Learning
School’s over but that doesn’t mean you should stop learning. As a young attorney, you have begun a lifelong journey in the legal industry that will lead to always learning something new.
The best lawyers in the industry are those who make it a point to keep learning. They look for new information and learn about new opportunities that exist. Taking in new knowledge should be something you should always be doing, especially as someone who is new to the industry. Go ahead and make it one of your top priorities.
Manage Your Time Well
Time management is a skill that attorneys all too often neglect. In fact, it’s a bit of a problem. You can buck the trend of poor time management and learn to manage your time from the onset of your career. There are many resources you can go to to learn time management skills. When you learn this early on, you set yourself up to have a very successful career.
If you want to be one of the best attorneys out there, learning to manage your time is a helpful way to achieve that goal. Don’t be like some of the young lawyers out there who are faltering in their initial assignments. You can be more capable than they are. You can acquire the knowledge of how to manage your time better. You’ve chosen a demanding career path. However, when you learn how to handle all the various kinds of demands you will have, you will become exceedingly successful.
Network!
When you’re a new lawyer, you will likely have an immediate desire to keep your head down and ease into the legal world. However, you will be doing yourself a disservice when you do this. If you want to be successful as an attorney, you will need to network from the start.
Grow your network of other colleagues and contacts. Also, this means speaking to people in real life, not on the phone or through online messages. Having those in-person conversations with others around you is how you really meet someone who will be instrumental in taking your success to the next level.
Develop the Right Attitude
Mindset is everything. You’re bound to get stressed out dealing with whatever a new day brings. You will become overwhelmed with everything you need to do. Those deadlines are going to cause you to sweat. However, none of these are valid excuses for letting your attitude become sour. You are a professional now, so you should be acting as if you really were one. Reputation means a lot in this industry, so you will want to make sure you are staying courteous and respectful to everyone you interact with.
Avoid displacing your frustration onto those around you. It’s bad form and will not reflect well on your character. Regardless of how frustrated or tired you may get on any given day, do your best to keep a calm and courteous demeanor when you’re in the office.
Be Professional
Another component of knowing how to succeed as a new lawyer is the ability to be professional. Think of your role as an attorney as any other career. Even the small stuff matters. The world is your mirror, so if you want to be respected and treated as a professional, you need to show respect and be professional.
Be on time to appointments, meetings, and everything else. Dress sharply and in accordance with the given situation. Reply to phone calls, emails, and messages promptly. You want to be seen as someone who takes their job seriously. You will be looked at as someone who is a professional. How you look and act are very important in this industry.
Remember Your Career Goals
You’re going to become a busy bee as a young lawyer. However, don’t let this lead to you losing sight of your career goals. While your day-to-day will be largely comprised of you focusing on specific tasks, always think about your goals.
What do you want out of your career? Where do you see yourself being in 5, 10, and 20 years? How will you ultimately get there? You should keep these questions in mind, because you may suddenly find yourself 5 years into the future in the same position you are at today.
Become a 6,7, and 8-Figure Young Attorney
Even as a young lawyer, it’s not too early to think about how you can become an 8-figure attorney. That’s why I’m going to share some of the tips and tricks of how to succeed as a young attorney that I learned over the course of my career. It’s never too early to start laying down the groundwork for being tremendously successful in your professional career.
Here is what you should be doing right now to set up a successful life as an attorney for yourself.
Acquire New Cases
Especially when you want to go solo, case acquisition is a vital component of your success. It may be one of the most important ones, actually.
Here are a few suggestions for how you can acquire new cases:
Colleagues From Law School
The people you used to study law with can be tremendous assets for you. Go back to your law school’s list of people you graduated with. Find out their contact information. This usually means getting their email address and social media handles. Start following their social media profiles and reach out to them. You can let them know you’re solo, or planning to, and want to get some referrals. You can even offer to pay for referral fees if your State Bar will allow it. Leverage the connections you have made in the past and allow them to propel your further success into the future.
Social Media
Everyone and their grandmother is on social media. This is an invaluable resource for you as a young lawyer. In fact, there’s plenty of clients and referral sources that you can obtain right on social media. There’s many out there looking for an attorney as their general counsel. You can be the attorney they are looking for. Ideally, you will create and maintain a presence on all the major ones (LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter). You will want to create a brand – your brand. Make sure you stay engaged with your followers so the algorithm benefits you, and so you develop relationships with people.
Bar Organizations
Another great source for acquiring new cases are bar organizations. There are bound to be bar organizations in your area. It would be really beneficial for you to join one. As mentioned earlier, you should always keep learning. A bar organization can be a wealth of knowledge and information for you. You will not only be able to learn more about your field, but you can also pick up cases thanks to being a part of one. Since this is your field, it would be a major loss to you if you were not involved in one.
Listservs
You will be doing yourself a big favor if you join listservs. In fact, the more, the merrier! Not only should you join them, but you should also stay quite active in them. In fact, develop a reputation as that hungry young attorney who tends to interact and help others. You are bound to get some cases from doing this after people cozy up to you. People like working with people they like, so become likable!
Professionals in the Healthcare Industry
Let doctors, chiropractors, dentists, and others in the healthcare industry become your new friends. Seek out people who have practices where your future clients are bound to go. By cozying up to them, you make it more likely that they will get you plenty of clients by referring them to you. People trust their healthcare providers, meaning they are more likely to go with a recommendation from their doctor than going with a billboard lawyer.
Co-Counsel
You have the possibility to co-counsel with other attorneys who have more experience than you. Since you’re just starting out, this can be an appealing way of getting more cases. You can share the fees and learn from the best. Usually, they will even front the costs! You would be surprised at how many high-earning attorneys co-counseled at the start of their careers. When you take this route, you will notice your clients starting to get increasingly larger and seeing better results. You will learn how to work cases and try them. After a couple of years, don’t be surprised if you’re receiving enormous jury verdicts.
Be Part of a Community
As an attorney, you should make law a part of your life. Live law and breathe law. Look at your best friends – are they all lawyers? If not, they should be. You’ll love talking about it and benefit professionally, helping one another. You will be scaling your practice to make it easier to earn more. You will try cases, get helpful expert deposition, and uncover creative ways to settle a case, as well as much more.
Being around like-minded people is key to being successful. This goes for any industry. After all, you are the five or six people you spend the most time with. Make sure the people you are surrounding yourself with align with your interests and goals. When you do, you will notice that you will grow both financially and personally.
Final Thoughts
You’ve got plenty to chew on if you were wondering how to succeed as a new lawyer. Now that you’ve made the commitment to become an attorney, you will want to become the best you can be. Following the tips and tricks I spelled out in this article will guarantee that you will see success beyond your wildest imagination. Earning six figures, then seven, and then eight, will be possible when you follow this advice.
Care about what you do and who you talk to. You should stay willing to help others, even if it means doing so for free sometimes. Some of the most successful attorneys out there have helped loads of people for free. They do this because it’s sometimes the right thing to do. Also, you will soon discover that it’s not going to take up that much of your time to do these good deeds. It will all come back to you. People will remember what you did for them in their time of need. They will lead to you landing some of your largest cases. It pays to be kind, so remember that.
Now that you know what will get you to that domain of incredible success as a young lawyer, you can start applying what you learned right away. Remember to always keep on developing your skills and working on acquiring your next case. Never stop moving forward. The most important investment you can make is in yourself. When you do so, you will benefit both personally and financially.
So, go on and become the best attorney you can possibly be. I guarantee that when you follow the advice laid out in this article, you will achieve incredible success. I have, as have many others, and so can you.
