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LAWYERING WITHOUT A LIFE PRESERVER

Are you doing everything you can to safeguard your practice?

Joe Green
Thomson Reuters Practical Law

5 min
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

The practice of law can be a high-stakes profession, with lives, livelihoods and
billions of dollars on the line. Unfortunately, law schools typically teach
their students precious little about how to actually practice law. Most young
lawyers begin their careers suffering through a period of intense trial by fire,
worried that every day they are committing multiple counts of malpractice.[*]


As they progress from junior associates to mid-levels, mid-levels to seniors,
and seniors to partners, at each transition they face an onslaught of new
challenges coupled with ever-increasing levels of responsibility. Each time they
finally swim back to the shallow end of the pool – where they can just begin to
feel the bottom with the tips of their toes – that’s­ usually when they are
thrown right back in the deep end (and dunked, for good measure). As a result,
the everyday reality for many lawyers is one that feels like perpetually trying
to fake it until they make it. Imposter syndrome runs rampant even among the
most seasoned lawyers, particularly when they face unfamiliar issues or take on
matters that are outside of their comfort zones.


I have experienced the feeling of lawyering without a life preserver firsthand
in my own career, though not as keenly as other lawyers who work at smaller
firms or in solo practices surely have. At the big New York law firm that I
joined straight out of law school, most of my work was heavily supervised by
several tiers of more senior lawyers before ever seeing the light of day or
making its way to a client’s inbox. I had access to a wide array of internal and
external training materials, treatises and law librarians, as well as
experienced attorneys in every specialty area of law that might be relevant to
the capital markets transactions I was working on.

Nevertheless, even with all the resources of a large international firm at my
disposal, I almost constantly had the lurking suspicion that everything I was
doing was wrong and that, somehow, I would be discovered as a fraud and
unceremoniously given the boot. The treatises and training materials were
typically not up to the challenge of explaining in sufficient detail what I was
supposed to be doing on my deals or helping me to resolve the issues that arose.
The more senior attorneys at the firm were very busy and didn’t always have time
to answer a seemingly endless parade of questions from a lawyer just starting
out. I kept treading water, worrying every day that this would be the day my
legs would give out.

When I made a lateral move as a mid-level associate to a boutique firm with a
practice focusing on tech startups and venture capital, I found myself instantly
back in the deep end of the pool. I had to learn a whole new practice area from
scratch, while simultaneously meeting the expectations that, as a mid-level
associate with training and experience from a top law firm, I could handle
greater responsibility and work more independently (and more directly with
clients) than a junior lawyer.

In addition, my new role required me to field questions in far-flung areas of
law, many of which were completely foreign to me. As outside general counsel to
dozens of startups, I was regularly asked to advise my startup clients on a
range of issues well beyond the relatively narrow realm of capital markets
transactions on which I had cut my teeth at my previous firm. This type of
practice was more akin to practicing at a smaller law firm or in-house than at a
Big Law firm; it required me to become a generalist who could handle whatever
came in the door with fewer resources than I had available at my first firm.

Learning this new practice and the various unfamiliar areas of law that were
often cropping up was a painstaking process filled with trial and error. I tried
watching CLEs, but they either assumed too much knowledge or were pitched at
such a high level that they were useless in my day-to-day tasks. There was also
no shortage of information on the internet (in the form of blog posts and
articles from founders, venture capitalists, accelerators, trade associations
and the like), but I quickly learned that many of the “hot takes” on issues
facing startups from these sources were unreliable and based on miniscule sample
sizes and shallow experience.

Eventually, through brute force of repetition over the course of hundreds of
deals and thousands of random questions from clients, I made my way back to the
shallow end of the pool. But the time it took me to get my feet under me felt
excessive, and I knew there would always be more unfamiliar transactions and
issues on the horizon.

When I was recruited by Practical Law to become their resident expert on startup
law, I was excited by the prospect of creating the tools and resources that I
needed in practice – to be the life preserver I never felt like I had. The first
thing I did when I started the job was to take an inventory of everything
Practical Law already had that might be relevant when representing a startup
company. I was gob smacked by what I found. Every resource that I read made me
think of specific instances from my time in practice when – if I’d only had that
information at my fingertips – it would have saved me a great deal of time and
agita and saved my cash-strapped clients a great deal of money.

I now understood why every lateral attorney who joined my last firm from other
firms that had Practical Law subscriptions expressed shock and dismay that they
would be expected to practice without it. They considered it an essential tool,
and I could see why. It was like having 24/7 access to the more experienced
trusted colleague I always wished had the time to answer all my questions,
whatever the topic.

Discovering the breadth and depth of coverage at Practical Law also helped me
realize its immense value for lawyers who find themselves having (or wanting) to
take on matters outside of their comfort zones, regardless of the lawyers’
seniority and experience. Practical Law makes it possible for lawyers of all
stripes to save time and avoid frustration digging for answers and getting up to
speed on the unfamiliar. Better yet, it allows any lawyer to practice with the
confidence of an expert in the field.

I find it deeply gratifying to help provide a service that not only makes
lawyers – from white shoe New York firms to solo practitioners – more efficient
and effective but that also helps alleviate the stress and anxiety that comes
from feeling like an imposter. Keeping your head above water while practicing
law is hard enough – no one should have to do it without a life preserver.

[*] For the record (in case anyone from the bar association is reading this), I
have not, to the best of my knowledge, committed any actual malpractice. It was
just a feeling. You know you’ve felt the same way.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Green was a Senior Legal Editor at Thomson Reuters Practical Law, the
premier legal know-how service for business lawyers. Joe focused on writing
Practical Law's startup and venture capital content to help law firm and
in-house attorneys practicing in that space work more efficiently.

He is now Gunderson Dettmer's Counsel & Director of Client Experience.  Joe
started his legal career as a securities lawyer with Simpson Thacher in New
York.


RELATED CONTENT


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