EP 823- Advice for New Associates

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. My name is Elizabeth McNulty, and today I’m joined by Liz Lenivy and Mary Simon.

Mary Simon:

Hey.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Hello. So the other day I was coming into the building and I saw a sign that said, new class of associates headshot this way. And I was like, oh, that’s so sweet. Oh my gosh,

Mary Simon:

Baby lawyers

Elizabeth McNulty:

I know. And I was just really touched by that. And I reflected on all the exciting things that they have in store for them and all of the kind of scary moments that they also have in front of them. Because being a young lawyer is tough. It’s not for the faint of heart. And unfortunately, I feel like you graduate from law school, you study for theBar, you take theBar, you find out you passed, and that’s it. You feel like you are at the peak and nothing can take you down and everything is just downhill from here. And no more uphill battles sway

Liz Lenivy:

Like I peaked.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, it’s not going to be hard anymore. And then you start your job and you’re like, oh, I was so, so wrong. This job is really hard. It’s really challenging and it’s really fun, but it’s also really hard because you really learn very quickly that law school didn’t prepare me to do this job. There’s some things that you might know from whatever summer job you did, maybe you worked some kind of job during law school, but even then it’s nowhere near being a licensed lawyer. And now there ethical rules you’re bound by and it becomes overwhelming. And so your first couple years of practice, you’ve heard me say it probably a lot, they feel like dog years where you learn

Liz Lenivy:

That’s so true.

Elizabeth McNulty:

It’s like you learn whatever, seven years in a year. It’s like drinking out of a fire hose and it can be a lot. And so if you find yourself in that situation, we want to talk about how you can try to prepare yourself. And I thought it would be interesting to talk about what we would do differently if we could. We found ourselves taking our first year headshots tomorrow and starting our new job. We’ve been talking about that a little, and I actually have some lessons. I learned a list, a presentation I give to our law clerks about things I’ve learned in my five years of practice. So I’ve got a whole bunch of things I feel like I learned. I know you guys have some thoughts on it as well. Zenny, what’s your number one thing that you would do differently if you could go back in time or start tomorrow and wake up a first year associate?

Liz Lenivy:

What I really did is I thought about this question and thought about the times where I was the most panicked or the most nervous starting out as an attorney and what is something that could have lessened that sort of panic? And it is funny, I guess in my head, the thing that I would do is try to regulate my nervous system at all times. I think that’s just a personal goal that I have at any given moment is to be able to regulate your own nervous system. And as a new attorney, it’s really hard to do that when it’s your first appearance in court or your first deposition, first mediation, whatever it is. And one of the things that I think I would’ve done differently is when you are in any setting and you have a question about something, find someone to ask the question do.

It’s not that big of a deal to walk into a courthouse, walk into a specific Courtroom that you’ve never been in and ask what the judge’s preference is for something even whether, I mean, I just went to court a couple of weeks ago and the judge was, he was handling all a certain type of motion in chambers. And so I was just sitting out there with my opposing counsel and we just weren’t sure if we should stay sitting out there or ask the bailiff if we should go back. And it’s like you don’t need to wait to ask you just ask the simple questions that you need to ask to get the job done that you’re there to do. And I just remember being so scared for some reason of asking the clerk a preference of that specific Courtroom or asking someone who you work with, even if it’s not the attorney you work for, asking anyone else in the office a question of how a certain thing is done at that office if you’re not used to it.

There was so much anxiety that I would have about doing something wrong and the difference between me doing something wrong and would be a five second conversation with someone who knew it better than I did. And I would mean, the reason I’m saying this is because I absolutely have embarrassed myself before doing something wrong when I could have just asked. I remember starting out practicing going into a landlord tenant docket, and that’s not the type of law that we practice here, but I went into the docket and I had no idea where I was supposed to go, where I was supposed to sign up at, and the clerk in the middle of the whole Courtroom went, honey, are you new here to me? And I could just feel my face getting red and I could just feel myself start heat going through my entire body and saying, oh yeah, I’m sorry. I am just trying to figure out where my client is and where to. And she so quickly got me oriented and I just didn’t need to go through that. And it’s like, great. And by the way, you guys, new lawyers, everyone knows you’re a new attorney. We all will know it’s just, and it’s fine. Everyone will want to embrace that. So I wish I would have asked the five second question instead of sitting in my own anxiety for 20 minutes and then potentially doing something wrong. So that’s probably the biggest thing that comes to mind.

Mary Simon:

Yeah, I am thinking back on when I first started, which I realize of this group, I am the elder states woman. That’s right. Congratulations. Congratulations for you. I clerked for you, Liz. Oh no. Yeah, that’s where we’re at. So I’m a hundred years old and I’m trying to think back on when I started. I will say, Mary, to your point, I think that that is really the best piece of advice to give a first year associate. And the way I phrase it is truly embrace your newness. Obviously you are at certain disadvantages because you don’t have that experience yet. You haven’t quite learned all the ropes. Maybe you don’t know the territory, but there is a lot of advantage that comes with being brand new. And that is everyone’s probably going to be a lot nicer to you. And if someone’s not, then that’s a defect with that person. But for the most

Liz Lenivy:

Part, we can say that with confidence,

Mary Simon:

Yes. But for the most part, people are going to, in the practice, are going to embrace you from opposing counsel, judges, court staff, court staff are wonderful. And I learned this that anytime I walked in my first probably three years of practice, frankly, every time I walked into a new Courtroom where I was not fully familiar, I would just cozy up to the bailiff or the clerk and just say, hi, I’m new here. I would make the announcement. I’m new here, I just got licensed. Is there somewhere I need to check in? Is there, even if I kind of already had an idea, it just kind of put the other person on the other side of it, they’re aware of me that I’m kind of a baby here.

Liz Lenivy:

Just

Mary Simon:

Maybe take it a little bit easier on me and the court staff that I’ve always, I don’t know if I’ve ever run into a bad clerk. So kind the bailiffs have always been so kind to me and they’re understanding of it. And I think back to on my first hearing, which I know I’ve talked about that, and I absolutely got my teeth kicked in by the judge and my opposing counsel, we go back, it was my motion I lost. And he said, alright, well it’s your motion. You should probably write up the order, the order that I lost. I sat there and I wouldn’t move. He kind of looked at me weird and I just looked at him and I go, I actually don’t know what to write. This is my first hearing. And he goes, oh my gosh, it’s your first hearing you just passed theBar.

Congratulations. Congratulations. That’s amazing. And then he proceeded to tell me what to write and he said it so slowly and so clearly so that I could follow along. And he goes, okay, now the structure of it. And then we went back in and after this judge had just gotten done raking me over the coals, my opposing counsel said, and by the way, judge Ms. Waza was not married at the time. She just passed theBar. And the judge completely flipped his attitude and told, welcome to the profession. I was like, oh yeah, that was a real welcome judge. Thank you. You’re like, wait, so about that ruling, can we revisit maybe? But I carry that story with me about how much the judge and my opposing counsel, how kind and enthusiastic they were for me. And I think that that was a good example, my first hearing.

And I kind of took that lesson with me of, okay, I can get away with this for a little while of people being maybe a little bit nicer to me because I’m new. And so that’s the thing that I always tell people is roll with it for as long as you can because will reach a point where you walk into a Courtroom and people expect you to know what you’re doing and you should. That’s the entire point of this job is you get to that point. But in the interim, sort of just embrace being new and

Liz Lenivy:

All the firsts.

Mary Simon:

Yeah, embrace all the firsts. And I think maybe Erica said this on an episode earlier, embrace the suck. Parts of this job are going to suck, just roll with it, learn from it. But in reflecting back on my almost 10 years of practice, I think at that point I no longer qualify as a young lawyer. Isn’t that how it works?

Liz Lenivy:

That is crazy.

Mary Simon:

Over 10 years, once you hit double digits, you’re no longer young.

Liz Lenivy:

Is this your 10th year?

Mary Simon:

I graduated in 15. So as we’re coming into 25, wow, that’s awesome.

But the thing that I wish I could go back and do differently as far as my professional life is actually less about my work necessarily and more about my involvement in the legal community. I think the strategy that I took that I actually do regret in some ways is that I did not focus in on maybe one or two organizations to get really involved in to really stand out and be a leader in. I took more of the approach of I’m going to be involved in as many organizations as I can be, and I’ll be a member. Maybe I’ll serve on a board in a capacity, but maybe not in the leadership role. If I could go back and do it again, I would say it’s fine to be involved and to go to different events and to meet different people in different capacities. But really I think the best thing to do for your career is to find those one or two organizations and just dive headfirst into that organization.

Try to find a leadership role, be very active, make sure, and I am trying now as, and I’m getting better at it in the past couple of years to force myself into those leadership roles. But I’m just thinking I could be so much farther ahead and I feel like I would know so many more people and it would be so much more beneficial if I had done this earlier, if I had tried to get into that leadership earlier as opposed to maybe just sort of hanging around a bunch of different organizations trying to stay involved, staying active, but not necessarily making a name for myself in each of these organizations and really being a standout in that organization. So that would be my piece of advice for new associates. Find one or two things that you’re really committed to and really run with

Elizabeth McNulty:

Those. Well, Liz, your standout in my book,

Mary Simon:

I’m going to filter that sarcasm out and feel good about that comment

Elizabeth McNulty:

That was

Liz Lenivy:

Genuine. You’ll just take a snippet of that recording and save it and just keep replaying it for yourself.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Put it on your resume, all of those. You put it on a book jacket, a QR code. Yeah, I think that’s good advice to think at the beginning of your career. It’s sort of like in law school you just join a bunch of organizations and you get all these emails for all these events.

Liz Lenivy:

That’s what I was thinking. It’s like a one L, you sign up for every single organization.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, you’re just like, I don’t know, I’m just trying to do my job. I don’t have time for any of this. Are you guys kidding? Is this a joke?

So I think that that’s easier to say now, but that is really challenging. But I understand what you mean. I think mines sort of along the same lines. And I do think probably if the young lawyers listening will definitely roll their eyes at what I would’ve done differently, and Youngme probably would too, because it’s much easier to say on this end of things. But giving myself permission to have a personal life and set some healthy boundaries would’ve really benefited me had I done that sooner at the beginning of my career, I just kind of treated it like law school and felt like I had to be giving every kind of waking hour to this job. And that worked for a while and it felt like what I had to be doing. And I understand that even now, like we’ve said, it’s a lot of learning and you don’t know what you’re doing and it feels like you have a lot of work to do and there’s so many hours in the day, and I need to get all this done in this day, and it feels like a lot, but that’s just going to lead to burnout and it’s not sustainable.

You can’t do that forever. And so you have to make time and you have to make yourself stop whatever it is you’re doing because there’s always tomorrow and those things can’t wait until tomorrow and they can probably wait until Monday. And honestly, they can probably wait until next week and maybe they can wait two weeks regardless of what that little voice in your head says. And so you got to stop and go do something. Find healthy outlets for your stress. Think that’s a really important thing to implement into your life. If you weren’t doing that in law school, you should be doing that now. This is a really high stress job, and if you aren’t finding somewhere for that stress to go, it’s going to eat away at you and you might find an unhealthy outlet for that, and then this job will become impossible for you to do. So. I think that I was lucky enough, I guess lucky, I dunno, to be practicing during the Covid Pandemic. I passed theBar in 2019, fall of 2019. Covid hit obviously in March of 2020. I lived alone in St. Louis at the time. The office shut down. My parents lived in Nashville.

Liz Lenivy:

Oh my gosh,

Elizabeth McNulty:

Lots of you heard this story. Forget about that

Liz Lenivy:

Timeline for you.

Elizabeth McNulty:

So I moved, went to Nashville for, what was it, shelter in place for two weeks or whatever, stayed there for almost a year.

Liz Lenivy:

Wow.

Elizabeth McNulty:

And worked remotely.

Liz Lenivy:

I can kind of picture the dining room that you sat at or

Elizabeth McNulty:

The table. Yeah, I still remember it. Yeah.

Liz Lenivy:

Yeah. I can kind of picture what your Zoom background would look like.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah. I was in there for a while and then I was in the same bedroom I slept in and thank God they sold that house. I think I had PTSD from it, God, because I was like, I can’t do anything in here anymore. This is horrible. I refuse to sleep in it again after my first year of practice was some good things happen because all of my depos, all of my hearings were in there. It is a really strange time. So young learners, at least that isn’t happening to you right now because this is a hard way to learn. Anyway, that mild, one bright side of that is both my parents worked full-time jobs at the time, remote jobs. And so I kind of saw them. They had healthy work boundaries. I mean it was a pandemic, but they started work at eight or whatever and stopped at five. And I was like, oh, huh, that’s interesting.

Mary Simon:

That’s a thing I can do.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, lunch, they stopped and ate lunch at noon and they sat down and not in front of their computer. And I was like, huh, that’s interesting.

Liz Lenivy:

All of us have confused what’s on our

Elizabeth McNulty:

Faces. Should I try that? And I was like, huh, maybe I should try that sometime. So I started doing that kind of when I came back to St. Louis and I was like, oh, the things didn’t just crumble down to the ground and I was able to not work on the weekends and not always bring my work, sit on my couch at 10:00 PM still working with your laptop. And it’s just like the work was fine, everything was fine, my cases were fine and the world kept spinning and I was a lot happier and I got a dog. And before then I was like, I don’t have time for a dog. There’s no hours for a dog. And then I was like, oh, I am adult enough to have responsibilities outside myself. And people will respect that even if it’s not, it’s not a child, but it’s close enough. And he does seem like my child.

Liz Lenivy:

And honestly, more work at a lot of times

Elizabeth McNulty:

I

Liz Lenivy:

Have both and dogs can be way more work many, many times. That’s

Mary Simon:

Interesting. I have cats and they’re so easy.

Liz Lenivy:

Well, we know about them.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah.

But I think no matter your situation, you have to make sure to give yourself permission to have a personal life, whatever that means to you. So if you’re single and you don’t have kids, you still have to set those boundaries and give yourself that permission because no one’s going to do that for you. You’re an adult now and you have to set those boundaries and it’s easy for people to brush off that extra stuff to you if that’s your situation. And you have to make sure that that doesn’t happen because you deserve that time too, even if you don’t have kids or a spouse or

Mary Simon:

Whatever. And I’m sure that there are maybe some young associates right now who are starting at big law, which I understand can be a very different culture than the one that we have sort of cultivated here. And I will say, and I’ve never worked in big law. I did defense work at a mid-size firm, but I’ve never been in a big law firm. And so I understand that maybe I, I’m missing some of that context, but I think if you want to have a long career and if you want to stay in this career and not burn out, it is important to set those boundaries between your job and your personal life and to have things going on in your personal life that remind you, you are a person outside of just being an attorney, whether it’s running or baking or creating art or music or spending time with animals or whatever it is.

Have something that reminds you that you are a complex multifaceted person with lots of different interests and that your job is not the only piece of you. And look, if you think that what I’m saying is complete nonsense, then feel free to disregard it. It’s your career, it’s your life. Do whatever you think is best. And if you think prioritizing work and pulling 80, 90 hour work weeks is important to you, then Godspeed, go for it via Ks. But I think in my perspective, if you want to take my 10 years of advice, and not just my 10 years of advice, but having seen several attorneys older than me who have had long successful careers, it is important to have something outside of your job that makes you human, that makes you feel connected to the world. I think that that’s a great piece of advice.

And Elizabeth, I really do love hearing your perspective being a Covid lawyer. I can’t imagine. I mean I was about halfway through, I guess I would’ve been about five out when Covid hit. So I was kind of in a nice spot where I was like, I’ve got all the experience and I’ve been to hearings and I’ve done all the depos in person and I’ve done all the travel for the depos. And so frankly zoom depos, I was like, this is a godsend. I hope we never have to go back to traveling long distances for depos again. But you being on the other end of things, that’s always an interesting thing for me to hear. So I’m curious what else is on your list?

Elizabeth McNulty:

One of the things that I think is the hardest about lawyers is we’re also type A. You have to learn. You can’t control everything. One of my favorite stories is, this also happened over Zoom during Covid. My client, we produced him for his deposition and he was narcoleptic and fell asleep during his deposition and no one could wake him up.

Liz Lenivy:

Oh no.

Elizabeth McNulty:

And I didn’t know what to do because it was one of my first plaintiffs Des that’s going out. I got to go. Well, funny enough, the defense lawyer didn’t actually really believe that he was narcoleptic. He didn’t have anything to do with the case. He was just on disability for it. Oh, thank God. He didn’t believe it. And so it was nice that he fell asleep, but it was just mid question fell asleep. We took a break and then so I called him, you could just hear his phone ringing. I mean in hindsight.

Liz Lenivy:

Oh, because the zoom screen was still on.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah. Oh man. And he’s just asleep and he eventually woke up and we continued on with the depo and it was very apparent that he was very narcoleptic, but you just can’t control those things and nothing can prepare you for them.

Liz Lenivy:

Nothing

Elizabeth McNulty:

Prepares you for

Liz Lenivy:

That. You don’t get taught about that in law school,

Elizabeth McNulty:

That’s for sure. And then you’re just like, wow, this is an absurd thing that happened to me today.

Liz Lenivy:

I’m in a legal organization here in St. Louis and it has some law students in it, and it’s so interesting hearing you both talk about, I mean really neither one of you can emphasize enough the importance of having some sort of interest outside of your job. And the students who are in this group that I’m in, one of them said that they weren’t going to get an animal because no time for it. Another one said they didn’t have hobbies. So true that you think it’s all consuming because it feels all consuming too when you start the job. I mean, I will tell you there are firms, there are firms and attorneys who will tell you that you will work for that. Every single thing that comes across your desk from that person should be treated with a sense of urgency. That is the case at many firms and with many lawyers. But you

Mary Simon:

Though, sorry, my response to that is if everything’s an emergency, then nothing’s an emergency, then what

Liz Lenivy:

Are we doing or how are we ending up in a situation where we have a hundred things that are all an emergency?

Mary Simon:

Something is breaking down at the beginning of this factory line before it gets to my desk,

Liz Lenivy:

And I think it took a while for me to be able to prioritize assignments on cases are always, there’s always work.

There’s always work to do, but knowing that you also have the same established hours or framework that other folks should have and you just try. I would also encourage attorneys who are just getting licensed to just try to cut off the workday at a certain time, try to set a priority list where even though you have 30 things that all seem to need to get done at the same time, just try to stagger them out and set time to work on that stuff throughout the week or the next two weeks or the next month or however you’re going to prioritize your work. I did not know how to do that. And still even sometimes I’ll even just have to set aside time to make the list and kind of put things in order of what I want to get done. You’ll also have a better gauge of how long it takes you to do those different things, and I keep getting distracted thinking about the fact that the first year you practiced Elizabeth, it was all over zoom. I mean, that is hard. That’s a whole other level of new lawyering. Even just sitting here thinking about it. Sorry, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that you’re in your class. Me too. I’m just trying to picture that happening and also just not knowing, and I know it ties into our listeners, we’re kind of all over the place with this one, but just that that’s a hard thing to think about. What you would’ve done differently. I’m sorry, I should stop laughing about. It

Mary Simon:

Makes me think that when I was a young lawyer, I had an out of town deposition. The deposition was in the morning. I woke up in the morning to a text that said, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I’ve left. Oh my gosh. Yeah. See, it’s just, and they wouldn’t pick up my calls, they wouldn’t respond to the texts. They were gone. And I had to go into that deposition and say, I’m really sorry. And look, it ended up working itself out, but I was a new lawyer and I had been abandoned. I’ll say. I think that this particular person just had a lot of nerves and eventually they did sit for their deposition. Okay, they did find the power to do it, but what I took from that is I really got to make sure that they feel as confident as possible because I cannot have another runaway bride situation. It all

Liz Lenivy:

Kind of falls under the umbrella of you can’t control everything you think you can, but you can’t. I went to a client’s deposition once and it was out of town. It was a couple hours away and I had to leave really early in the morning to get there. It was a morning deposition. So I left at like four 30 to drive there and I left my suit hanging up in my closet. So all I had were leggings and my tennis shoes and a tank top, you guys, it was sleeveless I could go to. I looked like I was going to the gym and I had my hair done and my makeup on, and I didn’t have time to go get new clothes. So I went to the deposition and I had, my hair was curled and I had on leggings and a sleeveless tanked top, and I just said, I’m sorry. I left my suit at home and no one cared, but it was just a little awkward. But in my head I’m like, you know what? I got a job to do. We got to get this done and control everything. I forgot that my suit hanging up. But if you are a new attorney and something like that happens, the priority is getting through the deposition. It’s not like I was on a video camera, so whatever.

I went in there confidently even though I looked ridiculous. I just said, I’m really sorry.

Mary Simon:

I just want to say I really enjoy that this episode has gone from advice for young lawyers to really embarrassing, here’s all the terrible things that happened to us. Look, I really like that you can’t control everything. I just had a hearing a couple, couple of weeks ago and I was walking to the courthouse, which is maybe three blocks from us, and about one block in the sky just opened up torrential down floor, and I walked into the courthouse, wet hair, shoes filled with water. I’m I squeaking everywhere. I’m drenched and I pulled my hair back. I tried to make it look like a slick back pony, and I gave my argument, at least you had sleeves. That’s true. My arms were covered. I looked like I was in a literal wetsuit. Hello, squish, squish, squish. May it please the cord. But I mean, I was like, I didn’t know it was sunny four

Liz Lenivy:

Seconds ago. Oh my gosh.

Mary Simon:

You can’t control everything. And I think the thing that I’m also taking from this conversation is in the moment it’s mortifying. You’re like, can the earth please open up and swallow me now? But then reflecting back on it, it’s very funny. So many of the bad things that happened to you are going to be great stories later. So that’s the other thing I take from a lot of the bad things now

Liz Lenivy:

And we’re sitting here laughing about things that happened. So it’s also, you will have fun practicing and funny things will happen, and you have to kind of take the good and the bad together. It’s such a privilege to even be in a position where you can represent the client even if you’re soaking wet or your client’s asleep on the record, but it’s just still, you have to remind yourself why on those days where you’re like, I can’t even believe that this is happening, you just have to remind yourself why you did all the work you did to get to that point. Odds are whatever you are tasked with doing someone at your office has done it before. So just if you have questions or it seems like it’s something that you, it’s a task that seems so daunting or finding yourself, it’s hard for you to get started on a task, go to just ask someone who’s done it before where they started at least, or get some advice so you can at least get going. Sometimes you can feel paralyzed in that fear of just doing something for the first time, but once you get your foot in the door, it’s just a little bit easier. That kind of goes away over time.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Another one that I’ve found really important took me a bit of time to learn it, is you need to practice law in a way that’s authentic to who you are and to find your own style. Just because it works for the partners that you’re working for or maybe some other associates that you work with, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. Something that I’ve found is you kind of pick and choose from the lawyers around you, and then that’s how you kind of find your own style. I think it becomes pretty obvious when you’re trying to practice in a way that isn’t really meant for you and just being true to who you are is kind of the best way you can be the best lawyer and the best lawyer that you’re going to be. So just keep that in mind. Don’t try to be someone that you aren’t because that’s going to make this job even harder than it is.

Another one that I’ve found that might get you in a little trouble or feel overwhelming is just always say yes. Even if it scares you, you’re going to feel scared anyway and you’re probably going to feel worse if you say no. These years are about learning as much as you can, kind of drinking through a fire hose. So just say yes to all the opportunities and work asam your way and you just kind of figure it out on the other end of things. I think that’s how saying yes is kind of how you find the best opportunities, and you get to have some of these really absurd stories.

Liz Lenivy:

And the cool thing about saying yes to stuff is that you’re going to be the person that the next class of lawyers is going to be asking for help. You just will be. You’re going to have a couple years behind you. Even lawyers that we’ve been practicing with at this office for double or triple the amount of time we’ve been practicing, they always tell us, you learned so much more in the first five years, and then as time goes on, you don’t remember even what year you learned to do those things.

Mary Simon:

In almost 10 years of practice, I have never regretted saying yes to someone asking me to do something in a professional capacity. It’s never been a bad thing.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, be kind until someone gives you a reason not to be. I think that this is something that you should follow because learning it the hard way is something you might not want to do. Professional courtesies are a thing in our industry and what we do, and I think that some young lawyers think that you should just start out just kind of being really tough and just being kind of a jerk to everybody and that’s how you be a good lawyer. And that’s just not really how I found that we practice, at least in the St. Louis area. I think Liz has said it a bunch. We talked about on the podcast, we are really friendly around here. That might not be the case everywhere in the country if you practice in other areas, but at least here we are really professional and courteous to each other. We’re really friendly. So keep that in mind. Your reputation is really important and it generally precedes you, so you might want to be nice

Liz Lenivy:

And you got to remember that it is. You are in an adversarial system. We are existing in a space that whatever you say, the person who’s on the other side of the case is being paid to disagree with you on their theory of the case. And so an argument in the Courtroom on the record is so different than going out and grabbing coffee even with that same person who you’re trying a case against, especially if you have an intention to be practicing in the same area for a while, you’re going to be around the same lawyers, the same judges. Sometimes you might even be working with a lawyer who’s then going to be a judge on a case that you’re on. So it’s just everything that you’re doing and saying to folks, even on the other side of the case, just keep it courteous, just keep it civil,

Mary Simon:

I think. Keep it honest too.

Liz Lenivy:

Yeah, totally.

Mary Simon:

People will know if you are bullshitting them and the word spreads fast again, at least in St. Louis, if you have a reputation as someone who’s dishonest, who’s difficult to work with, who cannot be trusted, doesn’t have integrity, that will get around fast and that will follow you. Once you have that black mark, it is really hard to get rid of it. So that’s probably the most important piece of advice for new lawyers is be at a minimum, be professional.

Elizabeth McNulty:

And then I think my last tip is to celebrate the small wins. Take time to reflect on how far you’ve come and everything that you’ve accomplished. Don’t reflect too much on the mistakes you think you’ve made or a bad day that you’ve had. One great thing about this podcast is we do get the opportunity a lot to reflect and talk about all of the good things, sometimes bad things that happen to us, so make sure you do that for yourself and celebrate yourself because I’m sure that you have come a long way and you’ve had a lot of success, and you’ll continue to have a lot of success throughout your hopefully very long careers. Congratulations again to all of our newly admitted attorneys. We are so excited to have you with us in this really exciting and really fulfilling career. We can’t wait to see all that you will do with it, and we can’t wait to see you in a Courtroom or a deposition soon, and I hope that this podcast has been somewhat helpful. As always, we drop episodes every other Wednesday and we will talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

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