Advice For New Lawyers

What’s Your Long Range Plan?

As lawyers, we are obsessed by the short term - the answers to interrogatories due tomorrow, the deposition at the end of the week, the hearing next Tuesday. But what about the long term? I don’t mean next month or even next year. I am talking about the rest of your life. What legacy do you want to leave behind? To lead a fulfilling life as a lawyer means more than meeting the next deadline. It means having dreams and living for them. If you want to take control of your life instead of letting circumstances control you, consider the following:

Start at the end. When you retire, what do you hope to have accomplished? Let’s take it a step further. After you die, how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be remembered for billing lots of hours? For the discovery you propounded? Or do you want to be remembered for something more? People remember those who touch their lives. Do you want to affect others, touch their hearts and shape their minds? Do you want to be known for giving back to the community? For your commitment to pro bono? For winning the big case, being a mentor or writing a novel? To be remembered, you have to live a life worth remembering.

Sit down with a pen and paper and write down how you want to be remembered and what you want to be remembered for. Don’t make it long. Try to reduce it to a note card, and tape it to your computer screen or affix it to the refrigerator door. These are going to be your life goals. Always keep them close by.

Dream big. Don’t be afraid to dream big. Where do you really want to be? Don ’t ask yourself where you expect to be or where life will likely take you. Take charge of your life and direct it toward something bigger than yourself.

Develop a plan. Once you know what you want to accomplish with your life, figure out how to get there. Write out a plan of action to reach your goals. I suggest keeping a journal. On the first page, write down how you want to be remembered. On the next several pages, write out what you plan to do to be remembered that way.

Set Benchmarks. Once you have set out a roadmap to get you to your destination, set benchmarks to meet along the way. Where do you want to be twenty years from now? Ten years? Five? Map out how far along the path you want to be when you reach given stages in your life.

Decide how to reach each benchmark. Once you have decided upon short and long term goals, decide what tasks you need to perform to reach each benchmark. If you want to leave a legacy as a leader, what steps do you need to take to assume leadership roles in bar and civic associations? Set manageable goals. Put them too far out of reach and you’re setting yourself up for failure. You’re writing the script of your life. To get that happy ending, the individual acts have to be thought out and achievable.

Check off benchmarks, and make adjustments when necessary. In your journal, keep a record of your accomplishments. Did you get elected to the board of a bar association? Did you get to first chair your first trial? Write it down. Periodically, review your accomplishments and compare them against the goals you wrote down. Did you fulfill them? Did you get close? Were the goals you set realistic? Were they goals you truly wanted to pursue? You may find that the goals you set may need some adjusting. If so, reevaluate your life plan and make changes where necessary.

To make this work, you have to work on your life goals every day. Once you have set down goals for yourself, you have to work every day at achieving them. Some days, you’ll only be able to do something small -make a few calls, maybe read a couple of articles on practice development. But large or small, pluck away at it every day. Don’t lose traction and don’t lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Live your dreams. At the end of the day, all the goals and dreams in the world don’t mean a whole lot if you don’t pursue them. Live your dreams. Mark off your accomplishments and keep moving forward. Dreams are something bigger than us. They’re more than learning how to draft a motion or ague a hearing. They’re about leaving a mark on this world, making it better, changing things and shaking them up. Figure out what you really want out of life. Have you figured it out? Good. Now go do it. 

Keeping Perspective:

When faced with a crisis or a tough decision, it is easy to lose your head and make a rash decision. The trick, as Kipling said, is to keep your head when all those about you are losing theirs. If you can keep your poise, when others cannot seem to keep theirs then you are showing the maturity and character you need to deal with the stress and surprises that litigation brings. Lucky for you, poise is something you can learn.

Challenge yourself. People are afraid to fail so they avoid the tough challenges. Problem with that, though, is that there is nothing surer in life than the fact that you will face tough challenges, and if you have spent a lifetime running away from them you may fall apart when you are staring one in the eye. So, as with everything else, practice makes perfect. Search out the tough cases, the challenging legal issues, the depositions no one wants to take and tackle them all. Sure, you will fall on your face from time to time, much more than if you had played it safe. But it is in the falling that you learn that you can get up again. And it is in the falling that you realize that the falling is not so bad after all.

Make a list of what is important. Sit down, take a pen and a paper and write down the three most important things in your life, that without you would be less of a person for. Your spouse? Your kids? Your faith? Is that deposition coming up on Tuesday on that list? How about the trial at the end of the month? When you are faced with a challenge at work, compare that to what really matters to you. It will help you keep perspective.

Seek help. If you are overwhelmed, do not hesitate to seek advice from others at your firm about how best to tackle a problem. There is probably someone at the office who has tackled the same problem and can tell you how you can do it too. A trick to keeping perspective is to seek the advice of those who already have it.

Take a breath. When faced with a “crisis,” take a breath, take a step back and think through your reaction. You will get through this and chances are you will get through it better if you have a game plan instead of shooting from the hip.

Have an exit strategy. When there is a fire you need to know where the emergency exits are. When a problem lands on your desk you need to figure out how to put the fire out. Sometimes you only have a few minutes to make a decision, sometimes a few hours and sometimes the luxury of days or weeks. Size up how much time you have to react, and plan an exit strategy to extricate your client from the problem at hand.

As lawyers, we are faced with problems all the time. The key is keeping perspective and staying in control so that you can control the problem and not let it control you.

Writing to a Partner:

As an associate, you will receive your share of writing assignments from the partners at your firm. Before you turn in your next assignment, consider the following advice:

Know the assignment. After a partner gives you an assignment, repeat it back to him to make sure you took it down right. Even if you did take it down right, the partner, after hearing his own words read back to him, may realize he gave you the wrong assignment. The “repeat back to me” assignment may be intimidating, but is preferable than coming back several hours later with the answer to the wrong question.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Another associate may have addressed the very issue you were asked to research. Another associate may have written a letter to a client very similar to the one you were asked to draft. It’s worthwhile to find out whether what you are about to write has already been written. It will both save you time and help you get it right.

Think it through. You are billing the client for your time and the clock is running. It’s tempting to just jump in and start writing, thinking you’ll save the client some time and money. The fact is, though, writing this way is very inefficient. Running off to write something without thinking it through first may result in a lot effort expended but very little accomplished. Before you write, think through what you’re going to write – either in your head or on a pad – plan it out – and then start writing. The extra time spent on the front end will result in time saved in the back end.

Know your audience. Some partners like detailed memos. Some don’t. Some like memos that look like the ones they wrote when they were associates. Some could care less. Talk to other associates. Ask for memos they wrote for the partner and that the partner loved. Study those memos, not for the content but for the style, and emulate it. If you give others what they want, they will be grateful.

Make it easy to read. Partners are busy. Use plain English, get to the point and support it in as few words as possible. Consider using bullet points or charts to state the facts or make your arguments. The less time and effort the partner has to spend reading your memo, the more time and effort they will have for everything else.

There are no rough drafts. What you submit to the partner has to be perfect. Proofread it, proofread it, and proofread it again. You do not turn in rough drafts. Assume the partner will turn it over to the client and draft it accordingly.

Follow up. After you turn in your assignment, follow up with the partner. Does she need anything else? Additional research? Does she want you to revise your work? Follow up and make sure everything was done to her satisfaction.

Good writing takes time. Take the time to learn the assignment, to tailor your research, to answer the right questions and answer then in a style and manner the partner wants. Do this consistently, and your writing will get noticed. 

The Pros and Cons of Being a Litigator:

Before I became a litigator, I had a lot of preconceived notions of what litigators do. Some were accurate. Most were not. Before going down the road of litigation, you need to evaluate both the pros and cons.

First, the bad news.

Litigation is adversarial. If you hate conflict, don’t expect to enjoy litigation. Your client is either suing someone or being sued. There is no love loss here. The parties often expect their attorneys to be aggressive, sometimes overly so. Expect opposing counsel to come gunning for you.

Litigation is driven by deadlines. There are deadlines for everything. Answers to interrogatories, requests for production and requests for admission. Expert reports and expert depositions. Discovery cutoffs and looming trial dates. Multiply this by 20 to 50 cases, and it’s a surprise you’re doing anything but extinguishing the next fire. Attorneys who are in short supply of case management skills may find these deadlines dictating their practices to them.

Litigation is not like television. Some of us went to law school, in part, because of popular lawyer shows - L.A. Law, The Practice or Law & Order to name a few. It looked pretty cool on television, didn’t it? But art does not always imitate life. The real practice of law is not glamorous. Most of your time is not trying high profile cases. More like it, most of your time is spent in front of your computer, doing research, drafting memos and responding to e-mails. In short, litigation may not live up to your expectations.

You never stop litigating. If you’re conscientious, it’s hard to leave the work at the office. At home, you wonder if you should have asked that extra question in deposition. When you’re out, you worry about whether the motion was filed. You even find that the conversations with your loved ones have turned into cross examinations. It’s hard to leave it at the office.

You will never know enough. It takes time to learn the practice well enough to feel comfortable in your own skin as a litigator. For some it takes 5 years. Others, 10 years. Some never reach a comfort level. It is a long process. You don’t become a litigator overnight.

A lot depends on instinct, and instinct takes time. A lot that is asked of us as litigators requires quick decisions - quick decisions at depositions, at hearings and at trials, to name a few. To make those decisions, we need to rely on our instincts, and instincts take time to develop. As a young litigator, you will second guess yourself a great deal. Only experience puts a stop to it.

Now, the good news.

There’s never a dull moment. Yes there is research to do and memos to write, but litigation is fast-paced and you will get swept up in it. You will plan how to beat the other side and you will use all your wits and heart and energy to see that plan through. All along, surprises and challenges will pop up and you will have to deal with them. It can be a bit terrifying but it certainly isn’t boring.

It’s like a good chess match. The other side wants to win. So do you. He’s making all sorts of moves to take your king, while you defend it, simultaneously trying to take his. For every move there’s a counter move, and nothing is as it seems. You like a good chess match? You’ve come to the right place.

Sometimes, it is like television. Yes, you spend an awful amount of time in front of the computer. Your office is your home away from home. But sometimes you get to venture out. Sometimes you destroy that expert in deposition. Sometimes you knock it out of the park at the hearing. And sometimes, yes sometimes, you actually get to try a case, and, get this, win. Sometimes you are Michael Kuzak from L.A. Law.

It improves with age. Like fine wine, being a lawyer improves with age. The longer you practice, the more your skills improve, the more law you learn and the more comfortable you become with the practice of law. If you get past the fear and uncertainty of the first few years, you will enjoy the fruits of your hard work.

When it comes to litigation, there are good things and there are bad things. If you can learn to enjoy the good and not linger on the bad, you may just make a career of it. 

Building a Better Lawyer:

As a young lawyer, you owe it to yourself to become a better lawyer - to constantly improve your skills -whether its your writing, your research, taking a deposition or arguing a motion. With an ever more competitive work force, getting by is a sure way of falling behind. To stay ahead of the curve, consider the following suggestions to build yourself into a better lawyer.

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Start by being honest with yourself. Sit down with a pad and pen, and write down a list of your strengths and a list of your weaknesses. Don’t be too hard on yourself, and don’t be too easy.

Address the weaknesses. Pick one or two of the weaknesses, and commit to working on them for the next year. Set realistic goals on how you can overcome your weaknesses and commit to achieving those goals. Is your writing just average? Set realistic goals on improving it, such as reading grammar and style books, taking a writing course or getting an article published.

Build on the strengths. Pick one or two of your strengths, and commit to making them even better. If you want to set yourself apart from other lawyers, don’t just be a strong writer, be a great writer. Don’t just be good at taking depositions, be great at taking them. Consider taking CLE classes, reading books and thinking outside the box for other opportunities.

Find a role model and emulate him. To get better, you have to find better attorneys and do what they do. Is there an attorney you admire at your firm? Does he take killer depositions? Is she a great rainmaker? Study them. What do they do that you’re not doing? Just as importantly, what don’t they do, that you’re doing? Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing something right. Figure out what that is and copy it.

Read others’ transcripts. Read the hearing and deposition transcripts of other attorneys. What do they tell the judge? How do they argue their clients’ case? What questions do they ask witnesses at depositions? What questions don’t they ask? If you want to improve your oral advocacy skills, you need to read how others do it. If you want to take a better depositions, read how others take theirs. And don’t limit yourself to reading the transcripts of just the top partners. Read the transcripts of as many attorneys you can get your hands on. Study the different styles. You can learn something from every attorney in your office. If nothing else, you can learn how not to do things and what approaches are not particularly effective.

Read others’ writings. In addition to reading others’ transcripts, read others’ writing. Read other attorneys’ briefs, memos, motions, letters to clients and other such documents. Study the attorneys’ style, word choice, the arguments they make, how they make them and ask yourself if the writing convinces you, moves you, changes you. See what works and what doesn’t, and strive to emulate what you feel works and avoid what doesn’t.

Study others’ resumes. Visit the web sites of other firms, pull up the profiles of their attorneys and study their resumes. See what they’ve accomplished. What organizations do they belong to? What have they’ve written? Where have they spoken? Attorneys’ resumes show you what goals they have achieved. Looking at others’ resumes makes you think what goals you want to set for yourself and some ideas of how to achieve them. Perhaps you can get ideas of publications that accept articles from attorneys, seminars to speak at or organizations to join.

Keep going to school. You’re never too old to learn something new. Don’t take the minimum number of CLE credits you have to take. Consider attending an extra seminar or two during the year. If you, as so many of us, don’t have the time to attend more seminars, consider listening to CLE tapes in your car.

Set goals and strive for them. Ask yourself the question, "Where do I want to be five years from now?" Do I want to be at the same firm? Do I want to be a partner at the firm? Do I want to be considered an expert in a particular field of law? Ask yourself where you want to be, devise a plan on how to get there and execute it.

Never be satisfied. Never rest. Never be complacent. Never be satisfied with what you’ve accomplished. As you stand still, others are running past you. They’re getting better as you stay the same. Eventually, they will pass you and others will pass you, and your great skills, by comparison, won’t be so great anymore. Strive for more.

Making the Most of Your Mentor:

So you’re lucky enough to have a mentor. Now what? He’s no good to you if he’s a mentor in name only. Consider the following to build a lasting, meaningful relationship with him.

Meet regularly. Make the effort to meet with your mentor on a regular basis. It’s easy for your mentor to get too busy. It’s easy for you to get too busy. Schedule regular meetings to discuss the cases you’re handling and the issues you’re tackling. Consider meeting once a month, or more, for breakfast or lunch to get together and talk.

Communicate regularly. Aside from pursuing face-to-face meetings, call and email your mentor. Email is a great way to get much-needed advice. You can send your question when you find the time and your mentor can answer it when he finds the time.

Network together. Ask your mentor to accompany you to local bar functions where, due to his years of practice, he likely will know several attendees to whom he can introduce you. With your mentor at your side, you never have to go to a bar function again and feel like you don’t know a single person in the room.

Ask your mentor the hard questions. Your mentor is worth his weight in salt because he likely can answer your hard questions. Questions about ethical dilemmas, case strategies and office politics. Ask him. His experiences makes him equipped to answer them.

Seek his wisdom. Your mentor has a lot to teach. Not only about the law and the practice, but about family, about right and wrong and about the choices life presents us. Seek out his perspective and beliefs about the big things. You may learn something more important than how to take a deposition.

Find out his life story. We are a composite of our experiences. Learn your mentor’s experiences - the life he’s lived, the challenges he’s faced and what he’s done to get to where he is. Learning what challenges he faced and how he faced them can give you insight on how to face your own.

"I’m with him." Your mentor can give you access - to corporate and bar functions, to sitting on committees and boards and to meeting the people you want to meet. For example, if you’re looking to get involved in an organization, possibly pursue a leadership position, your mentor can help you get your foot in the door.

Ask for a favor. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a tight spot and you’ll need someone to help you out. Maybe you’re not happy at your job? He may be able to recommend you to a friend who is looking for an associate.

Repay the favor. Just as you have needs, so does your mentor. Repay the favor and help your mentor with his needs. Does he need help with an article he’s writing? With a fundraiser his firm is sponsoring? With a legal issue he’s struggling with? Your mentor will appreciate your help and will be more willing to help you the next time you ask.

Start mentoring others. As a young attorney, you may think you have not amassed enough experiences to mentor someone else. You’re wrong. If you’re a mid- level associate, mentor an entry level associate. If you’re an entry level associate, mentor a law school, college or even high school student who has a whole host of questions.

A mentor is only good if he is, well, a mentor. That takes time and commitment, on his part and on yours. Prod your mentor to do his part and do yours by helping him when he needs a hand. Because in the end, mentorship, like any relationship, is a two-way street.

Why Do I Need a Mentor?:

Everybody talks about mentoring these days. Firms have mentoring programs. Bar associations have them. And they come in all forms, including e-mentoring. But do they work? Why, you ask, do you need a mentor? The better question is how you have survived without one. What are the benefits of having a mentor? The following are a few.

You get to learn from others’ mistakes. As a young lawyer, you’re going to make your share of mistakes. Sometimes, the fear of making a mistake can be paralyzing. How do you avoid making them? Talk to a mentor who has made them and learn from his mistakes. In the practice of law, there are many potholes to fall into. Your mentor can help you steer clear of them.

Mentors take the mystery out of it. Countless times each day you will be called upon to make decisions. Sometimes, you’ll know what to do. Many times, you won’t. Usually, your mentor will. Mentors can take the mystery out of what to do and what not to do.

You get advice that works. Advice is only good if it works. Mentors can tell you what they did when confronted with the same problem. They have tested their theories, and they can tell you first hand, from their own experiences, what works and what does not.

You know someone has your back. Being a lawyer can be lonely. Sometimes you feel it’s you against the world - against the opposing party, against opposing counsel and sometimes against your own client. It’s good to have someone looking out for you, watching your back.

You learn the rules of the game. There are a lot of rules that come with being a lawyer, most unwritten. How do you find out what these rules are and how to play by them? You learn from someone who already knows them. A mentor can teach you the rules regarding such things as how to argue a motion or how to deal with opposing counsel, and he can help you comply with these rules rather than accidentally trip over them.

You have a sounding board. As young lawyers, we have a lot of questions that need to be answered. We have conflicts to resolve, problems to face and issues to address. We have ideas, sometimes based on fact, sometimes based purely on instinct, on how to confront these issues. Instead of simply trying out our hypotheses, to see if they are right or wrong, it is worthwhile to sound them off someone who has confronted the same or similar issues and can listen to your approaches, help you weigh the pros and cons and assist you in making thoughtful, rationed decisions.

You get a backstage pass. Mentors pull back the curtain and take you where the action happens. They take you to meetings with clients, conference calls to discuss strategy and access to their own thinking and reasoning. Mentors give you access to their legal worlds, where the big decision makers make the big decisions, and you’re their to witness it, experience it, learn from it.

You get connected. Mentors can help you get plugged into bar and trade associations. They can introduce you to people, get you involved in committees and assist you in your ascendancy to power.

You learn about the Firm. You want to know how your firm works -how it really works? Who does what, who expects what, what makes the partners happy and what their pet peeves are? Your mentor, someone who has been at the firm and who has seen first hand what kind of lawyers stay and which ones go, and of those who stay, which ones prosper, can provide you great insight on how to get along in the firm.

You learn how to network. To develop clients, you must develop relationships with potential clients. Before you can develop a relationship with someone, you have to meet him. How do you do that? Do you go to a trade group or bar meeting and simply walk around, stick your hand out and say hello to whomever you see? A much better approach is to go with a mentor, someone who knows that organization and the people involved. Someone who can introduce you to others and that can help you get your foot in the door.

These are just a few reasons to get a mentor. Mentors help you cut through the red tape, the self-doubt and your innumerable questions. Take the time to find a mentor and start working on a relationship that will affect, for the better, the rest of your career.

Improving Your Firm’s Writing:

What do others think about your firm? To answer that question, you must ask yourself, "What do others think about my firm’s writing?" What do judges think when your motions come across their desks? What do clients think when they read your letters and memos? Do they think how clear the writing is? How concise? How simple it is without being simplistic? Or do they think it is muddled and confusing. Do they pick out the grammatical gaffes and wonder whether they reflect not only shortcomings in your writing, but reflect a more systemic problem?

Face it. Everything your firm sends out, every motion, letter, memo and even e-mail, reflects not only upon the author but upon the firm. We are constantly being sized up, and the measure of our talents is often what we write. That being the case, we owe it to ourselves to improve not only our own writing, but the writing of each and every attorney at our firm. Nothing less will do.
But how do you get your lawyers to write better? Many think that writing is an innate talent. Either you are a good writer or you’re not, and no amount of effort can change that. Nothing could be further from the truth. Good writers are not born. They generally evolve from mediocrity. They spend hours learning the rules of good writing and hours more applying those rules to their writing. And along the way they realize that writing is a life long process and that no matter how good their writing becomes, it could always be better.

So your first job is to convince your attorneys that their writing can stand improvement. This will be hard news to break. Most lawyers take pride in their writing, some so much that they view any revisions to their work as an affront to their very person. Tell them that their writing is less than perfect and prepare for bruised egos. However, tell them you must.

It is best to institute a firm-wide writing program where attendance is mandatory by all attorneys - partners, senior associates and junior associates alike. By making everyone participate no one feels that he is being singled out for his poor writing. Furthermore, those who believe their writing is beyond reproach can feel, and will probably openly state, that their participation is wholly unnecessary. But they will be in attendance, and they, ironically, will have the most to learn from the experience.

At the first meeting, preferably a lunch meeting (free food does wonders for attendance), explain the rationale for the writing boot camp:

The writing course will improve work product. Better writing translates into a better work product, which clients will appreciate and possibly reward with additional business.

The writing course will improve thinking. Clear writing promotes clear thinking. If you can express yourself in a clear, direct manner, you will be better able to articulate your thoughts and process them, making you a more effective advocate.

The writing course will Improve efficiency. If everyone writes better, less time is spent revising documents. How much time is spent by senior associates and partners rewriting junior and mid level associate writing? If everyone’ s writing improves, less time is spent trying to make it better.

The writing course will standardize everyone’s writing style. Creating a writing program provides you an opportunity to teach your lawyers the same style rules and in so doing, makes their writing more alike. By making everyone ’s writing similar, your readers come to recognize your firm’s writing, as opposing to an individual ’s style. Furthermore, it makes revisions easier when everyone agrees what writing should look like and how it should be revised.

Once you’ve convinced your lawyers of the benefits of a writing program you have to implement one. What does a successful writing program entail? The following are some suggestions.

Discuss good writing. Explain to the attorneys what good writing is and set out three or four principles you want your lawyers to learn, emulate and live by. I suggest you want your lawyers to:
(1) write plain English
(2) say more with fewer words
(3) write in an active, direct manner
If your lawyers accomplish these three goals their writing will be as good as or better than the competition.

Purchase textbooks. Good writing starts with good grammar. Purchase a grammar book for adults, such as "Whose Grammar Book is This Anyway," written by a lawyer. And who could do without Strunk & White’s " Elements of Style." In addition to purchasing 2 to 3 grammar books for your students, purchase 1 or 2 books on style. Create a "writing" reading list, and have your attorneys read a book a month.

Discuss the textbooks. Meet once a month to discuss the book’s highlights and what the attorneys have learned from reading them. You will be amazed how many grammar and style rules you’ve forgotten, and how many you never learned in the first place.

Develop a firm style. One of the overarching goals is to create a firm "voice" or "style" to which all the attorneys subscribe too. To do so, develop a list of writing rules which most, if not all the attorneys agree should be followed. Many of these rules will be derived from the writing books you will ask your attorneys to read. Once you have all the rules, write them down and circulate them. These will be the firm’s commandments which everyone will be encouraged to follow.

Get Published. Encourage your lawyers to submit articles to newsletters, newspapers and magazines. The process of getting an article published is a great way to develop one’s writing skills. Consider making it mandatory to have all your attorneys publish at least one article a year.

Good writing is crucial to your firm’s success. Develop a plan to help your attorneys write better and get your attorneys behind it. As their writing improves, your firm’s profile will improve too and you’ll be left wondering why you waited so long to institute a writing program.

Preparing for the Deposition of the Opposing Party:

The most important deposition you will take is the deposition of the opposing party. Getting him to make the right admissions can secure your case and sink his. How do you prepare for it? Consider the following.

Learn everything you can about the opposing party. Do your due diligence and find out everything you can about the opposing party. Do a background search on him to see if he has a criminal record. Do a Google search to see if he has his own website or blog or if he is the subject of a chatroom or has been written about in an article. Do a litigation search to see if he has ever sued or been sued before. If he has, track down any depositions he gave or answers to interrogatories he signed. Do a bankruptcy search to see if he has ever filed for bankruptcy. If appropriate, get his medical, employment, IRS, social security, medicare and military records.

Get all the records and prepare a chronology. Get all the relevant records, whether they be contracts, handwritten notes, or medical records, and put them in chronological order. Then prepare a chronology summarizing these records. Put the chronology and all the records referenced in the chronology into a binder. This will help you gain an appreciation of everything that has occurred and the significance of the various events and documents.

Consider what you hope the opposing party will say. You need to go into the deposition of the opposing party as you would go into any deposition, with a plan of what you hope to get him to say. Depositions serve to gather information. But more importantly, they serve to pin down witnesses and to procure admissions favorable to your case and harmful to theirs. But before you can secure those helpful admissions, you have to decide what admissions you wish to procure. To do that, look at the jury instructions to see what you need to prove and what the other side needs to prove. Then consider what admissions you could elicit that support your position or undermining theirs.

For example, if you represent the defendant, you would try to get the plaintiff to admit to facts that show he does not meet one of the elements of the cause of action he alleges in the complaint. Alternatively, you would try to get the plaintiff to admit to facts that support one of your affirmative defenses. Whatever questions you ask, start with figuring out what you want the opposing party to say and then draft an outline that attempts to elicit that information.

Prepare a detailed outline for the deposition. After you’ve gathered all the facts and understand how the law applies to those facts and the allegations and affirmative defenses in the complaint and answer, then you’ll be prepared to draft an outline for the deposition.

Prepare your outline similar to the one you would prepare for trial. In fact, the more you think of this deposition as if it were trial, the more clear, the more concise and the more penetrating your questions will be.

Divide the outline into sections, with each section addressing a specific point or issue you want the opposing party to address. For example, you would have a section on the party’s prior litigation (if you are aware, for example, that this is his third personal injury suit).

When addressing a given topic, start with general questions, and proceed from there to asking more specific questions, until you focus on the specific issues you want the deponent to discuss. Make sure your questions are simple and only contain one fact per question. And most importantly, ask as many leading questions as possible, as you are allowed to do when deposing the opposing party. You want your questions to tell the other side the answer you are looking for and you are hoping that he will agree with you as much as possible.

When preparing for the opposing party deposition, take the time to learn everything you can about the party and about the facts and law that relate to the litigation. Once you’ve gathered and digested all this information, take the time to think through what you hope to get the other side to say and prepare an outline aimed at getting the admissions you are looking for.

How to Prepare a Case for Trial:

When should you start preparing for trial? Days before? Weeks before? The best time to start preparing for trial is at the start of the case. Start every case with the end in mind - the verdict you want - and pursue that end during every step in the litigation. You cannot assume that your case will settle. Do not prepare to settle a case. Prepare to try it. That way, if you do settle it, it will be due in part to your trial preparation. And if you do not settle it, you will be prepared to try the case and win. The following are some suggestions to keep in mind to help you achieve the results you seek at trial.

Develop a trial theme. At trial, you should have a theme around which you will present your case. The theme serves as the foundation of your case. Everything you do during the course of litigation, should build on that theme. Keep it simple and short. You should start developing your theme as early as possible. With a theme in mind, you can start thinking about what evidence you will want to introduce at trial and what evidence you will want to keep out. The theme will assist you in deciding what motions to file, what witnesses to interview, whom to depose and what to ask them to advance your theme.

During litigation, you may realize that your theme needs some tweaking or deserves to be discarded and be replaced altogether. You are better off if you realize that your theme doesn’t work early on in the case, when you have enough time to change it, than to realize it on the eve of trial, when it is too late for improvisations.

Be first. Always be a step ahead of opposing counsel. You want to be proactive and set the course of litigation. Be the first to interview witnesses, to serve written discovery, to subpoena records from third parties and take depositions. Being first often affects the outcome of litigation. The first attorney to interview witnesses can take their sworn statements and lock them into their testimony. The first to serve discovery gets a jump on obtaining records and facts to support his case. Also, by pushing your case ahead, you show the other side that you and your client are in control.

Think out of the box. What can you do differently? Look at your case from different perspectives. Be creative. Are there other causes of actions you can plead? Other defenses to raise? Are there other witnesses or other documents which may support your case? Too often, lawyers get into a rut of following the same protocol when they work on a certain type of case. Don’t fall into this trap. Whether it’s a slip and fall or breach of contract, think of new ways to approach the case.

Think your case through. When you first start a case, develop a case strategy. Figure out what you need to do to win at trial and prepare a step by step plan to achieve your goal. Developing a plan ensures that everything you do has a purpose. Without a detailed plan, you’re likely to pursue avenues and do things which do nothing to advance your case, or worse, undermine it.

Do your research. Spend some quality time in the library to research the elements of the causes of action in your case and the affirmative defenses. You need to know what each side has to prove to win his case, what discovery to pursue, what to ask witnesses in deposition and what motions to file.

Read the jury instructions. If you are plaintiff’s counsel, the jury instructions tell you what elements you have to prove to win at trial. If you are defense counsel, the instructions give you a road map to poking holes in your opponent’s case. From the beginning of the case, you need to know what the jury instructions expect you to present to a jury, so that during every step in the litigation you are gathering those facts in the interrogatories and request for production you propound, the subpoena for records you issue and in the questions you ask in depositions.

Having the facts you need to win shouldn’t be an accident. If you don’t know the jury instructions from the beginning of the case, the information you elicit which supports your case will be nothing more than coincidental. Know what you need to prove at trial and take the needed steps to elicit that information.

Have the court enter a scheduling order. Some courts enter detailed scheduling orders which spell out each phase of discovery and pre-trial deadlines. Others provide less guidance. Whether you are the plaintiff or the defendant, take steps to ensure that a detailed scheduling order is entered spelling out deadlines for expert disclosure, who discloses first, physical examinations of the plaintiff, depositions, etc.

File dispositive motions early. If you can win on summary judgment, start building your case early and file your motion as soon as it is appropriate to do so. Early analysis can help you isolate the weaknesses in your opponents case, one or more of which may be fatal.

Get your experts lined up early. Due to the expense, many clients prefer to delay the hiring of experts. However, being an ounce wise may prove to be a pound foolish. Experts can help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your case and that of your opponent. An expert can help you develop your case strategy and determine what discovery to propound and what questions to ask at deposition.

Let the client know what to expect. Whether it is the cost associated with trial or what the outcome may be, make sure your client knows what to expect if the case goes to trial.

Success at trial is not an accident. It takes time and preparation, and that commitment of time and effort starts at the very inception of the case and continues through the time of trial. There are no shortcuts. Think through your case, come up with a theme and game plan and commit all your energies to seeing your goals fulfilled.

Breaking The Ice:

It won't be long until your next cocktail hour, conference or reception. There is no value to attend these by standing in a corner, clutching your drink and waiting for it to be over. They are networking events. But how do you network, you ask? How do you break the ice with total strangers? Consider the following tips:

Bring a friend. Bring someone you know with whom you can talk between mingling with others. You will feel less nervous if you have someone you know nearby. However, make it clear to your friend that the purpose of the event is to network. Don't fall into complacency and spend the entire night speaking with your friend.

Look for a friend. Odds are that you know someone at the event. When you spot her, she will likely be in a small group. Walk up, re-introduce yourself and introduce yourself to the others in the group. You have now met several new people you can get to know.

Come early. It is easier to meet new people when there are fewer people to meet. Arrive early and you will likely find a number of individuals by themselves, like you, that you can walk up to and start a conversation with.

Lines are a great place to meet people. When standing in line to get a drink or standing at the buffet table, make a point to introduce yourself to those in front and behind you.

Work the room. Make a point to make your way around the room, making an effort to speak to folks you do not know. You will find that most people at the event are there for the same reason you are - to network.

Stay engaged.When you are in a conversation, stay engaged. Do not constantly be looking over a person's shoulders in search of someone else. No one likes to feel that they are simply filling time for you while you look for someone more interesting or more important with whom to speak.

Bring business cards. Make sure you bring enough business cards to hand out. When you receive one in return make sure to study it a second and make a connection between the card and the person handing it to you. Also, to the extent you promise someone you are going to send them an article you wrote, put them in contact with someone else or provide them information, make a point to write that down on the card they hand you. It will serve as a reminder to you and it will show them that you are conscientious and plan on carrying out your promise.

Follow up with hand written notes. When you return to your office, send handwritten notes on personal stationary to the folks you met. No one writes notes anymore. They will be remembered.

With a little planning and a little effort, you can make your next networking opportunity a successful one.

Making the Most of Your Next Conference:

Before long, you will be attending a voluntary bar association conference or seminar. It will be a great networking opportunity, particularly if you consider the following advice.

Due your due diligence. Before the conference, procure a list of attendees. Reach out to everyone you know either by e-mail or preferably a handwritten note, letting them know you will be there and suggesting you meet for a meal or drinks. Breakfasts are great for networking - they give you a jump on the day and are less expensive than other meals. Leave yourself some time open for impromptu meal plans with new folks you will meet. Also, plan on meeting any existing clients in the area.

Arrive early. Flying in and out of a conference as quick as possible is not productive. Work is work, but to the extent possible, arrive before the first cocktail party and leave after the last one. The longer you are there, the more people you will meet.

Attend everything. Go to every cocktail hour, meal, special event and everything else on the agenda. Arrive early. It is easier to network when there are fewer people in the room. Also, the conference's staff will be there meeting and greeting and will introduce you to the organization's leadership. Also, arriving early does not mean you leave early. Stay until they close the bar.

Target your networking. It is important to meet as many people as possible, but you should also have a plan of meeting three to five specific individuals who will help you develop business. It may be a certain in house counsel, or someone in the organization's leadership. Figure out where they will be, find them and introduce yourself. Treat them to a meal , get to know them and lay the foundation for a long term relationship.

Always be on. Every minute you are at a conference, you have the potential of developing a relationship that may result in business for your firm. Keep that in mind with every interaction you have with everyone you meet. You should always treat everyone the same anyway, so this is good practice.

Follow up with personal notes. After you return home, look at the attendee list and circle the names of those whom you met, had meals with or goofed off with (yes, occasionally playing hooky with another attendee may from the basis of a lasting personal friendship and business relationship). Write them handwritten notes and invite them to look you up if they are ever in town.

Conferences are a great way to develop lasting relationships that may result in referrals. It just takes a little planning to make the most of them.

Making Things Right When Things Go Wrong:

I hate to tell you this, but as a new attorney, you will make mistakes. In fact, you will make your share of them. No matter how smart you are, or how well your firm trains you, or how closely you are supervised, you will do something wrong from time to time. When you do, its your job to right the wrong. You do that by doing the following:

Don’t brush it under the rug. When you make a mistake it is tempting to hide it from the partner’s view in hopes that it never gets discovered. Don’t ever submit to this temptation. Not only is it dishonest, it can make a small problem into a great big one. That mistake you made today may be one that can be addressed and rectified today. Ignore it, however, and it may grow, and infect the entire case, and the day may come when it’s too late to rectify it. Like a cancer, if diagnosed and treated early, a mistake is often treatable. If ignored, it may grow and spread and damage everything in its path.

Size up the situation. Was a mistake really made, or do you simply think you made one? Before blaming yourself, think through whether a mistake was made at all. If you did make a mistake, consider how big of a mistake it really is. That mountain you’re worried about may only be a molehill. Generally panic sets in when you make a mistake, your imagination gets the best of you and you start planning what life will be like after you get fired. Stop, take a deep breath and rest assured that things will work out. Even if it turns out your mistake was a big one, know that things still will work out.

Think through solutions on how to rectify your mistake. There are few mistakes that cannot be undone. Think through the various options that are available to help you clean up any mess you may have created. This is the time to speak to your mentor at the firm and seek his guidance on how to make things right. Also, it may take more than simply thinking or talking through the problem to come up with an answer. You may have to do some research to find the answer you are looking for.

Your boss gives you assignments to take problems off his plate and give them to you. When you make a mistake, you have managed to not only give him back the problem he gave you, you have managed to make it bigger. The least you can do is come up with a game plan to resolve the new problem you created.

Discuss how best to rectify the mistake. After you’ve presented the partner your proposed solution to your mistake, talk through how best to address the problem. Again, the partner may not think the problem is a major one. Conversely, he may think it is much worse than you think it is. Either way, you need to have a heart to heart to come up with a solution.

Learn from the mistake. Whether it is a big or small mistake, learn as much as you can from it. Maybe you need to learn to take more time when researching an issue. Perhaps you have to learn to probe more deeply in deposition. Whatever the lesson is, take it to heart and learn from it.

Maturity as a lawyer is owning up to your mistakes, figuring out how to deal with them and letting your boss know about the mess you got him into and how you plan on getting him out of it. 

How to Prepare for a Hearing in Courts:

 Don’t rehash the papers. The judge and her law clerks have read the motions, responses and replies, have read and dissected the cases cited in them and have likely done their own research and have uncovered additional cases. Therefore, don’t start by rehashing what you said in the papers. You’ll bore the judge, and possibly insult her by implying that she has not read what you wrote.

Focus on your theme. Instead of summarizing what you said in your papers, pick out the theme you emphasized in those papers and make that the centerpiece of your argument. If you can’t reduce your argument to a simple theme that explains why you should win, then recouch your argument until you can.

Practice your argument out loud. After you have prepared an outline of your argument, and you have organized all the documents and cases you will be referencing throughout the hearing, close the door to your office, and practice your argument out loud, not just once but three times. In the process of doing this, you will hear for yourself what parts of your arguments work and which parts don’t, and you can make the necessary adjustments.

Be prepared to be interrupted. Treat the hearing like you would an appellate court hearing. The judge is having a hearing as much to allow you to present your arguments as to have her questions answered. When preparing for the hearing, think about the questions you would ask about the facts and the law if you were the judge, and have short, direct answers prepared for those questions.

Keep your composure. There is something about standing before a federal court judge, in her large courtroom, with her federal clerks and assistants sitting nearby. It can be enough to cause the words to choke in your throat. To get over the anxiety, make a point to accompany another attorney from your office to a hearing he is having in federal court, preferably a hearing in front of the same judge before whom you will be arguing. Watch how he presents himself, the arguments he makes and how he answers questions. After the hearing is over, quiz him about how he prepared and why he said what he said and why he made the arguments he made. This reconnaissance will take the edge off the anxiety.

Be prepared and be courteous. All judges expect that the attorneys who appear before them be prepared, professional and courteous. This is particularly true of federal court judges. To meet these expectations, have a hearing binder prepared with an outline of your arguments, annotated to the exhibits and cases that support those arguments, with copies of those exhibits and cases in your binder. Having everything in one place, organized and well thought out, as opposed to combing through a messy file, shows that you are prepared.

In addition to being prepared, be courteous. No matter how opposing counsel behaves, whether he interrupts you, or even insults you, never succumb to his level, however tempting. Don’t take the bait.

Arguing motions in federal court can be nerve racking. To alleviate your fears, do everything you can to prepare, take a deep breath and do the best you can. 

The Power of Sound Bites:

If you want to master the art of persuasion, you must master the art of the sound bite. Politicians do it. Advertisers do it. Motivational speakers do it. They understand to boil down their ideas into catchy phrases and use them as a form of shorthand to catch and keep their audiences’ attention. Speak all you want, but most of what you say will be forgotten. To say something that will be remembered and that will influence, find a way to reduce it to a sound bite. Think about the printed ads, television commercials and speeches that have stuck with you. I bet what you remember are the catch phrases. They hook you and reel you in.

So when you are pursuing clients and convincing them to go with you instead of the competition, you need to think through how you can serve their needs. How your company is different. Why it serves their best interest to go with you. Write down the answers to all these questions. Then think about reducing your answers to several themes - central ideas reflecting why prospective clients need you. Once you do this, reduce those themes to sounds bites - one or more catch phrases that reflect the essence of your company and its ideals - phrases that resonate and that will stick in the minds of your audience. Just a few words - the right ones - can make the difference between pitching and selling - between talking and closing.

Where do you come up with sound bites? They are all around you. They are in the articles you read, they are in the lyrics you listen to and they are in the movies and television shows you watch. Train yourself to look out for them and start incorporating them into your selling. You will discover that with them, your power of persuasion will improve significantly. 

GOOD LUCK