Canadian Lawyer

32 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m Lesson 7: Say goodbye to your social and sex life for now "It's important for us to expose articling students to realistic law firm pressures — and I don't say this maliciously rub- bing my hands together with glee and giggling," says Grant. "We don't dump work on them, but when we hear a student say they're looking to ease up, we inquire. If they say some- thing like, 'I've been here two Saturdays running to work,' then we say, 'Really? Well, our view is you have a greater capacity to work. We don't want you in here every Saturday, but two Saturday mornings in a row isn't going to alter your life.'" Lesson 8: Learn to write well It's not that lawyers can't write, says Neil Guthrie, direc- tor of professional development at Bennett Jones, it's how they write. "You have people from different academic back- grounds, commerce degrees, science, and you get philoso- phers and history grads, who generally don't have as many problems, but they can all fall into academic writing or fall into the template of writing like a lawyer and many lawyers are horrible writers," he says. "I send out a weekly e-mail about writing, with tips like avoiding legal jargon or Latin, just plain English. And think of your client." Lesson 9: Learn when, what to delegate, and to whom "Associates aren't used to having people available to do work for them, so they do things like their own word processing, which is not a good use of their time and they're not always that good at it," says Guthrie. "Clients don't want to get billed for the time their lawyer spent typing." His colleague, Darcy N. Legros, director of student and associate programs, law student recruitment, and supervi- sion and professional development at Bennett Jones Toronto, concurs. "GenYs struggle with delegating," she says. "That plays into the struggle with time management." Administrative work should be done by an assistant, not the lawyers; better to write the first draft, have the assistant format and proof, then have it reviewed, marked up, and given back to the administrative assistant. Also, let your assistants and paralegals do their own work and establish systems to check in and make sure that they are doing what needs to be done in order that you can do your work and ensure the clients are being properly served, and deadlines, etc., are always being met. Lesson 10: Beware the Black Dog and the abyss Practising law is stressful and all-consuming and, as such, lawyers have a higher rate of drug and alcohol dependence, which can also trigger depression. Be aware of the pitfalls that most often affect lawyers and get in front of them, says Guthrie. "I do a seminar on depression and addiction, which affects lawyers at a surpris- ingly higher rate than the general populace," he says. "One session I did for the articling students, I had a woman come in and talk about resilience, about taking criticisms, about setbacks like not being hired. I hope it made a difference." Lesson 11: Get some culture Each firm has its own culture. Get to know it and adapt to it. Personalities also come into play, says Young. The bigger the firm, the more senior lawyers with different personali- ties. Learn how to work with their styles. "You have to adapt your working style to them," she says. "If you want feedback, some want e-mail, some don't because they have too many. Some say just drop by the office and talk, others say just call them. Some need to be reminded of things, others are micromanagers." Lesson 12: It's OK to make mistakes Time management is a big adjustment when people move from law school, though most start to acquire those skills as articling students, adds Guthrie. "We're hands off in that we don't allocate work, they get their own work, and, sometimes, they have to learn by fail- ure or screwing up that there aren't extensions," he says. Take those mistakes and make sure you set up systems or processes to avoid making them in the future. While making mistakes is OK, repeating them is not. Lesson 13: Learn what resources are available "What we're working on this year is being aware of what resources are there," Legros says, adding tips like cc-ing an assistant on an e-mail is an automatic trigger that you want them to save and archive it in the file. "Communication is often a big hurdle. Sometimes, you have a 26-year-old lawyer working with a 50-year-old assistant and they have trouble clearly expressing what they want. So, it's important to sit down with the team and understand they have to keep those lines of communications open." Also realize your assistant probably knows a lot more

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