Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 35 Lesson 18: Learn to juggle and keep your head up Balancing competing demands, understanding how long something will take to complete, and anticipating what's in the pipeline are things people struggle with and, thus, Ben- nett Jones' in-house training sessions tend to focus on those basics, says Legros. "When you have your Tuesday planned and you have to change everything, some people struggle with that," she says. Unforeseen issues and problems come up all the time. Being both flexible and responsive, without letting other work slide, is imperative to success. Lesson 19: No matter what, be civil No firm tolerates incivility whether it's directed at staff, colleagues, opposing counsel, or — definitely not — cli- ents. "We've had to fire a client for being rude to staff," says Daigneault. "Ours is a family firm, so it's a much more friendly atmosphere." Young lawyers often struggle in this area, Grant agrees. It can be a lack of anger management, or being unable to balance their work and life and adjust to the realities of the entry level into a career in law. For some, it's a struggle coming from what he called the "very structured world of law school" to the shock of having 50 files on their desk all seemingly screaming for immediate action. "The culture here [is] of people treating people courteously, despite that we're all in conflict in litigation. There's no tolerance for yell- ing and swearing." Just don't be rude. Take a deep breath before you respond, particularly over e-email, where your tone can easily be taken the wrong way. Lesson 20: Learn fast, or fall back "It's a very steep learning curve. Law school teaches you how to think about the law and ways of approaching problems and issues and analyzing. And when you enter practice, you are confronted with needing the skills of the real world," says Young. "I'm a litigator and it's adversarial and you have to learn to deal with clients and other counsel. You're dealing with people charged with emotion, either angry or defen- sive." ARE YOU RECEIVING CANADIAN LEGAL NEWSWIRE? Keep abreast of legal news STMRMSRWERHEREP]WMW with our electronic newswire. VISIT OUR WEBSITE WWW.CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM AND LOOK UNDER "LINKS" SIGN UP FOR FREE From the publisher of and Untitled-5 1 2015-09-16 2:32 PM

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