Want to Succeed in BigLaw? Sociability, Enterprise and Appearance All Help, Partner Says
Associates hoping to become successful lawyers shouldn’t focus just on their legal abilities, according to a partner at DLA Piper. They also need social skills, good manners and an enterprising attitude, to name a few of the attributes that lead to success, according to a law firm partner.
Kimberly Egan, a partner in DLA Piper’s Washington office, created a list of skills possessed by the most successful lawyers. Here are a few she includes in an article for the National Law Journal:
• Good people skills are important both with clients and law firm colleagues. Associates are being graded on their sociability, Egan writes. “It means that social invitations from senior lawyers are not really optional, and treating them as work events is key,” she says. “It is a good idea to avoid politics, religion and other socially controversial subjects. A senior lawyer’s offer to get a drink is not an invitation for associates to let their hair down and get sloppy. It is not a career-enhancing move to be thought of as a lush.”
• Don’t be rude, arrogant, pretentious or unfair, and treat everyone in the workplace with respect, including support staffers.
• Show enterprise and diligence. Don’t turn down an assignment because you don’t know the subject area or you don’t know how to operate a computer program. And don’t turn down work because it is beneath you. “There is no magic band of elves that comes in at night and does all the little tasks that a busy lawyer would rather not do,” she says.
• Appearance matters. “The most successful associates recognize that, if a firm’s leadership wears suits and dresses, they should, too,” Egan says.
