Well, I haven't been officially an attorney for a year, but I have been at this job and in training for a whole year now. Shockingly. I like to think I'm a little more on the job and less in training, but I definitely still have a mighty incline of the learning curve to ascend. We were repeatedly assured in law school and shortly after that new attorneys are basically useless for their first two years, so I like to think of this as one year down and one to go. But since I'm a reflective type, I figured it was about time for a self-administered Performance Evaluation so far.
Assets I bring:
1. I write well. I tell clients' stories clearly, and in a way that can be understood and in a way that targets the issues at hand. And, well, I am certainly developing a literary arsenal for deft maneuvering around pesky evidence rules about hearsay and so on...
2. I listen well. During meetings, I can keep conversations on track, refocus people towards problem solving, and sustain rapport generally fairly well.
3. I have some hidden HR/Org skills and bring some of that to the office process. I have had good suggestions for keeping files current, fastidiously update the case status sheet, and have a good memory for billing and client details when others are too swamped to remember specifics about a case. I’ve suggested little processes to improve workflow or reduce margin for human error. I am a big proponent of productivity-efficiency through work-life balance practices. No idea if they make a huge impact, but they are important to me.
Major Improvements for the Year:
1. I’m certainly a bit more able to distinguish what every lawyer should know from what’s “weird” and needs some ad-libbing. And more confident in that. This may be the most important skill aside from faking "knowing what the hell I'm doing" that a lawyer can acquire.
2. I have a role in the legal community through my work with the collaborative professionals board, and I am getting a reputation for the aforementioned writing well.
Areas for improvement
1. I am still dead in the water in terms of promotion and networking. I am acutely aware that this is from a mix of introversion, uncertainty about where I’ll be/want to be in the future, and the residual lack of confidence.
2. I am prone to little clerical mistakes, despite Herculean efforts to avoid them and read through things. I tend to start going really quickly and breeze past these details. I’m also not great with math. I’m getting better handling financials after a few hefty discovery sessions, for which I am doing the review. But it is still one of my biggest arenas of error when I’m handling those middling little settlement proposals and support worksheets.
3. I have never done an officially sanctioned collaborative case. They’re much harder to find and I’ve done as much promotion as I think I can, but it is something I regret. I am trying to work on another opportunity to continue mediating, but this hasn’t gelled quite yet.
What I like about the job:
1.Stories. I love stories. I love hearing them, telling them, playing with them, and reinterpreting them. I don’t just write well, I really enjoy writing and I get to do that here. And boy, are there stories.
2.Sitting down with people and getting them to aha moments without undue influence. Explaining the process and seeing light bulbs go off. Connecting with people. Smoothing out a communication problem.
3. The flexibility. There’s no set time I need to be at the office, so I often come in very early, take breaks during the day and/or take days off here and there. The vacation, holiday and sick leave is to be used when we choose and fairly generous. Of course the other benefits – including office lunches, medical, retirement etc. – are as generous as my boss.
4. The work environment. I have a boss who helped me install my treadmill desk. Who invests time and energy in keeping the office beautiful with potted plants, calming photographs, nice furniture, soothingly painted walls. And I work in an office with a lovely view.
5. The support and learning experience. My mom is probably one of the most skilled and well-respected practitioners in this area. I may have my own biases but it’s clear by comparison and by the way other attorneys treat her that this is the case. And Leslie is likewise arguably the most skilled paralegal in this area. Both can be pretty intense, but I have both the best examples to learn from and the most – well – nurturing but honest feedback on my work.
What I don't like about the job:
1. I love working for my mom, but I never want to be my mom. It is clear that to her it is worth it – the pre-hearing focus and irritability, the post-hearing crash, the loooong weeks with no respite from constant emails and calls, the sheer exasperation with clients and other parties, the emotional hooks, the way thoughts and conversations are frequently dominated by a case or cases, the collapse at the end of the day. I have no question that all of those things are actually a testament to how fulfilling she finds this work. For me, it would be a testament to being sucked up, and feeling stuck. I’m at a point where I want energy at the end of the day and the ability to put work on the shelf when I leave the office and focus on the hobbies and relationships by which I define myself (implausible for any job, but something closer to that).
2. The litigation process. I am amazed by how unprepared, unprofessional, incivil, and generally inappropriate other attorneys can be within that framework. Some give their clients free range to do the crazy things that brought on divorce in the first place. Some buy into their client’s conflict as if it were their own, Others are so vacant and uninvolved in even communicating with their clients that theoretically easy cases and agreements fall apart. I have always wanted to build an ADR practice, but have yet to really find traction with this, and so the worries about getting sucked into this system persist.
3.To say nothing of the insanity of some of the clients and other parties themselves. Sure, in divorce people are often at their worst, but we have this influx of DSM classifiable nervous breakdown categories that is just astounding and futile to work with. With this comes an olio of emergencies with immediate deadlines and needy clients flinging frustration and recrimination our way when the mood strikes, and often vanishing when we need something from them to move their case forward.
4.The uncertainty. Divorce is expensive, and rightly so. But you can never tell if it’s expensive to the clients or the attorneys. I spend hours working for clients who are unlikely to ever be able to pay. We have clients who owe the office more than my annual salary. You forgive what you can in exchange for getting paid what you can, but even still. Similarly with the deadlines, the tendency of clients to put off doing anything until they need something now, and emergencies, work itself often can be deluge or drought for me.
But speaking of uncertainty, my future is impendingly up in the air. While the wedding plans continue to gel, every once in a while, we both have to stop and realize "wow, we kind of both don't know where our lives will be in just about seven months now." There's no clear "this time next year" given all the mutual contingencies intervening between then and now. I've said that if we move by a bit, I intend to keep on working here with a mix of commuting and remote access. If we move very far away, who knows? And where we move is all about where the jobs are for Andrew, but also for me. If he can afford for me to work less, the job market for me is more or less important for a moving choice... etc. etc.
I add that because of course, it does affect what I would consider the final part of an evaluation: the next steps. In the short term, those are certainly carrying on building my skills, sharing my ideas of what I would like to see in a practice and a dissolution process, keeping eyes open for opportunities to expand my horizons. But I'm not setting a goal for anything like a year out just yet. Other than you know not having been incarcerated for killing a feisty client or attorney... that goals I can embrace.
1. I write well. I tell clients' stories clearly, and in a way that can be understood and in a way that targets the issues at hand. And, well, I am certainly developing a literary arsenal for deft maneuvering around pesky evidence rules about hearsay and so on...
2. I listen well. During meetings, I can keep conversations on track, refocus people towards problem solving, and sustain rapport generally fairly well.
3. I have some hidden HR/Org skills and bring some of that to the office process. I have had good suggestions for keeping files current, fastidiously update the case status sheet, and have a good memory for billing and client details when others are too swamped to remember specifics about a case. I’ve suggested little processes to improve workflow or reduce margin for human error. I am a big proponent of productivity-efficiency through work-life balance practices. No idea if they make a huge impact, but they are important to me.
Major Improvements for the Year:
1. I’m certainly a bit more able to distinguish what every lawyer should know from what’s “weird” and needs some ad-libbing. And more confident in that. This may be the most important skill aside from faking "knowing what the hell I'm doing" that a lawyer can acquire.
2. I have a role in the legal community through my work with the collaborative professionals board, and I am getting a reputation for the aforementioned writing well.
Areas for improvement
1. I am still dead in the water in terms of promotion and networking. I am acutely aware that this is from a mix of introversion, uncertainty about where I’ll be/want to be in the future, and the residual lack of confidence.
2. I am prone to little clerical mistakes, despite Herculean efforts to avoid them and read through things. I tend to start going really quickly and breeze past these details. I’m also not great with math. I’m getting better handling financials after a few hefty discovery sessions, for which I am doing the review. But it is still one of my biggest arenas of error when I’m handling those middling little settlement proposals and support worksheets.
3. I have never done an officially sanctioned collaborative case. They’re much harder to find and I’ve done as much promotion as I think I can, but it is something I regret. I am trying to work on another opportunity to continue mediating, but this hasn’t gelled quite yet.
What I like about the job:
1.Stories. I love stories. I love hearing them, telling them, playing with them, and reinterpreting them. I don’t just write well, I really enjoy writing and I get to do that here. And boy, are there stories.
2.Sitting down with people and getting them to aha moments without undue influence. Explaining the process and seeing light bulbs go off. Connecting with people. Smoothing out a communication problem.
3. The flexibility. There’s no set time I need to be at the office, so I often come in very early, take breaks during the day and/or take days off here and there. The vacation, holiday and sick leave is to be used when we choose and fairly generous. Of course the other benefits – including office lunches, medical, retirement etc. – are as generous as my boss.
4. The work environment. I have a boss who helped me install my treadmill desk. Who invests time and energy in keeping the office beautiful with potted plants, calming photographs, nice furniture, soothingly painted walls. And I work in an office with a lovely view.
5. The support and learning experience. My mom is probably one of the most skilled and well-respected practitioners in this area. I may have my own biases but it’s clear by comparison and by the way other attorneys treat her that this is the case. And Leslie is likewise arguably the most skilled paralegal in this area. Both can be pretty intense, but I have both the best examples to learn from and the most – well – nurturing but honest feedback on my work.
What I don't like about the job:
1. I love working for my mom, but I never want to be my mom. It is clear that to her it is worth it – the pre-hearing focus and irritability, the post-hearing crash, the loooong weeks with no respite from constant emails and calls, the sheer exasperation with clients and other parties, the emotional hooks, the way thoughts and conversations are frequently dominated by a case or cases, the collapse at the end of the day. I have no question that all of those things are actually a testament to how fulfilling she finds this work. For me, it would be a testament to being sucked up, and feeling stuck. I’m at a point where I want energy at the end of the day and the ability to put work on the shelf when I leave the office and focus on the hobbies and relationships by which I define myself (implausible for any job, but something closer to that).
2. The litigation process. I am amazed by how unprepared, unprofessional, incivil, and generally inappropriate other attorneys can be within that framework. Some give their clients free range to do the crazy things that brought on divorce in the first place. Some buy into their client’s conflict as if it were their own, Others are so vacant and uninvolved in even communicating with their clients that theoretically easy cases and agreements fall apart. I have always wanted to build an ADR practice, but have yet to really find traction with this, and so the worries about getting sucked into this system persist.
3.To say nothing of the insanity of some of the clients and other parties themselves. Sure, in divorce people are often at their worst, but we have this influx of DSM classifiable nervous breakdown categories that is just astounding and futile to work with. With this comes an olio of emergencies with immediate deadlines and needy clients flinging frustration and recrimination our way when the mood strikes, and often vanishing when we need something from them to move their case forward.
4.The uncertainty. Divorce is expensive, and rightly so. But you can never tell if it’s expensive to the clients or the attorneys. I spend hours working for clients who are unlikely to ever be able to pay. We have clients who owe the office more than my annual salary. You forgive what you can in exchange for getting paid what you can, but even still. Similarly with the deadlines, the tendency of clients to put off doing anything until they need something now, and emergencies, work itself often can be deluge or drought for me.
But speaking of uncertainty, my future is impendingly up in the air. While the wedding plans continue to gel, every once in a while, we both have to stop and realize "wow, we kind of both don't know where our lives will be in just about seven months now." There's no clear "this time next year" given all the mutual contingencies intervening between then and now. I've said that if we move by a bit, I intend to keep on working here with a mix of commuting and remote access. If we move very far away, who knows? And where we move is all about where the jobs are for Andrew, but also for me. If he can afford for me to work less, the job market for me is more or less important for a moving choice... etc. etc.
I add that because of course, it does affect what I would consider the final part of an evaluation: the next steps. In the short term, those are certainly carrying on building my skills, sharing my ideas of what I would like to see in a practice and a dissolution process, keeping eyes open for opportunities to expand my horizons. But I'm not setting a goal for anything like a year out just yet. Other than you know not having been incarcerated for killing a feisty client or attorney... that goals I can embrace.
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