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Professional Development: Training the New Crop of Incoming Associates

By Sharon Meit Abrahams
September 01, 2021

The practice of law has transformed and expanded over the past 20 years. The profession has shifted to become more client focused, associates are entering at higher salaries and firms are pressured to be more efficient. All this adds up to the necessity for new associates to be productive sooner. However, young lawyers do not learn to practice law in school. They learn to do research, cite cases and think logically, but they are missing practical application of the law. This must be taught by senior lawyers. The following is a step-by-step guide for attorneys who finds themselves responsible for training new lawyers.

Adult Education

Teaching adults is not like teaching children and teaching attorneys is not like teaching other adults. Education for a billable-hour-conscious person must be direct, concise and immediately useful. Attorneys have many roles and responsibilities on the job: researcher, information giver, writer, advocate, negotiator, counselor and problem-solver. They apply their knowledge and skill daily, and they enter training opportunities voluntarily. Attorneys do not want to waste their time with training that they perceive as having no value. Attorney training must be well-defined, goal oriented, and applicable to their practice.

Within the many philosophies of adult education, there stands the one that directly encompasses lawyers: organizational effectiveness. In the United States, a large segment of adult training is conducted in business and industry, most of which is geared toward the bottom line and is concerned with teaching skills that improve profitability. All training conducted in the context of a law firm is for the purpose of improving client relationships and subsequently increasing revenues.

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