3 Rules for New Lawyers (How to be a Great Law Firm Associate)
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- Out of law school, Brett had no idea what it took to be a successful lawyer. He was a summer associate at a "Big Law" firm (Skadden Arps), although that only helped so much. He still had all the usual questions -- what do lawyers really do each day? What are law firm partners looking for in their law firm associates?
So, to help out new lawyers starting their journey just out of law school, here are three rules (tips) for you to be successful as a lawyer (particularly as a law firm associate).
Watch the video and let us know what you think.
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Have questions? Book a call, and talk to Brett today:
clarity.fm/brettcenkus
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You can reach Brett through:
clarity.fm/brettcenkus
/ brettcenkus
/ bcenkus
www.cenkuslaw.com
braatenwoods.com
merger-resources.com
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Brett A. Cenkus has 20+ years of experience in business law, finance, and entrepreneurship. Through Cenkus Law, PC, he provides advice and services for mergers & acquisitions (M&A), securities offerings, founders’ agreements, and other general business law issues.
Through Braaten Woods, LLC, Brett helps business owners in the lower middle market ($2MM - $25MM) position themselves for sale, find buyers, negotiate, and close M&A deals.
Brett also maintains merger-resources.com, a site packed with free articles, videos, checklists, deal diagrams, template contracts, and other tools to help pass M&A knowledge to others.
Brett regularly consults with entrepreneurs and invests his own capital as an angel investor.
From 2010-2013, Brett served as Chief Legal Counsel of a publicly-traded international oilfield services company. From 2001 to 2006, he and a partner founded and built Paragon Residential Mortgage. Bridge Investments acquired Paragon in 2006.
Brett holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania.
Brett lives in Austin with his wife, Cathryn, and two children. He enjoys reading, squash, classic movies, great food and wine, and the New England Patriots.
#corporatelaw #mergersandaquisitions #businesslaw #corporatelawyer - Навчання та стиль
A lot of caffeine has been consumed in preparation for this clip.
Really appreciate you sharing this
Your baby associate is lucky. You seem like a great boss / mentor / fellow colleague. There are so many employment horror stories (including my own) that normally comprise an attorney’s first years in the profession. Had I known what it was going to be like I would have made it my full time job to vet any potential employers before committing instead of diving head first off of a jetty during low tide into a raging rip current of law.
Thank you for this video. I was a very curious, proactive kid at my first associate job and I thought I did it wrong. My senior associate even scolded me for asking dumb questions and told me why can't I just say "copy understood"! Now I know I got the right attitude as a rookie. Thank you for all your wisdom and perspective sir. Will watch more of your YT content. 😊
Yep, sounds like you had the right attitude and the wrong firm or mentors. Thank you for watching and commenting!
Great advice. Thank you, lots of love from an independent baby lawyer from Serbia :)))
really enjoyed your content! thank you so much for sharing
You're welcome. Thank you for the positive feedback!
Great video, Brett. Thanks for the insight!
you're welcome!
Thank you for taking the time for this advice
you're welcome
Thanks for this! I'm a young atty so it was a great video to watch
you're welcome!
Very perspective and insightful video!
thank you, Paul
Thank you! You hand-hold and explain in a very kind and empathetic way! Thank you!
You're welcome, Sakshi.
Hi, Brett- I worked as a weekend legal asst. at Skadden in DC during law school and my ex worked there for a year. Thanks for sharing your advice here.
You're welcome!
Really enjoy your videos. Keep it on
thank you. Will do!
Thank you so much for this video!!
you're welcome, Chelsea!
Actually I'm a french student and your videos are very inspirational to me. Thank You Brett!
you're welcome, Pierre. Thank you for the positive feedback!
Great video!
Thank you for this!
You're welcome!
Thanks for sharing your experience, Brett. Good video 👍🇮🇩
Glad you enjoyed it!
Love the videos! I've just graduated undergrad and I'm looking to go to law school in a few years to become a corporate lawyer.
thank you for the feedback, Kaushal!
Hi, Kaushal! I know this is an older post, but if you're still interested in learning more about law school, law firms, and being a lawyer in general, I make videos on all of that stuff -- come check them out! :) @associatetribe
I'm still in IB and trying to get in to a top 10 university. majoring in foreign language "Spanish" and minoring in psychology.
Reaching for Yale, aiming for NYU
How dumb . . . stupid advice to "work harder" and not smarter, and just "put in the hours" to look like you're doing something . . . .
@@moe433 yeah, you should work smarter, but i get what he means, you probably never worked as an associate of a big law firm for example. There A LOT of work to do, a lot. So if you just do it really quickly, trying to finish fast and go home, you will end up missing something and not doing it perfectly, working hard is as important as working smart sometimes young man.
This video is brilliant. I am starting as a junior lawyer at a private M&A practice in Australia and I found these tips to be really helpful. Could you do another video on how to improve legal skills?
Yes, I will put out more of these types of videos. I've had a long hiatus from putting out new content, although I will start up again soon.
Can you please do a video on securities law... And whether they should be good with maths and what they actually do...
Hey Brett. Big fan. I graduated law school in the last May, during my college years I know that I would like to be a business attorney. Therefore I am now involved with Capital Market Authority (in my country) and I have been wondering if the CFA program would help me to become a better business attorney? Having second-thoughts since it requires an equal effort of a master degree! Thank you, cannot wait to hear your input on this and keep up the great work!
Thank you, Wahab. I'd put the CFA in the category of helpful, not super helpful. Some basic accounting competence helps a lot with what we do. I don't think the CFA spends much time on accounting concepts, does it? I suspect you'll get a good bit of corporate finance concepts and those would help, for sure. And, overall, anyone who gets their CFA will not be afraid of the numbers, which I think is part of what hampers some corporate attorneys -- fear of what they don't know, intimidation from concepts that aren't familiar. It sounds funny given that corporate lawyers are well-educated and learn a lot of difficult concepts, although we're all human and I think some minds shut down more easily than others. So, not having fear of the numbers is helpful. Overall, though, I think you'll spend time on a lot of concepts that don't have much relevance in my world and could probably get what you need through another path with less time/effort. So, go for it if the CFA appeals to you, although don't walk that path primarily to help you as a corporate lawyer. I think there are more direct routes.
Thanks !
You're welcome
Great insights about mentor ship. I am currently a sales rep and have been digging deep to determine if law school is my desired path. I enjoy business and would love working with all types. I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Do you feel like your law career has fulfilled a path of “entrepreneurship”?
Hi, Michael! I make videos about law school, law firms, and being a lawyer in general, and I came across your comment so I'll share with you one lawyer's opinion in case it helps! From the perspective of being a law firm associate, your career is very much an entrepreneurial path -- you are responsible for building relationships with partners (your "clients" for now), convincing them to put you on their cases and deals (selling your "services"), and providing impressive enough work product and professionalism to keep you rising in the ranks to be staffed on projects again, eventually take on your own cases and find your own outside clients, and ultimately make partner (if that's what you decide you want to do). @associatetribe
Thanks for your video. your advice could also be applied for korean associate lawyer
You are welcome. I am not shocked to hear that the info is applicable in Korea (M&A tends to be more similar than different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, probably because the concerns of buyers and sellers of businesses are fairly universal!), although thank you for telling me as I did not know.
I need a business lawyer that know something about the vendor world working in supermarkets as a middle man that buy product and sell to grocery stores
Hey! Great video! Really helped me but I got a question. I found a mentor and all but the question is directed to the 2nd(getting curious like a 3yr old). I love the idea of being curious but will I be presented as "annoying" if I did so? I haven't started the job but I will be next week.
I don't really want to be that 3yr old where asking tons of questions that it cause problems in the firm. 😂 Other than that, great video!
Adam, you need to find the right people to answer your questions. You will encounter a lot of attorneys who are annoyed by questions or threatened by them because they can't answer them, they're not sure exactly what's going on at a very fundamental level. A lot of people, not just lawyers, are going through the motions and doing what they do, more out of habit and muscle memory than anything else. They're getting by, not getting better, and most of them won't be interested in picking apart why you're doing what you're doing, why you say, "the following statements are true, correct, and complete" when "true" and "correct" are synonyms (answer: you shouldn't), things of that nature. But, you'll encounter attorneys who enjoy engaging at that level and they will appreciate your questions, especially if it's clear that you're making efforts to figure things out on your own and get better at what you do. And, of course, there will be better times to ask questions than others (e.g., after another attorney opens the learning exercise by taking 15 minutes to explain something to you vs. being up against a hard deadline to get a document out).
@@BrettCenkus Oh okay. Thanks for taking the time to reply this. Really appreciate the time and effort. But I do really hope I got the right mentor. 😆
@@adamyonghaozheng7868 I hope you do, too, although, if you do not, keep your eye out for an unofficial mentor. You will find him/her.
It's all about proper timing and having respect for the person's time. If you're already an attorney, joining listserves will be helpful instead of asking a lot of questions of the same person. Good luck!
How much did you make in your first year?
I'm from India here we have a 5 year integrated programme which has 3 years of llb in it as well I want to be a corporate lawyer what should I do for my masters if I plan on doing it from Canada
TFS!
What was your typical day as an associate at Skaaden Arps? Did it involve going to court or is that only when your are more experienced?
Aryan, as a corporate associate, I worked on business transactions -- drafting contracts for companies to merge, raise capital, things like that. So, I never went to court then. The litigation associates go to court. That said, most litigation work takes place outside court -- researching the law, writing briefs and motions, advising clients on strategy, and negotiating with opposing counsel. And, even when litigation does involve being in court, given the dollars at stake and complexity of issues, litigation associates may not actually speak in court (e.g., argue a motion) for years and years.
Hey Brett, i really enjoyed your video. Kind of unrelated to this video specifically but i'm in a difficult Law School situation and i would like to get your opinion on it. I am about to start law school in the fall. Although i don't know what area i would like to practice in, i have a vague idea that i would like to become a civil litigation attorney and eventually have my own private practice. I want to live in Los Angeles. I've been accepted into UCLA Law School and Loyola Law school Los Angeles, with Loyola law school Los Angeles offering me nearly a full ride, and UCLA giving me a 30% discount (100k remaining, at least 50k of which i would have to loan). I don't know which school to attend. My pride and the fact that i would have more/better career options is leading me to UCLA. However, many lawyers are telling me to attend Loyola if my career goal is to open a private practice. Although that is what i think i want to do, i'm only 22 and I'm not yet certain as to what i want to do. From the perspective of someone who has attended a great school and has had the experience of both working for a big firm and owning a private practice, which law school route would you suggest and why?
John, why are people telling you to got to Loyola LA based on the fact that your career goal is to open a private practice? Is it because you are more likely to learn "black letter" law and more practical lawyering skills there vs. at UCLA? That may be true. It is 100% true as compared to most schools like Loyola LA vs. Yale or Harvard. I suspect UCLA is fairly similar and that they teach a lot more theory. At top schools, they figure you'll learn what you need to learn eventually and, frankly, no one comes out of law school ready to practice on day 1 anyway. And, top schools are interested in grooming thinkers and people who will shape the future of law. Absolutely true fact -- our professor didn't even mention a tort in our torts class. Nothing. We didn't learn any tort law. We studied/analyzed the value of a negligence standard vs. strict liability from a societal standpoint, specifically the overall benefits and economic implications of one vs. the other. Did I feel short-changed? Not at all. I did have a bit of catch up to do when studying for the bar! We still had our share of more traditional teaching and some practical classes, although no teacher at Harvard teaches to the bar exam. They aren't worried about keeping their pass rate up and things that maybe some other schools are. If that's not why they're saying to go to Loyola LA, I'd be interested what is the reason. If that is the reason, I wouldn't put much stock in that. Aside from being a little more prepared for the bar exam, I don't think you'll have any meaningful benefit from a curriculum that is more "practical." The vast majority of every single legal position, associates in Big law and solo practitioners, is learned primarily on the job. that's the nature of law school. There is far too much to learn generally and far too many wormholes and niches to run down to possibly prepare people for what they need to know. And, that's fine. The broad background and being challenged to think well and rubbing shoulders with people who are more intellectually rigorous has a lot of value. I knew a girl who passed up Yale for a full ride at UT and, if the only consideration were money and job performance, that was a horrendous decision. Now, there are other things to consider in the world and perhaps there were more personal reasons. But, back then even spending $100K vs. nothing wouldn't justify her decision. The only possible exception here is if you were thinking about a career in non-profit law or lower level teaching or something where you could struggle to get the loans paid back ($100K isn't nothing but it's manageable for just about anyone). With you, I suspect that 10 years out of law school, that money won't look like much (the difference you're facing). Granted, UCLA isn't Yale, and at some point the actual value of the education and network and the perception of others in the world falls off quickly, making the money a more important driver. I don't think that's the case here, though. UCLA is a great school. You'll have great teachers, smart classmates who do great things in the law. And, you will at Loyola LA, too, although pound for pound, it will be a noticeably different caliber of student. You can count on that. So, focusing only on the money and the impact on your career, I'd borrow the money and get the significantly better education and more impressive school name.
Thank you so much Brett for your insight and detailed explanation. I will take your advice and start my legal education at UCLA in the fall. Your wisdom is very appreciated. @@BrettCenkus
@@johnharry1321 you're welcome!
@@johnharry1321 Glad you chose UCLA! I have friends who went there for law school & it has a much better reputation than Loyola. Hope it is going well.
Move your hands more... haha
Great video!!!
thank you!