What makes a good lawyer? Forum

[Anonymous User]

During my time on this board, I have noticed that there is little talk regarding the qualities of a good lawyer. Most people, for instance, discuss the best way to get into a T14 with $$$ and/or the best path to a market paying Big Law job.

In contrast, I was wondering what separates the poor, average, and great lawyers at a big firm. As I have learned from researching the legal market, one's exit options after Big Law are - not suprisingly - contingent on the law firm you worked at and your performance at the law firm.

Thus, within a certain firm (let's say a great V10 firm), what makes a lawyer stand out? Is it general intelligence, legal acumen, the ability to work hard and withstand hours of tedious boredom, social skills/connections, luck?

[84651846190]

It's a mix of the things you mention. Success as an associate requires more of the hard work/perseverance attributes. Success at higher levels requires expertise in a field, connections, interpersonal skills, etc.

This is not a profession like medicine in which you can hang a shingle and easily rake in 200k+ every year. Lawyers who do well know how to hustle.

[pancakes3]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but seeing as how the BLL isn't hard in law school, I wouldn't imagine the BLL to be hard in practice either. So if everyone is on an even playing field with respect to the law - both in school and out of school - the difference between what makes a good/bad lawyer is made at the margin and everyone more or less is a "good" lawyer?

Just like there's not much difference between a good law exam and bad exam, I don't expect there to be much of a difference between a good and bad lawyer. However, there are major differences between a successful and unsuccessful exam/lawyer.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but seeing as how the BLL isn't hard in law school, I wouldn't imagine the BLL to be hard in practice either. So if everyone is on an even playing field with respect to the law - both in school and out of school - the difference between what makes a good/bad lawyer is made at the margin and everyone more or less is a "good" lawyer?

Just like there's not much difference between a good law exam and bad exam, I don't expect there to be much of a difference between a good and bad lawyer. However, there are major differences between a successful and unsuccessful exam/lawyer.

I used to think there was no difference between a good and bad lawyer. Working as a 3L in two clinics, however, we had lawyers on the other side who were horrendously bad (poorly written briefs, missed obvious arguments for their clients, failed to allege obvious claims). I can believe that in big law the difference between a "good" and "bad" associate might simply come down to whether a person is willing to work very hard and meet deadlines. But I think if you are talking about all the attorneys in a state the difference between the bottom 10% of attorneys and the top 10% of attorneys will be huge, because the bottom 10% cannot write or even understand nuanced aspects of the law.

[OklahomasOK]

During my time on this board, I have noticed that there is little talk regarding the qualities of a good lawyer. Most people, for instance, discuss the best way to get into a T14 with $$$ and/or the best path to a market paying Big Law job.

In contrast, I was wondering what separates the poor, average, and great lawyers at a big firm. As I have learned from researching the legal market, one's exit options after Big Law are - not suprisingly - contingent on the law firm you worked at and your performance at the law firm.

Thus, within a certain firm (let's say a great V10 firm), what makes a lawyer stand out? Is it general intelligence, legal acumen, the ability to work hard and withstand hours of tedious boredom, social skills/connections, luck?

Writing ability, dedication, and networking. If you're good at all three, the rest falls into place.

[yost]

During my time on this board, I have noticed that there is little talk regarding the qualities of a good lawyer. Most people, for instance, discuss the best way to get into a T14 with $$$ and/or the best path to a market paying Big Law job.

In contrast, I was wondering what separates the poor, average, and great lawyers at a big firm. As I have learned from researching the legal market, one's exit options after Big Law are - not suprisingly - contingent on the law firm you worked at and your performance at the law firm.

Thus, within a certain firm (let's say a great V10 firm), what makes a lawyer stand out? Is it general intelligence, legal acumen, the ability to work hard and withstand hours of tedious boredom, social skills/connections, luck?

Writing ability, dedication, and networking. If you're good at all three, the rest falls into place.

At what point , for a litigator, does oral advocacy become important? I imagine not until you're at least a fifth year?

[84651846190]

During my time on this board, I have noticed that there is little talk regarding the qualities of a good lawyer. Most people, for instance, discuss the best way to get into a T14 with $$$ and/or the best path to a market paying Big Law job.

In contrast, I was wondering what separates the poor, average, and great lawyers at a big firm. As I have learned from researching the legal market, one's exit options after Big Law are - not suprisingly - contingent on the law firm you worked at and your performance at the law firm.

Thus, within a certain firm (let's say a great V10 firm), what makes a lawyer stand out? Is it general intelligence, legal acumen, the ability to work hard and withstand hours of tedious boredom, social skills/connections, luck?

Writing ability, dedication, and networking. If you're good at all three, the rest falls into place.

At what point , for a litigator, does oral advocacy become important? I imagine not until you're at least a fifth year?

If you're talking about federal civil litigation, fifth year at the earliest. Most fifth years are not doing oral argument consistently (if at all).

It really becomes important at the of counsel/partner level. It's kind of a catch-22 in the sense that you can't make partner without oral advocacy skills (because it's one of the things that partners need to be able to do), but you don't really get that many chances at all to develop oral advocacy skills before you're up for partner.

[Serett]

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[dixiecupdrinking]

I don't at all buy the idea that BLL is not hard. Having a client come to you with an issue and identifying all the possible modes of resolving it, estimating the likelihood of success on each, assessing how the different options fit with the client's goals, and then advising them accordingly seems, like, really hard, assuming the client is not coming to you with facts that precisely mirror some case you read in torts class. And that level of analysis is only one of the things you have to do well to be a good (senior) attorney at a firm. You also have to actually execute on your advice, as well as manage associates, develop business, recruit.... Honestly it seems hard as hell to be a good lawyer in the long run at a big firm, and it takes a lot of raw horsepower, not just the willingness to stay late every night.

[rpupkin]

But I think if you are talking about all the attorneys in a state the difference between the bottom 10% of attorneys and the top 10% of attorneys will be huge, because the bottom 10% cannot write or even understand nuanced aspects of the law.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, not coming from a firm perspective (also coming from a lit perspective), but BLL is not hard in the sense that learning "Negligence = duty + breach + causation + damages" is not hard. It's looking at a real-life factual situation and figuring out what applies where that's hard. Real cases are a little bit like issue-spotting exams, but not really, because they're a lot messier, and there's nothing to tell you want to look at and when to stop looking, and then there's all the other kind of case management stuff that isn't addressed in law school at all.

Which is mostly to say that there are a LOT of bad lawyers out there. TONS and TONS. They may be less likely to be found in biglaw because there is a reasonably high barrier to entry for big firms (getting into a firm isn't a guarantee that you'll be a good lawyer, but I could buy that it means you're not flat out incompetent). But if you did a random survey of all the cases in a given courthouse on a given day, you'd probably be horrified by a lot of what's filed.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Yeah, not coming from a firm perspective (also coming from a lit perspective), but BLL is not hard in the sense that learning "Negligence = duty + breach + causation + damages" is not hard. It's looking at a real-life factual situation and figuring out what applies where that's hard. Real cases are a little bit like issue-spotting exams, but not really, because they're a lot messier, and there's nothing to tell you want to look at and when to stop looking, and then there's all the other kind of case management stuff that isn't addressed in law school at all.

Which is mostly to say that there are a LOT of bad lawyers out there. TONS and TONS. They may be less likely to be found in biglaw because there is a reasonably high barrier to entry for big firms (getting into a firm isn't a guarantee that you'll be a good lawyer, but I could buy that it means you're not flat out incompetent). But if you did a random survey of all the cases in a given courthouse on a given day, you'd probably be horrified by a lot of what's filed.

Yeah, agree 100%. The idea that there isn't "much of a difference between a good and bad lawyer" is so inaccurate it's hard to express.

There are plenty of bad lawyers in biglaw too (though for the most part I don't think they manage to stick around long term). Turns out being able to write a great 1L exam answer doesn't mean you're good at thinking critically about issues in the much more fluid situations where they arise in practice.

[CanadianWolf]

One short answer might be "The ability to get things done."

[A. Nony Mouse]

There are plenty of bad lawyers in biglaw too (though for the most part I don't think they manage to stick around long term). Turns out being able to write a great 1L exam answer doesn't mean you're good at thinking critically about issues in the much more fluid situations where they arise in practice.

Will defer to the biglawyers on that. I do suspect most biglawyers can actually write a coherent sentence, which I have seen non-biglaw people fail at. But that would be a pretty low bar to set for competence.

[los blancos]

The luck element is huge. just the cases you get staffed on and partners you get to learn from/work with determines so much of how your career evolves and is largely out of your control.