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In my experience as an associate, mistakes (careless or otherwise) are a very normal part of the learning curve, and yet we fear making them for obvious reasons.

So I’ll kick this off: What mistake has made you kick yourself the hardest thus far? Any repercussions? How did you talk yourself down from any panic?

For me, it was probably when I sent a draft agreement to the incorrect party who happened to have the same name as our client’s contact. The partner fortunately told me to put it out of sight and out of mind, because it wasn’t a huge deal.

Even partners and other senior attorneys make mistakes - I'm in-house and have seen things from small typos to bad legal advice that can be expensive to fix.

Without a doubt my biggest mistake was misspelling a very important person's name wrong on a very important, very public document. In my defense, I was home puking when I drafted it and it was vetted by two others who also missed the typo. Oh well.