Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 1:31 pm
I think it would be helpful to post some more concrete advice. Here are my (NY corporate) tips for what I think the pandemic juniors are generally handling more poorly than the non-pandemic juniors:
1. Always send a redline with your draft, along with a Word draft. If it's an interim draft, send a redline against the original precedent AND a redline against the draft the more senior associate previously reviewed.
2. If you can't do something right away, respond and let the associate know of your expected timeline, instead of leaving the email un-responded to for an entire day. This goes for both weekday and weekend emails (although you have more leeway on response time on weekends). If you're on vacation and get an assignment, remind them that you're on vacation and can handle upon your return if someone else can't get to it sooner.
3. When you go on vacation and the matter seems busy, offer to find coverage.
4. When you go on vacation, let everyone on your team know at least two weeks in advance, preferably more if you already know when signing/closing is due to take place, and then remind them again 2-3 days in advance. Put up an out-of-office message when you're out.
5. Proofread your draft before sending. Use spell check and do a defined terms check. Make sure signature page footers, draft headers, page numbers, etc. are properly formatted. Make sure font sizes, fonts, quotation marks and colors (e.g., in tables) are consistent. Make sure entity names are spelled correctly, have the correct signatories and have commas and periods in the correct places. It's very frustrating for a senior associate to be fixing these types of basic formatting issues over and over again.
6. When turning a hand markup, double check the hand markup two or three times before sending the draft. People who have issues with consistently missing comments should print out the draft and check off/highlight each change as they go through the draft. This helps make sure that nothing is missed, even if it's something tiny like an added comma.
7. If your deal is actively signing or closing, do not sign off until the rest of the team signs off or someone tells you that you can sign off. This doesn't apply to a typical day - this is only for the day that you are literally signing or closing the deal. You may also need to stay online for a few hours after signing and closing to help compile executed documents. The day of signing or closing is the day on which you need to cancel all your social plans, no exceptions. Luckily you will usually know this day in advance and can plan accordingly.
8. On a typical weekday, I would say you should generally be online from 10 AM to 6 PM at a minimum, or, if you truly have nothing to do, at least have your phone on you with notifications on loud so that you can respond promptly.
9. Gather all your questions and ask them in one email / phone call. Do not shoot off 50 one-off questions on instant message unless you're close with your senior/mid-level - that's annoying to most people. Also, make a good faith attempt to answer your own question before asking other people - many things can be answered via Google or searching precedents on the system.
10. As someone else mentioned, read all emails carefully and completely, even if they don't appear to apply to you. This will help you understand the deal, even if it seems like gibberish at first.
11. If you're a first year, I wouldn't send a task to a paralegal unless the more senior associate specifically instructs you to. If you don't know how to do an assignment yourself or have never done it before, you shouldn't delegate it, because then you won't know how to review the work from the person you delegated it to.
12. Learn what proofreading marks look like.
13. If someone gives you an assignment and you complete it, you should let the associate know and send the updated document, no matter how simple the change was. ("FYI, this has been completed - see attached.") Don't just say "OK" without sending the updated document or confirming that the task is done.
14. Ask your questions to the person directly above you. For example, if you're a first year and on a team with a third year and a sixth year, ask the third year your questions before you go to the sixth year. If the third year doesn't know, then you can go to the sixth year.
15. Do not ask for the more senior associates to re-send you documents and information that they've already sent you. Don't be lazy - just pull it from the system / prior emails yourself. This is a one-way street - they can ask you, as the junior, to send them the same documents over and over again, but you shouldn't do the same to them. Might seem unfair but keep in mind they have 10x more emails than you and way more matters / teams to manage.
16. It is your job to save down documents and keep checklists updated on a daily basis, unless told otherwise. If a document comes in from opposing counsel, you should save it, even if it's not "your" document.
Just my two cents.