Probably dumb question.Concerned about my work skills in law Forum

[JDeezy]

Going to LS... Hoping to do BigLaw for a couple years.

In my current job I feel like I'm a good employee, but my personality is definitely not to be super anal about small details. I'll send out emails with typos and occasionally forget a minor task.

I will obviously try my best in LS and the legal world to be attentive to details, but knowing my personality I know I won't be able to keep up with the most buttoned up ones of us in the world. There's gotta be more to being a lawyer than NEVER MESSING UP EVEN A SMALL THING! right???

[manofjustice]

Going to LS... Hoping to do BigLaw for a couple years.

In my current job I feel like I'm a good employee, but my personality is definitely not to be super anal about small details. I'll send out emails with typos and occasionally forget a minor task.

I will obviously try my best in LS and the legal world to be attentive to details, but knowing my personality I know I won't be able to keep up with the most buttoned up ones of us in the world. There's gotta be more to being a lawyer than NEVER MESSING UP EVEN A SMALL THING! right???

You get better at attention to detail as you go through law school.

[anattorney]

This is not a dumb question. Yes, there is more to being a lawyer than the nitpick details but honestly, the nitpicky details are a very big deal. Especially in biglaw. (During my brief stint in biglaw, a partner gave us a half hour long lecture on the dangers of misplaced commas.) In all areas, practicing law depends on being in compliance with rules, rules, rules, complicated and endless and nitpicky rules. If this sounds like something you would hate, you need to give that some weight in your decision.

[Danger Zone]

The whole point of the legal profession is to nitpick every little thing that nobody else gives a shit about.

[banjo]

One of my professors said that missing a deadline is a litigator's worst nightmare. If things like that are a problem, I would get into the habit of using Google Calendar (or something similar) right now.

[mr. wednesday]

You can force yourself to better at not making typos or not forgetting projects through re-proofing things and utilizing a calendar heavily, but if that's against your natural personality it might be worth thinking not only whether you'd be good at law but whether you'd actually enjoy doing it. If you are more of a big picture kind of person, there are a lot of law jobs that will make you unhappy, particularly in biglaw.

[TheSpanishMain]

I've wondered about this myself, since I tend to struggle with the same things. I think I'm overall a good employee, but sometimes I can be a little disorganized and whatnot.

I think the thing with the typos is the context. If you're sending an email to a peer that's just "Hey, here's the attachment you asked about, want to get some lunch in an hour?" then who cares if you have a few typos. If it's going to your boss, hopefully you proofread and polish.

[Void]

Lawyers make mistakes all the time. Hell, it's not even hard to find mistakes in SCOTUS opinions. There is a particular focus in this profession upon avoiding screwups, but lawyers are just as flawed as everyone else.

I agree with the poster who said that law school will teach you to be more careful, though.

[Anonymous Associate]

It will depend who you work with, but you will more likely than not run into neurotic more-senior-associates and partners. I admit that I am one of them. That being said, people make mistakes, even the most careful. There are mechanisms to correct mistakes, even after docs are filed with the court.

But continual small errors drive neurotic attorneys crazy. For example, things like not using Times New Roman, not putting commas in the correct place in corporate names, sometimes using an Oxford comma and sometimes not using it, not having consistent spacing after sentences, using old versions of the case caption in generating documents, using old versions of letterheads to generate letters, putting a period after et in et al., not replying to email/not being able to keep up with your inbox, getting deadlines wrong even before the deadline occurs, not using consistent capitalization for abbreviated terms, not using consistent case citation format, etc. all DRIVE ME INSANE. People like me are far from uncommon, so be prepared for us.