Bench & Bar May/June 2025

TIPS FOR NEWER ATTORNEYS

and mentors. More often than not, people are always willing to help; you just have to ask for it. Finally, just like you would study before class in law school, you should find time to study good writing. If you are working at a law firm, you likely have access to the firm’s network that is full of good writing; simply reading those memos, letters, or pleadings will help you. If you’re working at a court, you can read recent opinions or old opin ions written by a respected judge. You could even follow the news to see strong pleadings and opinions that are published daily. There is simply no substitute for studying when you are trying to keep learning. CONCLUSION At the end of the day, our profession is better when we all work together to lift each other up. You can advocate for your clients while still being professional and collegial with your colleagues and adver saries. When attorneys create comfortable environments with room to improve with out conflict and unnecessary competition, we all win. When you trust the attorneys that work for you, the work is better. The time you invest now to improve yourselves and those around you will continue to pay dividends to your clients, your firm, and even your colleagues. We should all keep working to be better writers, better lawyers, and better colleagues.

provide overall comments about arguments that can be added to a paragraph, facts that should be considered, places that need more legal support, etc. Then you would give the attorney back their draft with your com ments (not revisions) to give the attorney a second try. Then you rinse and repeat until the draft is complete. This is the most effective way for an attorney to learn how to adjust their writing style. However, often you will have to just revise a brief and file it. But just because you are making the changes doesn’t mean you can’t still use this opportunity as a teaching tool. At the bare minimum, just turn on your track changes when you are revising or rewriting. If the redlines impact your drafting, then change the settings to show “no markup” and you won’t even see the edits, but you have still preserved them for the original drafter. This means that after the filing, you can send your revisions to your associate so they can see exactly what changes you made. Ideally, you would also have the capacity to sit down together to discuss the goals of whatever was drafted, what lacked, and how things can be better in the future. Either way, the newer attor ney will have the opportunity to learn what could have been better. Too often, instead of focusing on training new lawyers, supervisors tend to focus only on trying to find the reason for poor writ ing or trying to make the newer associate write only as they would. This is simply not useful in practice. The number one goal in legal writing should always be effective communication for the intended audience. That means that there are many ways to pro duce a good product and our goal is to find one of them, not to force other attorneys to write to our preferences. To do so, you should focus your feedback on more than just a broad criticism, instead providing direct, specific, and constructive feedback. 4 Try to avoid waiting until an annual review to discuss multiple assignments; feedback is more helpful when it is tailored to a specific written work product rather than gener ally about the attorney themselves. Most importantly, think about what advice helped you or would have been helpful if you had received it. Remember that your goal is to help new attorneys become self-sufficient and exemplary members of this community.

While it is important for more senior attor neys to help, it is also not enough for newer associates just to rely on older attorneys for their own growth. Because even if a senior attorney takes the time to teach, the newer attorney must be receptive to that advice and then take their own initiatives to con tinue to learn. As a new attorney, the best thing you can do is continue to ask for constructive criticism in response to your work product. If you have a meeting with a supervisor, prepare to ask specific questions regarding writing skills so you can develop a plan to improve. 5 You are the best advo cate for yourself in this career; using every person and every opportunity available to you is the best way to become a better attorney. Kentucky, like many states, has a CLE requirement that makes it easy (and nec essary) for you to keep learning. Every year, you can find a seminar on best writ ing practices or how to be more persuasive. I cannot more highly recommend taking every such seminar you can. While large group seminars are not a substitute for individual learning, 6 taking initiative to learn from experts in the field is always beneficial. You can also use these opportu nities not only to learn but to network with other attorneys that can serve as resources

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ALEXANDRA J. SIPES is an assistant professor of Legal Research and Writing at the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law. Prior to joining UK Law, she was an associate attorney in Northern Virginia where she litigated a wide range of civil mat ters, including professional malpractice defense, personal injury defense, business torts, and employment disputes. Sipes litigated cases throughout state and federal courts in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. While practicing, Sipes also served as an adjunct professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School in the Legal Research, Writing, and Analysis program as well as a coach for the Trial Advocacy Association. ENDNOTES 1 Lisa Eichhorn, The Legal Writing Relay: Preparing Supervising Attorneys to Pick Up the Pedagogical Baton , 5 J. Legal Writing Inst. 143 (1999). 2 See Kathleen Elliott Vinson, I mproving Legal Writing: A Life-Long Learning Process and Continuing Professional Challenge , 21 Touro L. Rev. 1 (2005). 3 Id . at 6, n. 20. 4 Martha Neil, The Value of Evaluations: Make the Best of the Review Process and Learn How to Become ‘One of Them,’ 90 Am. Bar Assoc. J. 56 (Dec. 2004). 5 Vinson, supra note 2, at 40. 6 E. Joan Blum and Kathleen Elliott Vinson, Teaching in Practice: Legal Writing Faculty as Expert Writing Consul tants to Law Firms , 60 Mercer Law Review 761, 775 (2009).

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