CBA Record March-April 2023

YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION: ADVICE FOR YOUNG LAWYERS

What Teaching Taught Me About Succeeding as an Attorney By John Anders

I am grateful to the students, professors, employers, and colleagues who helped shape me as a young professional and who continue to guide me as a young attorney. Before becoming a lawyer, I taught middle school math and social studies in Mississippi and later taught high school math at a Chicago charter school. After law school, I worked for the Chicago Public Schools Law Department. Because many of the best habits I strive to practice stem from my time as an educa tor, I’d like to share a few that helped my transition from teacher to new lawyer. Be Patient Patience is key from the perspective of a teacher. For example, a topic no one understood in yesterday’s lesson may be next week’s “Aha!” moment. Similarly, some students may never feel comfort able with the unit on logarithms, but next month’s unit on trigonometry just clicks. School years are long. Losing one’s cool at every opportunity does little more than drain energy and mental health. As a veteran teacher, I knew that patience paid off throughout the school year. In hindsight, I wish I had as much patience with the matters and cases I handled as a new attorney. It never paid to dwell on the minor frustrations of a case – a lost motion, a challenging opposing counsel, a nuance in the law I failed to grasp (or for which I did not find supportive case law). In both teaching and litigation, one can only control so much. Trust that your preparation and planning will pay off in the end. Follow Through It is difficult to build credibility with middle and high school students. Cred ibility is, unfortunately, also much easier to lose than to establish. This is why it was always important to follow through on what I told students. If I planned a

quiz at the end of the week, I would not reschedule it on a whim. The same was true for disciplinary warnings—empty threats were a quick way to lose the class room management battle. Similarly, as a lawyer, I work to build a foundation of trust and respect with clients and partners by staying true to my word as much as possible. Take work product, for example. If I tell a partner or a client that I will have a brief or report to them by a certain day (or range), I do everything I can to make that happen – or communicate about challenges I’m experiencing along the way. Practically, you must balance follow ing through against over-promising and under-communicating your workload. Remain realistic, and you will develop a reputation of reliability with your clients, colleagues, and partners. Communicate Consistently A culture of responsiveness in the class room goes a long way in establish ing positive rapport with students and administrators. Students will know they can depend on a teacher who reads and thoughtfully responds to their emails promptly. As a teacher, I had a rule to respond to any communication within a specific timeframe. As an attorney, I understand that there will be times in which a workload or caseload is not conducive to such prompt, thoughtful responses, especially for matters lower on the priority list. There is still value in developing a reputation for communicat

ing consistently, though. Not only is it ethically required with clients, counsel, and courts, it is the right thing to do and good business practice. For clients and colleagues, a prompt reply that communi cates the message was received and estab lishes a timeline for a more substantive response as soon as possible will maintain your reputation of responsiveness without sacrificing work product. Practice Gratitude Staff at my school regularly encouraged students to show signs of gratitude, and I began leaning into the practice more. It was interesting to see how surprised some recipients were by a sincere “Thank you.” As a new attorney, I quickly found that I had a lot of learning to do – not only from my attorney colleagues and leaders, but also from my clients. I tapped into the breadth of legal expertise held by my mentors and the knowledge of the trade held by more veteran clients familiar with specific professional norms to grow as an advocate in my practice area. Expressions of specific gratitude to my colleagues (e.g., “Thank you for walking me through wit ness prep for the first time.”) or to a client (e.g., “Thank you for explaining that aspect of your profession.”) build respect in your relationships with those individu als and establish that you value their time. Accept a Growth Mindset I used to encourage students to make their mistakes on homework problems

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