Being a great associate is overrated
And why most advice about how to succeed at a law firm is incomplete
One of my goals with this newsletter is to share unspoken truths about the legal profession that I wish I knew when I was a young lawyer. An opportunity came up last week when I came across a Reddit thread about how to be a great associate. I shared on Twitter my skepticism about most of the content of this type of advice, and received some (respectful) pushback from many law firm lawyers. Today I’ll be sharing their counterpoints and my responses.
Earlier this week I posted a tweet suggesting that most advice given to juniors about how to “be a great associate” is incomplete.
The tweet generated more buzz that I expected, probably because there was a lot of pushback, mostly from the law firm partners. The counterpoints fell into four general categories. They’re highlighted below, along with my responses to these counterpoints:
Counterpoint 1: “This is good advice because that’s what I did, and I was promoted to partner”
The most important factor to making partner is having a strong sponsor who provides valuable work assignments, advice, and support. Not excelling at the basics. However, the true impact of the sponsor is often not obvious to partners and rising stars, who may attribute their promotion to other factors such as paying close attention to detail or doing grunt work.