3Ls will graduate with the expectation of starting at a law firm or other legal venues in the Fall. First and second year students will go off to internships or summer associate positions. It will be a whole new world for all of them. They will be entering new territory with new rules and expectations. It will be very exciting for sure, with new possibilities to explore. It also will take some preparation to enter those new environments and succeed from Day One.

According to my readers, that preparation is all included in my book New Lawyer Launch: The Handbook for Young Lawyers (Full Court Press, 2023). I hope you will get a copy and prepare yourself. From chapters on “Getting Off to a Strong Start”, “Establishing Work Priorities,” “Being Sensitive to Office Politics” “Protecting Your Work Product” to “Being a Valuable Team Member” and so much more, it is all there, waiting for you. You can read a few chapters for free on Amazon, so give it a try.

Of course, you could do it yourself without a mentor or guide. However, on the job training can be painful. Why put yourself through that? Especially when you can get the lay of the land and advice from those who have done it and succeeded, from the respected group of contributors that I have assembled for you in The Handbook. They are practicing lawyers, and their advice is invaluable.

The truth is that law firms and other law practice venues can be scary places without adequate preparation. I think we all can agree that law school and bar prep courses cannot provide the practical skills that will become critical to your success or lack of success in unfamiliar territory. And that is not a criticism of law schools. They can barely squeeze all the new developments in the law into three years as it is.

So, for what it is worth, let The Handbook for Young Lawyers be your guide. It is a good place to start, but it is not the complete story. Stay tuned for what comes next. The profession has gone through important changes and transitions since the handbook was published, and so much has happened in the interim. I am working on an update to The Handbook so I will have you covered. Keep an eye out for it later this year.

You can read excerpts from The Handbook on Amazon. Give it a try!

Throughout the near 20-year life of the Best Friends at the Bar project, I have given 100+ speeches and programs throughout the country and abroad. And many of them were given for no compensation whatsoever. I also wrote many articles for mainstream legal media and was a monthly columnist at the ABA Journal — all for free. Freebies take just as much time and effort as compensable work.

I would not blame you if you are wondering what on earth I am talking about. I can assure you that it was never that I did not know my value. Rather, it was because I took the long view. I knew that offering something for free provided the opportunity for me to engage with future audiences and acquire dedicated readers.

For you, it likely is different. Most of you are practicing lawyers and are accustomed to being paid for your time and effort. But, there are circumstances when those rules do not apply. One of those circumstances is business promotion — that thing that creates anxiety in most of you because you see it as too daunting, too awkward or too uncomfortable. So, you shy away from it. You put it off. You convince yourself that self-promotion is bad and distasteful and below you.

However it does not have to be that way. There is a new way of thinking about business promotion. It is now considered “old school” to come right out and ask a prospect for work. The hard sell model died somewhere around the dawn of The Millennium. The preferred approach today is much more subtle.

Here’s how it works. If you identify a business prospect, and AFTER you run a current client check in your firm to make sure that you are not encroaching on someone else’s turf, develop a casual relationship with the prospect that might include meeting for coffee or lunch. Discuss your lives and your work, with casual references to your practice and your firm. Afterwards when you see information that might be helpful in the prospect’s work, send it in an email. It’s still a pitch, but the kinder and gentler variety.

Business promotion is a jog not a marathon, and it has to develop over time It is an investment in people, relationships and reputation.. You need to be patient, yet also persistent in your own mind, to combat the procrastination. If it is meant to be, that approach will result in the call you have been waiting for.

And, most important, enjoy the hunt. All of your efforts will not pay off, but you only need a few successes to get the attention of the powers that be in your firm. And, when that happens, it suddenly becomes all about the money!

Throughout the struggle, we never can forget the importance of family. I was reminded of that last weekend at our Blakely family gathering in beautiful Virginia, with fly-ins from abroad by our State Department cousins. And, in July, the Smith family will convene in Montana for some fun on the ranch and catching up with the fly fishing contingent from Argentina. We always work like mad in the weeks leading up to the these events so that we can give our full attention to our loved ones while we are with them. Yet, we recognize that it doesn’t always work out that way.

In my book, The New Balance for Today’s Woman Lawyer, I offer a multitude of assists to help lawyer/moms achieve as close to a reasonable balance as possible. But I know how difficult that can be, and I do not make judgments. However, when I do hear something that sounds off kilter, I call it out.

For example, recently I read a response by a newly-minted woman law partner when she was asked “How do you juggle being a working mom?” Her response was “Sometimes things drop. Sometimes you’re going to miss things. Sometimes you’re going to miss a child’s birthday party, maybe even your own child’s.” Although I did not disagree with her, I also was pretty sure that it was the “tough” response she was after and that she had little experience sacrificing such important events. If she had, her response would have been much more thoughtful and would have acknowledged that choices like that can break a parent’s heart even if it is the right choice.

I have some experience with that. I missed my own child’s 4th birthday party because I was preparing for a trial that started the following day. I did not wear it as a badge of courage or talk about it as an example of how dedicated I was to the practice of law. I knew that sometimes you cannot avoid it, that stuff happens and clients depend on you. It does not mean that you do not love your child, but a sacrifice like that also should not be taken lightly.

So, if you had asked me that same question “How do you juggle being a working mom?” I would have answered without the bravado but with a recognition that the choices can be very, very hard. But we must be prepared to make them.

You notice that I did not say which child’s birthday party I missed. I will let my two kids duke it out over who mom loves the most. Is it the corporate lawyer or the prosecutor? I am happy to be a mere bystander on that one!

The Best Friends at the Bar book series is part of a mentoring program for young lawyers that I founded after I retired from law practice in 2006. The early books focus on the challenges for women lawyers, and the later books were written with all young lawyers in mind.

My most recent book is New Lawyer Launch: The Handbook for Young Lawyers. Here is what readers are saying about it.

“You have offered young lawyers a steady hand as they navigate the sometimes treacherous waters between graduation and a fulfilling career. You have touched real lives, real young attorneys who have walked into their first firms or courtrooms with a little more confidence because of the practical advice you have shared.”

“New Lawyer Launch is a handbook for the moment law school leaves off and real professional life begins. The transition from law school to professional practice is one of the most disorienting career shifts in any profession, and the handbook addresses it with foundational, timeless advice from contributors with strong mentorship backgrounds.”

“New Lawyer Launch matters for the first year associate sitting alone in an office at nine in the evening wondering if he or she is doing everything wrong. It matters to the law student about to cross the stage and step into a profession that gave them no roadmap for what comes next. And it matters to every young attorney who has ever needed a mentor and did not know where to find one.”

So, if you think you would benefit from that kind of help, I hope you get your hands on the book sooner rather than later. Some of you are getting ready to cross that law school graduation stage and others of you are entry-level lawyers in firms or government or corporate settings and feeling insecure about how to proceed successfully in a demanding profession. For others, gifting this book to a young lawyer is sure to be appreciated.

You never will regret becoming a Best Friend at the Bar and helping yourself or another young lawyer avoid the pitfalls of law practice while setting a strong foundation for a successful and satisfying career in the law.

What Millennial Lawyers Want: A Bridge from the Past to the Future of Law Practice is also very popular with young lawyers today, including Gen Z lawyers. That book includes lessons learned from my own mentor and challenge questions about how those lessons relate to your own experiences.

My books are available from Amazon or from the publisher on the Best Friends at the Bar website at www.bestfriendsatthebar.com.

That approach has many other applications in our lives in these uncertain times. So many people, including many of you young lawyers, are upset, angered, and threatened by the state of the world these days. They wake up every morning to news outlets reporting the dismal state of events, and they fuel their upset, angered and threatened minds without finding many things to change that outlook for the remainder of the day.

I interface with young lawyers a lot, and I know how worried many of you are about your futures right now. So many of you are worried about your professional futures in a country where the rule of law is being challenged on a daily basis, where the Department of Justice has been decimated, where the Executive Branch is attacking law firms and judges, where lawyers are losing jobs in our federal government in record numbers, and where job insecurity could easily spread to the private sector. Many of you accrued serious debt to attend law school, and now the state of the economy does not hold very good news for the present or the future. It is a lot, and it is a tough time to be starting a career.

You must find ways to deal with these difficult times. You may need help and be willing to ask for it, or you may be in a position to help others in despair. Helping others is the gift you give yourself, and these days we all could use a little something tied up with a big red bow to get through the day.

Most important of all, be good to yourself. It may be challenging for you right now, but you are up to the challenge. You have proven yourself in so many ways that you need to remember, and law school has prepared you to get up and try again. Your education and your training as critical thinkers will become very important during these trying times to help put things in perspective and to keep you on steady ground. Lawyers are problem solvers, and we know that there are many different ways to look at a set of even bad facts and fashion a positive response. Use your unique skills to get through the tough times.

We may be in for the long haul, so pace ourselves. You want to be ready to grab the first brass ring of opportunity that comes your way when the clouds part. And you can’t do that by staring at the ground.

So, I say to you, “What’s good today?” I am confident you can find something.