Starting a career in law can seem daunting. Luckily, there is a wealth of resources available to help graduates navigate this layered path, from mentorships to continuing education.
James Carman
Director of Communications, American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI)
Maybe you’re still in law school or perhaps you’ve just graduated. Either way, congratulations — just don’t think that your legal education ends when you get your degree.
For most young lawyers, that’s when you learn the hard news that law school didn’t teach you everything you need to know to be a good lawyer. Now that you’re in a firm (or trying to join one), you must get up to speed quickly — and to succeed, you’re going to have to learn how to acquire knowledge and how to keep acquiring it, or you’re going to get left behind by your competition. Some of that competition might be sitting right next to you.
The good news is that there are lots of resources available to help you gain that knowledge-edge. What follows are a few possibilities. (Pro tip: Try them all!)
Join an association
National associations can be a great source of information on all aspects of law. American Bar Association (ABA), for instance, has an entire Young Lawyers Division. It’s chock-full of handy resources for new lawyers, including podcasts, videos, webinars, and more, all aimed at providing practical, real-world knowledge to take you beyond the more abstract and theoretical law you learned in the classroom. (They even have strategies for helping you pay off that hefty student loan you may have accumulated.)
American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) — where, full disclosure, I work — has more specialized resources, as you might expect, on the curious subset of law dealing specifically with bankruptcy and insolvency. But it, like other organizations such as Turnaround Management Association (TMA) or the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), offers many other invaluable intangibles to attorneys beginning their careers: endless networking opportunities.
Joining an association allows you to connect with experienced professionals at conferences, in member committees, or working together on some kind of joint project — perhaps writing an article for an association journal or speaking on a panel. These kinds of relationships can have a profound impact on a young lawyer’s career, allowing them to form real connections with other professionals that can yield valuable tips and advice. But they can also provide concrete career-connected leads that can grow into actual billable hours.
In bankruptcy, to cite just one example, a firm based in New York might have a case being filed in Texas. They’re going to need a locally based attorney to assist with certain aspects of the case and, if their firm doesn’t happen to have a Texas-based office, they will need to identify and hire someone. “Maybe that bright young woman from Dallas I met when attending a conference…what was her name? Ah! I can just look it up in the ABI member database!” (Pro tip: Many organizations offer steep discounts to law students and recent graduates, not just on membership but on conference attendance as well.)
Keep taking classes
Most states require lawyers to complete a certain number of hours of continuing legal education (CLE) to remain in good standing as practicing attorneys. The requirements vary state to state, but there are practical reasons why lawyers need to keep abreast with changing aspects in the law, legal forms, and other developments — artificial intelligence, anyone? — that have profound effects on their profession. Many states also mandate that a certain number of hours of CLE cover legal ethics.
Fortunately, there are many organizations, both public and private, that offer continuing legal education. Some of these include:
- State and local bar associations
- Law schools
- Private accredited providers such as Practising Law Institute, Lawline, and LexVid
- Other national associations, such as ABI and NACBA
Many law firms — particularly larger ones — acquire firm-wide licenses that allow their practitioners to access CLE through licensed providers, but often the costs for accredited CLE are not that steep. But if you really want to learn the best information, from the best people, you should scrutinize the credentials of the people leading the session. (Pro tip: Experience makes a difference.)
Read a book
Sometimes the best information comes in the most traditional containers. There are a lot of very good books on the market that can teach you a lot about the law, particularly the basics. That kind of foundational knowledge can go a long way when you are starting out, and specialized treatises can also help fill in gaps along the way — even for experienced professionals.
Obviously, you can find titles by doing an internet search, but it would be wiser to source texts from reputable sources. Private companies such as VLex, Thomson Reuters, Lexis/Nexis, and others are literally in the business of providing information to the legal community — both in book form and on digital databases, which often include licensed content from specialized journals.
Of course, that content isn’t free, but many law firms and law libraries subscribe to one or more of those legal information services, so chances are you might have some access to them already. ABI offers more than 100 books on all aspects of bankruptcy and insolvency law and last year introduced a very affordable digital subscription that provides access to all its books for an annual fee.
But there are many other places where you can find reams of books on almost any kind of legal matter, including some of the other associations mentioned previously, especially the American Bar Association. (Pro tip: Senior practitioners often write books to enhance their own reputation and to “give back” to the legal community.)
Find a mentor
Hollywood may love the romantic image of the maverick lawyer, but the reality is that few people succeed in the legal realm by going it alone. Most need to be shown the ropes, and the best way to do that is to get guidance from an experienced hand. That’s where mentors come into play.
Mentors come in many guises, and your first experienced teachers in the profession might not be that much older than you. Indeed, it can be extremely helpful to identify someone willing to give you a few simple tips on “lawyer etiquette” who might have been in your same position just recently: what to wear, what to say, who’s who in the firm — that kind of thing.
But the most important mentors are likely to already be at the partner level. Be honest. Those people already occupy the positions that you aspire to, so who better to advise you on the right path to follow to reach their lofty spot?
Many accomplished people, from others’ perspectives, look like they had it figured out all along, always making the right move at the right time, assuredly and confidently ascending to the top. In most cases, their success is likely due to both skill and luck — and probably also some timely advice from their own mentors.
Some legal firms have well-established mentor programs. (Pro tip: That can be a great thing to look for when trying to land a position at a firm.) If that’s the case, the hard part may already be done for you, provided you and your assigned mentor “click.” That person should be introducing you to the right people in your firm but also helping you network with bright and accomplished people outside the company. Indeed, one of the most valuable things a mentor can do for a young professional is to give them entrée into circles that can often seem very cliquey from the outside. You will have to step up when introductions are made, but the mentor can help get you over that first hurdle.
Don’t overlook possibilities for mentorship that might exist outside your firm. Groups like International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC), ABA’s Young Lawyers Division, the NextGen Program of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges — these and similar groups for young attorneys can be great places to meet and network with those in your own cohort and, perhaps, those a bit more established in the field.
What about artificial intelligence?
Great question. As a young attorney, you should be very concerned about the impact of AI — after all, why ask you for a piece of information when a partner can simply ask Claude? But while it’s true that AI has already transformed the legal landscape in many ways, it hasn’t made people obsolete. Case in point: One firm in New York in 2023 got a rude surprise (and a $5,000 fine) when they submitted an AI-written brief that contained case citations that were completely fictitious.
AI isn’t going away, but it doesn’t replicate lawyers who know the law. Yes, it’s incredibly good at sweeping away a lot of grunt work that previously tied up lots of legal hours. But, used properly, it should free up valuable hours that could be better spent figuring out how to be a better lawyer. Ultimately, that is the time when you can learn how to become the best lawyer you can be.
