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Being lawyers, many of us suffer from the tendency to believe we can service all of our clients needs, whatever they are and wherever they take us. I think part of the reason is that, as professionals, we naturally like to control everything, and the thought of relinquishing any little bit of control causes anxiety. I suspect another reason has to do with a worry that other lawyers are direct competitors, even if their practices differ geographically or in terms of subject matter.

I hesitate to suggest that we’re worried the other lawyer will do a better job for our client (though they might), but it’s scary to think another firm, even if hired as a partner in a particular case or project, will take the opportunity to aggressively pursue our client, to take it/them away from us permanently.

Yet another concern could arise from a fear that, if we involve another professional and they do a less-than-stellar job or overcharge our client, or both, it will reflect poorly on us. It surely will, on some level, at least if we are involved in selecting and/or hiring the associated professional.

On a purely rational level, we know these concerns shouldn’t prevent us from doing what’s best for our clients. If that means hiring a tax specialist because a deal or case raises issues outside our skill set, it’s generally a no-brainer decision. Similarly, if I’m a litigator licensed only in California and I’m handling a case in, say, Nevada, which requires the involvement of a lawyer who is both licensed and venued in Nevada, even if I am admitted pro hac vice, I won’t let my poaching fears prevent me from doing the right thing.

But what about a borderline case. For example, I most often practice in the Los Angeles area. I know the courts, the procedures and many of the judges in LA, Orange County, Ventura, Santa Barbara (because I actually live in SB), Riverside and San Bernardino. If I am assigned to handle a case in Bakersfield, or Fresno, or even San Diego, should I be thinking about hiring local counsel in those venues?

I want to suggest the answer is yes, I should at least think about whether it makes sense to involve a local counsel in any case that I’m planning to handle that is as far away as Bakersfield is from LA, even if, after I think about it, I conclude it is unnecessary. In other words, it is an issue that should be spotted and resolved just like any other.

I recognize this doesn’t really advance the ball, because it doesn’t provide any guidance when one should, not only consider hiring a local lawyer, but actually do it. Here are some thoughts on this bigger question.

1. Hire local counsel when you have reason to believe you will be “home-towned.” What does this mean? I see “home-towned” as any instance in which your client could suffer prejudice from the fact you are foreign to the jurisdiction. This is not always readily apparent, and could require some impression gathering from colleagues or acquaintances. I’ve long heard, for example, that judges and juries in San Diego do not receive Los Angeles lawyers well. I could speculate forever on the genesis of this (assuming it is true), but I’ve heard it over and over.

Now, this does not mean I think it’s necessary to hire a local San Diego lawyer or firm  every time I have a case pending there. Rather, it is more likely that I would only hire someone local if my case was clearly headed to trial, or if there was some unusual issue that made me think my client would benefit at all from having someone local there with or instead of me. The possible scenarios are endless. It’s a judgment call.

2. Hire local counsel when you’re in a venue that has strange or unfamiliar procedural rules. In California, we are required to comply with the California Code of Civil Procedure, the California Rules of Court, the Local Rules of the county and, often, the judge’s own rules. And we hope none of these conflict. Sometimes we encounter a county or judge with some bizarro rules about how things must be filed or served, or both. I can tell you there is nothing more comforting than being able to pick up the phone and talk to someone who regularly appears in the particular court, before the particular judge.

3. Hire local counsel when it’s otherwise a good idea and you can hire someone whom your judge knows and respects. This can be particularly important if your opposition knows the judge well.

4. Hire local counsel when you expect the entire jury will speak with an accent you don’t have. I’ll admit to occasionally having Southern Drawl Envy. You know what I mean if you’ve ever had to speak at a conference and follow some smooth-talking  storyteller from South Carolina or Georgia or someplace. It can be humbling to realize how utterly ordinary we sound.

5. Hire local counsel when there’s a reason to think some past event or news will cause your client to suffer geographical prejudice. Did your client just shutter a factory in the town where you’re about to start trial, putting hundreds or thousands out of work? You’re going to need to deal with that, and a local perspective will be valuable.

One final word. The verb “hire” as used here doesn’t mean your client needs to break the bank with yet another full-time billing machine. Often, it will suffice to have the local counsel merely available for consultation purposes, or to help pick the jury, or participate in a particular hearing.  The additional investment should be minimal and could pay dividends.

As the ink from California Governor Jerry Brown’s pen dries on Assembly Bill No. 10, which will raise the hourly minimum wage in our state to $9.00 effective July 1, 2014 (and again to $10.00 on January 1, 2016), employers need to consider the ramifications of this change beyond the obvious increase in take-home pay of hourly workers.

Here are key areas that will be impacted by the increase:

Salary Basis Test For “White Collar” Exemption – In addition to meeting other criteria to qualify as an exempt employee under one of the “white collar” exemptions (i.e., executive, administrative or professional), exempt employees must earn a salary that is at least twice the minimum wage for full-time employment. This minimum increases in July, 2014 to $37,440, and to $41,600 beginning in January, 2016.

Commissioned Sales Employee Exemption – To qualify for this exemption, employees must earn in excess of 1.5 times the minimum wage for all hours worked. This rate will increase to $13.50/hr on July 1, 2014, and $15.00/hr on January 1, 2016.

Employees Who Furnish Own Tools or Equipment – When employees are required to furnish their own tools or equipment necessary to their performance of the job, they must be paid twice the state minimum wage. This rate will increase to $18.00/hr on July 1, 2014, and $20.00 on January 1, 2016.

Calculation of Overtime, Vacation, Sick Leave, Paid Time Off and Meal and Rest Period Premiums – Employers must adjust how these are calculated to reflect the minimum wage increase.

Employer-Required Split-Shift Premiums – If an employer requires an employee to work a split-shift, the employer must pay the employee a premium, of one hour’s pay at minimum wage, in addition to the employee’s regular earnings paid for that shift. (If hourly wage exceeds state minimum wage, difference may be credited toward split-shift premium.)

Voluntary Crediting Agreements – Employers with written agreements with their employees for crediting meals or lodging expenses against the minimum wage will need to adjust this crediting to reflect the increase.

Posting The New Wage – Employers will be required to conspicuously post the new wage in an area frequented by employees where it may be easily read during the workday.

Cities With Higher Minimum Wage – Certain California cities, including San Francisco and San Jose, may impose a higher minimum wage and/or adjust their minimum wage more frequently. Employers should ensure they comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws.

Few of us aspire to be a briefcase carrier when we start law school, but that’s what many of us find ourselves doing when we first pass the bar. At least if we’re lucky. I know everyone might not share this view, but it can be pretty nice to get paid to finish the education you started in law school by carrying the briefcase for a lawyer who’s been trying cases for a while. Not everyone is a good role model just because they’ve got experience but, as I’ve said before, you can learn at least one thing from every lawyer you meet.

One of the first things I learned during my bag carrying apprenticeship was not to forget when you were in trial, or about to start a trial, that jurors, or potential jurors, are literally everywhere around the courthouse.

I learned this the hard way, of course, when I made the mistake of talking loudly about the our motions in limine with the partner as we were walking out of the courtroom. “Shhhh,” he said. I didn’t know at first what he was talking about; it seemed like we were all alone in the hallway, or alone enough, so that I could speak freely. “The walls have ears,” he said. I still didn’t understand until, a few steps later, I noticed the familiar face of one of our prospective jurors, leaning against the wall, reading a dog-eared paperback.

When we got outside, and we were very clearly alone, he said, “Remember when you’re in trial that jurors are literally everywhere. And they hear and see everything.”

I was reminded of this point last week when working with Juryology blogger Rich Matthews on drafting a post about working with jury consultants. Rich pointed out that jurors pay attention to how parties and their lawyers act outside the courtroom. Are you or your client rude or impatient in getting through the security screening process coming into the courthouse? What about in the courthouse cafeteria during lunch? It is all information and they take it into the deliberation room.

I knew about one prominent LA trial lawyer who had done well, and owned a couple of exotic cars, but would only drive his Jeep Grand Cherokee when he was in trial. He felt it was important for jurors who saw him arrive at the courthouse (or leave at the end of the day) to see him driving a sensible, American-made car.

When someone at my firm is in trial, associates are encouraged to come down to watch at least a portion of the proceedings. But they are admonished in advance to (1) dress well, (2) behave with extreme decorum in the courtroom, and (3) do nothing to create the impression they are affiliated with the firm or the client, lest the impression they create is a poor one.

I can trace four periods in my life that significantly shaped my writing.

First, I’ve always been a passionate reader. Reading the good writing of others is not only great fun, it’s indispensable for learning to write well.

Second, in college I double majored in Philosophy and Literature-Writing. These years taught me to write very quickly. In a pinch, I would often leave myself only a very few hours–sometimes only 2 or 3–to write a paper that I could have worried over for days. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this habit of procrastination–not recommended for everyone–which required me to organize my thoughts and write coherent prose very rapidly, was probably the best preparation for the writing skills I use almost everyday as a lawyer.

Third was law school. I don’t like to think that law school did much to shape my writing. I didn’t get along with the IRAC method† at first. As you can imagine, philosophers and literary thinkers tend to (1) doubt anything called a “Rule,” (2) live in the realm of “Analysis,” and (3) sometimes never get to any “Conclusion.” If you’re a law student who struggles with adapting to IRAC, I feel your pain. Take refuge in the knowledge that you’ll one day grasp the beauty of the IRAC method. You’ll master it eventually, or fail the bar exam.

I did benefit from Law Review, however. The journal experience helped me get the hang of editing the writing of others. It also helped hone my citation skills and attention to detail.

Without a doubt, the biggest influence on my legal writing has been the tireless editing and revision by my longtime mentor. For the first five or so years of my career, I always dreaded getting back any first or second draft. Would it be as consumed with red ink as the one that came before?

But he persisted and his tutelage paid off. I learned to write much more crisply and economically. My legal writing became less linguistically rich, but shorter and clearer. And while there were things he did that occasionally drove me absolutely batshit, I really appreciate the time and effort he took working with me to help develop my writing and advocacy skills. I’m now flattered on those rare instances when he seeks out my input on an issue or document.

Now I am occasionally the one with the red pen marking up someone else’s work. This is a big responsibility, and should be treated as such. I came across an interesting New York Times interview of Jonathan Klein, the C.E.O. of Getty Images. Among the issues he discussed was “leadership lessons” he learned from his time at Getty Images. He said this:

“I’ve learned a lot from my executive coach. Anytime someone came to me to show me their work, I would critique it. I would almost behave like a schoolteacher–my mother was a teacher–and bring out the metaphorical red pen. And what I didn’t appreciate at the time is that before you mess around the edges, you’ve got to say to yourself, ‘Am I going to make this significantly better, or am I going to make it only 5 or 10 percent better?’ Because in fiddling over the small stuff, you take away all the empowerment. Basically it no longer becomes that person’s work. After a while, those people get into the habit of giving you incomplete work, and then you have to do it for them.”

Heavy is the hand that carries the (not-so-) metaphorical red pen, right? At least with respect to my writing, I always felt that my mentor’s revisions made the end product “significantly better.” In other words, the red ink was clearly worth his time, my attention and the attendant blow to whatever misplaced or unearned sense of “empowerment” I had as a baby lawyer. But I recognize that I don’t always revise someone else’s work either to help make them a better writer or to make the product “significantly better.” Rather, I’m just making it sound more like I wrote it. And, as Jonathan Klein points out, that’s the wrong approach. I need–we all need–to learn to go easier with that red pen.

†For the benefit of readers outside law, IRAC means Issue, Rule, Analysis and Conclusion. It is how law students, lawyers and judges typically approach a set of facts. In a nutshell, one “spots” or identifies an Issue, articulates or recalls the Rule, Analyzes how the Rule should be applied under the particular facts, and reaches a Conclusion.

Many litigators, even those who do trial work, have only a hazy idea about how much value a good jury consultant can bring to trial preparation and presentation. I’m here, with my friend, colleague and Juryology blogger Rich Matthews, to change that. In this post I’m going to identify five ways a good jury consultant can improve your chance of winning at trial.

First, though, I want to acknowledge a challenging hurdle in getting a jury consultant involved in any case. Often, our clients hold the view that lawyers have the education, training and experience needed to do quality jury research, in addition to our day job of mastering and presenting the legal issues, so hiring a jury consultant is needlessly duplicative. Rich dispels this view right away. He says:

“Clients make the mistake of thinking lawyers should be experts in jury research, and it’s often true that the lawyer who would like to hire a trial consultant doesn’t know what to say to the client about that. I would say that it’s like hiring any other expert for the case– lawyers are skilled at the law, jury consultants are skilled at social research. They are two different disciplines entirely.”

How can you effectively use a jury consultant on your case? Here are five ways:

1. In The Courtroom During Voir Dire.

I’ve either heard it said, or said it myself, either way it’s true: selecting a jury is the least understood process of a trial. This is because most schools don’t teach it and the only way to learn is by doing it and not only are trials precious commodities these days, but judges frequently take over the function of voir dire. As a consequence, many of us are ill-prepared to do voir dire well.

Jury consultants can help in formulating the right types of questions to sound out potential reasons why your client could benefit from challenging particular jurors. “Lawyers,” Rich says, “tend to have the wrong priorities in voir dire. They prioritize arguing their case over the most important thing in voir dire which is to get jurors talking and responding to each other.”

Even if the process is spread over multiple days, such as selecting a jury for a long cause trial, everything moves pretty fast in voir dire. A good jury consultant can help slow the process, or at least help your trial team sort through the mass of data being generated in this tight time-frame, so that intelligent decisions can be made about the need for specific juror challenges.  As Rich points out, jury consultants are skilled at “tracking all the hundreds of bits of data flying in the courtroom all the time and coalescing that into judgment.”

2. In Developing A Jury Profile Before Trial.

Before anyone enters the courtroom, a jury consultant can help the trial team develop a plan for what kinds of jurors (1) they are likely to encounter in a given venue, and (2) of these, which may come into the case with particular biases that will impede their ability to receive and process evidence fairly (by “fairly” here I naturally mean in a way that is favorable to my client). As Rich says:

“While attorneys are keeping up with developments in the law and managing your cases, the best trial consultants are monitoring all kinds of public opinion data and trends. So trial consultants start out in a much better position to develop a profile for the jury for counsel to follow during jury selection.”

Thus, even if your client is resistant to the cost of having a jury consultant present in the courtroom during voir dire or other crucial parts of the trial, there may still be value in the lesser investment of involving a consultant before trial starts.

3. Working With Focus Groups.

You know those parts of the case which you’re most worried about? When the trier of fact is a panel of jurors, those parts of the case are often not legal issues, but “juror issues.” Rich notes that “easily the best way to assess your case’s juror issues, as distinct from the legal issues,” is to work with a jury consultant and one or more focus groups. “Lawyers,” Rich says, “think like lawyers and focus very closely on the precise laws, whereas jurors are more ‘gestalt’ kind of thinkers and are more interested in a broad kind of justice and morality. This difference in focus will lead lawyers to overestimate the impact of a statute/rule/jury instruction on laypeople. The only way to get on the same plane as laypeople is with a focus group.” Anyone who has done focus group research knows it’s going to yield the most valuable information–useful conclusions–if the research is directed and interpreted by someone with the proper training.

4. Case Evaluation.

Most of us, myself included, tend not to think about involving a jury consultant until after the decision to take a case to trial has been made. Rich feels this is a mistake, since we tend to develop a kind of tunnel vision about the quality of our case or defense, and pass that on to influence our clients. Instead, “it’s imperative  to consider the ‘social zeitgeist,’ or what is happening in the collective social consciousness — as well as understand the predictable places where laypeople will deviate from how lawyers think —  when valuing a case or deciding whether to take it to trial.” Good jury consultants should be able to channel into this and inform your case evaluation.

A bonus to involving the consultant earlier than later is that he or she can help you shape your discovery to fit a theme that is likely to resonate with jurors, as opposed to the more common approach of trying to pigeonhole evidence gathered at random into a theme that is developed for the first time on the eve of trial.

5. Witness Preparation.

A consultant can help prepare a witness for testimony in deposition or a trial in a way that most lawyers cannot. I’m afraid I have to agree with Rich when he says:

“Lawyers have proven woefully inadequate at witness preparation. Most lawyers think that reviewing the facts and saying ‘Just remember to tell the truth’ constitutes good witness preparation. It doesn’t. Imagine a witness who actually has skills at testifying– not just what to say, but how to say it; how not to bait the bear; how to tell his or her story to jurors. It’s so much more than just ‘Here, re-read your deposition transcript and make sure you follow it precisely or else we’re going to be in trouble.’”

Ok, I’m not that bad at witness preparation, since it’s something I’ve long recognized to be crucially important. But yes, Rich, we get the message!

One last word on hiring a jury consultant, devote the time and effort to finding a good one. As Rich says, there are “lots of mediocre consultants flooding the marketplace.”

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Lawyers, on the whole, make pretty poor business owners. Ask any MBA graduate or marketing guru. I never gave this a second thought during my first decade of practice, when I was too busy wondering why I wasn’t earning as much as some of my classmates (while admittedly earning more than others) to think about the bottom line. It turns out, however, that stars really must align in order for a billed hour to ripen into a collected greenback. A client is needed who not only can afford to pay, but who will pay. This axiom is apparently so obvious that most law schools don’t waste even a minute teaching it. Go figure.

Talk of alternative fee arrangements is all the rage. While opinions differ about which arrangements work, or are really “alternative,” I can identify one arrangement that is virtually guaranteed to fail, eventually: I call it the “hourly-contingency” model.

I was introduced to the mechanics of the hourly-contingency model by a colleague with whom I worked a few years back. I considered him a dunce then, and I remember him as one now. But I’ve come to realize that the hourly-contingency model as he structured it — however inadvertently — is actually a common practice by litigators everywhere, from solo practitioners to BigLaw firms.

Here’s what I’m talking about. A client finds her way into your office with a set of facts that simply scream for redress. It’s a business spat, a breached contract or a real estate deal gone bad. Her case is sufficiently textbook. There are promising facts on the plus side and manageable details on the negative. The biggest plus of all is a solvent defendant. You discuss costs; she’s prepared to pay. You sign her up and you’re off to the races.

Things start out well. The opposition balks at your demand. This was expected. You file a complaint, exchange discovery, some documents, emails, computer files, etc. Some key early depositions are conducted. The facts that made the case attractive remain strong and you continue to believe you can manage the negatives. But one thing does change: your client, so gung-ho to sue and so prompt to pay at the outset, has been slow to return calls and even slower to pay her bill. As soon as her A/R hits 90 days you call her in for the “talk.”

As you expected, money has gotten tight. Your client still wants to pursue the case and promises to pay, but just simply can’t right now. You extract a small check toward her A/R, send her on her way and privately vow to handle the case more “economically” going forward, at least until your client gets current.

Only your client never gets current. And your opposition decides to ramp things up, making it impossible to handle the case more economically. A few months and another “talk” with the client yield nothing, not even another check toward her now rapidly growing A/R. Well, you think, the case should settle soon, and she can get current with the proceeds …

Where the story goes from here doesn’t matter. Or, actually, it makes all the difference, and that proves my point. Either the case settles or gets tried, a favorable result is reached and the client pays up, or things don’t go well and you end up eating a substantial chunk of your bill. When this happened to my … er … colleague, he ended up eating about $80,000 in unpaid fees, not because the client did not want to pay, but because she couldn’t and he had allowed the case to get into this unfortunate posture.

The hourly-contingency case. You bill clients for your time, but there’s no guarantee you’ll collect unless you win. But it’s not a true contingency fee because there’s no bonus for a great result to justify the gamble of taking the case on contingency. It’s not what either the lawyer or the client intended, but both acted in concert, if purely through inertia, to allow it to happen.

How do you keep an hourly case from unintentionally going contingency? It turns out it’s not terribly complicated, but it does require discipline. And it begins with a retainer check. I left this out of the hypo above, and I could just hear readers muttering under their breath, “Of course there’s a retainer, right?”

I left out the part about the retainer because lots of lawyers do business with new clients without a retainer. It’s not because lawyers, even those who lack business acumen, do not understand the wisdom of collecting a retainer up front, it’s that we really don’t enjoy doing it. It’s an uncomfortable conversation. But it’s a necessary one. Lawyers who are diligent about getting a retainer fee are less likely to get stuck holding the bag if a case, a client, or both go south.

Lawyers and clients can agree to apply the retainer to the first billings, or for the funds to be held in client trust until the close of the case, and applied to unpaid invoices or refunded at that time. Beware: all but the wealthiest clients will want — and may expect — the retainer to be applied right away. But this would be no help at all in our hypothetical above. The upshot is that it takes discipline, both to ask for the retainer, and to retain the retainer until the case is closed and the client is current.

If it takes discipline to protect yourself with a retainer, it takes far greater discipline to recognize you’re sliding into the hourly-contingency situation and to cut the client off. This is particularly true if, as in our hypothetical, you share your client’s belief in the quality of her case. And could there be a more uncomfortable conversation? The temptation exists to believe if you just hang on a little bit longer the case will settle and you’ll get paid.

It’s only with discipline, by tempering that temptation, that you can prevent a case that’s headed for the hourly-contingency sinkhole from getting there. Leave this particular alternative fee arrangement for someone else.

Let me start by saying that I know that not everyone who graduates from law school aspires to be a partner in a big law firm. Or a small law firm. Or any law firm. I’m not suggesting it should be everyone’s or anyone’s goal. Many who make it a goal, and achieve it, come to believe it is overrated. I strongly feel from what I hear and read that partnership has become far less important to many than it was when I graduated (1993), and I doubt it was as important to lawyers of my generation compared with earlier generations. I recognize, then, that this post may not be equally interesting to everyone.

Now that I’ve cleared my throat and caused most readers to change the channel, what I want to say is that, if you do aspire to partnership there are far worse words to live by than J. Daniel Hull’s self-described “World Famous Bad-Ass, Annoying and Infuriatingly Correct 12 Rules of Customer Service.”

I can guess what you’re thinking. Hull’s damn Rules are meant to inform the ways attorneys provide service to their clients, not how associates should treat partners. If we adhere strictly to labels, that is true. But I want to argue that being a junior lawyer who works for, takes direction (and compensation) from and attempts to please senior lawyers is very similar to the experience of any lawyer who works for, takes direction (and compensation) from and attempts to please their customers, i.e., clients. Even if one never aspires to be a partner, then, being a good associate can still be terrific training for how to be a good customer service-oriented lawyer. And, Hull’s rules are a damn good start.

Let’s look at them.

1.Represent only clients you like.

I previously said in another post that, at first blush, this rule seems to suggest we all have the luxury to cherry pick clients. Clearly, most of us don’t have this luxury. Similarly, associates rarely have complete control over who assigns them work. On the other hand, just as lawyers can work over the long-term to shape their practices away from clients they don’t like, talented associates can try to shape their position within a firm. While it might never be possible to completely avoid working for a complete asshole, it should be possible to position yourself to work more often with senior lawyers you respect and like. If there’s more than one complete asshole, then you probably don’t want to be a partner at that firm.

2.The client is the main event.

If you get to work and interact directly with a client, that client is the main event. If not, then the partner who assigned you the work is the main event. If you wouldn’t think of filing or giving a client a document that contains typos or is otherwise sloppy (you wouldn’t, would you?), don’t think you’re going to gain traction with any partner who receives a crappy, typo-ridden document. “Gaining traction” is fancy law firm speak for “having a future.” If nothing else, have your assistant proof read everything before you give it to anybody.

3.Make sure everyone in your firm knows the client is the main event.

4.Deliver legal work that changes the way clients think about lawyers.

Here I suggest you to strive to deliver work that changes the way many partners think about many associates. I witnessed first hand during my career the erosion of how many partners regard associates. I trace it to the point in time when a handful of very lucrative Silicon Valley law firms decided to give the historically high paying New York law firms a run for their money in terms of associate compensation. This seemed to coincide roughly with the point at which late Gen X and early Gen Y law students started graduating. The buzzwords I heard a lot around that time (and I wasn’t yet a partner) was some variation of “undeserved sense of entitlement.”

The good news for associates is that many partners are now so underwhelmed with the commitment of more recent law school graduates that it’s actually not that hard to stand out. In my crude, empirically unsound and untested estimation, a Gen Y associate who puts in the same effort as earlier generations of associates could be a rock star at some law firms. On the other hand, I recognize that many Gen Y lawyers have a different sense of priorities than earlier generations, which I suspect is why partnership is not the brass ring it once was.

5.Over-communicate:  bombard, copy and confirm.

Like most clients, most partners like to be kept informed. If you find yourself working with someone who has limited tolerance for minutiae (and they’re out there) be sensitive to that and adjust accordingly.

6.When you work, you are marketing.

This is true whenever you do anything professionally, whether it’s for a client or a partner.

7.Know the client.

Know the partner. Take an interest in her practice and her clients. Think: how can I make her job/life/career easier. Take ownership of cases, deals or assignments and try to think how you can contribute more to the big picture. Don’t be afraid to make suggestions, but be careful not to do things unilaterally that might run contrary to the lead lawyer’s strategy. When in doubt, ask.

8.Think like the client–help control costs.

Think like the partner who is attempting to think like the client. Part of this is understanding and appreciating where you fit in. Ideally, you bring value to the client since it theoretically costs less for you to spend your time doing a task. This should also have a three-fold benefit to the partner and the law firm. On the one hand, it should free up the partner to spend less time doing more routine tasks and more time thinking strategically and doing more sophisticated tasks requiring experience, training and judgment for which clients are willing to pay higher fees. It should also free up the partner to spend more time marketing and bringing in new business which helps the firm grow. Finally, if leveraged properly, associates are profitable. While partners should not shrink from the responsibility of training, and cutting associate time from the bill is often appropriate, the more the above runs like a well-oiled machine the better for everyone involved.

9.Be there for clients–24/7.

I was going to say, “That’s why the firm bought you that iPhone 5,” but that’s not really what I mean. Perhaps it’s better to say that many clients expect their most trusted advisors to be there when they’re needed, without regard to day of the week or hour of the day. Associates that make it clear they will do what they can to recognize and meet this expectation will tend to be viewed as more valuable than associates who do not. I will admit that, as an associate, I jealously guarded my time away from work. As I started developing my own clients, however, I came to realize that, in doing this, I was just putting off the inevitable, since clients really do expect their trusted advisors to be available 24/7. It’s just part of the job which, as we know, is not for everybody.

10.Be accurate, thorough and timely–but not perfect.

It’s okay to make mistakes. But own mistakes when you make them. Resist the temptation to conceal mistakes or shift blame to others. Clients see right through this and so do partners.

11.Treat each co-worker like he or she is your best client.

Being graded on citizenship doesn’t stop when you leave grade school. Whether it’s made explicit or not, one thing partners consider when making advancement decisions is how well you fit in. Whether the office has 3 or 130 people, the ability to work well with others is important. If you’re rude to other lawyers, disrespectful or downright mean to staff, it can hinder your advancement. Many firms, including my own, pride themselves on having “very few sharp elbows.” Regardless how talented you may be, if you have “sharp elbows,” or an outsized sense of your own importance, or you’re just a jerk, it can make it hard for you to gain traction.

12.Have fun.

If you’re not having fun as an associate, it’s unlikely the practice of law is going to become fun if/when you become a partner, and your responsibilities extend far beyond doing great work and billing lots of hours, to include marketing and management responsibilities. If you’re not having any fun, maybe it’s time to think about doing something else.

So, if partnership is what you’re after, try applying Dan Hull’s “annoying and infuriatingly correct” Rules  to the service you provide.

I’ve previously written about how young lawyers enjoy an undeserved reputation for honesty. It’s a gift. Don’t squander it.

Similarly, when jurors encounter a trial lawyer for the first time, the lawyer’s mere presence in the courtroom says many things before the lawyer opens her mouth. This observation comes from the trusted Professor McElhaney. In a chapter from Litigation (ABA 1995) entitled “The Most Important Witness,” he suggests that a trial lawyer’s presence in the courtroom implicitly says to the jury:

• “I have studied the facts and understand what this dispute is all about. You can trust me to steer you straight.
• I have carefully screened the witnesses. I will only call those who will tell you the truth.
• I know the law that governs this case. Justice is on our side.
• If I introduce evidence, it is because it is important.
• If I leave something out, it is because it is not important.
• And If I attack a witness, it is because he is not telling the truth.” (Id. at 9.)

Of course, just as with a young lawyer’s unearned reputation for honesty, each of the above assumptions can be quickly proven wrong. Witness choice is a perfect example. While you sometimes have no choice but to present a dodgy witness, this should not be undertaken lightly. As Professor McElhaney points out:

“[T]he very act of putting the witness on the stand implies that you are vouching for his credibility. . . . Whom do the jurors blame for a bad witness? Listen closely to the comments clerks and bailiffs hear every day. ‘I wonder where she got that guy?’ ‘Where did he dig him up?’ ‘Can’t he find someone better than that?'” (Id. at 11.)

Another opportunity to prove the jury wrong in their initial positive impression arises from how you organize your evidence presentation, including direct examination of your witnesses. How you conduct the examination, what you leave in and what you leave out can affirm or undermine the assumption that “If I introduce evidence, it is because it is important.” As McElhaney says it:

“A confused, rambling examination suggests a disorganized understanding of the facts. Not only does it fail to tell the story effectively, a poor direct examination is the living picture of a guide who cannot be trusted to lead a jury through the thicket of facts in the case.

Dwelling at length on small points is a little different. At first it suggests that the seemingly insignificant detail will become important later on.

Why? Just putting it in the case says it is worth the jury’s while.

So the first time the fact that took so long to explain turns out to be meaningless, the jury feels cheated. When it happens again, they wonder whether the lawyer is trying to kick sand in their faces or is just inept.” (Id.)

The jurors are your friends, your students and your wards. Don’t kick sand in their faces.

I found a fantastic interview of trial legend Edward Bennett Williams from the Winter, 1986 issue of Litigation which I intend to read and re-read like the Bible.

Among the myriad of topics he discusses was the kind of “team” he works with at trial, which led to a discussion of trying “big document” cases. Many lawyers, even seasoned trial lawyers, tend to make the assumption that the bigger the issues to be decided by the jury, the more witnesses and paper–documents–are needed to prove a party’s case or defense. If an outsider was to simply look at the kind of discovery conducted in any big case, he or she would easily assume that, if the documents were worth seeking in costly discovery, they must have been germane and, ultimately, indispensable to winning.

Williams takes issue with this kind of thinking. He suggests that, in all but the most complex cases, lawyers tend to “multiply documents” unnecessarily. In the end, being unnecessarily document intensive does not further their clients’ interests or bring them closer to victory. Responding to interviewer Priscilla Anne Schwab, Williams says:

“Mr. Williams: I was brought up in a school of practice in which one person tried a case and tried it in toto. Even with some help, in the courtroom there was only one voice. And I like that.

Ms. Schwab: What about a complex case, say, an antitrust action with thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of witnesses. How can you handle that in a courtroom singlehandedly? With total control?

Mr. Williams: My impression of that so-called ‘big document’ case is that 95 percent of the documents are worthless. Just piles of paper to impress the jury. One of the great tragedies of litigation today is these paper wars. The whole profession gains nothing but disrepute when one of these big firms puts 21 lawyers on a case, and they start multiplying documents, paper times paper.

Now obviously in a few cases, the issues are so complex that there are, maybe, thousands of documents. But my experience has been that law firms multiply paper unnecessarily. They make litigation more prolific than necessary. They don’t have an instinct for the jugular. They don’t isolate the major issues of the case and simplify them into comprehensibility. And they engage in massive overkill in discovery.

Ms. Schwab: But there always seems to be a need for more discovery. You say yourself you must uncover every fact, however remotely relevant.

Mr. Williams: True, but discovery today is not used primarily to uncover facts. It’s used to delay, to obfuscate, and, too often, to replace real investigation.” Litigation, Vol. 12, No. 2, Winter 1986, p.30.

As an armchair expert on the topic of laziness, I wonder if the tendency to use excessive discovery rather than going “for the jugular,” as Williams puts it, stems from the fact that isolating “the major issues of the case and simplify[ing] them into comprehensibility” takes really hard work and focused thought. I suspect this is part of it. I suspect the other part is related to the fact that there is big money in putting armies of lawyers on cases and multiplying paper. Cynical me!

Whatever the cause, the end result brings clients no closer to victory. So, even if you feel the need to burn everything to the ground in discovery, remember when it comes time to try the case to isolate the major issues and “simplify them into comprehensibility.”

Most writers who take their prose seriously have a few favorite rhetorical devices. When these are used well, they contribute to what is loosely referred to as style. When used poorly, they . . . well, I try not to think about that.

If you’ve read much of my blog, you probably recognize that I tend to heavily favor two such devices, alliteration and repetition. (It’s actually only one device, since alliteration is a form of repetition.)

Blatant, obvious, excessive repetition–at least in written form (rather than a speech)–is really only appropriate for a children’s book. Since I’ve been reading lots of children’s books over the past few years (two per night is the current average, though my daughter only let’s me choose one of the titles), I’ve come to really appreciate a writer who is not only a master of the children’s story, but a brilliant practitioner of repetition: Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Seuss Geisel).

One of my favorite examples of Seussian repetition, probably among his most subtle examples, appears in And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. The good doctor there writes:

“Unless there’s something I can fix up,
There’ll be an awful traffic mix-up!

It takes Police to do the trick,
To guide them through where traffic’s thick–
It takes Police to do the trick.”

Another fine example shows up in that perennial favorite graduation gift, Oh the Places You’ll Go!:

“But on you will go
though the weather be foul,
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.”

Perhaps the most famous, obsessive, blatant and brilliant example of Seussian repetition is found in Green Eggs And Ham:

“I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!”

Lest you think this is all child’s play, repetition was a device of choice for a man who was unquestionably among the most compelling American rhetoricians of the last (or any) century, Dr. Martin Luther King. Even if many of us cannot recite from memory all of the details of Dr. King’s “dream,” his use of repetition has helped that speech and his message remain central in the (post) modern American consciousness. He said:

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

I have a couple of further thoughts. As I said, repetition in texts intended to be read, not heard, must be handled with kid gloves. If  you incorporate Seussian repetition into a brief (or a blog post meant for adults), readers will think: (1) you’re an idiot, (2) you’re making fun of them, or (3) both. Because I value the opinions of both judges and blog readers, I take great care to be judicious with my repetition. Like any rhetorical device, its potency recedes with overuse.

Even in a speech, there is a real danger, if you get too cute with repetition, that your audience will think: (1) you’re an idiot, or (2) you’re an idiot who thinks he’s MLK.

Judiciously used, however, repetition in a writing or a speech can add impact, reinforce your message and make it memorable.