Quote:
Originally posted by Aloha Mr. Learned Hand
Feel free to chime in with some of your own:
2. Be careful when replying to or sending "All-Firm" e-mails or voice mails... For replies, make sure you are only replying to the sender and not to everyone else. When sending e-mails to the entire firm, do so only at the request of a superior, be sure you know exactly what they want it to say, and check, double check and triple check the content before you send it.
3. If you are not busy, don't feel obligated to sit at your desk all evening waiting for the phone to ring. Business is cyclical, and sometimes you will be less busy than your peers. By all means seek out work, preferably by calling directly people you want to work with who have a reputation for treating associates well. But don't feel bad going home "early" on those days when you have nothing on your plate... What comes around goes around, believe me, so take advantage of a lull when you can...
5. Get involved in pro bono work... It gets you more responsibility, more recognition and offers a wide variety of work and experience...
7. Be nice to support staff and to your secretary. Know your secretary's birthday and get him/her something. The support staff are often in a position to help you out in jam... Your secretary probably knows a lot more about the firm, it's procedures and it's office politics. Let them help you stay out of trouble...
Best of luck to all...
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2. Don't just check content. You don't want to be the first year who misspelled the managing partner or firm's name in an all-firm email. People will remember it and laugh at you.
3. Going home early when you are a slow first year means leave at 5:30, it does not mean cut out at 3. You don't want to have a dark office when the partner comes around at 5 to have you do something.
5. Don't do too much pro bono work. By all means, do some, but don't become known as ProBonoGuy because all you do is pro bono work. Do not ever turn down billable work because of a pro bono project.
7. Be nice to everyone's secretary. They will talk about you. When they talk about you, they will talk to other secretaries and will also tell the lawyers they work for about the snippy first year who was an asshole to them. Because smart people like to make their secretaries happy, when lawyers hear complaints from their secretary about a snippy first year, they go yell at the snippy first year.
