<p>I don’t regret it at all, but I went to my dream school and didn’t have to borrow. Most law students in this country are making choices I would not have made.</p>
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<p>It looks like you missed one of my previous posts in this thread that mentioned all of those as being “skills” of a lawyer. i.e. “having the ability to socialize, schmooze, impress and thus, win big clients also play roles” are all part of lawyer “skills”.</p>
<p>Unless you have the ability to bring in a large corporate account, most large firms have no interest. Most associates have no such contacts, and thus cannot produce any business of a type a large firm would even consider taking in.</p>
<p>After practicing for 30 years, I think that stacy and sallyawp’s comments are very astute. Law is one of the fields where being a great lawyer or working the hardest doesn’t guarantee commensurate financial rewards. I once worked with a guy who had incredible understanding of legal issues and case law, and who was willing to work 20 hours a day whenever needed. Unfortunately, he was viewed as a robot who couldn’t schmooze with the clients or bring work into the firm. He was the perennial associate…and easily replaceable when his salary got too high. Even in the corporate world, it’s sometimes about politics and personality instead of hard work. Hey, this shouldn’t be surprising…this is a reality for most careers. Replace lawyer with accountant or engineer, and you’ll get the same answers.</p>
<p>Of course, being a bad lawyer and not doing the work will cause you to crash and burn anywhere.</p>
<p>As I was getting ready for work, I thought about this some more. Interestingly, I think there a lot of other filters to success that are often not given enough consideration. An inability to work well with others (sometimes it’s hard to shut off competitiveness that has been ingrained in academic pursuits), arrogance, or even a whiff of being unethical will end a fast-track career. </p>
<p>Dressing inappropriately seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how frequently it’s a problem with smart young lawyers. Being disorganized or caving under the pressure of deadlines can be a killer (again, after handling high pressure college work and law school you’d think this was a no-brainer, but young lawyers will sometimes whine that they didn’t have enough time or there were other deadlines they had to meet.) Name dropping (my father, my Uncle, my Godfather’s business…) can either hurt a career or help it, depending on who you’re talking to. If they don’t like your father, your Uncle, and you’re not bringing your Godfather’s business to the firm…or if they’re afraid you’re talking about the firm’s business to your father…name dropping can hurt you.</p>
<p>If you fail to show up at a partner’s charity event, it can hurt you. If you don’t give your secretary a gift at Christmas, she can hurt your career in little ways.</p>
<p>Getting caught up in a case and failing to give a professional courtesy can hurt you (one of the Senior partners on one of our cases just called opposing counsel to report that one of his associates had been rude and unprofessional). There are so many traps for the unwary young associate! It’s not surprising that 80% of big firm associates don’t make it to partner…what’s surprising is that 20% do.</p>
<p>20%? Wow, you are in a very civilized area. Probably less than 1% survive that journey in NYC. Its like watching allagator eggs hatch, knowing that most will not make it very far, eaten by predators or their own kind…LOL</p>