getting ahead on skills for the workplace & would i redo higher education differently if i could
what are skills that prelaw students should learn for biglaw recruiting?
What are smart things 0Ls should learn while they have a lot of free time? I wish I took Coursera courses on Excel and PowerPoint before consulting/banking recruitment, so I wondered if something like that was good for Big Law recruiting.
- Scott
I totally sympathize with the backwards-looking regret of not being more familiar with Excel and PowerPoint before consulting--who knew that consulting would require so much PowerPoint! The good news is that for biglaw, there really isn't a program as all-encompassing as Excel or PowerPoint that is needed. Of course, Excel and PowerPoint skills are useful in biglaw, but biglaw firms generally have document services teams to whom you can send spreadsheets and presentations. Associates can focus on the substance--which is typically reading and writing--rather than calculating or formatting within any application.
Of course, working in biglaw does involve the use of applications--notably, in litigation, e-discovery platforms, and in corporate, virtual data rooms. The problem with trying to learn how to use these platforms ahead of time is that none of these applications are publicly available, and which exact e-discovery platform or virtual data room you use will largely depend on the client. While clients and firms have preferred platforms, there isn't a "dominant" platform like Excel or PowerPoint for legal work yet--and even if there were, the platform wouldn't be publicly available in the same way, so it would be hard to learn how to use them ahead of time. You--and everyone else--will necessarily have to learn how to use these platforms on the job, for better or for worse, so don't get too hung up on the notion of "getting ahead" in law with technical skills.
That being said, there are certain non-technical skills that you can work on that will likely help you in law school, law, and beyond. First, accounting--biglaw is surprisingly a lot of looking at balance sheets and income statements, so the more familiar you can get with accounting principles and documents, the better. I took an "Accounting for Lawyers" class in law school and found it highly useful as a litigator and corporate attorney. Second, reading faster and more critically. Law school itself is a hilarious amount of reading, and while I rolled my eyes at my mom signing me up for a speed reading course back when I was younger, being able to read something quickly and with decent comprehension has helped me immensely in all facets of life. I use a modified version of hand pacing to read nowadays--I'll take a bookmark/piece of paper to hide all of the lines of a page other than the one I am currently reading, moving it down line-by-line, or put my finger by the edge of the line that I am currently reading. To assist with comprehension, I keep post-it notes to write summaries and lingering questions at the end of every chapter and stick those notes into the book. The idea is to force yourself to explain what you are reading to yourself and engage with the text, rather than just reading it and moving on. And lastly, project management. Biglaw involves a ton of project management, even though they don't really teach that in law school. Familiarizing yourself with Gantt charts, Scrum, and other workflow management processes can help a lot with being efficient in biglaw, as well as with managing upwards (super important for maintaining an outside-of-work life in biglaw!!).
would you redo your higher education differently?
If you could redo your higher education, what would you do differently? Would you have chosen a different undergrad major or not gone to law school? Also, what would your advice be for someone who is on the fence about pursuing law? After your experiences with Big Law, would you still encourage someone to pursue the legal profession?
- Niharika
I always find it a little amusing when people ask me if I wish I hadn't gone to law school because I left legal practice. To me, it feels like asking if I'm upset that I went to college because I graduated from college. Law school and becoming a lawyer were necessary steps in my journey to feeling safe in life. Given how anxious about my life and finances I was back in college, I don't see how I could have embarked on any other path except for law (and by extension, eventually biglaw)--I simply was too risk-averse for most other career pursuits (e.g., journalism, event planning, entertainment) and too uninterested in the other reliably lucrative career paths which did exist (e.g., investment banking, consulting). At the same time, you can totally tell that there's a part of me back then that yearned for something other than career and financial stability--after all, my choice to go to Harvard for law school over Columbia with scholarships clearly shows that there was more at play in my mind then than pure finances.
But imagining that I could redo everything over again with what I know now, with the feeling of safety and stability that I have now--I would definitely have done things differently. I would have majored in a liberal arts major (probably American Studies or Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) instead of Economics, had I known that majors at Yale didn't really matter for getting a job after graduation. (There are so many stories of Theatre Studies majors going into consulting or banking.) I would have likely interned in organizations and positions that weren't related to Economics--and maybe I would have really loved one of those internships and chosen not to attend law school right away so that I could pursue this other thing that I really enjoyed. I do think, though, that had I run into any friction--such as not liking my first job or getting laid off from that first job--I would have decided to go to law school. Law school just felt so safe and straightforward and relatively interesting, y'know?
My biggest piece of advice for those who are on the fence about pursuing law is to really ask yourself why you are interested in it. My YouTube video on this topic covers a lot of the reasons that I find people drawn to law school, and I talk about when they make sense and when they are likely merely salves for a larger concern. I had a really fantastic experience in biglaw, truth be told, and I would certainly encourage people to pursue law and the legal profession provided that they have really given it adequate consideration, spoken with lawyers, and seriously considered alternatives. I would still be in biglaw if there weren't something else I wanted to do more that I am now able to seriously pursue--thanks to biglaw, for giving me that career and financial safety net.
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