New Lawyers Do Face Some Challenges

Each year more and more people are attending law school in hopes of being a successful attorney.  It requires dedication, hard work and will to persevere.  However, there are some challenges that face new attorneys.  It can be a daunting task entering the world of unknown.  That’s why attorney Andrew Clark offered his opinions on first entering the legal field.

Reciprocal Training and Mentorship Is Key

Flocks of new lawyers enter the profession every year with a dearth of actual practice knowledge and a glum job market. The result: new lawyers either devote themselves to finding a job, or they open their own practice. Despite their high-priced education, these new lawyers learn how to practice, how to manage a business, and how to manage clients at the school of hard knocks.  On the other hand, experienced lawyers, who want to remain viable, are expected to keep up with changing technologies, modernized client expectations and communication protocols, and newfangled billing and marketing practices in order to maintain their client base.  The danger to the profession is that each and every attorney, regardless of experience or capacity, represents the face of a profession that is already skeptically compared to online legal form generation services.

As a profession, we need to re-examine our law school curriculum to ensure that students are graduating and passing the bar with practical knowledge and experience that will allow them to provide competent legal representation in an ethical, profitable, and cost effective manner.  Additionally, we have an obligation to address the cost of a legal education so that the average debt-load for law school graduates will more accurately reflect the present value of a law degree.

Further, we need to re-examine our continuing education requirements, to ensure that lawyers are receiving ongoing training that is valuable to their practice. An election toward hands-on workshops could enhance the impact of continuing education courses and generate mutually beneficial relationships among practitioners.  Similarly, mentorship programs would likely contribute to the quality of legal services, participants’ quality of life, and may even help to identify mental health and substance abuse issues relating to this expensive, stressful, consuming, and noble profession we all love.

Andrew Clark has extensive litigation experience in the trial and appellate courts of Ohio.  Before joining O’Reilly Law, he began practice in 2008 by opening a general litigation firm on the west side of Columbus, after which he practiced at a firm focusing on real estate and contract litigation where he represented several of the nation’s largest banks and mortgage servicers in residential foreclosures and evictions.

His website is http://www.oreillylawyers.com/

His Twitter ID is @Andrew_C_Clark.

PH# 614.833.3777

Email: andrew@oreillylawyers.com