At Lean Adviser we try to look at the overlooked. These are the topics and challenges which everyone encounters, but no-one discusses. We start with a doozy — transitioning. We previously trailed this when we touched on the big "transitioning moments" in our lives. It's not just that the skills gap can be enormous, it's that it's unexpected.

This is the first lesson in a mini-series on these transitions, and how lawyers can be unsupported, so here goes. We'll start with transitioning from student to associate. Then we'll look at associate to partner, and then transitioning from private practice to in-house and vice versa. 

You probably thought that after the rigors of law school, and the tortuous process of getting a job, that the hard part was over. Then you discovered, as we all did, that you were under-prepared and ill-equipped. As we explain in Lean Adviser, law schools teach you what the law is, not how to practice it.

So here you are, thrown into a tank with other talented, competitive, newly-minted associates. Then comes the work, for which you'll be charged out at hundreds of dollars an hour. Either that or swaths of your time will be written off. Raise bills or raise eyebrows. Welcome to private practice.

The industry solution for the skills gap is on-the-job mentoring. But this is where it gets patchy. Done right, an alliance between a great mentor and a quick-study associate can deliver a crash course in how to practice law the way clients want. Done wrong, the associate will have to make do with trial and error, all the while being marginalized and falling down the pecking order for interesting assignments. 

This is precisely the educational gap which Lean Law exists to meet. For all of your hopefully long career, workflow will be your lifeblood. Initially, the work will come from partners who regard you as their go-to associate. Later, it will come from clients, but again you will need to be the go-to.

Sooner or later you'll have the epiphany, so let's share it now: It's not just how smart you are, how much you know, or even how hard you work. It's how you work. Methods matter. If you can learn to practice law the way that work-givers want, you'll become their go-to resource. That's your mission, and ours is to help you.