You've finished 19 years of education, and last Friday you found out you passed the last test you ever plan to take. Congratulations! Now, to be a successful lawyer, you're going to have to learn some more.

The law is going to evolve. Your bosses are going to ask you to give them an answer on a topic you've never heard of. Your clients are going to ask you to solve problems you never dreamed of. So you must embrace that sinking feeling of not having a clue where to start—that moment of panic when you just said yes and aren't entirely sure what you agreed to. The sooner you can power through that discomfort, the better off you'll be.

It's human nature to stick with what we know, to enjoy the familiar and avoid new things. But you won't grow that way. And you're young and motivated—you want to be the best lawyer you can be. Well, to be the best, you need to view the entire career before you as an education that's just getting started. Don't learn how to do a handful of things and get comfortable. Don't work for a handful of clients and never take on new ones. Be the lawyer who is always willing to learn something new. Be the go-to lawyer when something unexpected pops up.

To be clear, this isn't to suggest you shouldn't develop expertise in a particular subject, but rather to suggest that to develop that expertise, you need to have a lot of different experiences and cases under your belt. That expertise comes from working through that sense of not knowing what you're doing, time and time again. Right now you're young and eager—don't lose that enthusiasm as time goes on. Winston Churchill is said to have put it this way: "To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often."

Finally, keep in mind two other things while on this journey. One, your first clients are your partners; your second clients are existing firm clients; and your third clients are those you don't yet represent. Prioritize them in that order and you'll never hurt for work. And, two, there is no such thing as a draft—always turn in your best work. While it may technically be a draft that your boss will edit before it is sent to the client or filed, the expectation is that it be ready to go when you turn it in.

Todd Heffner is a construction litigator and ediscovery specialist with Jones Walker in Atlanta.