After all of those late nights in law school and studying hard for the bar, many newly minted lawyers are anxious to apply their skills and jump right into the practice of law—but quickly find that there are practical skills that they need to learn to be a successful lawyer. For any would-be lawyers out there reading this, we hope this article provides some tips for skills you can build now to better prepare for the realities of legal practice. However, these considerations also point to the need for a larger conversation about what information prospective lawyers should learn in preparing for the profession. More specifically, a greater range of offerings of courses on the business and practical application of legal skills should be offered in law school and as part of CLE programming for young lawyers.

Billing

Let's start off with a topic that is on the forefront of young associates' minds: meeting those billable hours. Billing drives the business structure of law firms, yet the practice of billing is a topic that many young lawyers are learning for the first time on the job. What can I bill for? Did I bill too much on this task, and if so, what would a reasonable amount of time have been? How do I describe my work for billing purposes? Should I cut my own time? Do I block bill or line-item my time? These are common questions with which young associates wrestle, and which can cause a great deal of consternation.

Additionally, there are work-life balance issues that go hand-in-hand with understanding how to meet your billable requirement, and ideally discussion around structuring your workday to create that balance would be helpful beforehand to avoid associate burnout. Having dialogues around these issues is also important as a billable hour system does create specific challenges for attorneys who have family or other obligations, and these conversations may open doors by assisting attorneys in navigating those challenges.