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Part of the fun is learning different partner styles and preferences, and then within those partners, different client styles and preferences. You'll get more adaptable and able to anticipate what someone needs or wants, down to the strange writing style. In the mean time, expect completely inconsistent feedback from each partner.
Start keeping notes on different attorneys and what they like. Are they a phone call person or an email person? Do they like in text citations or footnotes? Do they want a short answer email that they can copy/paste or forward to a client, or do they want a legal memo? Does the client want zero risk or are they will to give in a little to get the business deal done? Does a partner want weekly updates on his or her matters, or does he or she only want to hear from you if there is a problem? It's our job to learn these things. Partners aren't going to adapt to us. They adapt to clients. We adapt to partners and clients.
If you expected something different, your law school did you a disservice. In law school, attorneys at panels and events always said, “the only thing harder than law school is practicing law.” These are two different worlds. Being a lawyer takes many many subjective skills that you cannot develop in school. Experience makes you better. Even if your work product is polished and isn’t defective, that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon. Some of the changes may have some specific reason such as, “this judge doesn’t respond well to those types of arguments.” Perhaps it’s a wholly subjective issue. At the end of the day, if someone else is signing something, they’re going to have to be okay with everything in it, including style.
Don’t beat yourself up. Keep doing good work and handing in polished work. It’ll be noticed even if not acknowledged.
OP, you can produce work that is excellent for a first year but nevertheless needs to be entirely reworked. My firm hires very selectively, so every incoming lawyer has a fancy resume and almost everyone graduated in the top 5% from a T20 law school and was in law review. Many are former federal law clerks. And yet they have never been taught to write at the standard required for the work we do. It takes even the best of them a couple of years to turn in work that requires little revision; the rest are still developing as senior associates.
There are two reasons (at least) for that. First, law schools do a lousy job of teaching students how to write. That’s especially true with respect to working with facts. I have yet to meet a first year who has any clue about how to organize and craft an effective factual narrative.
Second, writing really well is hard and takes an enormous amount of work. The best legal writer I know went to Yale law, clerked one the 2nd circuit, is 20 years out of law school, and is a star of my firm’s SCOTUS practice. He is BRILLIANT and magnificently talented. But he still regularly attends writing seminary and workshops, studies every brief in every case before SCOTUS, and regularly reads and rereads books about legal writing. The reason he’s so good is that he has worked — and continues to work - incredibly hard to hone his craft. Not everyone has the drive work work that hard. But his path is testament to how hard it is to get really, really good.
The good news for you is that people like me expect people like you to turn in polished work that nevertheless needs lots of work. So don’t sweat it. Remain open minded and soak up the lessons reflected in the revisions. Some of those are individual preferences, as several folks mentioned. But a lot are not mere preferences. Ask yourself why changes were made. If you don’t understand ask the partner to explain. Over time you will be rewarded for the work you put in.
(Con’t) to be reworked, or I’m told the client won’t like it, or some other seemingly subjective feedback. I want to honor this, but I am also frustrated that my hard work doesn’t seem up to par sometimes. I am eager to learn, I am receptive to feedback, and I enjoy what I do. But if I am not producing “excellent work” then my eagerness and willingness to learn doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Am I being too hard on myself? Did anyone else experience this when they first started? I don’t want my superiors to think I’m not cut out for “legal” work.
Yes, this is just the way it is when you are new and inexperienced. No one comes in as a savant first year, you have to learn on your feet and from each time you get feedback on your work. It may be subjective feedback, but it also is feedback from experienced attorneys who know their clients
Thank you all! This is all very helpful.
I’m just curious why you would think coming in with zero experience you would do everything perfectly and need no feed back? Things that may seem “subjective” to you could be important details you’re just not aware of due to inexperience
So is the question you’re asking about what to do with poorly communicated feedback from your superiors? Because the questions at the end of your post were asking about whether your being too hard on yourself about having a lot of criticism on your work.
If it’s the first question, then you should ask for more clarity from the supervising attorney. If I’m supervising a young attorney I would much rather them come to me for clarity and do it right the next time than them not understand what I wanted and continue to make the same mistakes
If it’s the second, then welcome to being a lawyer. No one walks into this just doing everything right so there’s no reason to be down on yourself when you’re not even a licensed attorney yet. Take every comment as something to improve on and apply it. It’s nothing to worry about unless you’re continuously making the same mistakes because that shows you’re either not learning or not really putting in your best effort
This job is all about having your work edited and re-edited to death. And when you start supervising others, you'll be editing their stuff, too, with your own thoughts on how best to create that particular work product. I'm near the end of my third year and seeing this myself as I supervise first years.
The best thing you can do for your own sanity is to not take feedback personally. Assume the best from every comment. It's easy to read a negative tone into redlines and comments, but usually it's not there - it's just that attorney doing their job to make sure the work is good. Look at each comment as if they're trying to help you get it right, and you'll feel better about it.
Also no one is perfect. In one of my cases today, a senior of counsel I work with emailed an amended complaint to an insurer and named the wrong plaintiff in the email. (The party she named has nothing to do with the case, must have mixed it up in her head with another matter.) I quickly flagged it for her (directly, no CC's), and her response was simply "Shit!"
We all have "[oh] shit!" moments, it's fine. Just pick yourself up and learn how to minimize them.
This is completely normal. When I gave a partner the first motion I ever wrote for him, he marked it up and said he would give it a C. I continued working hard, asked lots of questions, and ended up trying a wrongful death case with that same partner within a year. My best advice to give you is to ask partners questions. Get to know their styles and preferences. I’m sure you’re doing fine. You’ll look back at this one day and realize you weren’t bad, but are way better now.