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Rising Star
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Acknowledge ball was dropped. Apologize. Don't do it again for two years+.
Part of the challenge of being a really good attorney is never dropping the ball. Ever. You should be able to count your noteworthy substantive mistakes on one hand, per decade or career.
So if you want to be taken seriously, you're going to need to dedicate yourself to this.
Granted, just my two cents. I'm not easy on myself, but I am good.
This is a good advice, but I think this will lead to burnout pretty quickly, so people need to be mindful of their mental health.
Attorney 1 may be good but they are part of the problem with the legal industry. I think it matters how you dropped the ball. Attorneys drop the ball every day and have successful careers. If you dropped the ball and it led to a default judgement against your client that is one thing and likely less forgiving. If you missed internal deadlines and caused a delay that inconvenienced partners, that is another thing. What was the impact? If your mistake seriously impacted the firm, it may take more time to improve your circumstances. If it was less impactful, you are in a better position.
Own it and continue providing thorough legal work that is top quality. Over time, you will be recognized for that and will gain their trust back.
It did not impact the firm. Everything was done on time, I was not responsive enough and misunderstood my role
I heard this at a retreat recently - some balls are plastic and some are glass. Balls will be dropped because we’re human, but make sure they’re the plastic balls.
Taking ownership of your mistakes is the first step. If you make excuses, you may never be able to regrad they're trust. Then you'll have to ask for another chance to prove yourself. They're not going to offer it up to you.
You will drop the ball again. It’s human. When you do, take ownership promptly and come back with potential solutions. Problems arise, we are paid the medium bucks to be problem solvers.
Everyone here saying you CAN NEVER drop the ball is wrong and dramatic and probably the worst type of person to work with. Also, like, whatever - you can’t change the past so don’t sweat it. But the people saying that 1 it is a spectrum, 2 you need to learn from it, and 3 you absolutely should own up to it and apologize are right. I’ve really saved my reputation after a decent “ball drop” just by handling it really maturely and gracefully and have seen it happen more than once with others (at a top law firm). I would recommend significant self reflection, figuring out what went wrong, and finding a subtle way to show the partner you’ve implemented a system to prevent that issue from happening ever again. Trust will be rebuilt but you do have to spend time and effort showing how trustworthy you are (graciously, not in their faces) by doing a really good job.
Rising Star
There’s a difference between being wrong and making a mistake. The former is fine, the latter cannot happen.
Reasonable minds can vary, and one can end up being wrong. But a mistake is going to be more like negligence (failure to meet your duty of care)
Make sure you've learned from whatever the mistakes were, and make it clear to people that you've learned and it won't happen again. It's like the old saying about how trust has to be earned. People will cut you some slack at first, but if you screw up you need to work doubly hard to regain trust. You can do it, but it's a matter of really making yourself focus.
You can’t drop the ball if you eat it.
Try not to drop the ball in front of clients.