I’m working on updating a training program for my firm for the first and second year associates - a transition from law school to law practice. Beyond the soft skills that you need, what are your suggestions for what they should know how to do? General practice lit firm if it matters - though I’m not training on substantive law now. Thanks for any advice

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Unless they have lit experience, most juniors have no idea how filing, bates labeling, production logs, etc. work. I remember one time I asked a young associate to make sure something was bates labeled before serving it and she didn’t know what it was.

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This was definitely the biggest issue that I encountered when I began my litigation career. Litigation has so many moving logistical parts that you just don’t know about until you have a few reps under your belt.

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Look up judge’s rules for cases before deciding how to proceed (letter, letter motion, motion and rules for drafting those).

Compile research in a digestible format for the partner and client.

This is a soft skill, but reminding partners about upcoming deadlines.

How to put together document requests and interrogatories - where to find samples to reference for those and other common documents in your internal system.

What can they delegate to assistants and paralegals and what should they do themselves.

Logging time daily, or in real time.

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Also in the deadline area- don’t send something for approval two days before it’s due.

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Jury instructions. Everything eventually leads there, but it is easy to forget about them with all of the other moving parts and dynamics of litigation. My jurisdiction has a set of standardized, civil jury instructions. I want my associates to consider whatever discovery, motions, etc. they are doing in relation to those instructions first.

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Thank you! These are great. I had the overall topics, but very helpful specifics.

Looking at jury instructions at the start of the case to guide everything is great to keep in mind - I have looking at them in the training for dispositive motions but really should do it earlier.

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I’ve gone through the Rules of Civil Procedure and have my experience, but curious about what others think are good areas for juniors to know so they are not glassy eyed and panicked when they get an assignment.

This is maybe closer to a soft skill, but research skills are critical. Not just looking up research on Westlaw, but also knowing how to Google the answers to basic stuff like how to format a Word document, how to find samples of whatever you're drafting (whether through your firm doc management system, Westlaw, Pacer, Google, etc.), stuff like that.

Associates who can be given assignments and crush them with minimal training are going to always get work over associates who need more help just because of how time crunched most people are

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