Newness is a mainstay in the life of a young lawyer. In fact, novelty is a reality that permeates throughout an entire legal career. Encountering new situations and new places can be daunting even for the most seasoned practitioner, but they are especially sweaty-palm inducing, panic instituting and deer-in-headlights look creating events for a young associate. I often enjoy spans of practice, often short, yet nonetheless sweet, where everything seems so familiar. It is an extremely rewarding feeling to get an assignment, arrive at a courtroom, present a motion or talk to a partner and feel a global sense of comfort; that sort of feeling that suggests “it’s all in a day’s work” and I have been here before. Familiarity, however, often transforms into boredom and monotony fairly quickly. For every few days that I function and feel like an all-knowing veteran, somewhat fortunately, I spend the next few weeks running around like the rookie I truly am.
Last month, I was thrust into full greenhorn mode via the perfect storm of legal novelties: a new partner, who assigned me a new and unfamiliar motion, which included an accompanying argument in a new court. My initial outward response was a confident, “Sure, of course I will handle it immediately,” but my inwardly induced chaos was definitively bellowing, “What am I going to do?” Ultimately, I successfully weathered the jurisprudential hurricane, but the process of reaching that point was one of the most important learning experiences of my young career.
