When Abdi Shayesteh arrived at King & Spalding as a New York corporate associate in 2007, he had a scary realization: Law school didn’t teach any of the tasks he was being asked to complete.

“Your success depended on luck,” Shayesteh recalled, noting that he was lucky enough to have a senior lawyer down the hall to show him the ropes. “But not everyone has that same access,” he said. “I had this fantasy of a place you can go and practice on fake clients, make mistakes and get feedback.”