In law school, wins were easily quantifiable and identifiable. A high grade on an examination, beating the resident class “gunner” to a tough question of law posed by a difficult professor and receiving the CALI Award for the highest grade in a class were all clear, black-and-white wins.
Now, as a young lawyer developing a practice, it is important to become comfortable in the novel gray areas of winning. Sure, you can quantify success to some degree by the cases you win and the hours you bill, but playing a pivotal role in your firm’s biggest cases is often a rarity for young associates, and the bottom-line approach of hour-watching is not always as gratifying as the proverbial gold stars that you collected during your years in academia.
