Of the many qualities that help young lawyers build a productive, fulfilling career, self-awareness ranks among the most important.
Lawyers who are keenly self-aware process stressful situations and respond constructively to them. They focus sharply on the moment at hand, even when balancing competing priorities and navigating long-term projects. They identify areas for professional and personal growth, and they set clear goals to help them realize that growth.
Earlier this year, I wrote about how honing three skills — reframing, mindfulness and setting challenges — positions young attorneys to strengthen their self-awareness and helps them pair their powerful minds with a powerful mindset.
But Big Law is a collaborative business, so thriving in it also entails cultivating a sense of awareness beyond the self — and using it to earn trust. Building trustful relationships means adopting the mindset of a counselor — one that empowers lawyers to become more than just experts and to engage more closely with their clients and colleagues.
Three Levels of Trust
What does it take to evolve from lawyer to counselor? As I see it, this evolution isn’t something that happens on its own or that springs from any one endeavor. Think of it instead as a long-term, intentional process that we can break out into three levels of trust.
The first level is to establish credibility. This is all about developing the knowledge and skills that clients expect from the legal representation they hire and demonstrating an ability to apply both to the complex matters that major firms handle.
Every sharp lawyer keeps up with their industry and the laws and regulations governing it. But counselors make the effort to learn the nuances of each client’s business, and to tailor their advice to each client’s unique needs, goals and values.
The second level of trust is to be reliable — essentially, doing what you say you’ll do and making every decision with your clients’ interests in mind. Indeed, you could be the world’s most talented lawyer. But if the quality of your work is unpredictable — if the service you provide is inconsistent — you’re unlikely to earn the trust that counselors enjoy.
Counselors take the client experience as seriously as they do their work and take every opportunity to support their teammates. Reliability enhances reputations — inside and outside the firm. It’s key to winning high-profile work and to generating repeat business.
The third level of trust — creating connection — is the deepest. Most matters involve private information that clients generally don’t share beyond the top tiers of the business — information that, if made public, could undermine their ability to secure a favorable outcome.
Lawyers often need access to private information to produce their best work, so clients need lawyers with whom they connect deeply enough to trust with it. In holding this information close — and using it strategically to the extent possible — counselors serve as the confidants their clients need.
Coaching Up Counselors
As part of our attorney development program at Vinson & Elkins, we prepare our lawyers to become not just excellent practitioners of their craft but also credible, reliable, connected counselors. To that end, all of our practice groups include professional coaches — former practicing lawyers who regularly meet one-on-one with every associate from the first year onward.
Our coaches guide associates in a range of areas: managing priorities, collaborating with colleagues, communicating clearly, experimenting with novel ideas and routines, forging meaningful bonds, seeking and acting on constructive feedback, choosing diverse mentors and more.
This coaching continues with opportunities for associates to develop in these areas and through informal group sessions where associates can safely share their experiences with and learn from one another. Partners receive coaching as well — to ensure that the feedback they provide is timely, useful and focused on areas of development beyond the substance of legal work.
We see our attorney development program as a system where each element helps instill the mindset of a counselor, and together they reinforce the skills and behaviors necessary to activate it. No two associates benefit from an identical style of coaching, but we emphasize that they all can benefit from being coachable — committed to long-term learning with the goal of realizing their potential.
A Powerful Sonar
Having spent much of my career working closely with lawyers of all levels, I’ve long been impressed with the strength of their radars. By that I mean their extraordinary ability to analyze information, dissect details, identify risks, substantiate facts and solve problems — to detect and deal with any substantive issue that comes their way.
Less common in our industry but no less important is a powerful sonar — an ability to scan for subtextual information hidden beneath the surface, such as people’s emotions, instincts, sensitivities and viewpoints. Decoding this information — and using it to be more empathetic with clients and colleagues — is central to connecting with them and ultimately what makes a counselor effective.
Hy Pomerance is chief talent officer at Vinson & Elkins LLP.