Mistakes Happen. How You Respond Matters More.
“Call me.”
That was the message I received from my firm’s librarian when I was a 2L Summer Associate (a few) years ago. My stomach sank. This can’t be good I thought.
And it wasn’t. Apparently I had racked up a MASSIVE bill on Westlaw and Lexis looking for a case that a partner asked me to try to find. The librarian kindly but firmly reminded me that clients typically did not pay for legal research bills and so all of my searches were being charged to the firm and my account had been flagged for going more than a bit too far.
I apologized profusely. I tried not to cry. And then I called the Partner to tell her what happened. She laughed. She encouraged me to calm down. And she said that she would handle it. Later she called me back to say that I was doing exactly what she was asking me to do: look for the big case (if one existed) that could change the whole outcome of a very, very expensive matter. But she said, I should probably work on searching in more cost-efficient ways in the future (and she’d be happy to talk through how to do that with me). My guess is neither she nor the librarian remember that mistake—at least I hope they don’t 😅.
That wasn’t my last mistake. It was the first of many in my time as a practicing lawyer and now as a professor. If I am being honest, I remember most of them even almost a decade out of practice. And each time I made a mistake I vowe not to make that same mistake again.
But mistakes happen. And these mistakes taught me an important lesson that I have now heard time and time again on the
Podcast:Mistakes happen but you are judged less for making them in the first place and more on how you respond to them.
So how do you respond to a mistake. For that I’ll crib from a recent LinkedIn Post from my friend
responding to a very thoughtful tribute to Justice Souter where one of his former clerks discussed when he made a mistake:1) You will make mistakes. Some - hopefully not many - will be bad ones. Maybe there are lawyers who never made mistakes. Maybe too, there is a magic island with manticores and fauns. But probably not.
2) Do not panic. When you make a mistake, figure out a plan of action before going to confess. It may not be the *right* plan of action. But never go to confess the mistake before thinking of a solution. Arming yourself with a potential solution makes it seem like you have good judgment and a cool head.
3) Then go tell whoever needs to be told, whether it's a partner, client, or what have you. Lying about your mistake is the only thing worse than the mistake. Tell them your plan. If it's a dumb plan, they hopefully will tell you.
4) Do not blame junior people, whether they be associates, paralegals, assistants, or most especially court staff. Next to lying, this is the thing most likely to get you fired. You made the mistake, not them. Even if it was, in the first instance, them.
5) Very few mistakes are unfixable. As I always muttered to myself when in the weeds at my first big firm job, "the worst case scenario is I get fired. No one's dying."
I’ll just add to Raffi’s helpful advice put into place a practice so that you don’t make that mistake again. For example, I used to put a post-it note on my monitor at work with things to watch out for based on mistakes I had made previously. It was a great reminder not to do them again.
As a summer associate mistakes are part of the experience but remember that how you respond will determine how big the fall out from those mistakes will be.
Talk soon,
Jonah
PS. Here’s a clip from How I Lawyer Episode #102 from Matt Schwartz (DLA Piper) on mistakes that I think sums this advice up nicely.