These skills are necessary for other crucial aspects of your legal career as well.
Interviews
Another infamous aspect of the law school experience is On Campus Recruiting (“OCI”), which usually occurs during the month preceding your 2L year. Interviews in as little as fifteen-minute increments are scheduled and can run back-to-back with various prospective employers. During this time, you need to distill who you are, what you are capable of, and why you want the job in a very short window of time. Preparation for these interviews is key: you must thoroughly research the opportunity beforehand and come prepared to discuss any number of items in addition to your resume. Significantly, you only have a very limited amount of time to relay this information to the prospective employer so it is paramount that you display clear and effective communication skills.
Communicating with Clients and Colleagues
Initially, it is unlikely you will have very much client-contact if you are working for a large or mid-size law firm,2 but clients are not the only audience requiring clear and effective communication. Assignments by more senior attorneys are often doled out orally and you should be able to quickly synthesize the information and respond with follow-up questions or concerns on the spot when you have the attorneys’ time and attention. Additionally, though the
product of that assignment will most likely be in written form, it is often helpful to check-in and discuss the work product with the supervising attorney so that you can highlight or explain any open issues and receive further direction as needed. It is important that you are capable of discussing the complex material and orally organizing your thoughts. Much time in law school is spent on how to organize your legal briefs and memorandums, but it is also essential that your oral communications are equally clear and thought-out in advance.
As your career progresses, more time may be spent with clients and it will again be crucial to quickly and clearly convey your ability to help solve their problems. This is particularly so when your client is not an attorney (which may generally be the case), and you will need to explain complex issues in an understandable way, i.e., without the legal ‘jargon.’
Professional Development and Client Marketing
In case you haven’t discovered as much already, building a strong and loyal client-base is a crucial component to your success as a lawyer.3 In order to attain this following, attorneys need to develop their marketing and public speaking skills. Attorneys often market themselves by writing summaries of recent issues for the firm website, but they also market themselves by frequenting law-related events and serving as a public speaker on a particular issue. This requires strong presentation skills.
Confidence
Finally, developing oral communication skills and working through legal issues publicly will help to solidify your legal voice and your comfort-level with a given industry.
How to Develop these skills in Law School
Since I regretted not taking advantage of classroom discussion to work through reading material, I’ve since looked for additional opportunities to develop my public speaking and oral communication skills. I recommend seeking out alternative opportunities to work on your public speaking skills while in law school. Examples of alternative measures include:
Take on a Leadership Role in a Student Organization
Student groups and organizations also provide great opportunities to take on a leadership role and begin to develop oral communication skills. By breaking the student body into a smaller group that is of interest to you, you can take on more responsibility and leadership opportunities in a setting that might be more comfortable than a large classroom.
Networking with Alumni or through OCP Events
Networking and alumni events provide an excellent opportunity for law students to begin developing communication and marketing skills as they require you to articulate an “elevator pitch.” i.e., what area of law you are interested in and generally improves your comfort level in meeting and liasing with new people, an important aspect of obtaining new clients.
Tips to Encourage Speaking up in Class
Taking advantage of the above alternatives is a great way to develop oral communication skills; however, I still encourage active class participation to the extent possible. The following tips might help make doing so a bit easier: (1) think of questions or points you from the reading have before class, write them down, and raise them at an opportune time in class; (2) force yourself to speak up early: if you let too much time pass, it will only get harder to break the ice; (3) talk to your teacher: so they know that you want to be called on.
1 Certainly, there are exceptions to this rule (public defenders is one of the first job titles that comes to mind).
2 Again, there are exceptions to this rule.
3 See, e.g., James B. Stewart, A Lawyer and Partner, and also Bankrupt, NYTimes, January 24, 2014, accessible at http://nyti.ms/1jKf65z. (“For the past 40 years, you could just be a partner in a firm, do good work, coast, keep your nose clean, and you’d have a very nice career. That’s gone… To make it as a law firm partner today, you have to periodically reinvent yourself.”) (Attorneys “who can generate revenue, bring in clients and are generally prized by large law firms.) (internal quotations omitted).
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