The Making of a Lawyer: 14 Key Lessons From My Internship

Introduction

The thought of interning elicits a lot of different reactions and emotions from law students across the country. Some are eager and impatient for a shot at it, others are more anxious and timid and there is certainly also another contingent who hang somewhere in the middle. Wherever you may stand, I believe that these fourteen tips will serve to get your mind in the right place, should you be awarded the chance to intern at a law firm sometime soon. It isn’t a comprehensive guide on practical tips or philosophical musings but hopefully a meaningful combination of both. Some of these are the direct result of conversations I had with individuals at the firm I interned at, but I would say that a great number of them came to me during my daily reflections, which I actually touch on in this same blog post. If you’re looking for a post on how to get internships, then I would refer you to the works of Hope Sthembile Homela on what worked for her or even draw inspiration from Reagan Blankfein Gates Legal Practitioners’ article on what they expect from an intern. As always, apply all advice with your own preferences, desires and abilities in mind. Happy reading.

1.???? If I put you in the game, don’t pass the ball back to me: The idea here is that ideally, a great law firm operates as a team and everyone has their role. Take this simple football metaphor courtesy of Mr. Gates, for example: if someone passes you the ball, do something with it. Naturally, the dynamics are different in every firm, but for the sake of discussion, lets operate on the premise that the Managing Partner is the coach, the other Partners and Associates are the midfielders and you are the young striker who has just broken through to the 1st Team Squad. Maybe your first appearance for the club is against a grassroots team in a friendly of no real consequence, but more often than not, you may find yourself in a high stakes top-flight match against a fierce rival. Whatever the case may be, if they’ve put you in the game and passed you the ball, don’t pass it back to the midfield, or even worse, pass it out of bounds to the coach. You have to try to turn and shoot. This is certainly a metaphor for the tasks we are assigned, and it’s not to say that you aren’t to ask for guidance- no, that’s normal- but you have to use your mind and explore solutions. Research, read, rationalize and reason your way to the answer. You were given a shot not just to learn, but because they see in you the potential to be resourceful and not wait to be spoon-fed.

2.???? Work with a growth mindset: Perhaps the most important attitude advice I will give in this blog post is that you should work with the confidence and to the standard of who you want to be in the future. For example, whenever I got a task, I wouldn’t try do it to the standard of a second year law student with zero knowledge on the subject matter. Instead, I would think “if the Managing Partner was executing this task, what standard would it be at”, because that’s where I want to be in the future. Naturally, you may not attain that standard immediately, but if you only want to execute like a second year student then you will remain a second year student in perpetuity. It is only through a constant pursuit of betterment that we can inch closer to fulfilling our individual and collective potential. By setting high standards for myself, I found that I was more motivated to learn, adapt, and improve continuously. This mindset not only helped me produce better work but also instilled a sense of professionalism and responsibility early on in my career. Embracing this growth mindset has been pivotal in my development, pushing me to seek out challenging tasks and take initiative in areas where I initially felt less confident.

3.???? Passion, or a lack thereof, can never be hidden: It’s not a secret that everyone has their own motivations for joining the legal profession, and some are certainly more interesting than others, to say the least. Regardless of your motivations, which may be easier to hide from everyone else, I can guarantee you that passion, or a lack thereof, can never be hidden from the view of even a mildly observant eye. It also isn’t something that you can cosplay or hide behind a fa?ade. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow" captures this perfectly. When someone is truly passionate about their work, they get completely absorbed in it, often losing track of time and finding immense satisfaction and productivity. This state of flow is something you just can't pretend. On the flip side, a lack of passion shows up as disengagement, lack of enthusiasm, and a noticeable drop in the quality of work and you can’t hide it from your colleagues. This highlights how passion drives perseverance and resilience. In the legal field, where challenges and setbacks are common, a strong passion can give you the motivation to overcome obstacles and keep striving for excellence. Without this internal drive, the demands of the profession can quickly become overwhelming, ask anyone who has been at the Bar for five years or more. When you genuinely care about your work though, it not only becomes evident to those around you but also enhances your own sense of fulfilment and success. From my own experience, I've seen that those who lack passion struggle to maintain their performance over time; their work often becomes mechanical, missing the spark and creativity that passionate individuals bring. On the other hand, those who are passionate about their legal careers tend to show a natural curiosity, eagerness to learn, and a commitment to excellence that shines through in everything they do. Ultimately, passion is a key differentiator in the legal profession and I don’t think it’s something you can pretend to have.

4.???? Never lose the opportunity to learn: I think that as an intern, it’s very easy to do one or both of two things from time to time; (1) feel timid when given a task to execute and (2) rely heavily on templates and precedents you find in the firm’s database. These are natural reactions, but you have to make a concerted effort to rise above both of them. For instance, templates can give you an idea on how to go about the work, but let it end at that. Be courageous and make changes to the templates and precedents with each subsequent task, or better yet, simply draft your own. Whether you rely on Atkin’s Court Forms, Zambian Civil Procedure or any other resource for inspiration and guidance, do your research every time, no matter how often you draft the same petition or writ because you can always improve. Never lose an opportunity to learn. The goal is ultimately to work so hard and meticulously at something that at some point, you know it like the back of your hand. My personal example is the peculiar fascination that I developed with the rules surrounding Originating Summons; perhaps a straightforward and boring nuance to many but because of my attitude and extensive research on the matter, I began to appreciate its place in the grand arena of civil procedure, or the fact that despite not studying Employment Law yet, I have attained a thorough understanding of the differences between unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal and in what circumstances they overlap.

5.???? Purpose goes beyond functionality: It really does, because it speaks to answering to something higher than yourself. It doesn’t have to be a Higher Power or a deity, but true purpose is what drives us to be the very best that we can be. I always joke to myself that ever since my mom attained her MBA, she’s been using educational material to give me life lessons, and one such theory she goes to a lot is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which places self-actualization at the pinnacle, emphasizing the importance of realizing one's potential and pursuing meaningful goals. When we connect our daily tasks to a broader purpose, we not only achieve greater satisfaction but also elevate the quality of our work. This connection transforms routine activities into opportunities for growth and excellence. In the legal profession, purpose is what drives us to advocate passionately for our clients, to seek justice, and to uphold the principles of law and fairness. It's what makes us go the extra mile, not just because it's our job, but because we are committed to making a difference. This commitment is evident in the way we approach our work, whether it's through the meticulous crafting of legal arguments, the strategic planning of case management, or the empathetic understanding of our clients' needs and perspectives. Purpose imbues our work with a sense of dedication that is palpable to those around us. It inspires trust and confidence in our clients and colleagues, setting us apart in a field that increasingly relies on technology and automation. While AI can handle many functional aspects of legal work, it cannot replicate the human drive to seek justice, build relationships, and innovate solutions that truly address the complexities of each case. This is something you should be cognisant of during your internship and take advantage of.

6.???? People love to spend money on the fancy things, but never the things that matter: Perhaps it’s a cultural thing that our people love to spend money on flashy and pomp. Don’t get me wrong, when you work hard, you should definitely reward yourself because nobody is going to do it for you, but you have to realise that you also need to invest in your personal development, whether that’s postgraduate education, additional certifications or even just routinely expanding your personal and professional libraries. Personally, I’m eventually going to want the nice house and the car of my dreams, but I also want to invest in leaving a legacy that will not be eroded by time or depreciate before my future children can walk. There should be a balance, and that can only happen if you fastidiously practice delayed gratification, and that is something that you owe the future you. That being said, I sincerely hope that wealth, if it is ever gracious enough to locate you, will serve to change your situation but not your heart, and that you safeguard against that.

7.???? You cannot evangelise effectively when the subject matter is foreign to you: With lawyers, you will typically find either mercenaries and missionaries, and it often becomes very evident who is standing before you if you watch them for long enough, but let’s take the log out of our own eye for a moment here to focus on just the principle. If you really want to be a missionary, then it is pertinent to note that you can never evangelise effectively when the subject matter is foreign to you. Imagine your pastor telling you to be steadfast in prayer but when pressed for the rationale, they just stare at you or stutter an incoherent response; doesn’t inspire confidence, does it? It’s the same with winning over clients and even judges. You have to have an intimate grasp of your case and all the core issues as well as the ones creeping in from the periphery and only then can you deliver the kind of service that will keep clients calling on you. It takes so much effort and sacrifice to reach a point where your name attracts business (because, as much as any of us love the profession, it is very much a business and we still need to eat), but in order to reach that point and remain at that level, you really have to be a zealous evangelist of the law. You need to know your scripture and where you don’t recall the verses, you must understand the core tenets that shape the literature that is our gospel. That is the daily bread that you must feast on, religiously, so to speak.

8.???? The importance of daily reflection: This one is a personal favourite of mine and I suggestion that I repeatedly give anyone who will listen. My personal approach to my weekdays, whether I’m at work or at school, is that I set aside ten minutes on either end of the day to plan and reflect, respectively. In the morning, I like to write down what I want to achieve, however small it is, and what I want to improve on from the previous day, then at the back end of the day, I reflect on what I could have done better and what I struggled with. It gets monotonous over time, but if you persist, then you will reap the rewards, almost instantly in some facets of your life. You have to want to improve, because that’s the only way to get closer to realising your dreams. If you only improve by a meagre 1% per day, that’s a rate of improvement of 1.01 per day, which over the course of a year gives you a total of 3,778.34%! That’s the awesome power of discipline and compounding tiny improvements over a protracted period of time, and to think that they say lawyers can only do maths when it comes to their paystubs, ha-ha!

9.???? You have an ethical duty to know what’s going on in the world: I’m pretty sure that every lecturer worth their weight in gold has hammered this into your head by the time you finish your first year of Law School. If that’s not enough, then so will every wise Associate and Partner around you. The fact of the matter is that you owe it not just to your clients, but to yourself to always be reasonably informed about what’s going on in both the legal fraternity and the task environment that each individual client operates in. Even if you’re in Corporate Advisory, you have to keep abreast with the latest litigious developments that may impact how your client does business just as much as you need to know what business developments are affecting their sphere of influence and even what the government of the day’s stance is on that industry because one can always reasonably infer that it will inform their public policy as it pertains to that. I’m fortunate to be enrolled at the best Law School in the nation (University of Lusaka) where one of our first year courses is actually “Business Environment”, which helps us understand the environments in which various industries operate in. Analytical tools such as the PESTEL method and Porter’s Five Forces come to mind, and must become second nature to any young lawyer worth his salt.

10.? A good general doesn’t hope that the enemy won’t attack: This is verging on Sun Tzu territory, I know, so I’ll keep this one brief. Although it has adversarial and Dispute Resolution connotations, it relates to the Corporate Advisory side of things just as much, if not more, especially when you enter the world of Mergers and Acquisition. We won’t go into that in detail in this piece, but what I will say is that a good general doesn’t sit and hope that the enemy won’t attack; they strive to make themselves unassailable. You must prepare for all eventualities, even miracles, and where possible, cater for scenarios where even if you do everything by the book, someone else’s incompetence getting in the way of your success.

11.? A cashier should never do the math in their head: It simply goes against what’s accepted to be best practice, no matter how small the figure is. The same can be said and actually should be said about our noble profession. You must resist every urge to take shortcuts that will come back to bite you. This is something many of us fall prey to and it severely impacts the standard of our work and can have a negative effect on your self-esteem if it backfires on you, so my simple advice with this one is to just do the hard work, and enjoy the sense of fulfilment it will give you. One thing a wise man always says to me is that the harder of two things is usually the right choice when it comes to things like these, and that has turned out to always reflect in my experiences.

12.? You are not paid to be on the same plain of knowledge as your client: It sounds very straightforward, even for an intern, but you find that so many people take such a simple and widely observed principle for granted. There isn’t a single client out there who would enlist your pricey services if they knew or even believed that the two of you had the same understanding of the relevant laws and procedural nuance, otherwise why would a reasonable person pay you to do something they could potentially do better than you? This is why you must never let it come to that. You have to earn your dinner by always being a problem solver, not the kind of lawyer who always leaves their clients with more questions than answers. Furthermore, it is very important that you treat every client with the same respect, regardless of whether they are your third pro-bono case of the year or their retainer is the one that’s big enough to single-handedly keep the lights on; you simply must represent and serve them how they would represent themselves if they had the requisite skill. That is the bar.

13.? You have to want to be the best of the best, not the best of a bad bunch: I believe that if you want to leave a lasting legacy (which you really start building while interning), then you shouldn’t just be content winning at the hands of incompetent opposition. You have to strive to rise to the crème and it should be reflecting in your approach, and by natural extension, in your work. This means constantly pushing yourself to learn, adapt, and improve, even when it's not required. It involves seeking out challenging tasks in areas of the law that might not be your strong suit, asking for feedback, and going the extra mile in everything you do. This dedication will distinguish you from your peers and set a standard for others to follow. As Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Cultivating this habit of excellence early in your career will set you on a path to becoming a true leader in your field. It's about embracing a mindset that refuses to settle for mediocrity and constantly aims for the highest standards, regardless of the competition. By doing so, you not only elevate your own skills but also contribute to raising the bar for the entire profession, which if the words of RBGLP are anything to go by, the profession is in need of this.

14.? Verba volante, scripta manent: This Latin terms roughly translates to “(spoken) words fly away, written ones remain”. Poignant, I know. That was my reaction too. The Romans had a strong culture of record keeping and it makes a lot of sense why so much information about their laws and ethos at the time is available to us today. Consider the effect of an oral history as opposed to a recorded one: (1) it’s prone to alteration to the point of being unrecognisable to the originator as we see with the children’s game of “broken telephone” (2) it is often lost time, because it has virtually no staying power compared to the alternative. It is very important, as a lawyer, to keep a traceable record of everything, whether it’s sending emails to reinforce discussions had over the phone, keeping a personal diary of tasks assigned or whatever else you can think about. As much as many of you love watching “Suits”, I have to remind you that you are not Mike Ross and you do not have a photographic memory, regardless of how many cases you crammed in your head (as opposed to learning the cases, which is another red flag). You have to keep a record of everything. The firm that I’ve just interned at has this rule that I loved so much: they gave everyone a work diary and you had to keep it on you at all times and it helped me be so much more efficient and that’s something that I’ll certainly be taking as a permanent routine in my life, generally.

?Conclusion

So, in conclusion, I learnt a great deal as an intern and the process really matured me a lot. Not only do I know that I belong in the fraternity, but I also know that when my time comes to be called to the Bar, I will have undisputedly earned my seat at the table because of these principles that I am working hard to apply daily, and I strongly urge you to do the same.

?