Law: Business Skills As Important As Legal Skills
When you think of the practice of law, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Most people would say something like clients, cases, court, opening arguments, etc. This is all very important of course, but equally important are the business aspects of the practice of law.
When the state bars, particularly those in New York and California, look at students going through law school and the requirements for their education, what they see is lawyers that are not trained and not educated well enough to come out of school and take a case to court. As a result of that, they are mandating more of what they call clinical studies requirements. They want law students to have practical legal experiences: they want students to hold the hand of the client, they want students to have a moot court, they want students to go to court to represent pro bono cases, etc.
Although it might be true that lawyers are not trained and educated enough in law school, what the bar associations are missing is that the law schools still are not teaching law students and young lawyers how to run a business and how to become a good associate who contributes to the profits of the larger firm by more than just billable hours.
Being a lawyer means more than knowing the ins and outs of court filings. A good lawyer also has to have solid accounting knowledge so that he can budget and create a financial plan. A good lawyer has to be skilled at the art of how and when to bill. A good lawyer has to be savvy about marketing techniques. A good lawyer has to be able to incorporate technology to the advantage of his practice. A good lawyer, in other words, must understand that business skills are just as important as legal skills.
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