New Wings: Helping Fall Associates Soar To New Heights (08/07)
By Elizabeth Cavendish
When I was a first-year law student, I had a Contracts professor who said that he loved watching the third-year students return to school proudly wearing their new suits. They reminded him of butterflies—since he had known them when they were all scared first years—and now they looked and thought like lawyers. As I was just a jeans-wearing larva at the time, I was more concerned with the difference between the Parole Evidence Rule and parole from prison than the dressed-up third years roaming the halls. Years later, as a firm librarian, I finally understood what Professor Macauley meant when my first class of summer associates returned to the firm as fall associates. When I first worked with them, they were law students with no firm experience, and when they returned they walked and talked and acted like lawyers. I wanted to help those proud butterflies fly high.
Fall associates are not usually given the luxury of much training time. They are expected to “jump right in,” so your best opportunity to reach them is at orientation. Let them know what services the library provides, the scope of the collection and how you can help them. It is a great opportunity for them to see you as a valuable professional who wants them to succeed.
Conducting library tours during orientation is also a good time for the new associates to see what print materials are available and to meet the staff. For the associates who did not clerk at the firm, it will be their first experience with the library. As billable hours loom on their horizon, it will be much more difficult in the future to get them to come back into the library just to learn about the resources.
Creating a “Welcome” packet is a good way for them to have information about the library at their fingertips. You can send it out with your library branding or have it added to the New Associate’s Handbook. It can include library policies, maps, pathfinders, firm CALR billing policies, cost-effective research information, a list of useful URL’s, passwords and a list of materials which can be routed. This is also a great tool to distribute to lateral hires who don’t always get the extensive new hire orientation experiences that fall associates receive.
The first few days are pretty staggering for the new attorneys. Not only are they expected to start billing, but they are meeting with Human Resources, the office decorator, a new secretary and the partners to whom they will report. They also have to adapt to new computer programs, and even finding a parking place near the office can be daunting. The library can get lost in that early onslaught of new information. Once they have settled in, check up on them in mid-fall. They will appreciate that extra effort, and your message won’t be lost on them.
This second meeting with fall associates is a good time to not only go over any questions they may have, but also to go over practice group sources—both online and in print. The practice group they are assigned to as lawyers may not be the same group they clerked for, so many will be starting from the beginning. What a great confidence booster to have a librarian meet with them and show them resources that are right on point with what they are doing now!
As these young fall associates grow into more confident attorneys, you will start to see flashes of brilliant color in the halls among the black and navy suits. What a beautiful vision of a job well done!
