De Facto talks about his law school reunion and how his friends had undergone a transformation mainly in terms of size. He emphasizes on how everyone felt they could have worked better at building relationships, especially when tables turn..Several years after graduating from law school, I got a chance to attend my mini law school reunion. It was great to see how my classmates had grown in every possible way – wealth, intellect, cynicism and most distinctly ‘size’. Reunions are fun because there are usually a lot of drunks walking down the memory lane sharing moments from law school days. Conversations are about old funny incidents where we laugh our guts out – god, we all miss those days! We all go to our reunions, mostly hang out with the same old friends, talk about who we recently met, continue to box people in the same category we boxed during law school days, compare each other’s success and trash talk about someone who we didn’t or don’t like. I wouldn’t judge anyone for these actions since this is what the majority does at reunions..I decided to be a little experimental at the reunion and asked one common question to all those whom I met in the first four hours that I am able to distinctly remember and the latter three blurred hours. The question was a simple one – ‘If there is one thing that you could change or you wish you had learned during your law school years, what would that be?’ Now you can imagine the kind of responses I got prior to the blurry period and during. I will spare you on the responses that I got during those blurred hours. Sam said he wouldn’t change anything because his law school life was perfect – now we all agree that he is delusional; Adi talked about how he should have been more respectful and compassionate to his classmates; Abhi said he wish he had focused more on his grades; Jaz said how she shouldn’t have dumped Vik in such a distasteful manner; Kash said she wish she had not gone to law school at all – you all the get the picture. Now I ask you to imagine one thing you would have done differently or would have liked to learn in law school before we go further. Go ahead, take 2 minutes and think about one thing you would have done differently or learned in law school that you didn’t!.Tell me if the following one crossed your mind – ‘build relationships’. Law school teaches us a lot of skills: legal, research, organizational, writing, speaking, winging, copying and pasting, etc. However, it fails to teach one of the most important skills that probably is the key to success in the outside world – the relationship building skill. The years after law school are so much about relationships, and your happiness and success is mostly dependant on your relationship building abilities. The work we get from our clients not only depends on how good we are at what we do, but what that client thinks of us as a person. If he or she really does not like you as a person, I am not sure you will continue to get business. Our relationships with our work colleagues make a significant difference in how we live our lives. If we are unable to build a good relationship with our boss there could be several consequences –nature of work we get, amount of money we are paid, our reputation in the company and it could go on to the kind of house we own or rent, schools our children attend, social parties that we are invited to, etc. If someone told me about relationship building skills in law school years – I would say whatever and shrug my shoulders..Personally, I think it is important for law schools to engage professors in psychology and make psychology a mandatory course – a classroom where we educate people on the importance of building relationships..We all admire the intelligent and the ‘cool’ ones in law school –it’s natural to do so at that age. Many box people with low test scores or grade points as inferior in some ways. And again, this is a part of law school culture. Goal is to get the best jobs in the market, go abroad to a fancy law school for post-grad education, work for top litigators, set up your own practice, etc. One thing we notice on our recruitment days is that there are very few or almost no companies on Day 1 for interviews. Day 1 and Day 2 slots are mostly taken by top law firms. End of Day 2 and Day 3 are packed with companies trying to hire you for an in-house legal position. Whether we like it or not, they are not the most desired jobs for a majority of fresh graduate..Now let’s fast forward 10 years from the day you graduated from law school. You will find most of those who got jobs in the second half of Day 2 and Day 3 are actually people who have the power to give you their business. They are your clients, your bread and butter, your paycheck at the end of the month and your bonus at the end of the year. Let me not say more about building relationships and boxing your classmates in categories because Tables Turn!.De Facto is currently a lawyer practising in New York.
De Facto talks about his law school reunion and how his friends had undergone a transformation mainly in terms of size. He emphasizes on how everyone felt they could have worked better at building relationships, especially when tables turn..Several years after graduating from law school, I got a chance to attend my mini law school reunion. It was great to see how my classmates had grown in every possible way – wealth, intellect, cynicism and most distinctly ‘size’. Reunions are fun because there are usually a lot of drunks walking down the memory lane sharing moments from law school days. Conversations are about old funny incidents where we laugh our guts out – god, we all miss those days! We all go to our reunions, mostly hang out with the same old friends, talk about who we recently met, continue to box people in the same category we boxed during law school days, compare each other’s success and trash talk about someone who we didn’t or don’t like. I wouldn’t judge anyone for these actions since this is what the majority does at reunions..I decided to be a little experimental at the reunion and asked one common question to all those whom I met in the first four hours that I am able to distinctly remember and the latter three blurred hours. The question was a simple one – ‘If there is one thing that you could change or you wish you had learned during your law school years, what would that be?’ Now you can imagine the kind of responses I got prior to the blurry period and during. I will spare you on the responses that I got during those blurred hours. Sam said he wouldn’t change anything because his law school life was perfect – now we all agree that he is delusional; Adi talked about how he should have been more respectful and compassionate to his classmates; Abhi said he wish he had focused more on his grades; Jaz said how she shouldn’t have dumped Vik in such a distasteful manner; Kash said she wish she had not gone to law school at all – you all the get the picture. Now I ask you to imagine one thing you would have done differently or would have liked to learn in law school before we go further. Go ahead, take 2 minutes and think about one thing you would have done differently or learned in law school that you didn’t!.Tell me if the following one crossed your mind – ‘build relationships’. Law school teaches us a lot of skills: legal, research, organizational, writing, speaking, winging, copying and pasting, etc. However, it fails to teach one of the most important skills that probably is the key to success in the outside world – the relationship building skill. The years after law school are so much about relationships, and your happiness and success is mostly dependant on your relationship building abilities. The work we get from our clients not only depends on how good we are at what we do, but what that client thinks of us as a person. If he or she really does not like you as a person, I am not sure you will continue to get business. Our relationships with our work colleagues make a significant difference in how we live our lives. If we are unable to build a good relationship with our boss there could be several consequences –nature of work we get, amount of money we are paid, our reputation in the company and it could go on to the kind of house we own or rent, schools our children attend, social parties that we are invited to, etc. If someone told me about relationship building skills in law school years – I would say whatever and shrug my shoulders..Personally, I think it is important for law schools to engage professors in psychology and make psychology a mandatory course – a classroom where we educate people on the importance of building relationships..We all admire the intelligent and the ‘cool’ ones in law school –it’s natural to do so at that age. Many box people with low test scores or grade points as inferior in some ways. And again, this is a part of law school culture. Goal is to get the best jobs in the market, go abroad to a fancy law school for post-grad education, work for top litigators, set up your own practice, etc. One thing we notice on our recruitment days is that there are very few or almost no companies on Day 1 for interviews. Day 1 and Day 2 slots are mostly taken by top law firms. End of Day 2 and Day 3 are packed with companies trying to hire you for an in-house legal position. Whether we like it or not, they are not the most desired jobs for a majority of fresh graduate..Now let’s fast forward 10 years from the day you graduated from law school. You will find most of those who got jobs in the second half of Day 2 and Day 3 are actually people who have the power to give you their business. They are your clients, your bread and butter, your paycheck at the end of the month and your bonus at the end of the year. Let me not say more about building relationships and boxing your classmates in categories because Tables Turn!.De Facto is currently a lawyer practising in New York.