If you’re a new lawyer in today’s economy, you’re probably asking your-self one of the following questions:

• How do I transition from law school to law practice?• How do I get a job?• How can I find like-minded mentors and colleagues?• How do I develop a book of business?• How do I become a good lawyer?

These questions are on the minds of almost every new lawyer, but especially now considering the state of the legal industry. These are the types of questions that weigh on you and keep you awake at night, along with thoughts like “Was going to law school really the right deci-sion?” or “Should I be doing something else with my life?” They are natural questions to ask. If you aren’t asking yourself these questions—even if you have a job—you are ignoring the world to your detriment.

The entire legal industry is in a state of flux. Legal work is being automated, down-sized, and outsourced. The amount of work is shrinking as well. Clients have become more intelligent and scrutiniz-ing. Corporate work is being moved in-house. Contract attorneys are on the rise. People are turning to Internet services like LegalZoom or RocketLawyer instead of a local lawyer for “routine” work. Document review mills are bulging with new law school graduates who think they have no other options.

At the same time, law schools are flooding the legal job market with a glut of new lawyers, the majority of whom are unequipped, uninformed, and untrained to deal with the realities of the current legal environment. It’s quite possible that you’re one of them.

The problem is that law schools teach students how to think like lawyers, but not how to practice like lawyers. They have been miserable

INTRODUCTION

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xii • The Marble and the Sculptor

at properly preparing their graduates to function as useful attorneys after graduation. In the past, law firms and clients were the ones left footing the bill to train new lawyers—but no longer. Now law firms and clients expect new lawyers to be able to hit the ground running. Especially considering the oversupply of lawyers available, it is easier than ever for law firms to pick up experienced lawyers for low rates. As such, many new lawyers are left without guidance or direction.

I know this first-hand because I graduated from law school into this environment in 2010. Like so many others, I was dropped into practice when the legal industry was at the lowest hiring rate in decades. Although I was fortunate enough to get a job, I wasn’t confi-dent in my skills or ability to properly execute as a lawyer and effec-tively represent clients. This was a problem that didn’t suddenly occur to me after graduation, but something I had been considering since my first year of law school.

So, during my final year of law school, I started a legal blog1 titled Associate’s Mind,2 a play on words of a concept in Zen known as shoshin, or “beginner’s mind.” A “beginner’s mind” refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.

I wanted to adopt this mindset in my practice of law. The idea that an associate should be flexible and open to new ideas and processes, while being mindful of the guidance of those who have tread the road before them. So I decided to explore it in public at Associate’s Mind, in hopes of building relationships and a community of other people who were dedicated to practicing law in the same way. While I had little in the way of expectations, Associate’s Mind eventually grew into one of the most popular legal blogs in the country.

In the three years that I have been exploring what it means to find success as a new lawyer—what it take to become a good lawyer—it’s become clear that the universal overriding trait among exceptional lawyers is a dedication to systematic, continuous improvement. The lawyers who are the best of the best are never satisfied with who or where they are. They contain an insatiable hunger for growth. It does

1. Or “blawg,” of which I am not a fan.2. www.associatesmind.com

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Introduction • xiii

not mean they are bombastic or unhappy with themselves, only that they contain a drive to better themselves every day.

Most people think they have it in themselves to succeed, to push themselves beyond their boundaries and shed their former selves and become something more than they once were. But they fail—again and again—dragged down by mediocrity and the mundane. Their failure is not drastic or sudden, but a subtle, grinding failure that chips away at them day by day. They do not have the fortitude or the will to push through adversity and boredom to fulfill their potential.

Yet there is another type of chipping away at oneself that is deliber-ate and meaningful. It is alluded to in the title of this book. Alexis Car-rel, a Nobel-Prize winning surgeon and scientist, once commented:

“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.”

This mindset is not easily adopted. It does not come naturally for many people. It requires discipline to dedicate oneself to systematic growth, abandoning things that might have once seemed important, and discarding patterns of behavior that may be entrenched. This is a significant transformation. One that many people do not successfully complete.

Your old habits, routines, and ruts; the same food, the same con-versations, the same work; laziness, indifference, reluctance—are all aspects of your old self. The old you who adheres to the comfort-able and familiar. Yet change involves effort, devotion and commit-ment. For someone who wishes to truly change themselves, they must embrace sacrifice. They must look at themselves and strip away parts of their old self.

Becoming a successful lawyer is possible for everyone. It is pos-sible for you. You just have to want it badly enough. It has to become the overriding goal and purpose of your life. This will cause imbalance. It will interfere and intercede in parts of your life you once thought pri-vate. The separation between your personal life and your professional life will start to thin, to the point that it becomes illusory. And as any good lawyer will tell you—it is. Being a good lawyer is not a part-time job. It isn’t something that you do in your spare time. It isn’t something

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xiv • The Marble and the Sculptor

that you phone in or do when it is convenient. It isn’t something that you fit in between checking Facebook and Twitter.

It’s been said that, “An amateur practices something until he gets it right, a professional practices until he can’t get it wrong.” Becoming a successful lawyer, then, is a commitment to the transition from an amateur into professional—shedding what you once were and becom-ing more than you thought you could be.

Hopefully this book can help you on your way.

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