No matter what a person does for a living or a career, chances are you want to be great at it. And, thankfully, few people are born great, so you have a chance. The flip side of that, however, is that to be great you must work your butt off to get there. And I should know, I wasn’t born a great Seattle criminal attorney. In fact, I’m still not one. But I think I know how to get there, and I’m going to tell you today.
Becoming a great criminal attorney requires a couple of things. One of those things is working hard every day to become better. That means taking a little bit of time each day to read a little bit about trial advocacy, or read a little bit about criminal procedure, or read a little bit about DUI law. Whatever it is you are working on or focusing on, continue to learn about it. You will become better over time.
Another element required to be a criminal lawyer, sadly, is time. Malcolm Gladwell has a book out right now, which I can’t remember the title of, but the premise of it is this – it takes almost everyone about 10,000 hours before they really become great at it. Think about what that means. If you spend 8 hours a day working your butt off to become a great criminal attorney, it will take you a little over 5 years before you can consider yourself to be an expert at something. And we aren’t spending 40 hours a week getting better. There’s a lot of other crap in there.
In addition to reading a little bit every day about the practice of criminal law, I also take every opportunity that is provided to me to attend continuing legal education classes. Some people see these things as a chore. Me? I see them as an opportunity to get better. That means I only take classes that will help me, and I don’t look at the price tag when deciding what I’m going to do.
In the end, you have to decide you want to become great in order to do it. It takes hard work, it takes perseverance, and it takes time. Good luck.
Related posts: