Lipshaw on Chosing a Career
posted by Dave Hoffman
Jeff Lipshaw, on LPB, has written a terrific post on the differences between transactional practice and litigation, the joys (and drudgery) of both paths, and how to think about choosing between them. Here’s a small taste of it:
The first part of a career, whether in litigation or corporate, is a combination of doing the grunt work and learning professional techniques. Doing the grunt work, well, sucks. Learning the professional techniques, whether it’s second-chairing a deposition, or attending the negotiation of the acquisition agreement, is a lot of fun, as long as you like to learn. Being creative with those techniques is something that comes later. Two examples. Litigation. An old saw of cross-examination is that you never ask a question for which you don’t know the answer. That pretty much guarantees that you won’t make a mistake. But great cross-examiners violate that rule all the time, because they know what questions to ask in which they either don’t care what the answer is, or have a plan for whatever comes out. Corporate. Things like the shareholders’ rights plan (the poison pill) are invented by creative lawyers. But generally that’s by lawyers with cycles of learning in the transactions.
The rest is just as good, and worth checking out!
July 1, 2008 at 11:09 am
Posted in: Law Practice
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Happy Birthday, DAH! - July 4, 2008 at 10:29 am
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