About it
Law clerks are employed in the government agencies and law offices and have the responsibility to support the attorneys by writing the reports, assembling case materials and organizing important information for some legal documents. While the law-clerks are usually trained to perform different legal procedures, do complete research and more, successful professional clerks need some special skills.
Ellery Shane Gordon completed his early education from a law school in Arizona. He has worked as a skilled and enthusiastic law clerk and has drafted various legal memorandum regarding complicated problems of the environmental law. If you are thinking about getting enrolled yourself in the law clerk courses, then there are some skills that all the law clerks share.
Qualities of Successful Law Clerks
- Disposition
Clerks need to dress professionally. This means you cannot wear jeans and you must wear shoes to office. You can wear casual outfits sometimes like when you clean your office or take the files to storage. However, it is an exception and not a norm.
- Service
Law clerk’s services needs to be effective. This means, you need to return the client messages immediately. You may not get the opportunity to tell this to a responsible lawyer, but you need to make the client aware that you have received his message. It would alleviate the client’s stress and would make sure that all the requests are being processed. You would also have to be receptive about every query that has been asked to you.
- Empathy
You would be working on more than one client and more than one file. However, clients want to feel that he is the only client and hence, you would have to respond immediately. You would have to be empathic in these situations.
- Accuracy
Correctness and accuracy are must for successful law clerks. When a document or task is received, you need to make sure that the lawyer gets it right the first time. If the lawyer is checking it multiple times, then it would be much easier to produce it yourself.
- Anticipation
As an effective law clerk, you need to anticipate what your lawyer needs in order to complete a particular task. Providing background information, checking the court dates, documents or memos, when your lawyer presents some information would help to improve the efficiency and streamline workforce.
- Independent
You need to understand that you cannot be always dependent on other law clerks or your lawyer. Law clerks need to complete their task independently and they cannot delay the job because of other responsibilities. As a successful law clerk, you need to prioritize your workload.
Conclusion
Law clerks should be flexible with their tasks. You may have to stay back late or work extra hours to complete an important file. Effective clerks need to meet their deadlines and get their job done effectively. If you are making any mistake, then you would have to take the responsibility and not your lawyer.
