Dear Lawyers Who Just Passed the Bar or Are Studying for the Next Bar Exam:

Soon, you’ll find that your advanced knowledge of the elements of the tort of false imprisonment and your ability to write as fast as you can without checking any legal authority is not going to do you very much good in the real legal world.

There are going to be some things you are going to want to do right off the bat. Get a mentor. Join the young lawyers division of your local bar association. Learn that the best thing you can do in the office is be nice to your secretary. And if you really want to prove your worth, learn technology.

During law school I had free access to both traditional Westlaw and Thompson Reuters’ shiny new (at that time) product, WestlawNext. Whether it was sheer laziness or the fact that I liked the name better,  I exclusively used WestlawNext. I don’t believe I opened traditional Westlaw one time. During my third year as an associate, Thomson Reuters announced that it would phase our traditional Westlaw in favor of WestlawNext. Luckily for me, I was one of the few firm attorneys who could sign-in to the product. Essentially, anyone who had graduated from law school before 2009 learned how to research using traditional Westlaw and for that reason was not familiar with WestlawNext. That is a lot of attorneys! My “expertise” gave me the unique opportunity to educate and field questions from several senior associates, junior partners, and even the managing partner of my firm.

Some other ways to stand out by using technology:

Ediscovery
Simply put, ediscovery is the future of litigation. Just as the world moved on from microfiche, it will move on from storing our records in paper format. When that transition is complete, there are going to be a lot of litigators wondering how long they have to respond to a request for production of 300 mb of .pst files or how much that will cost, whether self-collection is a good idea, what clawback is, what litigation holds are, and what are the first steps you take to ensure that your client or your firm will not be liable for spoliation due to auto-delete data policies. That’s where you come in.

Here’s how you get started: Go to the Sedona Conference’s website. Look at the program outline for the last conference they had and read the program descriptions. That will let you know what the current trends are. Google those topics and find one of the several excellent blog posts on each topic. Read the materials on the Sedona Conference website. Read the comments to the recent 2015 FRCP amendments. Find the right person to talk to at your firm and see if there is an ediscovery committee or a technology committee. Point out that large law firms that cater to businesses are creating ediscovery committees or practice areas to attract new clients.

Trial Presentation
If you are in litigation, you know the most elite positions are for the trial attorneys. Insurance companies keep indices on attorneys and whether they take cases to trial or settle them. Offers get more significant closer to trial. You might be a great motion writer or researcher, but the bottom line is that no one will fear you if you can only win little motion battles, but have no experience winning the war at trial. Usually, it’s very difficult to get trial experience. On the defense side, the client or the insurance carrier likely has rules that say only a partner with X number of trials or years of experience can be the trial attorney. On the plaintiffs’ side, there is so much riding on the outcome (like getting paid for all the work you’ve done and being able to secure a future for your clients) that it’s rare that the senior attorneys will hand the reins over to a junior lawyer.

If you want experience in the courtroom learning the procedures and the skills that make a great trial attorney, learn to be invaluable in the courtroom by having some auxiliary role. That could be learning how to put together trial presentations and present the evidence in court.

How to get started: Call a trial presentation company or go to their website and download a free trial of the software. Most trial techs are self-taught and you can learn a lot between a free limited trial and the help manuals. Go to the courthouse and find which departments are in trial and watch the cases. If it’s a big case, there will likely be a trial tech there. Watch how they present the evidence to see the final product of how the evidence is presented.

There are certainly a lot of fundamental skills you will need to know as a lawyer, but those will come with practice and experience. If you want to stay ahead of the curve a little, learn to separate yourself from the rest with some technical skills.

Cullan Jones is an Associate with Hunton & Williams LLP in Washington where he litigates complex employment, labor, and business disputes. Cullan serves as an out-of-state elected representative on the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Board of Governors.