The Young Lawyer’s Journey: Growth, Grit and Getting Involved

As we prepare for the start of the new bar year, I have been thinking a lot about my first ten years of practice and what it really means to be a young lawyer.

I have never been one to relish the idea of starting over. In a somewhat stereotypical fashion, my path to becoming a lawyer was a series of deliberate steps (political science, student government, etc.). But, like most young lawyers, from almost the moment I was sworn in, I couldn’t help but feel like I was at the very beginning of something new. In many ways, it felt like I was starting over.

I was fortunate to graduate law school not only with a job, but also practicing the kind of law I had hoped to practice, specifically, health law. I didn’t come from a family of lawyers, but I did come from a proud family tradition of healthcare providers, and I was happy to have my own connection to that tradition.

But pretty quickly, I found the work hard. To be fair, law school hadn’t been easy (or maybe I hadn’t been the best student), and while I like a challenge, I prefer a challenge that I can overcome. Not every day felt like a win, at least not in the way I was used to. Eventually, I started to hear others expressing similar frustrations, and while there was some comfort in knowing I wasn’t alone, I knew that mindset wasn’t going to work for me.

So, in the middle of feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing, I decided to do something I was familiar with: I got involved. At first, I joined everything, from the American Bar Association to the New Orleans Bar Association. For me, connecting with other lawyers passionate about both the work they were doing and being a lawyer, in general, changed how I felt about my own work.

I became less concerned about being perfect—after all, our clients rarely give us the perfect facts to achieve a perfect outcome—and instead, I focused on doing what I could with what I had. Over time, I grew increasingly proud of that work and how being a lawyer allowed me to make a difference for both the public and our profession.

In the end, for me, the Louisiana State Bar Association is where I found the most meaningful opportunity to give back. I joined the Transition Into Practice Program, Leadership LSBA, the Health Law Section, and, eventually, the Young Lawyers Division Council. I even pursued board certification in health law and served on the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization’s Health Law Advisory Commission. Through each experience, I found other people, each with a different combination of background and practice area, but all of whom were proud to be lawyers, most of whom were young lawyers.

No matter where you find it, I hope you find pride in the work we do, especially as young lawyers. Life is pulling us in so many directions—whether building a career, starting a family, or, quite likely, trying to find balance between the two—but I hope you find what we do—what you do—to be important, meaningful, and fulfilling.

Young lawyers—at least, as we define that term within the LSBA—make up more than a quarter of all of the State’s lawyers. We’re first-year associates, but we’re also managing partners. We’re prosecutors, defense attorneys, litigators, and transactional lawyers. No area of law is beyond the reach of a young lawyer. But, as a result, there is, perhaps, no other cross section of lawyers more responsible for safeguarding the reputation of our profession or better positioned to welcome new lawyers into the fold.

I hope the coming year brings you the opportunity to reflect on what you have accomplished in your first years of practice and to renew your commitment to the ideals that brought you to this profession in the first place, knowing that each day, just by doing what we’re trained to do, we’re making a difference, whether big or small.

Cheers to a great year!