#1 Thing I Coach Lawyers Not to Do

Lawyers spend their lives explaining complex things. The best lawyers communicate simply, a rare and hard-earned skill.

The top communication problem for lawyers? They take too long to get to the point. Do NOT give the entire back story. Just give enough details to get to the punchline, which in an interview should be disaster averted, money saved, case won, etc. The entire story should be 3-4 sentences and take 30-60 seconds. If the interviewer wants to hear more, they will ask.

Because the best interview answers are concise, you will need to practice them beforehand. Parse through what is confidential and what is not. Think ahead of time how to describe succinctly a client, its industry, and the issue faced. Work on delivery so listeners are intrigued and impressed.

For example, when lawyers are asked what they do, they often given mind-numbing answers like: “When I started at the company, it was facing issue X. The law was changing from A to B, and so I switched from Y to focus on X. Then B did happen as I was putting together the X team. Our team grew to handle A, B, C, and now it looks like D too since the law is changing from C to D. I also support sales when it relates to X, and I serve on multiple committees…”

Please just get to the point: “I counsel execs and cross-functional teams on X, a key issue because [of exposure, depressed growth, investigations, etc.] I grew the X team from # to ## and implemented