10 (Free) Habits of Exemplary Legal Professionals
To be the best paralegal you can be, there are certain habits you must create. In last week’s blog, we went over Paralegal Power’s first five habits of exemplary legal professionals. The remaining habits in this blog have a lot to do with accountability. The last one is just good old common sense for any legal professional.
6. Be Coachable
To truly be accountable, you have to be coachable. Loosely defined, being coachable means you are easy to be taught things you do not know.
Specifically, being coachable means you:
- Smile.
- Nod to show you understand.
- Maintain eye contact.
- Admit you don’t know something.
- Ask questions.
- Listen twice as much as you talk.
- Welcome constructive criticism.
7. Be Prepared
When you show up prepared, you are showing accountability. You are showing absolute consideration for the situation at hand. It may often go unnoticed that you always show up prepared, or even over-prepared. However, especially in the legal field, it will never go unnoticed if you show up once unprepared.
8. Over Deliver
Just try your hardest. Do all you can do – every time. You will never regret it, no one can take away the dignity you earn by doing your best every time.
A beautiful mentor of mine told me back in the day.
“Eighty percent of people are mediocre. If you just try – you beat out 80%. But if you give it your all – you will always be in the top 10%.”
Now, like I said that was the saying back in my day. Considering things like “okayest” is an actual thing now, well, that may or may not mean your odds are better. It certainly reminds us of the overall widespread acceptance of mediocrity. Leave your mark of excellence on the paralegal profession.
9. Under Promise
Now often when you relish in doing your best, you cannot wait to tell your client or attorney what a great job you are going to do going above and beyond conducting legal research or drafting legal documents for a certain case. Just keep the “over-deliver” details to yourself.
When the job is done and the case is sitting on spinners, totally pimped out (aka done with pristine paralegal talent with everything the attorney needs, nothing they don’t, and a little something to help win the case) your work will be known at that time.
Sometimes in an effort to win an attorney or clients good graces, we promise to have something done in some ridiculous amount of time that is absolutely unattainable. Then when the deadline isn’t met, you look unreliable. Well instead, commit to reasonable obligations and then do your best to over-deliver on them.
Some people will argue with me on this. And in certain industries, the “over-promise/under-deliver” model doesn’t work. However, in the legal field, it seems to really improve your chances of leaving an exemplary lasting impression on whoever you are working with.
10. Use Perfect Grammar
When I was a young professional there is nothing I studied more than English grammar. Yet, it remained an area that I was still super insecure about. My mother, whose first language was Spanish – was a grammar-Nazi.
She was relentlessly correcting our English, despite her free-range type parenting style. Party all night was her motto, but do it using proper English.
Growing up in the ’80s meant you had to literally memorize all the rules of the English language in order to master grammar. And then you had to earn a bachelor’s degree in English to really get it all straight.
Now using perfect grammar requires no formal education – in fact, it is absolutely free, regardless of your level of experience or what your native language is. For a truly exemplary legal professional spellcheck doesn’t cut it. Grammarly is free. Not only does it easily help you fix grammar errors, but it emails you a weekly report to let you know how you stack up against other Grammarly users in areas like:
- Productivity
- Mastery
- Vocabulary
The weekly report also tells you what your top three errors were and other interesting tidbits regarding your personal grammar habits. Using Grammarly makes writing exemplary content all the way around easier. But given that it has a free version, there is no reason why any exemplary legal professional should have grammatical errors in their work.
Bad Grammar Is A Bad Habit
Do not be afraid to use it in your text messages and do not forget to use it in your emails. As an employer, it is one of my favorite on-boarding apps. It is so nice to see our employees’ email correspondence so well written. We are all busy professionals and in an effort to be efficient can often make mistakes in our written communication.
When you are using Grammarly, you never have to worry about looking inept. It is like my amazingly smart friend is peeping over my shoulder proofreading all of my writing. By simply using the app, I have seen my overall vocabulary improve as well. The weekly report will let you know how your vocabulary rates overall. Just click on any of the links to download your free Grammarly account.
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You Will 💖 The Weekly Reports
You can download Grammarly for free now from these links from whatever device you are on now, and then log in from the rest of your devices. You will want to have it on all your devices so your weekly reports can be as accurate as possible.
If you enjoyed this blog, you might like “Paralegal Expectations.” Make sure to join the Paralegal Power Facebook Group. We’ve got to stick together!
Valentina Zapata Harris
Mother | Advocate | Blogger