OTLA Trial Lawyer Winter 2021

37 Trial Lawyer • Winter 2021 See New Associate p 38 associate is right for their firm, might prefer a more flexible option. The good news is that you’re in luck — that kind of option exists! The clerk option Each of Oregon’s three law schools has its own career services center de- signed to help students get valuable, hands-on experience in legal practice. And one of the best employment options those centers help facilitate are clerkships. Law clerk positions come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including part time during the school year, full time during the summer, or some combination of the two, depending on both your firm’s needs and the clerk’s schedule. But having had the opportunity to help supervise some truly excellent law clerks in my career, it’s been my experi- ence across the board that law clerks can consistently handle a variety of time- consuming tasks like legal research and routine discovery requests (with a little training, of course).With even more time and training, they can learn how to draft demands, pleadings and motions, make court appearances and grow into a valu- able member of your firm’s legal team — so valuable that you may even want to hire that person on permanently as a new associate. In short, hiring a law clerk is a terrific way to take a trial run at hav- ing an associate trained from the get-go in your style of working, without im- mediately incurring the financial invest- ment and risk that comes with hiring a new lawyer. Of course, clerkships aren’t the only way to engage with emerging lawyers who might be a good fit for your office. Moot court and legal writing competi- tions are always looking for qualified judges, and I can hardly think of a group better suited to evaluate those two par- ticular skills than plaintiff lawyers. And of course, there’s always the chance that some particularly talented new litigator might stand out. I’m writing this article right as the Major League Baseball play- offs are starting—which should give you some insight into where my mind is at the moment — but in that spirit, I’d encourage OTLA members who might be looking for new associates to think of themselves as scouts on the hunt for new prospects taking in a high school or col- lege ballgame. You never know where you might find the next Adley Rutschman. (Next year, Orioles!) Find the right fit Once you reach the point where you’ve identified someone that you’d like to hire, there’s one critical item you need to keep in mind. Do. Not. Rush it. The most important part of hiring a new as- sociate is ensuring the individual is the right fit for the way that you work. There are lots of different business models in the personal injury world, there are just as many ways to run an office, and every potential hire has their own personality, workstyle and skill set. Ensuring you and your associate are compatible in the workplace, communicate well and play to each other’s strengths is the best way to ensure your working relationship ends up being productive, fun and profitable. To that end, I would encourage po- tential employers not to shy away from offering new associates some level of contract work before hiring them on full time. Contract work provides a valuable opportunity to evaluate every aspect of what a new associate would bring to your office, particularly in terms of legal skills, working style and communications abil- ity. It also gives your potential new as- sociate the chance to see if your business model, office environment and expecta- tions are right for them. Or, as my cur- rent boss put it so succinctly when he offered me my first contract assignment, “I need to know if you’re an ass, and you need to know if I’m an ass.” Finding the right fit is the most important thing for both parties, so why not try things out for a while to make sure it feels right? Assuming the contract period goes well, the next major issue in the hiring process revolves around compensation. Most small and mid-size firms don’t post their jobs publicly when they decide it’s time to hire an associate, so there aren’t a ton of ways for either employers or employees to figure out what constitutes a competitive offer. Fortunately, the an- swer is — and I am being absolutely serious here — there is no wrong answer. There are a number of different compen- sation models out there, from commis- sion-based, to fully salaried, to some combination of the two. So when it comes to creating a competitive compen- sation package for your talented new associate, your top priority should really be what fits best with your office model. Each model has its pros and cons, depending on what exactly you’re looking for your associate to do. If you have a rapidly growing firm that wants to keep taking on a high number of new cases, New Associate Continued from p 35