No one denies that being a lawyer requires an eye for detail; it helps produce excellent work, allowing lawyers to add value by spotting details that can make or break a contract or dispute. Equally, a missing word, incorrect date, or email to the wrong client can have serious commercial consequences.
While the importance of attention to detail cannot be understated, there is a balance to be struck. Lawyers are human and mistakes are inevitable. Ignoring this reality promotes a culture of hyper-perfectionism where mistakes are feared or buried. Such an attitude is unhelpful, leading to greater stress and anxiety, stifling meaningful improvement as people hide their mistakes as though they are a stain on their reputation, and blurring the bigger picture. In worse situations, dishonestly hiding mistakes can lead to being struck off the solicitors roll as has been a familiar story this year for junior lawyers. Instead, lawyers should be open to the reality that mistakes happen, but it is important that we learn from them. Embracing this growth mindset benefits both lawyers and clients, enabling lawyers to learn and grow from situations and subsequently deliver a better client service.
In the formative years of their career, junior lawyers are particularly susceptible to making and fixating on their mistakes. Finding a spelling error can feel as if Judgement Day has arrived to tell you to pack your bags. What, then, can be done to promote a healthier attitude towards mistakes?
Communicate
Be open with your mistakes. Mistakes can be fixed so it is better to immediately raise them with your supervisor or other relevant person to find the best plan of action. Talking about it also takes the emotion out of the situation as you have another person’s objective eyes looking at it too. A burden shared is a burden halved, as the saying goes.
Transparency
Creating a culture where colleagues share their past mishaps shows people that lawyers cannot be perfect. Law firms can create these transparent spaces by turning mistakes into a learning opportunity. For example, having informal conversations with seniors sharing anecdotes from their early career and how they learnt from it. It could also involve more formal training sessions where common mistakes are identified and collaboratively worked through to reduce the risk of such instances occurring in real-life.
Making mistakes is not the problem, it is how people react to them. By creating a more open and transparent attitude that turns mistakes into a development opportunity, junior lawyers can become excellent ones. Hopefully, the legal profession can continue to make strides in tackling the stigma to create a culture where fewer mistakes are made in the first place as they freely discussed, identified, rectified, and positively learnt from.
Callum Reed is a paralegal at Wiggin and sits on the executive committee of The Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division.
