Making CLE Worth Your Time

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda, and I'll be your host. Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Effective Lawyer podcast. I'm. I am your host, Jack Zinda, and today we're going to talk about how to be great at anything. And what do I mean by that? I mean, how do you take a topic that you want to be really good at, be one of the top, one of the best, and then break it down into a plan of action in order to accomplish that goal? As a trial lawyer or a personal injury lawyer, or even a paralegal, there's a lot of different aspects of things you may want to be great at. 00:56 Speaker 1 And it can be daunting to think, okay, I want to be an incredible personal injury lawyer, incredible trialer. How do I go about doing that? Well, I get overwhelmed almost immediately because I have depositions. I have to be good. I have to be good at trying cases. I have to be good at mediating, have to be good with clients. I have to be great at negotiating. I have to be able to value a case, and before you know it, you kind of give up. It's like, gosh, how in the world could I be great at all of these different things? And believe me, you know, I felt that way when I first became an attorney. The firm I was at had no mentorship or anyone to help coach me. 01:30 Speaker 1 So I was really on my own to figure out how I was going to be great at what I wanted to be good at. So the first thing that you want to do, and this is what I did, you want to break down your big goal, which is being a great trial lawyer, into smaller goals. Okay. And so, for example, with myself, I broke it down into, okay, I want to be good at preparing my clients for their depositions. I want to be good at taking depositions. I want to be good at initial client meetings. I want to be good at mediations. I want to be good at trying cases, which I broke down into opening statements, board dire cross examination, direct examination, closing statements. So, as you see, that's a lot of stuff that I wanted to be great at. 02:17 Speaker 1 And there's no way I'm going to get that done in a quarter or even a year. But I want to create a plan on how I'm going to accomplish that. So the first thing you want to do is each quarter, pick an area you want to try to become really good at. You're not going to become great in A quarter. But you'll develop the tactics and the techniques that will allow you to be really strong at that topic. So let's take depositions, for example, how to take defendant depositions specifically. Okay, so you're going to have three parts of this that you're going to look at. 02:53 Speaker 1 The first is what I call the classroom portion, which is going to be what are you going to read, what are you going to watch, and how are you going to learn what you can learn about this topic. I like to listen to Celia's while I work out because I'm a huge nerd and but honestly, it's when my brain is most on fire and so I pick up and absorb a ton of information that way. I usually will pick a book that I want to read on the subject from someone who's really strong. I'll make a list of cles I want to read or watch and then I'll create a process for how I will do that object that thing. 03:31 Speaker 1 So, for example, preparing my client for deposition, I'll create a checklist of things that I want to remember and things that I want to try. Now, in some instances, I might do a dress rehearsal before doing it the first time and work with a colleague or a staff member to practice it. And then I'm going to put it into play and see how I feel with that processor system by using on actual clients and then maybe editing some. A couple other things you can add in is you can find someone who's really great at it and have them mentor you on how to do that. As a younger lawyer, it can be intimidating to reach out someone for mentorship, but trust me, I would do that because that's actually a compliment to them. 04:12 Speaker 1 It's an ego boost that someone thinks they're so good, they want their help and how to do it and say, hey, you know what? Could I sit through one of your client Depot prep sessions and you're going to get a yes 95% of the time. Just make it easy on them and don't say, hey, do you want to come to one of my client Depot prep sessions? That way they're not having to go out of their way to assist you. If you'd like a copy of any of the things you heard about here today, or to set up a time to talk one of our team members about a case, please go to Zendalaw IO and we have amazing resources, downloads, guides, and you can set up a time to talk to us if you want to talk about how we handle things. 04:53 Speaker 1 Or any case in particular, and then make notes about what the person does. And so you want to track these things in either a software program or a spreadsheet where you say, okay, for Depo Prep and my clients, here's the classroom. The list of things I'm going to read, I'm going to watch, and you want to space it out over the course of a quarter. Don't try to put too much pressure on yourself because remember, you're working a full time job as well. And so at the beginning for me, I read one CLE a day, which was a lot. But at the end of a year, I felt like I had so much knowledge, so much information. 05:38 Speaker 1 I also considered a chapter of a book like a cle like David Ball and Damages or Rules of the Road or all those great books out there on what we do. So you've tracked your plan, your classroom plan. You've mapped it out for when you want to do it and then hold yourself accountable for actually accomplishing it. Now a trick that you can do with that is find a buddy who's the same type of profession as you and go through with them, say, hey, can we have an accountability zoom call once a week? Or let's grab coffee and talk about how we're doing with this once a week. Just doing that alone will force you to hit your targets. I know for me, if I have to meet with anybody on something that I'm supposed to be doing, I will always get it done. 06:23 Speaker 1 If I don't have to meet with someone and it's kind of an optional thing, not as likely to get it done. So understand how human psychology works. Then map out the how you're going to test it out and create the sop. Have a deadline for you to do that. You can use a software program like Asana and treat it like a case like, okay, this is my continuing education case for depo prep for my clients. Then as you practice it, evaluate how well you thought you did, record it so you can see yourself doing it, and then tweak and edit your process and continue to get better at it each and every time. And if you break down your practice into those chunks of okay, my big picture goal is to be a great trial lawyer. 07:09 Speaker 1 There's these 10 topics I want to be really good at. And for trial, for example, you'd have 10 subtopics and it could be about a practice area. I want to be great at understanding bad faith insurance, law and then create a plan, milestones in the map. Get an accountability person to help you and then track your progress. I think people underestimate how great they can be at the things they want to be great at. I've seen people that are incredible travelers that you would not think they're charismatic at all. It's because they have a plan, they have a process, they're taking ideas from the from other folks. And this profession is full of so many giving and helping people. Don't be afraid to reach out to either me or another attorney to ask for help on this. I hope this was helpful. 07:54 Speaker 1 If you have any other questions on how to be great at something or want to learn, just, you know, the art of learning, feel free to reach out. You can email me or call me anytime. Thanks. Bye. Thanks for listening today's episode of the Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com as always, we'd appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks.