Building confidence and collaboration as a summer law student

Stepping into a law firm as a summer student invites nerves and anxiety. The summer is a student’s first foray as a legal professional that yields common worries in a demanding field.

What are the expectations?

How will I know if I did a good job?

Where can I find the answer to this question?

These concerns are expected and thoughtfully understood by a summer student’s colleagues. However, proactivity in addressing these concerns through teamwork amongst lawyers, legal staff, and other summer students goes a long way in professional development.

Rely on lawyers

Developing genuine curiosity for an assignment generates a teachable moment for both lawyer and student in fostering a healthy work relationship through teamwork. Asking questions that convey a sincere learning interest about the assignment signifies a student’s eagerness to learn and improve on their skills. This interest establishes a working bond between lawyer and student that creates mutual appreciation and organic communication for the next shared assignment.

Working to develop an understanding of other lawyers’ work methods, expectations, and interests ultimately creates an outcome that not only alleviates a student’s concerns, but most importantly creates the best outcome for clients.

Rely on legal staff

Legal staff are the firm’s backbone and provide considerate guidance for a summer student. Legal staff often collaborate in assignments between lawyers and summer students. Developing a harmonic working relationship with legal staff provides essential development for a summer student and a better work product for assignments and clients. Legal staff can guide summer students toward what the expectations are regarding an assignment, how to use office resources, and best practices in completing a particular task. This guidance helps ease a summer student’s worries within the first few weeks at the firm and helps instill confidence in exploring other practice areas. Students feel comfortable knowing that they have the support of legal staff regardless of their assignment’s area of law and feel as if they have the tools to tackle new challenges.

Rely on students

There is reassurance in entering a unified novel situation with other summer students. The summer is often a law student’s first engagement with meaningful legal work. This excitement usually brings a worry about meeting expectations when completing new tasks. However, there is comfort in having access to a community of knowledge. Two summer students can have different strengths: student A is a skilled researcher and student B is a comfortable litigator. When student B has a research task, student A can assist them with various research methods, and when student A has a litigation task, student B can provide tips and tricks in navigating the process. While both students are still traversing the new work environment, they can assist each other in adapting to challenges, leading to mutual respect, appreciation and unity.

Being a summer student at a law firm means stepping out of comfort zones with a collaborative mindset. The best outcome often comes through teamwork, whether it be with a lawyer, legal staff, or another summer student. This teamwork will not only cultivate confidence in summer students but will ultimately instill client confidence in our services and results.

Dean Zabian is a law student at Queen’s University Faculty of Law, and completed his summer law student term at Harrison Pensa LLP.

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