My model of the growth trajectory of a lawyer has three phases.

The first five to seven years of legal practice is the incubation period. Some may feel the time period I speak of is long. But if we place that in the context of a full legal career of fifty years, five to seven years is a short time. It makes sense to spend about ten percent of our time exploring our profession. That way we avoid colouring our initial experience too intensely with one colour. The time period is an estimate and approximation. Some have shorter incubation periods, others have longer ones.

In that time, a lawyer is expected to develop and refine his foundational legal abilities and craft. There should be opportunities for appropriate challenges to cut his teeth on. If it is not given to him, he should find it himself. This is the time for him to explore the legal landscape, try things out, and discover what he enjoys and is interested in. This is also the time for him to cultivate his circle of friends, colleagues and lawyers at the bar, and if he is fortunate, a coterie of clients as well.

Skills-wise, the lawyer should have honed his research, writing and advocacy abilities and discernment; be comfortable drafting cause papers, submissions, opinions, contracts and correspondence; conducted trials and application and appeal hearings; dealt with clients, the courts, corporations, government and in-house legal teams; has developed good billing habits, be able to work autonomously and is trustworthy. He should have a good grasp of the law, legal practice and the workings of the world and the profession by the end of his incubation period.

The incubation period is focused on the craft of lawyering because the craft is what the business of law is based on. The craft is the foundation of legal business. It gives us something to sell – our legal expertise. We do not get legal expertise just because we declare it. Expertise requires experience and experience takes time to acquire. The developing lawyer is very much under the wing of their mentor or supervising lawyer.

By the end of our incubation period, practice-wise, we should be able to deal with most things thrown at us and know how to navigate situations. Even when we don’t know, we know how to negate our ignorance. We should be almost fully autonomous by then, seeking direction instead of requiring guidance. We should have the weight of experience to speak convincingly and with ‘gravitas’ when giving legal advice and advocating. Hopefully, we would have cultivated a nascent reputation about ourselves amongst our peers and within the profession.

The growth period comes after the incubation period.

This is the period when the lawyer is exposed to the business of lawyering. This is the time when he comes into his own as a lawyer. During this period, he is expected to cultivate his own clientele, pull his own work, be fully responsible for the work in his care, continue refining his skillset, meet collection targets, juggle between getting and doing the work, and manage his own assistants, whether younger lawyers or pupils. It is this period when the lawyer begins to confront and grapple with the economics of legal practice and, in doing so, grows up as a lawyer.

This period would take anywhere between three and seven years. Some develop quicker, some slower. We should not be hung up about the speed of growth. Rather, we should be focused on the manageability and quality of growth. Faster is not necessarily better, slower is not necessarily worse. More importantly, our growth should align with our natural pace. It should be natural and organic. It should not be hastened artificially. Like trees, slow-growing ones are more substantial and resilient compared to trees that grow fast.

The growth period is when the lawyer eases into greater responsibility and is expected to leverage the expertise and experience cultivated during the incubation period. During this period, he does not work only for his own benefit and development. Now, his role broadens to encompass working well with his colleagues, nurturing his subordinates and being responsible to his superiors and the firm as a whole. He is expected to contribute beneficially and regularly to the firm, not just in meeting his collection targets but also in terms of its management, vibe, environment and education.

If the incubation was focused on his development and growth, the growth period is when he contributes to the development and growth of others. The time is for the lawyer to mature as a lawyer and to set him up for the final phase.

The final phase is the creative phase of lawyering.

This is when the lawyer should be moving towards the peak of his professional prowess having passed through the incubation and growth periods. He can come up with original or far more nuanced solutions than he would have previously. He can appreciate far more than he used to and has insight into some legal areas. With a proper legal foundation matched with a commercial and ethical appreciation of legal practice, the lawyer can better appreciate and evaluate the potentialities available to him. He can set himself to do more and better of what he has done before, or he can transcend his legal practice, or pivot into another practice area, or leave himself and his practice to fate. The point is where he can go and is going is entirely up to him.

Although he may not have full control of his situation, he has a greater appreciation, insight, ability and knows more people than when he first started practice, to do as he pleases. By this point, the lawyer would be a partner in a firm, set up a practice suited to his character, temperament and tempo, or do something entirely different.

There is no time limit to this phase. We want to remain creative, nimble of thought and nuanced in empathy as long as possible.

I reference my lawyer’s growth trajectory with this model to ensure that they are on what I feel is the right track. It reminds me of when I think they are ripe to be exposed to a particular legal experience. It enables me to keep an internal gauge of their legal development and ensure that they get the most out of each phase of lawyering.

This is just my own personal model of how I think about a lawyer’s growth trajectory based on my experience, observations and discussions. I think it is important to appreciate, especially in this day and age, that there is a growth trajectory to each lawyer because embedded in it is the idea that true expertise takes time, attention and opportunities. Expertise cannot be cultivated simply with the presence of urgent desires, good grades, motivational thinking, a big stick and a bigger carrot.

We do a great disservice to ourselves when our growth and development are forced to quench the anxieties natural to hypercapitalism instead of following the dictates of our bodies.