Workplace Professionalism 101 for New Associates
According to a recent survey by the Center for Professional Excellence at York College of Pennsylvania, new college graduates lack essential workplace professionalism skills. Examples of common unprofessional behaviors or attributes include: poor work ethic, lack of time management, abuse of technology, unprofessional appearance, and sense of entitlement. The authors of a forthcoming article in the Perspectives legal writing journal report that they have witnessed this type of unprofessionalism in their legal writing students. In an effort to address this issue, the authors created a series of nine short videos that portray various appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and attitudes in the context of junior associates working with supervising attorneys.
The nine videos (available on YouTube) depict:
- The complaining associate
- The off-track associate
- The over-prepared associate
- The apprehensive associate
- The unprepared associate
- The overly enthusiastic associate
- The “paperless” associate
- The last minute associate
- The good associate
These short videos are a great way to review workplace professionalism skills and can serve as a springboard for discussing “what to do” versus “what not to do” when talking to your supervising attorney.
See Sarah J. Morath and Elizabeth A. Shaver, Training the Superstar Associate: Teaching Workplace Professionalism in Legal Writing, Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing (Forthcoming Fall 2014) [full text from SSRN]
