In my first-year torts class, the professor told us during our first meeting that learning the vocabulary of a lawyer was important. He told us that someday, the potential clients who would seek us out would expect us to “sound like lawyers.” He advised us to get the pocket version of Black’s Law Dictionary, look up any word we came across that we didn’t know, check the margin and then try to use it in a sentence within the next 24 hours.

I remember thinking it was a funny thing to advise, to “sound” like a lawyer. Nonetheless, as a dutiful first-year, I took his recommendation to heart, bought my Black’s and faithfully marked up my copy over the next few years.

I had almost forgotten about his comment until I was preparing for the bar. One of the teachers I had gave the class some very strange advice: if we encountered an essay question to which we didn’t know the answer, we should isolate the area of law and just start underling and defining vocabulary words.

All of us in the class chuckled nervously and glanced at one another. He waited for that to subside.

“I’m serious,” he said after the murmurs subsided. “They want you to sound like lawyers.”

He paused a moment before adding, “The rest is up to you!”

I think often of these two instances when I am speaking with colleagues, clients and even people in other professions at networking events. It is true that attorneys are expected to “talk the talk” the same way insurance salesmen, plumbers and bartenders have specific lingo their clients expect them to know.

The real key, I think, is knowing the appropriate time and place to “sound like a lawyer.”

I can tell you from experience it isn’t at home when you might be, say, discussing kids’ carpool arrangements or their weekend sports schedule with your wife. It also isn’t when you’re explaining what you do to a class of preschoolers or kindergarteners during a career day. It isn’t even really at networking events when asked to explain what you do. In those instances, your elevator pitch has to be accessible to everyone listening, not just the other attorneys in the group.

In fact, it seems that most often, this “sounding like a lawyer” business is a performance for a client, opposing counsel or a judge, each expecting the jargon and ready to counter with their own.

The more difficult task is figuring out how not to sound like a lawyer, and, as you might be able to tell, I’m still learning.

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There seems to be a tendency to think new is always better, particularly for young lawyers. Especially when it comes to new technology. We want to do nearly everything electronically and integrate the newest technology into our practice.

New technology has many things to offer attorneys — better turn around times, cost-efficiency, environmental friendliness and improved collaboration, to name a few.

But new is not always better. And new cannot always completely replace the old.

There are many benefits to old practices that we often overlook. Take handwritten thank you or congratulations notes or holiday cards, for example. While email is certainly faster (both in terms of transmission time and the sender’s time investment) and less expensive, it is also more easily overlooked and more quickly deleted. These days, a handwritten note stands out.

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A few days ago, I volunteered to be a presenter at a Career Day Fair for a local university.

As the only attorney, I had the opportunity to speak with more than 150 9th graders.  As a person who grew up in Section 8 housing, I often volunteer with nonprofit organizations in the hopes of getting an opportunity to speak with students about the importance of education. For the most part, the students seemed interested in my 10-minute presentation, especially when I discussed DNA, fingerprints, and time of death.

After I finished my presentation, I allowed for questions. As you can imagine,  I was frequently asked “How much do you make?,” “Are lawyers liars,” and “Why’d you become a lawyer?” Seeing these questions a mile ahead, I came prepared and responded with ease.

However, one question momentarily stunned me: “How do you live with yourself?”

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New lawyers should be on the lookout for ways to shed the somewhat stigmatic adjective “new.” When fellow lawyers and clients believe you are inexperienced, they have less confidence in your work product, and are less likely to give you the responsibilities you deserve. To help combat this stigma, new lawyers should be prowling for publishing opportunities.

Publishing bestows on the author an automatic aura of expertise (no matter how well deserved). Readers believe that if you have written on a topic, you were probably hand selected because of your knowledge, and you must have spent countless hours researching and drafting the article. This makes you an authority, and readers will remember the article the next time they have a question on the subject. Ideally, they will call you, thereby expanding your network of colleagues and business referrals.

You shouldn’t wait for publishing opportunities to just fall in your lap. You must be proactively looking for chances to write. You can submit editorials to newspapers, write for law journals (including the University of Baltimore Law Review and the University of Maryland Law Review), contact local bar associations to see if they need articles for their newsletters, or check with the state bar association to find out if they need help with their journals. If you are plaintiffs’ attorney, you can publish with plaintiffs’ bar associations, the American Association for Justice (on the national level) and the Maryland Association for Justice (on the state level). There are probably equivalent opportunities on the defense side (I wouldn’t know—I’m not allowed at their super-secret meetings). Of course, check with the Maryland Daily Record.

But, what should you write about?

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My piece of advice for the day — get out of your comfort zone!

For some folks, this means going to and participating actively in networking events.  That’s always been within my comfort zone.  What’s always been outside of my comfort zone is public speaking.

I learned this early on when I had to participate in mock trial in law school.  Well, actually, it started at my Bat Mitzvah, where I was so nervous that beforehand I was advised to picture everyone in the synagogue in their pajamas. . . I did a fine job (at both my Bat Mitzvah and at the mock trial), but boy, was I nervous. And when I’m nervous, particularly when I’m nervous because I’m speaking in public — I get ulcer-like feelings in my stomach.  Just not a pretty picture.

And so, I became a transactional lawyer.  I just knew my stomach wouldn’t hold up to litigation.  And then I had my first public speaking opportunity — and my second, and my third.  The first one was a bear.  And so was the second.  And the third.  But the fourth, well, it was a little better, and each time thereafter was easier and easier.

And then, lo and behold, earlier this week — speaking in front of a room of clients and colleagues — for the first time (11 years after that first mock trial experience), I wasn’t nervous.  No stomach pains, no being flushed.  I just got up there and did it.  I actually kind of forgot that I was speaking in public.  And no one was wearing pajamas.

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