The New Lawyer Companion Essays on Law, Life, and Humanity

It turns out that lawyers are humans, each with their own little nervous system and personality. Maybe they like jokes. Maybe they struggle with periods of big change. Maybe they don’t all fit in the same job, no matter how good the cheese was at the recruitment evening that led them there. All of this humanity can get lost in a world of strict liability and stricter professional norms, where the career path can feel prescribed and a matter of endurance. But what if the experience of being a law student and new lawyer could be better? What if you had a sense of what to expect as you went along? What if you didn’t have to pretend you weren’t anxious? What if someone encouraged you to play and enjoy things? And then, when you looked upon the darker parts of legal culture, what if you saw your influence to change them? Katie Cowan wants your experience of being a new lawyer to be better. The New Lawyer Companion is a volume of essays for law students and people with law degrees on topics covering law school, your mind and mental health, career design, your first year working, and culture change and the future of law.