Picture a summer associate who aced law school but takes two days to answer a partner's email and walks into client meetings empty handed. They drag down your supervising attorneys, not to mention your firm’s reputation.
But here’s the reality of this generation of junior attorneys that makes you question your hiring process: It’s not that they don’t care. It’s not that they are destined to be “iced out.” It’s just that they were stuck in a classroom for the last two decades, spent their formative years online, and are the first in their families to work in a white collar setting—so they never learned the unwritten or unspoken rules of a professional workplace.
To help law firms get a higher return on their talent investment sooner, Gorick Ng has four offerings: Keynotes, an online course, a book, and flashcards for professional communication.
Keynotes: Gorick Ng is a credible yet relatable speaker that gets summer associates into the right mindset to succeed in a professional environment
Whether delivered in person, virtually, or on demand, Gorick’s content is the rare combination of research backed, practical, and designed to close the biggest knowledge gaps facing this new generation of legal professionals. Every keynote engagement includes prep calls with organizers, custom session design, interactive exercises, and audience polling that doubles as an employee pulse check (all raw data is shared with organizers right after each session). Each session is built around each firm's culture and expectations for summer associates, and is never delivered as yet another generic motivational speech. [1]
Online course: Fast Lane to Leadership is the only scalable preboarding solution that gets junior attorneys into an ownership mindset before their very first day on the job
Fast Lane to Leadership is a 3.5-hour, 28-module self-paced online course that covers the soft skills necessary for succeeding in a professional environment. Firms can send learners to Gorick’s online platform or integrate the modules directly into their organization’s LMS or e-learning platform [2]. Associates learn how to adopt an ownership mindset, build professional relationships, communicate professionally in person and over email, navigate their firm’s hierarchy, and lead matters. Called "a great onboarding tool for new employees" by users from Fortune 500 companies like Accenture Federal Services, course respondents rate Fast Lane to Leadership a 9.58 out of 10.
Book: The Unspoken Rules is the onboarding bible for summer associates and new associates
The Unspoken Rules is the legal profession’s most trusted resource for helping junior attorneys understand what is expected of them in a professional setting—but that their supervising attorneys lack the bandwidth to teach one on one. Based on what 500+ professionals wish someone had told them sooner about building a successful career, The Unspoken Rules is now required reading at leading law firms like Goodwin, Wilson Sonsini, and Kirkland & Ellis [3]. It is also used as a key professional development pillar at Latham & Watkins and Yale Law School’s Launchpad Scholars, LCLD, and the New York City Bar Association. The Unspoken Rules has also been given to students at Harvard Law School, UC Berkeley Law, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School following Gorick’s keynotes. For first-generation attorneys, The Unspoken Rules is a must-read.
Flashcards: HOW TO SAY IT® flashcards give associates the exact phrases for taking ownership, managing up, and communicating professionally
Law school teaches you how to think about the law, but it doesn’t teach you what to say when a partner asks for a status update. HOW TO SAY IT® gives new associates the actual words to communicate, manage up, and take ownership at the level of a senior associate [4].
The flashcards give summer associates and first-year associates a personalized way to practice effective and appropriate professional communication, which is one of the biggest client readiness gaps seen among junior attorneys. The card system includes 260 fill-in-the-blank flashcards and 260 walkthrough videos, each pairing a real workplace situation with a script that associates can learn and adapt to their own client work.
The Foundations flashcard set organizes the cards into four sections to help junior attorneys build professional relationships, contribute to meetings, take ownership, and sell themselves, situations that any new associate will face in their first weeks on the job [5]. Debevoise & Plimpton, AALRR, and other Am Law 100 and Am Law 200 firms use HOW TO SAY IT® in their attorney development efforts.
The fill-in-the-blank format is deliberate. Instead of making associates come up with professional language from scratch under pressure, each card gives them a starting point they can tailor to a specific situation, matter, client, or partner. Every deck comes with bonus video tutorials for every card where Gorick walks viewers through possible contexts, body language tips, and other delivery techniques to reinforce the frameworks taught on the physical cards. The cards are sorted by situation, making them the ideal essential accessory and on-the-job reference.
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Together, the four pieces build on each other: Gorick’s keynotes set the right tone for associates, Gorick’s modules reinforce the frameworks at each associate's own pace, Gorick’s book is the comprehensive reference, and the flashcards give associates a daily reminder of the moments that determine whether a partner sees an associate as client ready—or not.
For law firm talent leaders, getting summer associates across offices from student mode to client ready is a delivery challenge as much as a content challenge. Here's how each piece fits:
- Gorick Ng’s keynotes demystify the behaviors that separate the associates who become partners from the associates who get “iced out.” Delivered virtually, hybrid, or in-person, every keynote includes custom session design and audience polling that culminates in a rich dataset on what a firm’s most junior ranks are thinking and feeling.
- Fast Lane to Leadership is a series of self-paced online modules on how to navigate the most common workplace situations as a junior attorney. The modules can be integrated into a firm’s LMS upon request and feature a custom user enrollment and completion dashboard.
- The Unspoken Rules is a Wall Street Journal bestselling book that is now used by Am Law 100 law firms to train their next generation of associates on the essential soft skills most lacking among junior legal professionals.
- HOW TO SAY IT® are flashcards that distill the phrases used by the most successful attorneys into structured scripts that any junior attorney can practice and use on the job.
Keynote speaking: For organizations looking for speakers for their summer internship program, new hire orientation, new student orientation, manager training, all-hands meetings, year-end performance evaluation season, or new associate orientation, Gorick can be reached via his contact form at https://www.gorick.com/contact.
Sources
[1]https://www.gorick.com/speaking • [2] https://www.gorick.com/companies • [3] https://www.gorick.com/unspokenrules • [4] https://www.gorick.com/flashcards • [5] https://www.gorick.com/flashcards/foundations
