What do new lawyers actually do?

In a 2013 report, the National Counsel of Bar Examiners studied this question in detail by undertaking a very large survey of practicing lawyers (attempting to reach 20,000 lawyers although ultimately receiving usable survey data from 1,600). They result of this survey was the “Job Analysis Survey,” The key points of which can be found in this summary. (The survey methodology is described in the full report here.) The purpose of this survey was to provide “a job-related and valid basis for the development of licensing examinations offered by NCBE.”

Hat tip to Professor Ben Bratman of Pittsburgh for discussing this report in his recent post on bar-exam and legal-ed reform. Analyzing the results of the survey, Professor Bratman organized the numerous skills included in the survey into five groups: communication, analysis, research, project management, and professionalism. He suggested that this framework may be useful for developing learning outcomes in law school, particularly in response to new ABA guidelines.

The list of most highly rated skills and abilities was of particular interest here as well. Here’s the top ten:

As you can see, listening was the third most highly rated skill, with respondents ranking it a 3.60 on a scale of 1-4 in terms of significance and 99 percent of newly licensed lawyers needing to perform this skill. (Apparently one percent of lawyers need to write but don’t need to listen, since the only skill that garnered 100 percent was written communication.)

In addition to the very broad category of “listening,” other related skills of interest included #2 (paying attention to details) and #10 (knowing when to go back and ask questions). Listening seems correlated with #5 (professionalism) as well. “Interpersonal skills” almost made the top ten, coming in at #13 with a 3.44 significance rating and 99 percent of newly licensed lawyers needing interpersonal skills.

Chart reprinted by permission of the National Council of Bar Examiners