Super Lawyers - Maryland 2013

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE
FOR YOUNG LAWYERS? AS TOLD TO JESSICA TAM

Get involved in
the community.

Making sure that you’re balancing your work and your life by including community or some kind of outreach activity—it could be a bar association, it could be a trade association in a field that you’re interested in—[keeps you] in touch with real people. It really enhances your practice of law over time. It enhances your perspective and your ability to assist your clients.

SHERRY H. FLAX / PARTNER, SAUL EWING, BALTIMORE, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Work hard but be
inventive. Think
outside the box.

To a certain extent, the practice of law
is an art. And the best artists are the ones
with imagination. You have to be inventive;
you have to be creative.

JAMES W. BARTLETT III / PRINCIPAL AND VICE CHAIRMAN, SEMMES, BOWEN & SEMMES, BALTIMORE, MARITIME LAW

Find a job you love.

Make sure that the career path you choose involves something you have some passion and interest in. When you’re working 90-hour weeks, through weekends and missing out on some personal events, it’s a lot easier to swallow when you are doing work you enjoy. Life is too short to spend most of your waking hours doing something you have no passion for. The beauty of a law degree is that it can allow you a tremendous amount of flexibility in finding a career path that is not just a job but something that you care about. [It] provides an opportunity to feel like you are moving forward in a positive direction as opposed to being a hamster in the wheel.