‘I keep making mistakes. Should I quit my internship?’

Nobody is perfect. If you take it in your stride and learn from them and do not make the same mistake twice you’ll be fine. If you want to be in this career long-term you have to improve your mentality. You’ve hit a rough patch and all it sounds like you can think of is giving up. If you really want to be in this profession that’s going to have to change…

It is impossible to do this job without making mistakes, almost every day when you start out. A training contract is called that for a reason – it is priced in to the expectations of trainees and frankly, you can’t make a lawyer without breaking a few eggs.

In terms of dealing with making mistakes, always remember that:

1. The vast majority of mistakes you make, nobody will ever discover, because you’ll learn to notice and correct them yourself;
2. The vast majority of mistakes that are discovered are utterly inconsequential to anybody and cause no harm, they are just things to learn from;
3. The vast majority of discovered mistakes that are consequential are picked up and resolved by somebody more experienced who you are working with – that is, after all, a large part of their job; and
4. When all else fails, the buck stops with the partners – provided that you have been honest and transparent about what you’re doing, and seeking appropriate support, they are ultimately responsible for what goes out of the door, and you are there to learn.

I tell all of my trainees on Day 1 that they need to immediately make their peace with making mistakes and getting things wrong (not something that a lot of City law firm grads have had to experience much in their past lives, typically!) because that will happen, and frankly, that is literally the point of the exercise – you are hired to learn how to do a job that you don’t know how to do. If that is something which gives you major cause for stress that you don’t think you can overcome, I would genuinely and sincerely advise having a think about whether this is the gig for you.

Internship are intended as a learning experience only.

You should:
1. Be paid
2. Not be asked to do anything which isn’t a purely learning exercise with an experienced lawyer re-doing/fully double checking everything you do.

If a firm is making you do actual work with real world consequences I would probably question whether to continue.

If you’re doing supervised tasks for your own learning then this is exactly the time to be making mistakes. Much better you make your mistakes now as an intern than later when you’re a trainee or associate.

Remember the following:

1) career success is largely luck
2) many solicitors are dim
3) many are negligent on a regular basis
4) most are faking it til they make it
5) the firms will take you for everything you’ve got
6) to survive, you’ve also gotta fake it til you make it, and take ‘em for everything they’ve got in the meantime

With all that in mind, smile, nod, chill out, complete your internship you naive young thing

Do. Not. Quit.

Here is how it will play out:

(1) You quit. You will not be permitted to put that internship on your CV, if you do, you’re lying. It will be time wasted and if you do quit, you can kiss that firm goodbye;

(2) You don’t quit. You ride the storm. Get told off a few times. You get to put it on your CV and talk about what you learned at any interview.

You get absolutely no where quitting in this game. Toughen-up, learn, persevere.