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I'm not speaking about providing services to the poor. I'm speaking about all sorts of community support undertaken by lawyers. I'm not advocating community support in hopes that your bleeding heart will cling to doing good unto others. I'm advocating community support because of the amazing benefits it brings to the lawyer.

Engaging in community support will sharpen your skills in whatever region you are currently volunteering. Pro bono representation of clients in a low income tax clinic will undoubtedly help you learn how to practice tax law. You need to learn terminology, legal investigation, familiarity with whatever or topics you undertake to research, and an array of possible options on how to achieve your client goals.

These are all skills which will make you a better lawyer, and also a member of whatever company or office you clinic in. Community service can help you develop skills beyond your training area that is purposeful. You will develop these skills even if the support you are undertaking requires no representation whatsoever, and they are crucially important skills. The chances to develop these skills are infinite. You will learn how to lead, encourage, and inspire others that are working on these events with you. This is an extraordinary ability to take back to your workplace, one that is going to help you to affect the manner that peers and your superiors socialize with youpersonally, not only those that are technically below you on the totem pole.

In a manner that is cumulative, these skills will help you develop a stronger awareness of professionalism, pride in your work and confidence in your own abilities. Volunteer work and community support also introduce you to other attorneys. How many of us take time to network with other attorneys, either to aid in getting a first or second job, to find out about a particular area of lawenforcement, or how to develop a mentorship relationship? I'm sure many of you confront the exact challenges that I have faced - how to do a good job of presenting yourself, your skills, your personality, your interests, obtain the information you want and make a meaningful connection with another person in the span of time it takes you to really gradually sip a cup of coffee.

It is enough time to learn about the target attorney's personality, casually ask about some specifics of their and company culture, and demonstrate interest in particular areas in which they practice, and above all, it can be done and naturally. Even if you are engaging in community service which has completely nothing to do with legal representation in any respect, every hour that you spend out in town or your city helps enlarge your relationship with the local community. By being outside in your city, you develop a feeling of how industry functions, and also you become acquainted with the attitudes and values of your community.

These people that you serve with, and the individuals who are the recipients of the service, are your future potential clients, sources of business, referrals, and resources for information, and your buddies. The most active and engaged professionals that I know, lawyer or not, will also be the ones who are always respond to my queries to assistance with "I know a guy who." How do they always know a guy? It is because they are present and engaged, and also being connected with your community is an incredibly easy and real way by which you may be the same.

To close, I do strongly believe that lawyers should provide services to the disadvantaged as well as the underrepresented. I do also think that engaging in community service is likely to make you "Feel good" - thing that lawyers often think about as an abstract or unimportant concept. An entire slew of other, compelling reasons support the reason you should make community service part of your life as part of your livelihood development. What other activity can you think about that is multipurpose? Sharpen your legal skills, develop leadership and decision-making abilities, get to know other attorneys and build relationships in a manner that coffee networking dates may scarcely achieve, and also develop a supply of clients and referrals.

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