Teamwork by Seth Chertok

Teamwork? Is it really worth it? The answer is a definite yes—it is. Aside from allowing associates and partners to become friends and develop mentoring relationships, it fosters a kinder, gentler work environment. As an added bonus, teamwork produces higher quality work.

One of the best examples of teamwork I have experienced came in my first week of work at Thompson Coburn LLP, as a first year associate in corporate and securities law. By random chance I was assigned to a project with Brian Wahlquist, another first year associate who started with the firm at the same time I did.

It is relatively rare for two novices to be assigned to the same project, which required us to uncover the legal limitations that mutual funds face when engaging in derivatives transactions. The project was assigned to us by our Corporate and Securities Partner, Dee Anne Sjogren.  Being freshly out of law school, neither Brian nor I knew anything about this topic, so we quickly determined that the best way to rise to the challenge was to put our heads together and research the issue intensely.

Needless to say, we both made our fair share of mistakes. In the long run our mistakes didn’t matter. By passing our work back and forth to each other we were better able to spot each others mistakes and correct them. The end result? In less than a week and a half, we had come up with a sophisticated piece that was almost a publishable article. On top of that, we had become good friends! Thanks to Dee Anne’s great expertise, that article eventually became a lead article in the Investment Lawyer.

Regrettably, opportunities like these in law firms arise all too seldom.  However, we think that our story shows that associates in law firms should make greater efforts to team up with one another on large projects from time to time, since two novice minds added together can equal an expert—with a little bit of help from a partner, that is!

Seth Chertok is an associate at Thompson Coburn LLP. He has a B.A., with honors, from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the Lefever Prize for the best paper in law and economics.