Lawyers as Communicators: Surveys on Improving Communication Skills in a Post-Covid World

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

ISSN

0196-7487

Publisher

University of Alabama School of Law

Language

en-US

Abstract

We were on the outside looking in, which is precisely where we needed to be. As former practicing attorneys who have transitioned to full-time teaching, we are no longer insiders in practice, and thus no longer engage in legal communications with other attorneys and key stakeholders as we once did. Yet we are entirely committed to the mission of preparing student interns and junior lawyers to effectively communicate in the current practice of law. We also recognize that the Covid pandemic may have changed how people communicate in the workplace. Thus, we needed a way to look in, from our outside perch, and determine modern priorities for those who train student interns and junior lawyers to be excellent communicators in the workplace.

Therefore, we engaged in a two-year project which involved creating and analyzing two surveys to refresh our knowledge about the ways in which attorneys communicate in practice-one that questioned Boston University School of Law students about their experiences with legal communications during their summer internships and one that questioned alumni about the way they communicate in their jobs. By analyzing the responses, we learned a great deal about modern communication skills and whether junior lawyers and interns are arriving to employers with the ability to effectively communicate. From those results, we have reached conclusions about the gaps that still exist between education and practice and where training for interns or junior attorneys should focus to bridge these gaps.

In Part I of this article, we summarize existing scholarship, including pre-Covid surveys, related to legal communications in practice. In Part II, we describe our own surveys in detail and show our findings. In Part III, we discuss our conclusions about which skills both employers and academics should prioritize when training interns and junior lawyers to effectively communicate in the workplace. In the end, the primary purpose of this article is to share with our readers what we gleaned-as outsiders looking in-and to draw conclusions that could help improve training for legal interns and lawyers so that they meet the communication expectations of modern practice.

This document is currently not available here.

Link to Publisher Site Link to Publisher Site (BU Community Subscription)

Share

COinS