I know what you thought. You’re so use to the phase teamwork makes the dream work right? But what happens when you’re not on a good team? You may find yourself working with a team but the work product is still a fail. So why is that? Especially when we’re told and taught teamwork makes the dream work?

Listen, the legal field is comparable to most sports. The results of your success, a.k.a. winning cases, very much depends upon the team your on. For example, I like basketball so I will use it as the comparative. There are  (many) reasons Lebron stayed with the Cavs for as long as he did. I can bet one of them was because each team member understood their role. However, there came a time when he decided to make a move.

Lets consider the basketball court the legal field. In basketball, the objective is to throw the ball into the hoop and score points correct? Well, in the legal field the hoop represents mini milestones needed to winning your case. In order to achieve points, there are different players and various individuals that contribute to the collective goal. As you know,  there’s a coach, an assistant coach, players with various duties, a medical team, people that are prepared to give the players water or a towel and so forth. For paralegals, we have similar set ups. We have an attorney that works as the coach, associates that act as assistant coaches, paralegals that handle various tasks, including but not limited to physically running back and forth to Court, legal assists that support the paralegal stay, help keep everything organized and have everything readily available for the paralegal.

Understanding your role on the team is what will help you ”win” or “lose”. 

Now don’t get me wrong, of course there are times when you have to get your own water but you don’t get your own water, turn around and drink while running back and forth on the basketball court. You see, A big issue I find in the legal profession is that either the paralegal tries to lay too many roles instead of concentrating on one. I mean, when have you ever seen a basketball player run off in the middle of the game to get water for themselves or the coach? Coach knows they want their player focused on the game. However, some coaches, and I’m still using a metaphor here so please keep up, as insane as this may sound do ask the player to do both. And then get mad when they do not reach their goal (billable hours) or score the amount of points needed to win (miss a deadline). 

You see, not every team your on will make your dream work. Whether that dream be improving your skills as a paralegal, simply winning more cases or drafting better pleadings. You may need to switch to a new team in order to find the team best suited for your needs. If that’s the case, its ok. Make the appropriate steps. You may find that purple and gold look better on you anyway.