Former 40 Under 40 Honorees Share Tips with Next-Gen Attorneys

Artificial intelligence and new business models are dramatically transforming the legal landscape, introducing new challenges and opportunities for early career attorneys that their predecessors didn’t face.

We caught up with some past honorees of Bloomberg Law’s “They’ve Got Next: The 40 Under 40” since 2021 and asked them what guidance they’d give young attorneys aiming for success.

Several said that the pace of change will require today’s young attorneys to master new skills and pivot quickly in their careers—possibly over and over. Others noted that the timeless basics of mastering legal practice and client development will continue to be the biggest factors for success. Here’s what they said.

Keep Up with Tech

As more and more firms adopt generative AI platforms into their workflow — new attorneys need to get up to speed.

Tara Fisher, a corporate partner at Ropes & Gray in Boston, who was honored in 2024, said firms want to be at the cutting edge of AI technologies, and associates who are willing to dive into them will have an upper hand. “We need people willing to test them out, to see what works and what doesn’t work. We’re valuing people who are willing to invest in that,” she said.

Tara Fisher of Ropes & Gray

Photo courtesy of Ropes & Gray

Firms have to stay up to date with tech to stay relevant, even to clients. “Technological change, including AI, is transforming industries. Some industries are becoming obsolete, and some types of work are becoming obsolete as a result of that,” said Greg Pesce, a financial restructuring and insolvency partner at White & Case in Chicago and a 2023 honoree.

AI can’t replace human judgment and relationships, however, said Bina Palnitkar, co-chair of the Texas litigation practice at Greenberg Traurig, who was honored in 2021.

“At the end of the day, clients are hiring you to help make the right judgment on their business, their goals, and pressure points that you’re there to deliver. So, you can embrace your tools, but don’t forget your job as a lawyer.”

Sharpen The Basics

“The core things that make people successful in this business haven’t changed,” said Sebastian Fain, an M&A partner at Freshfields in New York, also honored in 2021. “Developing the reputation of being a good person to work with is an important thing to do when you are thinking about your future career,” Fain added.

“One thing that midlevels don’t realize is that business development has already started,” he said. Young attorneys should cultivate the assistant counsels and bankers they meet on deals by taking them to lunch or dinner. “You want them to say, I remember John from this deal, and he was great,” he said.

Nana Wilberforce, partner at WilmerHale in Los Angeles, honored in 2024, said young attorneys who make themselves ready for any assignment can give themselves a leg up for future roles.

Nana Wilberforce of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Photo courtesy of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

“When you’re as available as you can be, you get to be available for the unexpected opportunities that come up — that’s usually the more interesting stuff,” she said. “That allows you to stretch from an associate role to a senior associate role to a counsel role.”

For example, she said that while her spouse was in the military, she worked across several different WilmerHale offices and could help with last-minute requests. While in the New York office, she prepared several executives for congressional hearings for the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. “I made sure I was always available to assist the team and accommodate the executives’ busy schedules, which often changed last minute,” she said.

Be Ready for Change

Daniela Paez, who was a litigation partner at Ulmer & Berne in Cleveland, Ohio when she was honored in 2021, has since moved to Taft, Stettinius & Hollister. She said Ulmer, where she worked for 10 years, merged with a firm based in St. Louis. Paez then followed several colleagues from Ulmer and joined Taft, a larger firm. Her lesson for younger lawyers: “It is perfectly OK to make that shift.”

Her advice: “Just do your best with the information you have and the advice you get, and if you make a decision that doesn’t work out, there is always an out,” Paez said. She said when making career decisions, there are no wrong decisions, just decisions.

Paez added that there have been big shifts in the legal business since she graduated from law school in 2013, including the growth of e-discovery, the expansion of staff attorneys, and equity partnership changes, and there likely will be many more. “Stay creative, nimble, open-minded, and teachable,” she said.

Similarly, Z.W. Julius Chen, Supreme Court and appellate partner at Akin Gump in Washington, DC, also underscored the idea of being open to change. Chen, honored in 2022, said he’d been told lawyers will reinvent their practices once or twice in their careers.

Z.W. Julius Chen of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

Photo courtesy of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

While he said it felt unlikely initially, he’s seen it happen in his own practice. “I have seen myself open new avenues and build new client relationships and go in different directions and I feel like that reinventing is happening in a lot of respects,” he said. “In addition to briefing and arguing traditional appeals, our investment fund clients are increasingly asking me to analyze various issues and litigation percolating through courts,” Chen added.

Play the Long Game

Many young lawyers fret about work-life balance. Fisher said she thinks differently about this.

“I found setting up this dichotomy of work versus life hasn’t really been a helpful way to think about it for me. There are so many components of life, work is just one of them, so thinking about it as part of the whole, as opposed to sort of just like two opposites,” she said.

“Sometimes people get too focused on the day-to-day, but if you take a little bit of a longer-term horizon, you can find that your life is sort of the balance that you want it to be.”

“Take time to develop and maintain relationships early in your career,” Fisher said. “That becomes more and more important the more senior you get.”

Finally, several attorneys mentioned that building a distinguished career takes patience.

“It is easy to want to get to the finish line soon, but in the end, having just a lot of perspective and realizing there is so much to learn out there, even as you become a more experienced lawyer and someone in my position, there is always more to learn and there is always a continued refinement of your legal judgment and skill set, whatever that might be,” said Akin’s Julius Chen.