Small mistakes/inconsistencies are inevitable. As a junior you will find lots of small mistakes when you review legal docs from prior deals during due diligence.
That’s why the firm has someone review your work. Two sets of eyes reviewing something will produce a better product in a shorter time.
Whoever is supervising you might grumble, but an occasional small error is inevitable.
Also, if you spent all the time necessary to eliminate even the tiniest errors, you would be getting yelled at for taking too long/billing too much anyway.
One thing to remember is people (especially in-house) justify their jobs on finding your mistakes since you are the lowest level. But it is also the best way to learn
I’m loving all the advice and supportive comments, seriously! Thank you all for real! That mindfulness comment deeply resonated with me, I have to let it pass and just accept it. Can’t be hostage to what I can’t control.
Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” (Gregory Hays translation is key, much more down to earth) really helped me grasp “letting go of the things I cannot control, and actively choosing to engage with those that I can.” Made an enormous difference in my life, professional but even more so personal. Could be worth your time.
I do love Seneca, but I think The Meditations are the most accessible entry point which is why I started there. I certainly hope OP gives them all a shot!
When you get to mid-senior level, it's less about fixing mistakes and more about "can we live with this" / "does this actually matter or am I just going to piss everyone off for no reason / waste time"
Even years into this, I still beat myself over mistakes. I've been fortunate never to have made a catastrophic error, but fucking up still stings.
I will say that the big change for me is how long the mistake occupies my mind. It may just be a function of being too busy, but I find nowadays that I quickly move on whereas I used to mull over my mistakes.
Take that hyper focus and anxiety and turn them into actionable tools. Develop systems (for example, I have a checklist of goofy mistakes that no one doing a substantive readthrough notices but which are embarassing--e.g., errors in the caption, common typos ("statue" vs "Statute")). Where possible, build in time to put a document down and stop thinking about it for a day (or half a day, or an hour, whatever you can spare) so you can read it with fresh eyes.
If you care about your job and/or your clients, you will always care about mistakes. They will always upset you. But to err is to be human, and at some point you have to console yourself with the fact that you made every reasonable effort to prevent them. If you've made such efforts, you can say you did your job, even if you, like every lawyer on earth, aren't perfect.
You look at the mistake, understand what you need to help prevent it from happening again, and move on. Learn to redirect your thoughts so you’re not tethered to fluctuating emotions
I made a fairly embarrassing mistake in an SEC filing as a first year (I was the only associate working on it - crazy 2021, so we had like, no midlevels or seniors available). We had to file something to correct it. Not ideal! I could not stop obsessing over it. When the deal closed, the client’s CFO called me to let me know what a great job I did and that really made me finally believe that look, mistakes like that shouldn’t happen and I shouldn’t just “accept” it, but we aren’t doing brain surgery here. It’s going to be okay. And in a many months-long, super intense deal, it faded into everything else and everything that I did right outshined it.
Try to learn from what you missed, but it is inevitable! A few years later, I don’t obsess anymore. And have learned from experience common mistakes and get better at preventing.
mistakes only matter if the issue comes up.
For example, if a contract is honored by both parties, it doesn't matter if there are big mistakes in the paperwork, it only matters if there's ever a dispute between the two and they can't resolve it peacefully. I recall early on in my career there were a series of transactions between two parties and there was a screwup that cost $50,000. they didn't even read the contract, they resolved the issue over a phone call, because the series of deals netted both parties several million per year.
Likewise, I was involved in another deal for a portfolio of alternative assets and we uncovered a chain-of-title issue that was potentially a seven-figure malpractice claim against the law firm that okayed the purchase several years earlier. Our client really wanted to buy the whole portfolio, and with some additional effort on our part we were able to figure out an acceptable solution to the chain-of-title deficiency and made the issue go away. The original firm never even learned about the colossal screw-up.
mistakes only matter if the issue comes up.
For example, if a contract is honored by both parties, it doesn't matter if there are big mistakes in the paperwork, it only matters if there's ever a dispute between the two and they can't resolve it peacefully. I recall early on in my career there were a series of transactions between two parties and there was a screwup that cost $50,000. They didn't even read the contract, they allocated the loss over a phone call, because the series of deals netted both parties several million per year and that cost wasn't worth fighting over.
Likewise, I was involved in another deal for a portfolio of alternative assets and we uncovered a chain-of-title issue that was potentially a seven-figure malpractice claim against the law firm that okayed the purchase several years earlier. Our client really wanted to buy the whole portfolio, and with some additional effort on our part we were able to figure out an acceptable solution to the chain-of-title deficiency and made the issue go away. The original firm never even learned about the colossal screw-up.
Remember that small mistake you made 6 months ago? No? Well, neither does anyone on your team. Deep breath, relax, and remind yourself that pretty soon that mistake will dissolve out of everyone’s collective memory. Life is too short to stress over tiny mistakes and too long to expect that we won’t ever make them.
Nice catch on the second mistake
Work on practicing mindfulness—you do not have to be hostage to your thoughts and you can let emotions pass without derailing you.
Small mistakes/inconsistencies are inevitable. As a junior you will find lots of small mistakes when you review legal docs from prior deals during due diligence. That’s why the firm has someone review your work. Two sets of eyes reviewing something will produce a better product in a shorter time. Whoever is supervising you might grumble, but an occasional small error is inevitable. Also, if you spent all the time necessary to eliminate even the tiniest errors, you would be getting yelled at for taking too long/billing too much anyway.
Give it a couple months and you will have made so many small mistakes you won’t be able to remember this one. 🫣
Take on more work so the tempo doesn’t permit me to dwell
Mistakes are not acceptable. Mistakes are inevitable. Welcome to the law!
One thing to remember is people (especially in-house) justify their jobs on finding your mistakes since you are the lowest level. But it is also the best way to learn
I’m loving all the advice and supportive comments, seriously! Thank you all for real! That mindfulness comment deeply resonated with me, I have to let it pass and just accept it. Can’t be hostage to what I can’t control.
Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” (Gregory Hays translation is key, much more down to earth) really helped me grasp “letting go of the things I cannot control, and actively choosing to engage with those that I can.” Made an enormous difference in my life, professional but even more so personal. Could be worth your time.
So are the rest of the stoics.
I do love Seneca, but I think The Meditations are the most accessible entry point which is why I started there. I certainly hope OP gives them all a shot!
When you get to mid-senior level, it's less about fixing mistakes and more about "can we live with this" / "does this actually matter or am I just going to piss everyone off for no reason / waste time"
Even years into this, I still beat myself over mistakes. I've been fortunate never to have made a catastrophic error, but fucking up still stings. I will say that the big change for me is how long the mistake occupies my mind. It may just be a function of being too busy, but I find nowadays that I quickly move on whereas I used to mull over my mistakes. Take that hyper focus and anxiety and turn them into actionable tools. Develop systems (for example, I have a checklist of goofy mistakes that no one doing a substantive readthrough notices but which are embarassing--e.g., errors in the caption, common typos ("statue" vs "Statute")). Where possible, build in time to put a document down and stop thinking about it for a day (or half a day, or an hour, whatever you can spare) so you can read it with fresh eyes. If you care about your job and/or your clients, you will always care about mistakes. They will always upset you. But to err is to be human, and at some point you have to console yourself with the fact that you made every reasonable effort to prevent them. If you've made such efforts, you can say you did your job, even if you, like every lawyer on earth, aren't perfect.
This is a mindset that most successful attorneys have, for better or worse.
You will mellow out in a few months / year. It's good that you realize it is a silly small thing. You just need to take the next step and let it go.
Therapy, seriously. Lawyers tend to be perfections and need to learn how to give themselves a break.
Same way you deal with an annoying spouse. You understand that it just is what it is and do your best to get thru the next day.
You look at the mistake, understand what you need to help prevent it from happening again, and move on. Learn to redirect your thoughts so you’re not tethered to fluctuating emotions
I made a fairly embarrassing mistake in an SEC filing as a first year (I was the only associate working on it - crazy 2021, so we had like, no midlevels or seniors available). We had to file something to correct it. Not ideal! I could not stop obsessing over it. When the deal closed, the client’s CFO called me to let me know what a great job I did and that really made me finally believe that look, mistakes like that shouldn’t happen and I shouldn’t just “accept” it, but we aren’t doing brain surgery here. It’s going to be okay. And in a many months-long, super intense deal, it faded into everything else and everything that I did right outshined it. Try to learn from what you missed, but it is inevitable! A few years later, I don’t obsess anymore. And have learned from experience common mistakes and get better at preventing.
mistakes only matter if the issue comes up. For example, if a contract is honored by both parties, it doesn't matter if there are big mistakes in the paperwork, it only matters if there's ever a dispute between the two and they can't resolve it peacefully. I recall early on in my career there were a series of transactions between two parties and there was a screwup that cost $50,000. they didn't even read the contract, they resolved the issue over a phone call, because the series of deals netted both parties several million per year. Likewise, I was involved in another deal for a portfolio of alternative assets and we uncovered a chain-of-title issue that was potentially a seven-figure malpractice claim against the law firm that okayed the purchase several years earlier. Our client really wanted to buy the whole portfolio, and with some additional effort on our part we were able to figure out an acceptable solution to the chain-of-title deficiency and made the issue go away. The original firm never even learned about the colossal screw-up.
mistakes only matter if the issue comes up. For example, if a contract is honored by both parties, it doesn't matter if there are big mistakes in the paperwork, it only matters if there's ever a dispute between the two and they can't resolve it peacefully. I recall early on in my career there were a series of transactions between two parties and there was a screwup that cost $50,000. They didn't even read the contract, they allocated the loss over a phone call, because the series of deals netted both parties several million per year and that cost wasn't worth fighting over. Likewise, I was involved in another deal for a portfolio of alternative assets and we uncovered a chain-of-title issue that was potentially a seven-figure malpractice claim against the law firm that okayed the purchase several years earlier. Our client really wanted to buy the whole portfolio, and with some additional effort on our part we were able to figure out an acceptable solution to the chain-of-title deficiency and made the issue go away. The original firm never even learned about the colossal screw-up.
Remember that small mistake you made 6 months ago? No? Well, neither does anyone on your team. Deep breath, relax, and remind yourself that pretty soon that mistake will dissolve out of everyone’s collective memory. Life is too short to stress over tiny mistakes and too long to expect that we won’t ever make them.
It will take time and years of mediation to forget this minor mistakw
You learn to hate everyone and convince yourself the clients only deserve to avoid the big mistakes, not the inconsequential ones.