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Professional Development
Professional development at Bracewell spans the life cycle of our lawyer's careers. From summer associates to Partners, the firm tailors training and development initiatives to meet the needs of lawyers at all levels. Lawyers at Bracewell have the opportunity to grow their careers through trainings, mentoring and consistent feedback.
Core Competencies
Bracewell’s core competencies are based on four pillars: professional excellence, practice management, client relationships & development and engagement. Substantive skill development is a critical component of being an excellent lawyer, but there are other facets of development, including delegation and supervision, teamwork, communication skills, business development and firm citizenship. We use the core competencies as the foundation for training as well as the associate evaluation process.
Continuing Education
We host more than 70 internal continuing education courses and trainings each year and provide access to more than 10,000 hours of eLearning content. These programs — which range from firm-wide programs to smaller section and department trainings — give associates the substantive and professional skills needed to succeed.
Mentoring
Having support and guidance is essential to success for associates as they begin their careers. That’s why we pair each new associate with formal mentors (one associate and one partner) and provide a budget for activities such as coffees, lunches and dinners. Regular check-ins are scheduled to help foster the relationships.
Summer Associate Trainings
Training is an essential part of our summer associate program. Participants benefit from an array of training programs that introduce them to substantive areas of the law, such as Mergers & Acquisition, as well as professional trainings on topics such as email etiquette and everything in between.
Junior Associate Boot Camps
Partners and senior associates lead weekly interactive boot camps on practice specific topics critical for a first and second-year lawyers. Bracewell prides itself on getting junior associates involved in meaningful work early in their careers. Boot Camps are a great resource to help junior associates quickly gain practical knowledge to accelerate their learning and development.
Feedback
Getting honest and constructive feedback is central to your growth as a lawyer. In addition to providing real-time partner feedback on work assignments, we provide formal feedback through our annual review process, which incorporates associate self-evaluations and a discussion on the mastery of the core competencies.