#143: Can You Change Your Reputation in BigLaw?

Why do some negative professional impressions fade quickly while others can follow a lawyer for years? And what can you can do when an outdated reputation begins affecting your opportunities? In BigLaw, reputations are often formed from relatively small samples of behavior, particularly as teams become more distributed and partners have fewer repeated interactions with individual associates. A single difficult matter, missed deadline, or awkward client interaction may disappear with time and better performance. But sometimes an isolated event moves quickly from an event to a perceived pattern to an identity: "She struggled on this matter" becomes "She struggles with complex matters," or "He did not handle that client call well" becomes "He is not good with clients."

I explain four factors that make reputations particularly difficult to change: repeated behavior, repetition of the description itself, the severity of the underlying issue, and the influence of the person who formed or continues spreading the impression. I also discuss one of the biggest problems lawyers face when a reputation becomes entrenched: that it can begin limiting the very opportunities they need to prove it wrong. If partners believe you are not good with clients, they may stop putting you in front of clients. If they believe you are not ready to run matters, you may stop receiving matters to lead. At that point, reputation is no longer simply describing your career. It is actively shaping it.

I also explain how to determine whether the reputation you fear actually exists before trying to fix it. Rather than interpreting one staffing decision or stray comment as proof, talk with people who know what is being said when you are not in the room and ask specifically where people see you as strong, where they have reservations, and what gives them confidence or pause about your readiness for the next level. Once you identify a concern, determine how widely it is held, where it originated, whether it is based on multiple experiences or one person's opinion traveling through the firm, and whether the people who hold it have enough influence to affect staffing, evaluations, or promotion decisions.

Finally, I discuss how to move from a vague label that you hear about yourself such as "not commercial" or "needs too much supervision" to learning what the specific behavior is underneath it, honestly assess whether that behavior is still true, and deliberately create new evidence that gives pe