Laura Genovich, shareholder at Foster Swift Collins & Smith PC, leads a diverse practice that includes municipal law, bankruptcy law, and appellate matters. At the core of her success lies clear legal writing, client communication, and an adept ability to prioritize goals that bring meaning and value to her work. She shares in this interview how she mentors new attorneys, what she learns from her own mentors, and how technology is transforming legal writing.
Tell us about your career. Where did you start, and what new opportunities have you taken on?
I am a shareholder in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, office of Foster Swift, a mid-sized law firm with offices across the state. I’ve spent my career with the firm, having joined as a summer associate in 2007, and I now practice appellate law, municipal law, and bankruptcy law. In addition to serving as the chair of various firm committees, I am also the chair of the appellate subgroup. In recent years, I followed through with a goal of teaching as an adjunct professor at my alma mater, including bankruptcy law and legal writing.
I enjoy having such a diversified practice because I have a lot of different interests. In particular, I love writing briefs, and my active appellate practice offers many opportunities to approach new subjects and draft appellate briefs. Each of my practice areas and roles requires me to communicate and write clearly for clients from different backgrounds and industries and to teach those skills to new lawyers and law students.
In growing a practice that spans several areas of legal expertise with an expanding team, how do you focus your time and energy?
My advice is to focus as much time as possible on your highest value activities. While billable work will be a large part of your time, there will be other high value activities that should capture your focus as well.
Something that I value beyond billable work is helping our attorneys grow. I have intentionally carved out time to be able to focus on mentorship at our firm, and I do so by serving as the associate development chair and mentoring committee chair.
I’ve opened up time for these high value activities in part by learning to delegate, which in turn helps other attorneys grow and develop new skills. This has paid major dividends to the firm as we are able to attract and retain wonderful people.
In short, at every stage of your career it’s important to identify what your core values are and your highest value items, and build your schedule around those things in order to get all the important stuff done.
What advice do you have for law students and summer interns this year?
This summer we were back in person after nearly two years, and I like to remind our summer interns of the importance of building relationships. Remember to step out of your office and connect with coworkers; ask about their weekend. Make sure you're building those connections.
Of course, I also talk with our summer associates about the principles of clear writing. Given my role in mentoring at the firm, I understand that it can be overwhelming for new summer associates to get that first assignment. They may wonder how to start filling a blank page. To help overcome the challenge, I share sample memos to help with their first couple of projects.
Flipping that question around, what can experienced attorneys learn from summer associates?
Newer attorneys can bring a lot of good ideas. They are more likely to be digital natives, and we can learn a lot from how they approach technology. In general, our firm has kept up with technology and continues to adopt software to improve efficiency where possible. Gen Z energy is really helpful to encourage those who didn't grow up with cell phones to try something new. As attorneys make their practice more efficient, they’re able to get more done and create value for the client, which is becoming increasingly important.
How did you become a legal writing professor?
Teaching and mentorship are high value activities for me, and I made it a priority to try and become an adjunct professor where I went to law school. I maintained relationships with people at the law school and reached out to express an interest in teaching. We kept the conversation going until they had an opening to teach bankruptcy law — a Sunday morning class. I taught the class, and after a short break from the classroom, the school reached out to me about teaching a legal writing class. Since then, I've taught three legal writing classes, both in person before the pandemic and then online these past couple of years.
What is your perspective on automation in legal writing?
Certainly, there is a place for technology and automation in legal writing. I love that Microsoft Word now tells you when you’re being too wordy. That form of automation reinforces those clear writing principles that we teach. At the same time, a reminder about wordiness doesn't remove the need for thoughtful human attorney to review their writing. Instead, a reminder to cut out extra words acts like a safety net to give the drafter things to think about as they work through their documents.
I'm a big fan of technology that can save time, whether that’s by automating the index of authorities and table of contents or by checking the validity of an authority.
I welcome technology that helps legal teams get more done and better serve the client by spending fewer hours on inefficient tasks.
What role has mentorship played in your development as a legal writer?
I'm always learning, and I still seek out mentorship from strong editors. I recently worked on a Michigan Supreme Court brief with one of the firm’s more senior attorneys who will soon retire. I learned so much from reading what he wrote and from reviewing suggestions on what I wrote. At that moment, I felt very much like a student instead of an expert, but I welcome experiences that remind me to have a beginner’s mindset and to remember my love of learning.
To this day, my wonderful legal writing professors' voices still echo in my head as I write. It makes me realize that coaching the next generation on legal writing is a meaningful way to have a lasting impact on a lawyer’s career.
This coaching is incredibly valuable when it happens in the workplace as well. Despite my professors’ excellent teaching, as a newer attorney, I tried to write something for a partner to make it sound the way I thought a lawyer should. The assignment came back to me covered in ink. Then the partner taught me how to say what I wanted to tell him. At its core, legal writing is simply that: telling the court or your client, whoever the reader may be, what they need to hear, without the extra fluff.
Many new attorneys sense some pressure to write eloquently or to appear sophisticated to have their arguments taken seriously. But if your reader can't understand what you're saying, your legal writing is nothing more than fluff.
Thank you for sharing your perspectives on mentorship and legal writing, Laura!
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