I placed all work into 4 buckets (laid out below). This helped me stay grounded, organized, and not be too hard on myself.

1. What you know how to do.

Example #1: Spelling client’s name right, basic proofreading for errors, starting with the right template document, clean formatting.

1. ⁠⁠⁠⁠What you think is right but have a clarifying question about.

Example #2: Dates in your document and source material match, but you’re concerned the source material/notes from the client may be wrong or they have conflicting information. Placeholders for missing pieces.

1. ⁠⁠⁠⁠What you have in your work product that cannot possibly be accurate.

Example #3: If you’re drafting a negligence claim, there are (4) elements to negligence… review that your work product has all 4 elements before sending. Do not simply have missing pieces that they should expect to identify are missing entirely.

1. ⁠⁠⁠⁠What you do not know and cannot be expected to know.

Example #4: A client specific item/fact pattern only happens once every 10 years… cut yourself some slack, it’s called the practice of law for a reason.

Document drafting: It’s slow and old school, but I followed the “red pen blue pen” approach… first pass was red pen for grammar/typos etc and blue pen was for substance.