1. First take a moment to study the headings for each of your most distinctive, "stand out" characteristics. As you look at these headings, do you have a rush of recognition, or even a good feeling, knowing that important aspects of who you are being recognized as valuable?
2. Now read each of the accompanying paragraphs. Use the Polish tool to highlight both the statements that feel especially important or true for you and also those that you believe it might be critical to share with others – your fellow students, your instructors, potential employers, etc. – to help them understand you better.
3. Use the Polish tool to strikethrough any statements that are not particularly important or true for you.
4. You can add this “ polished” chapter to your Profile to show others what makes you tick.
5. Make a more deliberate second pass through these paragraphs looking at the statements you have highlighted for information you can use to show yourself in your best light and make more informed choices about the many options available for enhancing your legal knowledge and skills. For example, you might find:
6. Information you want to use target your networking – for example, to focus on meeting people with specific skills or who work in specific legal settings or practice areas or attending events that focus on these skills, settings, or practice areas
7. Information you want to include in your application for a fellowship or grant to underscore areas of strength or to draw attention to your unique talents
8. Information you might use to help you decide between multiple appealing professors, electives, or clinic courses as you plan your course schedule
9. Information you might use to help you select from the multitude of more informal learning opportunities such as extracurricular activities, on-campus societies, online interest/affinity groups, etc.
10. Information you might use as a basis for requesting recognition for your knowledge, skills, and abilities from your connections on LinkedIn or other social media platforms
11. Flag these highlighted statements for future use in these and other ways with the Developmental Journal function of the Polish tool to help yourself move from surviving to thriving in law school. 
12. Use the Task function of the Polish tool to make a commitment to being more purposeful and self-aware about your activity choices and how you present yourself to others. Invest your time and energy in things that are most likely to bring you satisfaction and help you grow and develop.

• You can go through the list of Likely Core Values, the last part in this chapter, below and use Polish to highlight the values that matter most to you and put a strikethrough on values that don't matter as much.
• Many people find that when they hate a new job or are stressed at work or having trouble, it is because one of their core work values is being violated.
• This can become an opportunity to have a discussion with potential employers or co-workers about how work might be adapted.
• Failing that, this may be a sign to consider changing work teams, places or jobs.

1. Choose three traits that best complete the statement "In my practice, it is very important for me to be_____." Complete this “philosophy of practice” statement using, or inspired by, the adjectives found at the top of the blue boxes on each of the twenty-two trait continuums from the Legal Trait Analysis chapter of your report. You may want to focus on those traits with yellow borders as these are traits where your scores stand out from the average attorney in our sample.
2. Use Polish to highlight the three legal traits you have chosen. Note that if none of the traits in this chapter felt particularly apt, select other qualities you feel more accurately capture what could contribute to you succeeding in your (future) practice.
3. Record your completed “philosophy of practice” statement and a brief summary of why each of these three qualities is or will be important to you in your practice using the Comment function of the Polish tool.
4. Choose three things that answer the question “What am I typically doing when I feel best about studying law and working in the legal field?” To help you find material to answer this question, take a closer look at the traits that felt more true for you, perhaps starting with those outlined in yellow. Read the paragraphs in the blue boxes for these traits to understand more about where you fall on this legal trait continuum. You may also draw from your own experiences at school, internship, work, etc., for inspiration. 
5. Use the Polish tool to highlight the three paragraphs you have chosen. Note that if none of the paragraphs describing important legal traits felt particularly apt, select other qualities you feel more accurately capture what you are doing when you are feeling at your best.
6. Record your three answers in your report with the Comment function of the Polish tool. Include a brief summary of what caused you to select each of them and why they are important to you feeling at your best. 
7. Record any key takeaways from working on these two questions. Use the Comment Tool to note what is, or you think would be most important to you as study and work in the legal field, noting that your direct experience might be limited at this point.
8. Use Polish to create a Task to review these items in a month or add a reminder on your device’s calendar to prompt you to complete this Task. Use this review as a means to bolster your energy as you complete your last year and/or to make refinements as you approach graduation. 
9. This exercise can be the jumping-off point for creating a full-fledged philosophy of practice statement for yourself. To start building on your responses to the two questions in this activity, you might:

•  List the most successful, most enjoyable, and most difficult experiences from your study/practice in order to uncover the factors you believe contributed to these experiences 
• Picture your ideal future client(s) in order to understand who you want to serve
• Imagine the make-up of your ideal future work environment in order to put your energy toward those organizations, circumstances, and people that will bring out your best
• Envision your ideal future practice outcome(s) in order to collaborate with others more intentionally and purposefully, making such outcomes more likely 
• Solicit feedback from professors, mentors, fellow students, and any clients you’ve worked with in order to evaluate your effectiveness 
• Reflect on the consistency of your actions, beliefs, and intentions in order to challenge your own assumptions, as well as those of your (future) clients and the colleagues and the organizations with whom you plan and or hope to collaborate 
• Take an inventory your strengths and challenges – your Attorney Assessment reports are a great place to start – in order to shape the direction for your growth 

The task of considering your assumptions, beliefs, and values in order to create a philosophy of practice statement enhances your ability to work with all those you will likely encounter in your educational and professional journey – whether they are potential clients, colleagues, bosses, or even adversaries. Understanding who you are, defining your style of practice, and clarifying how they affect one another will help you capitalize on your strengths as well as identify areas for continued growth and development

1. Choosing a practice area and a setting in which to work can be an important part of the process of building a sense of purpose in your life. If you completed the activity on comparing yourself to an admired other in the Identifying Your Contribution & Making it Count report, you have explored one pathway to building your sense of purpose – inquiring into the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of another purposeful person. In this activity you will have a chance to investigate two other pathways to purpose – exploring those things that have consistently aroused your energy and passion; and examining significant life experiences, both positive and negative.
2. To make this process more concrete, here are some suggestions for exploring these two pathways.
3. Path 1 – Exploring your interests and following where your energy leads:
4. Foodie? Look for a job as in-house counsel with a niche brand of cookware or a major retailer in the supermarket space
5. Follow the stock market? Think of work in a boutique firm with a specialty in securities and capital markets, bankruptcy or even trusts and estates
6. Online influencer with your own YouTube channel? Take a look at work in a non-traditional setting where the focus is on advertising and media, entertainment/arts, or intellectual property
7. Think “Big Pharma” needs more oversight or hate the lack of internet, cell, or cable choices? Check out roles in the not-for-profit sector working on anti-trust
8. Path 2 – Exploring your life experiences for clues to making a difference:
9. Health crisis (your own or a significant other’s)? Check out working for a large firm specializing in bankruptcy, healthcare, insurance, or even personal injury
10. Rejected the idea of working in the family business? You might appreciate working in a non-traditional setting on the combination of family law and trusts and estates
11. Worked for a start-up and love that vibe? Try to find a not-for-profit helping focusing on corporate law, tax, or banking to help fledgling companies avoid failure on purely legal grounds; or in intellectual property to help start-ups protect their great ideas
12. Had a summer job in construction? Bring that experience to bear in a government or regulatory setting doing environmental, insurance, or labor law; or in litigation in a law firm
13. To add another dimension to your decision, consider location, location, location: 
14. A lobbyist might need to live near DC
15. An entertainment and arts attorney would probably find more options on the coasts
16. Anti-trust in an enforcement role would put your chances higher in DC or your state’s capitol
17. Banking & finance opportunities likely cluster in NYC, Charlotte, LA, and Chicago
18. A corporate lawyer helping multinational companies succeed might survey companies in locales like Brussels, Dubai, or Zurich
19. A person seeking variety and hoping to make a difference might want to work in inner cities or in underserved rural areas, etc.
20. With these data points about where your passion, interests, and energy lead; your life experiences; and your preferred location in mind, review your scores for Similarity by Practice Area and Similarity by Work Setting and choose at least one practice area and at least one work setting that you will commit to investigating further. Use the Task function of the Polish tool to list the practice area(s) and work setting(s) you intend to research and to set up a timeline for getting more information about them over the course of the next two weeks. 
21. Record the key insights from learning about this practice area(s) and work setting(s) in your report using the Developmental Journal function of the Polish tool. 
22. Mine these information gathering efforts for examples to share at interviews when asked to describe what is motivating you to join the legal field. Use this process to help you better identify the values that guide your ambitions. Being able to articulate the sense of purpose that drives you indicates a healthy level of self-awareness on your part – signaling to potential employers that you have made the effort to identify what’s most important to you as a (future) practicing attorney and that you are committed to manifesting this purpose in your work.