I’d worked in law for a few years before I heard of the term ‘imposter syndrome’. As the first lawyer in my family, I’d always felt a bit out of place in law school and corporate law firms – I just didn’t know there was a name for that feeling.

The training style at work helped in developing technical skills, but I found myself always second-guessing my work even with years of experience. It just felt like I was somehow failing forwards.

Since learning about imposter syndrome, I’ve looked into it more to understand why I was having those feelings and what I could do about it.

In case it helps anyone in a similar position, I wanted to set out:

• the underlying reasons behind imposter syndrome; and
• practical tips and actions you can take to overcome (or at least manage) it.

What is imposter syndrome and how does it affect us?

Imposter syndrome is a psychological experience that causes us to doubt our accomplishments, feel like we aren’t good enough to be in our position, and fear being exposed as frauds. In careers such as law and medicine, many people don’t feel successful internally despite being high performing in external, objective ways.

If you’ve felt inadequate compared to your peers, or have a persistent belief that your achievements are the result of luck or deception rather than your actual ability, then you might be experiencing imposter syndrome.

As you’d expect, this can leave you feeling uncomfortable and anxious at work due to something that’s not actually tied to your performance. Over time, it can affect our confidence, self-esteem and overall well-being.

So, what can we do to overcome or reduce the effects of imposter syndrome?

What are the reasons for imposter syndrome?

Overcoming imposter syndrome starts with understanding why it exists. There are a bunch of reasons why people experience it, but here are the three main ones that I’ve found:

1. Dunning-Kruger

Beginners overestimate their ability when they lack knowledge in a particular area.

As we learn, we realise how much we don’t know about that area. This realisation widens the gap between our current skills and the ‘expert’. Then we feel less confident.

So, the more we learn, the more we might feel like imposters – but it’s just a natural part of the learning curve.

2. Spotlight Effect

We often believe that others notice and pay more attention to us than they actually do.

This skewed view makes us think that people are closely observing our every move and judging us.

Then we become overly self-conscious and anxious about making mistakes because we think the ‘spotlight’ is on us.

But in reality, people are often busy with their own thoughts and concerns, paying less attention to us than we assume.

3. Negativity Bias

People tend to give more weight and attention to negative experiences or feedback than positive ones.

This bias makes us dwell more on failures, mistakes, or shortcomings rather than focusing on our successes.

Even when we have evidence of our competence, the negativity bias makes us feel like imposters.

So, if you’re dealing with imposter syndrome, you might just be:

• moving along the learning curve and realising what you don’t know yet;

• thinking that others are judging you way more than they actually are; or

• paying more attention to the bad than the good.

What are some practical ways to overcome imposter syndrome?

With the 3 key reasons for imposter syndrome in mind, we can develop some actionable ways to tackle it when it pops up. I’ve set out some strategies that I personally use to:

• track my learnings and progress;
• compile objective evidence of my achievements and how I’m developing; and
• remind myself of the things I’m doing well.

Feel free to pick and choose the ones you think might work for you.

1. Track your learning / compare to yourself

Many lawyers compare their progress and skills against other lawyers. But fewer lawyers have ways of measuring their own learning so that they can compare against where they were before.

In law, learning is like a tap dripping into a bucket. You probably won’t notice how much you improve day-by-day, but the difference is clear when you look over a longer timeframe.

One way to track your learning is to make a list of 3-5 tasks that you are currently doing / would like to improve on. In 6-12 months, revisit and compare. You might be surprised about:

• the things you know to look out for now;
• the areas you know can be improved; and
• how much better you would be able to do the task now compared to before.

2. Find opportunities to teach

As an extension of the previous tip, you can really shine a light on how much you’ve learned / developed by putting yourself in a position where you need to teach somebody else.

Take the opportunity to:

• present a topic of law or learnings from something you’ve worked on to your team;
• delegate a task to somebody more junior; or
• set up a feedback session with a person whose work you’ve reviewed and explain the reasoning behind your amendments.

You might be surprised how much knowledge you’ve actually accumulated.

3. Feel good folder

To directly tackle negativity bias, we need to build a record of the things we’ve done well.

Start a folder (whether in your email or on your computer) that saves examples of your good work that you can refer to from time to time. This could include:

• thank you emails from clients / colleagues;
• positive feedback;
• documents that you’ve prepared well; and
• matters that you’ve achieved great results in.

It’s handy for those future performance reviews / promotion applications as well!

4. Play to your strengths

There’s a lot of value in shoring up your weaknesses. But it can be stressful focusing only on things that you’re struggling with.

As lawyers, we should also find ways to draw on our strengths and opportunities to do the parts of our work that we enjoy more.

Good at writing or marketing? Offer to help the business development team or suggest topics that your clients may want to know about.

Got coding skills? See if you can automate a workflow / develop a program that solves a problem in the team.

Comfortable researching / public speaking? Offer to research and present on recent developments in the law / client industry.

5. Stop faking it

I’m not a fan of the ‘fake it til you make it’ mindset. Especially in a workplace that relies on teamwork. And a profession where people rely on your advice.

Instead, I think it’s better to be completely honest and ask whenever you’re not 100% clear on something (even if it doesn’t sound as catchy).

Don’t pretend you know what’s going on because you’re worried about wasting somebody’s time.

Asking questions shows that:

• you’re willing to learn;
• you care about getting things right; and
• you’re a good communicator in a team environment.

6. Understand what the standard is / what does success mean?

Often, we can experience imposter syndrome because we don’t have a real understanding of what is expected from us at our level. It might be because you’re comparing yourself against somebody who is uniquely exceptional. Or you’re being too hard on yourself in a position where the expectation is to just learn.

To address this, it can help to have a meeting with your supervisor to understand:

• the type of work you’re expected to do;
• how it fits into the broader workflow (e.g. whether the supervisor will review and amend a complete draft from you, or if you’re just providing information to feed into the supervisor’s own draft);
• what the supervisor expects to do in their role (e.g. the technical legal amendments, style of writing etc);
• what is expected from you in your role (e.g. reading through all of the documents and flagging issues, getting the form of document right, finding and compiling all the relevant information etc); and
• if there is anyone who was recently in your position that you should learn from.

7. What’s within your control?

One big change I made since I started practising law was to focus on the process rather than the outcomes. There’s a lot of stuff in a legal career that’s outside of our control so it’s unhelpful to measure success and competence according to those outcomes.

Instead, where there is an unfavourable outcome that makes us experience imposter syndrome, consider:

• What were the key processes that led to that outcome?
• Which of those key processes are within my control?
• For those within my control, what are the things I could do differently next time to positively affect the outcome?

What managers can do

Finally, I just wanted to make a note about things that managers / supervisors can do to help their juniors overcome imposter syndrome. Many of these are linked to the tips above, but reiterated with the idea that if you’re reading this article – you are / will also be in a position to help others one day.

So, to all the current and future managers, please:

1. Set clear expectations for your juniors – communicating these standards will help juniors meet them and also understand the things that need to be done to exceed them.
2. Create opportunities for strengths, not just shore up weaknesses – we’re not generic products. It’s important to have moments where we can excel in the areas we’re strong / interested in.
3. Give timely feedback with specific examples – this helps juniors track their own learning against what’s expected of them.
4. Be open to sharing your own experiences – if you’ve experienced imposter syndrome, it can be really helpful to juniors to hear about how that affected you and the things you’ve done to push through.

Final thoughts

Experiencing imposter syndrome doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for the job. Often, it could be a sign that you’re being too hard on yourself, on the learning curve, or have a misunderstanding of the standard you’re expected to achieve.

It can be managed and overcome. Hopefully you find some or all of these tips helpful.

If you or someone you know needs support, help is available.  

The Solicitor Outreach Service (SOS) is an independent and confidential counselling service for NSW solicitors. Call 1800 592 296 to access this service.

If you’re not a NSW solicitor and you need support, Lifeline provides all Australians access to 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services. Call 13 11 14 to access this service.

For information about other nationally available mental health support services, click here.

Looking for some help with training early career lawyers?

For the past 3 years, I’ve been writing practical how-to guides for junior lawyers and providing training for law firms both large and small.

If you’d like to work with me to tailor a training program for your organisation’s learning and development needs, please send me an email at jason.feng@live.com.au for more info.

Finally, if you’re a junior lawyer looking for practical career advice – feel free to browse the other how-to guides on this website and / or sign up for the free newsletter to stay updated.