JD Bliss

Working Mother Magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers Announce Their 2009 List of the "50 Best Law Firms for Women"

2009-10-14T08:11:34-07:00

It’s a late summer tradition: Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers team up to publish their annual list of the top 50 law firms for women. Working Mother magazine is a major publication dedicated to serving and supporting all mothers who are committed to their careers. On its Web site, Flex-Time Lawyers identifies itself as “a national consulting firm that advises law students, attorneys and legal employers on work/life balance, retaining and promoting women and law-firm restructure.”

Together, these two companies invited law firms with at least 50 lawyers to apply for recognition of their leadership in providing working mother-friendly workplaces, and used several criteria to evaluate the firms, including the following:

workforce profile,
family-friendly benefits and policies,
flexibility,
leadership,
compensation, and
advancement and retention of women.

The results appear in the 2009 edition of the “50 Best Law Firms for Women.” If you would like your firm to be considered for 2010's "top 50," you can apply here.

Congratulations to all this year’s winning firms on being recognized for their commitment to working mothers.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

Guy Kawasaki Shares 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job

2009-03-01T09:15:09-08:00

In a recent blog post, startup guru Guy Kawasaki explained how to use LinkedIn to find a job. For those not familiar with the site, LinkedIn is a professional networking site with over 35 million members in over 140 industries. Members "connect" to each other to form networks, and then share business referrals, marketing tips, job opportunities, and much more (check out LinkedIn for Lawyers 101 for a short LinkedIn tutorial tailored to attorneys).

Below, in summary form, are Kawaski's ten tips (see Kawasaki's full blog post referenced at the link above for further details for each point). While Kawasaki's tips are tailored to a general job search, one can modify the tips to apply to a law firm job search.

Get the word out (that is, tell all of your LinkedIn connections that you are looking for a job).
Get LinkedIn recommendations from your connections
Find companies where people with your background and skills are working
If you are interested in a particular company, find out where people at a company came from to give you some idea what kind of "pedigree" the company is looking for.
Find out where people from a company go next (to see what kind of career path the company might open up for you).
Check if the company is still hiring.
Get to the hiring manager.
Alternatively, find a connection who can get your resume to the right HR person.
Find a connection who can help you learn more about the job requirements.
If you'd prefer to try joining a startup, you can also search LinkedIn for startups to join.

One extra tip: start building your network on LinkedIn today so you'll have one available when you need to tap it.

Michelle Obama Puts the Spotlight on Work-life Balance for Lawyer-moms

2008-12-31T00:49:36-08:00

On January 20, 2009, Michelle Obama will become the First Lady of the United States. Arguably, she is going to be the most prominent example of a woman dealing with the challenges that working lawyer-moms face as they work to balance their professional careers with their roles as mothers. Obama, an attorney with a successful career in private practice, city government, and corporate law, has recently spent a great deal of time working on the campaign of her husband, President-elect Barack Obama. Oh, and Ms. Obama is also the mother of two young daughters.

How will Michelle Obama juggle her legal career, her new role as First Lady, and being a mom? It's too early to answer that question, but this article in the Washington Post explains some of the pressures, difficulties, and internal conflicts she will face in her unique role.

Exactly how Ms. Obama will balance those pressures and competing interests remains to be seen, but her number one priority is very clear.

"My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom in chief," Obama told Ebony magazine, "making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls . . . that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe."

"Mom in chief." That's what Ms. Obama considers her most important job. It certainly won't be easy for her, but Ms. Obama's work will be an example for working lawyer-moms, and all of us, who seek to balance the demands of a legal career with satisfying and happy family lives. Best wishes to Michelle Obama for much success in all of her roles.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

In Challenging Economy, U.S. Lawyers Increase Pro Bono Service

2008-12-30T02:27:09-08:00

What do lawyers do during an economic downturn, when there is less work available? A lot of them are doing more pro bono work in their spare time.

ALB Legal News reports that many attorneys in the United States are increasing the time they dedicate to handling pro bono matters. Those volunteer lawyers work at such firms as Dechert LLP; Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft; Akin Gump; and Paul Hastings, to cite a few examples.

Some organizations are also noticing the increase in pro bono work. For instance, in October 2008, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York held a pro bono training session and 245 guests attended the program instead of the 80 attendees that were expected. Similarly, Esther Lardent, the president of the Washington, DC-based Pro Bono Institute, welcomed the increased pro bono service, noting that law firms had tended to discourage pro bono work before the 2001 recession.

This is good news for our profession because the pro bono work helps lawyers stay busy while keeping their skills sharp and exposing them to some areas of law practice that they might not otherwise encounter. Moreover, performing significant pro bono service can improve the public's perception of lawyers. Additionally, the public benefits because there is always a need for pro bono legal work, and that need may be greater during difficult economic times when the numbers of bankruptcy and foreclosure actions are increasing. Lawyers' pro bono efforts can provide a uniquely appropriate benefit to the public during a recession because they make legal services more available to some of the persons most severely affected by the slowing of the economy.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

Careers Are Like Marriages: Find the One You Want -- or Fix the One You Have!

2008-12-16T10:48:51-08:00

By Olga Artman, Celia Paul, and Stephen Rosen

Careers are like marriages in the sense that we spend a significant amount of time with both and put years into making them work. So what can you do if your marriage—or your career—is in trouble? As the old proverb states, you can either find the one you want or fix the one you have. How do you choose which approach to take? One answer to this question lies in careful evaluation of your compatibility.

Like a couple experiencing marital problems, lawyers experiencing career difficulties can turn to professional counselors for help. And just as modern psychologists have developed a wide variety of tests to assess “marriage health”, professional career counselors can evaluate career compatibility thorough well-designed questionnaires and other assessment tools. In our practice, we use a “Career Well-Being Inventory,” a diagnostic tool that we developed to measure ”career health.” This instrument measures your career attitudes and behavior patterns against “career-change champions,” people who have changed careers successfully and easily and are highly compatible with their chosen professions. The closer your inventory results are to 100 percent, the closer your attitudes and behaviors resemble those who possess career health or career well-being.

As in romantic relationships, there are some career relationships where separation is the best option, whereas others are worth saving and trying to work on. We generally observe two types of career relationships.

The first type is composed of relationships with high compatibility, such as lawyers who are satisfied with their “work marriage” to law but might need some fine-tuning in their relationship. These individuals either remain in their current positions and work on making them better, or they transition into different areas of legal practice or other work environments. These individuals constitute about 40 percent of our total clients.

The second type is composed of dysfunctional relationships, where lawyers are unhappy with their careers and would like to transition into a completely different field. Many of these clients suffer from what we call situational depression and spend years being unhappy but fearful of change. Unfortunately, the years being unhappy cannot be brought back. These folks constitute 60 percent of our clientele.

Keys to Making It Work

Let’s say that you believe you are up in the first category and would like to stay in law, but need to improve the quality of your work-marriage. How do you go about making it work? You can start by asking yourself simple questions, such as: What is the source of my dissatisfaction? What are the obstacles standing in my way of being happy with my career? How can I improve my current career circumstances? These types of open-ended questions can serve as diagnostic tools for the obstacles standing in the way of your happy work marriage. Karen, a senior-level lawyer, came to us with concerns about her management style. Even though she was happy with her career choice, she had to overcome her timidity to make it work. Her answers to our questions during the initial consultation revealed deeper sources of her dissatisfaction—a struggle with self-confidence, which led to a lack of assertiveness. Using videotape feedback, we showed her how she appears to others, and she learned to visualize and adjust her management behaviors to “push back” when needed.

The most common obstacles leading to dissatisfaction among lawyers in solo practice are a lack of having vision for the practice, not knowing where to find clients, fears of inadequacy, poor time-management, the hours spent away from loved ones, the pressure of generating new clients, the stress of carrying sole responsibility for generating income, and losing interest in the job. Knowing the obstacles to happiness is a partial solution to the problem. Some of us make our marriages work without outside help; you could very well manage your career circumstances on your own. For those who lack time—or prefer the help of the experts—career coaching is a viable option.

Keys to Finding the Right One

If you identify more with the clients in the “dysfunctional relationship” category, finding a compatible career option can be challenging. Being in the wrong career can feel like an unhappy marriage: You know it is not working and you want a divorce, but there is fear of letting go of something that you devoted so much effort to build. For a lawyer in private practice, the fear of letting go can be daunting because the time invested in getting a law degree and building a solo practice is significant. There is also a fear of lacking direction—law is a highly specialized field, and it can seem that there is nothing else you can do. The truth is that being a lawyer fosters the development of variety of skills that can be utilized successfully in your next career. We call these skills “transferable,” and identifying them will help you market yourself to potential employers with clarity and confidence. Martin, a fifth-year litigator associate at a large New York law firm, was initially very concerned about having the skills assessment. To his surprise, he discovered a broad set of skills that were not used at his present job. The assessment revealed “listening,” “follow-through,” “human relations,” and “innovation” skills—along with the skills used as an attorney such as legal writing, research, and negotiation. Examining his strongest and most enjoyable skill set helped Martin identify the missing link in his current job and boosted his self-confidence.

There is also a fear of being isolated and having no support; after all, being a lawyer is thought by some to be prestigious, and others might be less understanding of your desire to leave the field. The January 6, 2008, issue of the New York Times featured an article “Falling-Down Professions,” which revealed dissatisfaction within the field: “Forty-four percent of lawyers surveyed by the American Bar Association said that they will not recommend this profession to a young person.” It is important to know that you are not alone and find support for your career transition. Changing careers can feel like going through a divorce, filled with anxiety about the unknown, regret, and frustration. Talking to someone who already made the transition, or to a professional career counselor, can clarify your confusions, increase your confidence level, and boost your motivation. Increasingly popular blogs dedicated to lawyers and their career-specific issues can serve as support tools. The success stories posted on these online communities also can provide insight into how others survived and flourished, and about the areas that other lawyers transitioned into.

After fears are tamed and you make the commitment to change, it is important to accurately assess which career direction to take; the prospect of ending up in the wrong career again may be daunting. Those coming out of a bad marriage need to examine which parts of the failed relationship worked and which didn’t; similarly, career changers need to examine their career relationship and, most importantly, what makes up their career personality. Your “career self” is many dimensional, and consists of skills, values, personality preferences, decision-making patterns, personal and professional roles held outside of the career, and other complexities and aspirations. Identifying who you are in terms of your career persona—your skills, interests, priorities, and preferences-- will guide you to find career directions that are compatible with your personal style. In our practice we call this process of discovering who you are “assessment.”

It is important to remember that having only one career direction that is inevitably clear is a very rare phenomenon. Albert Einstein, Mozart, and Edison are examples. Realistic outlook about what you can accomplish and what is out of reach is crucial in the process, and the majority of clients, in our experience, are highly compatible with three or four different career directions. Because most people choose their careers by trial and error, one way to minimize the risk of ending up in the wrong field is through exploring these compatible career options. It’s sort of like dating: You must put yourself out there, present yourself in the best possible way, and test the waters.

The most efficient way to do “career dating” is by talking to someone who is already doing what you want to do. In our practice, we call this process “options exploration research,” and it serves two purposes: clarifying which career option is indeed compatible with who you are and establishing a network of contacts in the field. An alumnus client, Elisabeth, was very efficient at this process and landed her desired position within two months. Being an extrovert and very active socially, she came to counseling with an already-established strong (and bankable) social network. Even clients who are as socially adept as Elisabeth can benefit from being prepared for the information-gathering meetings and contacting targeted contacts. Career counseling provided Elisabeth with the opportunity to make all of her mistakes in our office and not during the meeting, and it expedited her job ultimately-successful search.

After the “dating period” is over and you finally decide which career direction is most desirable and also compatible with who you are, it is time to pursue the “chosen one.” We call this final step in the career management process “implementation,” and it is designed to help you land the job of your choice. It is highly likely that by the time you reach this stage in the process, some job opportunities will present themselves through your network of contacts developed during the previous step. Studies show that only some 10 to 15% of jobs are found through published sources and online job sites; by far the vast majority come through contacts and referrals. Your best bet at increasing your chances of landing the desired position is to pursue both strategies as if this was your regular job. Obviously, you should spend most of your time and energy on the most productive strategy—contacts and referrals.

Once the job interviews are set, it is a “beauty contest” from there on, and just as in dating, it’s about chemistry. In real life, “beauty” can be enhanced with plastic surgery procedures, makeup, and inner-health. In our practice, however, we help our clients become more “irresistible” to employers by improving their interviewing skills, résumés, and presentation styles. (Some people returning to the dating scene make their age less apparent by coloring grey hair or choosing the right haircut in order to hide some of the inevitable changes time brings.) In a similar fashion, we help our clients develop one-page profiles that can be used in place of resumes to make the gaps in employment fade, or to highlight client’s best attributes.

Unpredictable personal interactions in an interview can be somewhat anticipated by intense and thorough preparation. Sensing the atmospherics and mood, and good social skills, are essential.

Just like marriages, careers can make you happy or drag you down. Carefully choosing the right career can save you many years of being unhappy, years that cannot be recaptured. If you are one of the lucky people who already have found the right match, it is wise to remember that even matches made in heaven need work to keep them strong.

Celia Paul (celia.paul@verizon.net) and Stephen Rosen (stephenrosen@verizon.net) are partners in Celia Paul Associates (www.celiapaulassociates.com), a New York City-based career management firm specializing in attorneys; Olga Artman is a corporate career coach.

Women Lawyers Transition to More Satisfying Careers

2008-11-16T21:50:00-08:00

Even in the best of times, the law can make for a difficult career. These days, a combination of various economic conditions and lifestyle factors are prompting many women lawyers to make changes in their careers and to find better opportunities for themselves.

This article, by Christy Burke, profiles five women lawyers who have made successful and satisfying career changes:

Carolyn Elefant, who left the law firm where she had been employed to start her own successful solo practice and become a well-known blogger and book author who now provides much useful information to other lawyers who are in solo practice or considering moving to it;
Sari Gabay-Rafiy, a partner in the two-lawyer firm of Gabay-Rafiy & Bowler LLP, who has created a successful network of women lawyers who refer business to one another, to address the challenges female lawyers face when they operate solo practices or small firms;
Maia Spilman, the executive vice president of business and legal affairs for a digital distribution company called INgrooves, who combines the benefits of a position as in-house counsel with an independent law practice that she operates in her spare time;
Amy Hinzmann, whose career began in private practice, then led her to a job as in-house counsel at Merrill Lynch, and eventually to her current position: vice president of discovery strategy for DiscoverReady, a company that manages the document review process and provides services to manage electronic discovery; and
Jessica Porter, a college art history major, turned lawyer, turned proprietor and curator of Raandesk Gallery, a virtual online art gallery, who also markets art works directly to lawyers.

These women share their stories and affirm that there are many ways to have a successful career in the law; private practice at a law firm is just one of several options. Their success will motivate and inspire all lawyers--women and men--who are exploring possible changes in their careers with a clear message: You can alter your legal career path and find a situation that offers you work that you find more satisfying. It's possible; the five lawyers mentioned above have done it.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

Matt Homann Shares His Ten Rules About Hourly Billing

2008-10-28T21:42:06-07:00

Last week, we looked at the billable hour in light of current economic conditions. Economic factors provide a context in which to reevaluate hourly billing, but it is also useful to continue to explore more generally the merits and potential problems of billing our services by the hour.

Some questions we can ask about the billable hour include:

Why do we bill hourly?
Does hourly billing represent the true value of what we provide to our clients?
Does billing by the hour provide the best assurance that we will be paid for our services, without any client disputes or hassles?

These are just a few basic, preliminary questions. At the [non]billable hour, Matt Homann, a lawyer, mediator, and entrepreneur, offers his Ten Rules About Hourly Billing. Each of his "rules" provides an important point to ponder about how we bill for our work and invites us to consider whether we want to bill by the hour or according to some other fee-calculating method. It is helpful to consider each of the "rules" in relation to our practices and our clients. Doing so will help us make informed decisions about whether to keep hourly billing or to adopt some other billing model.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

Susan Cartier Liebel Explains Why Now is a Perfect Time to Go Solo

2008-10-24T11:33:48-07:00

Gloom. Plunging stock prices. Layoffs. "Negative growth." Does any of that sound familiar? It does, if you've been following mainstream news and blog coverage of the current global economy.

In these tumultuous times, law firms are laying off lawyers and lateral positions and first jobs are increasingly difficult to find. So, what can you do? You can keep looking for employment. You can lie awake at night and beweep your adverse state. Or you can hire yourself.

Yes, you read that right: hire yourself. Susan Cartier Liebel is a coach and consultant who helps lawyers start and build solo practices. In an inspiringly optimistic article, Liebel explains, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, why now is "the perfect time to start your solo practice." Presenting historical examples of numerous successful companies that were started during a recession or depression, she argues that a shaky economic environment creates "the perfect climate" for lawyers to start a solo practice. Why should this be so?

First, Liebel explains that the opportunity costs to entering solo practice are lower now than they are in so-called "prosperous" times. During a period of slowed economic activity, entrepreneurs (such as solo lawyers) understand that they have nothing to lose but everything to gain by starting a new business. After all, if you are unemployed or underemployed, how much will you be sacrificing if you give up that state in order to hang your own shingle?

Further, changes happening in the legal profession now are creating favorable conditions for solo practices to thrive. There are many such changes, and Liebel points out that competitors to solo practices--that is, larger law firms--are weakening, especially if they are reducing their marketing efforts. At the same time, clients are looking for better deals. By aggressively marketing their services, solos can create opportunities for themselves because they can be more cost-effective for clients and may be able to offer some services that larger forms have reduced or eliminated.

Finally, by following an effective start-up strategy, you can launch a successful solo practice. Liebel offers a few pointers about how to do that:

To clients who may be seeking new legal counsel, present yourself as a viable and valuable alternative source for the services you provide and how you bill for them.
Market yourself aggressively so prospective clients can find you.
Offer innovative and cost-effective solutions to the prospective clients.
Make yourself available to Big Law firms as an independent contractor to work on an as-needed basis. Offer firms an option they firms will find attractive because contracting for your services can be less expensive than hiring an associate to do the work.

Read Susan Cartier Liebel's article. It will inform you and present a strong case for considering solo practice. If you're not already a solo, it very well might convince you to hire yourself.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

Today's Economy Prompts Rethinking the Billable Hour

2008-10-23T12:57:21-07:00

We've written a lot about the billable hour from various perspectives, and have considered some alternative billing arrangements available to lawyers and clients. Lately, the health of the global economy has been making news headlines daily and, as a recent article in the Washington Post observes, the larger and more intense economic pressures are forcing many clients and lawyers to seriously reconsider how fees for legal services are billed.

In-house lawyers are leading the efforts to question, and perhaps abandon, hourly billing by the law firms that represent their companies. Today's economic challenges are compelling in-house attorneys to significantly reduce their own costs, while fees paid to outside law firms have tended to increase at rates higher than employee salaries, energy costs, and other business expenses.

As usual, outside lawyers and law firms hold widely differing opinions on the merits of the billable hour. Some outside attorneys who support hourly billing explain that they work efficiently and bill clients only for the efficient use of their time. Moreover, they note, it can be very hard to estimate in advance how much time a client's matter will require, and that uncertainty could create a fixed-fee arrangement that might not suffice to cover the attorneys' work on that matter.

Other lawyers are more willing to explore alternative arrangements for calculating their fees. At the request of in-house counsel, those alternatives will likely include fixed rates, lower rates in exchange for bonuses for performance, volume discounts, and alternative ways of pricing legal services. In some cases, a law firm's revenue might increase, particularly if the firm can use the alternative billing approaches to retain existing clients and attract new ones.

What will happen to the billable hour? It's hard to say at this point, and hourly billing's supporters and detractors continue to make persuasive arguments for and against it. These days, however, the state of the economy will likely exert more influence over the debate and be considered a significant point in determining whether to keep, abandon, or modify lawyers' hourly fee arrangements with clients.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger

"Alternative Lawyer Jobs" Site Helps Attorneys Find Alternative Careers

2008-10-22T20:31:44-07:00

Earlier this year, we featured several law school graduates who are pursuing career alternatives to the private practice of law. Now, there is a Web site dedicated to the quest for such work. Alternative Lawyer Jobs, subtitled as "Careers for Lawyers Who Want Something More," says it will help those attorneys who are "[t]ired of traditional law practice" to find their "jobs." In fact, the site's FAQs page points out that Alternative Lawyer Jobs posts "just about every other job opportunity" that would interest individuals with law degrees, except for private practice jobs.

At the time of this writing, the site lists 312 different jobs in a variety of cities throughout the United States and Canada, and allows employers to post job descriptions or links to descriptions on other Web sites at no charge. The site itself has a number of interesting features including a "Job Alerts" e-mail system to notify subscribers of new job listings, and a Career Blog that features stories about alternative forms of employment for lawyers.

Alternative Lawyer Jobs enthusiastically advises prospective employers:

"Whether you have a large company, a small business or a start-up, you can benefit greatly by adding individuals with legal backgrounds to your team in a variety of roles...[and]...individuals with legal experience who no longer want to be in private practice are a great untapped talent pool for companies and entrepreneurs."

While the site is easy to use and informative, and allows visitors to search by terms such as job title, keywords, company name, and geographic location, it could benefit from a few enhancements, such as these:

more job listings in a greater number of geographic areas;
the ability to sort the search results by job title, employer, location, and date;
more frequent updates to the Career Blog; and
more specific contact information about the site and the company that owns it (currently, the only way to contact someone at the site is through a general form that allows a visitor to submit an e-mail message).

However, the inaugural post on the site's Career Blog promises to add more job listings and features, so the enhancements I have suggested above might already be in the works.

Overall, while Alternative Lawyer Jobs is still a very new site, it already shows considerable promise as a useful resource for attorneys who want to find jobs in settings other than private practice. With more content and a few additional features, it will likely help many lawyers who would like to pursue a wider variety of career options.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger