passthebatonblog

Screening Interviews: 8 Ways to Waste Them

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Since I posted Screening Interviews: 8 Ways to Waste Them at lawyerist.com, and I thought of another one:

#9 Get too comfortable with the interviewer. Even if you spend the time talking about baseball or the movies, you are still in an interview and you are being judged.

Your seemingly casual conversation may be answering the question "Can we trust you to be professional and a good representative of the client should we leave you alone in a room with a client?" Be careful about slipping into jargon, slang, or Teen Age Mall Rat, the language of "I'm like, you know."

Going to Work: 6 Tips for a Spring Job Search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Spring is a good time to jump start a job search.

You have (I hope) kept good records of the applications that you have made, the results of those applications, including interviews and any feedback that has come your way. Now is a particularly good time to look back and look forward, tidying up your documents and revising your activities. Here are 6 tips for your spring search.

REVIEW and REVISE:

Your resume, cover letter & writing sample. Are your accomplishments described in useful, specific ways? It is not helpful for an employer to read "Research and writing" under a law clerk position because that is what all law clerks do. List, instead, two or three topics, making sure that you are able to talk intelligently and interestingly what you did. Do you state clearly who you are (1L, 2L, etc.), what you know about the job, and why you want it? Re-read your writing sample. Make it better.
Your networking contact list. Contact someone from that list, and ask meaningful specific questions. Make at least one contact per week. At the end of the year, you will know 52 new lawyers or other professionals.
Your vision of the job that you want to have. If it looks fuzzy, talk to someone who is working in a field that interests you. Ask meaningful specific questions about what the person is doing. If, after talking to three people who have the job that you think you want, and you think that you would rather be boiled in oil, change directions.
Your list of meaningful, specific questions. If you are having trouble creating a list of meaningful specific questions, think carefully about how a work day might work? Who might you talk to during the day? How do you get work assignments? How is your work evaluated? What are the relationships like between and among co-workers? Who will supervise me? Who will I have to supervise? What does success look like? What does it take to fail at this job? (My personal favorite.) Have your career services professionals or other valued and respected contacts review your questions to make sure that they are smart and not self-serving ("What perks do you have?")
Your reading list. Are all of the substantive law and practice blogs in your RSS feed still interesting to you and still related to your career goals? Or have you changed your mind and not updated your RSS feed. A clogged RSS feed is an invitation to wild and indiscriminate deletion. What? You don't have a reading list? If you don't take the time to learn about the work that you say that you want to do, why would anyone want to hire you?
Your wardrobe. Are your shoes shined? Is your interview suit ready to wear today? Do your shirts need ironing? You should be prepared to go to an interview at any time. Employers are not constrained by spring break, exam schedules or bar study, and they post jobs and want to interview candidates right away. Be ready.

Dangerous High Heeled Interview Shoes

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:03:00 +0000

Dangerous
Interview
Shoe

The business of law is deeply conservative, and dangerously high heels may bring a swift ending to an otherwise productive interview.

I applaud Lauren Rosa's recent lawyerist.com post, where she makes a very good case for the five shoes that every woman should want to own. Among her recommendations is a classic, closed-toe 3.5" heel stiletto.

7 inch heels and an interview suit?

From recent conversations with law school career services professionals and some observations of my own, it is time to remind some law students that 7-inch heels have no place with an interview suit.

Two reasons to avoid the maximum high heel in interviews and at work:

7-inch heels distracting?

Super-high heels can be distracting and scary to interviewers. Instead of your candidacy, the interviewer might be focused on "How does she walk in those?" or "What if she falls on me? Is that a Workers Comp injury?"

Interviewers know their culture

Interviewers know what will work at their offices, and they make cuts based on what they see. Many (not all, of course) legal employers are conservative, focused on their clients' needs, and not fashion-forward. Conservative dress doesn't include life-threatening high heels; clients may not be too keen on lawyers whose work-life-balance appears to be about standing upright; and managers, partners, associates and staff may cringe at the notion of stratospheric heels in court. What would the judge or jury think? How distracted would they be from our client's message?

Bottom line: Love them? Buy them. Don't wear them to interviews.

Going to Work: A New Law Firm With 161 Years of Experience - NYTimes.com

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:53:00 +0000

4 lawyers celebrate Chronological Enrichment with their new civil liberties focused law firm. A New Law Firm With 161 Years of Experience - NYTimes.com:

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Going to work: "No answer" is not enough

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Would you leave a final exam answer blank unless time had run out? Probably not. Why, then, might you tell your supervisor that there was no answer to the problem that he posed in your most recent assignment?

Despite your best efforts, sometimes there is no easy answer or no answer on point. However, you can’t just say “Sorry, Mr. Partner, there is no answer,” or “I don’t know” after hours or days of research. Why not? Your boss can’t turn around to the client and say “Sorry, no answer.”

You have to give your boss something that he can use to tell the client the pros and cons and options inherent in the difficult position that having no clear answer creates.

At the very least you need to say “These are the options, and here are the benefits and problems of each. Given the facts as you have provided them to me, I would recommend the [first, second, whatever] choice because...” Clients can’t make decisions based on “I don’t know,” and they fire the lawyers they perceive as unhelpful.

This applies in the public sector, as well. The Attorney General can’t go to the Governor and say “We don’t know, so you’re on your own on this problem.”

Susan Gainen's programs for law students are: Alternative Careers, 2nd Career Law Students, Job Search Skills = Business Development Skills, Professionalism Has Attached, and The Forever Skill: Job Search Outside of OCI. She is a watercolorist, painting geometric abstractions called nanoscapes, and she is artist, wrangler, blogger, and curator for whimsical creatures called small friends. Her creativity workshop is Watching Paint Dry Can Be Fun.

Diss 'Like' - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:48:00 +0000

I have been fighting against "I'm like, you know," for a quarter of a century. While Ted Gup's Chronicle of Higher Ed post is far more eloquent than I've ever been, I am pleased to note that I have come to a place of peaceful co-existence with the dialect, Teen-Age Mall Rat (TAMR).

BECOME BI-LINGUAL
Please continue to speak TAMR if it is your clients' first language, however, if you plan to represent them in the legal and business world, Standard English will be required.

Why? Imagine this language in a trial transcript:

"I'm like, Your Honor..."

"Like you know, the Plaintiff was like walking across the crosswalk, and, like the Defendant was like making a right turn and drove his car like right into my client."

Aside from sounding silly, is that language that your client may cheerfully pay for?

Diss 'Like' - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education:

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10 tips for daily painters, job seekers & career changers

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:12:00 +0000

7 Hippos Marching begin my 2012 Image-a-day Project

Whether you are a daily painter, a job seeker, career changer or someone trying to write a novel while managing job and career, these 10 tips will help keep you on track. Change "paint" to whatever your project might be and get started!

Paint every day if you can. Sometimes, you can't. Don't fret. If you miss a day or two, don’t abandon your project.
If you can't complete an entire painting in a day, don't fret. Leonardo didn't finish the chapel in one day, either.
If you can't paint every day, think about something that you would like to try. Write it down or you will forget it. Keep the list in a handy place or you will lose it, or, in a fit of super-cleaning, you will send it out with recycling.
When you get back to your studio or your desk, look at the list. Some of the ideas are genius. Some are not. Laugh if you must.
If you have lots of work in progress, hang the pieces up or you will forget them. I have too many mostly-done works on an easel. I need another easel.
If you can't paint every day, sketch something. Pick up your pencil. It is a magic tool, sometimes with a mind of its own. Let it lead you to a new place.
In creative brain-freeze land? Pick up an art book. Go to the library or to your favorite used bookstore, both of which have hundreds of art books waiting for you.
Need to get out of the house or out of your comfort zone? Go and look at public sculpture. Like it? Don't like it? Either way, a response can get you out of your creativity brain-freeze.
Go to a museum. Everyone there loves art, and these are your people.Talk to strangers in this safe place. If you don't live near a museum, hundreds have put substantial collections on line. Bert Christensen has posted a helpful list.
Can't paint because you have no space? Clean a closet. Apply these tests: (a) Do I need to keep this? (b) Do I need to keep this here? (c) I can get rid of it if it was given to me by someone to whom I no longer speak or who will never, ever visit. (d) I can get rid of it if I don't remember how I acquired it and I have never used it.

When one of my colleagues at the LinkedIn Daily Painters and Collectors Network suggested that everyone encourage a Daily Painter, I cheered and made this list which is good for anyone with a project that is just out of reach.

Personal note: I am in my second year of posting an image-a-day to Facebook. A version of this blog post was cross-posted to the nanoscapes and small friends blogs.

Legal Project Management :: Lawyer Marketing Legal Marketing Blog: Another Reason Partners Should Learn About Legal Project Management

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Thank you, Tom Kane, for an excellent post. Take one more step: legal project management is not just for partners. It is one of many best business practices that all lawyers must learn if they expect to function effectively. Whether in the new normal of leaner-and-meaner private practice, or in resource-starved public practice, project management is a key and critical skill.

Legal Project Management :: Lawyer Marketing Legal Marketing Blog: Another Reason Partners Should Learn About Legal Project Management:

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Law Student Professionalism and an Elephant

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:28:00 +0000

6 blind men

Several cultures and many disciplines claim the story of six blind men describing an elephant based on the body part each holds, arguing about their observations, and being led by a wise person to a peaceful conclusion of their disagreements.

Is Professionalism an Elephant?

Is an elephant...?

A wall?

A spear?

A snake?

A tree?

A fan?

A rope?

It is all and none of those things.

How is professionalism like an Elephant?

More than a decade ago, when law school alumni and other legal professionals began to ask "Who are these people and why do them seem unprofessional?" career services professionals listened. A large group sat around many tables, and conducted numerous meetings and conference calls as they tried to create guidelines and standards to answer this question:

What is law student professionalism? Is it...?

Dress? (For your employer, for your day)

Speech? (Too fast, too slow, too loud, too quiet, too informal and "Mall Rat")

Ethics? (What gray areas?)

Deportment and civility? (Will you be boring on U-Tube?)

Work product? (Letter perfect or take the consequences)

Attitude? (Best foot forward)

Emotional intelligence? (Can you define it?)

Working smartly with other generations? (Impeccable behavior at all times)

Maintaining technological competence? (More than with just your phone)

Impeccable electronic persona? (What happens on your blog goes viral and lasts forever)

Every professional needs to consider each of these elements before walking out the door or speaking, writing, texting, faxing, or interacting with others face-to-face or electronically. Why? The consequences to your clients for your errors may side-track your career; the consequences for your reputation and for your license may be beyond your capacity to repair.

Excellent references:

Kay Kavenauth & Paula Nailon's Excellence in the Workplace: Legal and Life Skills in a Nutshell.
Al Coleman Jr's Secrets to Success: The Definitive Career Development Guide for New and First Generation Professionals.

Want to learn more? Contact your law school's career office or bar association program committee to arrange a session of Susan Gainen's Professionalism Has Attached program or contact me directly at 651.917.0291 or susan@passthebaton.biz.

Career strategies from 1999: aged like fine wine, not old cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:02:00 +0000

FINE WINE

When I worked at the University of Minnesota Law School Career & Professional Development Center, the office handbook was called The GreenBook because I'd gotten a great deal on green plastic binders the first time it was published. It ran to 300 pages in its final edition, and I still have one original, uncut version.

Here is some strategic advice from a CEO that is as good today as it was in 1999:

In a Wall Street Journal column titled "Future MBA Grads: Do as I say, Not as I did," the chair of Warner-Lambert offered some strategies to future MBA's which are applicable to future lawyers, regardless of the practice area (public, private, public interest, etc.) you are considering:

Define your core competency;
Find organizations where ideas are valued;
Try to spot [employers] on the upswing;
Think globally;
Look for [employers] that value diversity;
Consider learning opportunities;
Look for family-friendly organizations;
Finally, don't look back.

Marketing tips for artists, business owners, networkers & job seekers

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:33:00 +0000

Not just artists, but all business owners, networkers, and job seekers whose enterprises are lagging may recognize themselves in this timely post from the Light, Space Time gallery owner.

When confronted by two angry and disappointed artists whose work was not selling, he gave blunt and honest critique. In How to Sell More Art | Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery: 'via Blog this', he analyses their ineffective websites and less-than-marginal marketing efforts and gives them good advice. Sadly, he hasn't heard from them since giving this advice.

Artists, business owners, networkers, and job seekers all want to get on with their "work." Altogether too many would much rather ignore or outsource their marketing efforts, or try to market by telepathy which is never a good plan.

Cheerleaders & Facebook: a lesson for law students

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:41:00 +0000

Hiring Process News flash! Hiring decisions made by strangers may be made on the content of your content, as opposed to the content of your character.

Just when I thought that everyone knew that Facebook was not a place to display photos of any indiscretions, one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Making the Team 6, burst that bubble yet again.

DCC: A guilty pleasure

Having never known a college or professional cheerleader, it was news to me to learn that they are serious, dedicated, and talented dancers with the enormous stamina necessary to dance for three hours in a steaming hot stadium. Hundreds of young women apply to become Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) every year, and many have wanted to join the squad since they were very young girls. This is the dream job, and Facebook can kill it.

“Tonight is your last night.”

With the same finality as Top Chef’s “Pack your knives and go,” the worst words that a DCC training camp candidate can hear is “Tonight is your last night.”

Law students and cheerleaders?

I have been speaking to law students about Professionalism for years, and I always refer to an early episode of “Making the Team” (perhaps from season 2 in 2007). Very close to the end of the season, a young woman learns that the content of her Facebook page marks the end of her dream. “Tonight is your last night,” says Director Kelli Finglass, because she and Choreographer Judy Trammell had decided that its content couldn’t be associated with the DCC.

Lesson learned. That should have been the end of it. Every potential DCC candidate should have memorized that episode and edited her Facebook page to protect and enhance her candidacy.

But no.

In Season 6, which wraps on December 9, 2012, training camp candidates were send home because of their online presence. Racy and inappropriate photographs were discussed in episode 3, and a significant portion of episode 6 was devoted to a Social media seminar, which included a reference to a 2009 Halloween dress up misadventure when a DCC’s Halloween costume (as Lil’ Wayne in blackface) went viral.

Lesson learned? I hope so, but I'll have to wait for Season 7 to be sure.

Lars Leafblad Insights From Four Years in Retained Executive Search - KeyStone Search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:15:00 +0000

Lars Leafblad Insights From Four Years in Retained Executive Search - KeyStone Search:

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Career changers, networkers, employed and unemployed -- whatever your status -- take note of the advice here, incorporate it into your strategic thinking and daily practice.

Thank you, Lars Leafblad.

1L Thanksgiving Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Roosters Not Invited to Dinner

Your friends and family are stressed about your summer employment prospects. Help them to help you by creating a practical plan and sharing it during the Thanksgiving weekend. Do this, and you will show that you are concerned and not slacking. Then, enlist them all as members of your Career Team, and give them something to do.

THE DINNER AND THE WEEKEND Devoting an hour now to making a plan will allow you to control the flow of job-related conversations and then quickly switch the focus onto the relative merits of sage-and-onion or oyster stuffing.

MANAGE EXPECTATIONS Sharing your fact-laden plan with help manage their expectations. Should your family expect you to be employed by January 15 (where did they get that idea?) they will spend the semester sending waves of angst and panic in hundreds of texts and tweets. If they know that you expect to find a small firm job in May, or that you are interested in studying abroad, they may calm down..

OPTIONS BY TYPE

PAID EMPLOYMENT

Large firms (not hiring many 1Ls)
Small firms (large numbers of 1Ls are hired in the spring)
Public agencies (some hire in the spring; many may take volunteers)
Corporations (few hires, some internships with spring applications)
Returning to pre-law school employment (excellent idea)

a. Consider applying to your former employer’s legal department.

b. Consider a part-time position combined with a volunteer law gig

Research assistant to faculty: Creates connections with faculty who can give you rigorous research tasks which can help them evaluate you so that they might serve as future references. Some of these jobs will be posted; others will be announced by faculty in class. You may approach any faculty member whose work interests you.

VOLUNTEER OPTIONS

Legal volunteer opportunities: sign up in the spring or continue your fall pro bono project
Judicial externships (depending on your school)

a. May be a summer school class with spring registration.

b. May require direct application after fall grades are posted.

Summer school or study abroad

a. Summer school lightens your fall 2012 course load and can be combined with part-time work or volunteer gigs.

b. Caveat: An externship, summer school, and study abroad have a tuition cost.

OPPORTUNITIES CREATED THROUGH NETWORKING This is the Holy Grail of the highly-touted Hidden Job Market, and it is where your Team comes in.

Enlist your Team (family, family friends, friends of friends, neighbors, and all random contacts, including your manicurist) to begin to create lists of lawyers and other professionals (Targets) with whom you will connect. Even if you do not come from a family of professionals, they may surprise themselves when challenged to connect you with their acquaintances who may have professional connections.
Ask that your Team alert the Targets that you would like to contact them during winter break to discuss careers, and career paths, and to seek their advice.
Commit to making the connections. Your Team will be going out on a limb for you. Don’t even think of embarrassing them by not following through on their introductions.

Create a resume, have it reviewed by Career Services, and load it to Google Docs. This is a doc that you will give to your Team so that they can have smart conversations about you with their own contacts. You want them to be able to say:

“My son is interested in X practice, and he has questions about law practice and lawyers’ careers in general. May I give him your contact information so that he can set up a meeting during his winter break?”

“My daughter is a first year law student who is curious about lawyers and their career paths. May I give her your contact information so that she can set up a meeting during her winter break?”

Invariably, the contacts will ask “What does your daughter want to do?” If you have a specific goal in mind, please share it with your Team. If you don’t have a specific goal, instruct them to say that you are exploring career paths.

Make a plan. Create a resume. Load it to Google Docs. Get back to studying. Exams are coming.

Marketing Advice :: Associates :: Law Practice Legal Marketing Blog: Younger Attorneys Need To Appreciate the Business Side of The Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:24:00 +0000

In the spirit of Passing the Baton, I am delighted to be able to share this excellent advice. Props to Tom Kane's always exceptional Legal Marketing Blog.

Marketing Advice :: Associates :: Law Practice Legal Marketing Blog: Younger Attorneys Need To Appreciate the Business Side of The Practice:

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1st year students' first career services meeting: a beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:01:00 +0000

First year law students’ first meetings with career services professionals mark the beginning of an enormously valuable two-way relationship. What should each expect?

STUDENTS

Why engage with career services? You don’t know what you don’t know. Unless you are a trained career counselor with years of experience working with law-trained people, you need the guidance and wisdom of someone who knows how this works. This service is included in your tuition, so avoiding contact with career services wastes valuable tuition dollar.

What can you expect from the first meeting? Assuming that you attended the 1L Introduction and that you are not asking your counselor to repeat an hour-long program in this 30 minute session, you can expect to be asked some or all of these questions:

Why did you decide to come to law school?
How did you make the decision?
When – if at all – did you decide to become a lawyer?
Do you have specific career goals?
Do you have specific plans for the summer of 2012?

Note that each of these questions could take an hour to answer, so it will be helpful if you have given them some thought.

What about a resume review? Resume review is managed in many different ways. Follow your career services office guidelines. Do not attempt to free-lance your resume without review. An error that might be small in your eyes might be disqualifying to an employer. All too often, 1Ls forget to put “Law School” on their first resumes.

BIG QUESTIONS Why won’t all of your questions be answered? Why won’t you believe that you have been set off in a correct direction? Why might you feel let down by this meeting?

If you consider your first meeting with career services as a first blind date, you will understand why the relationship feels incomplete. You would not say to a blind date “Damn glad to meet you! Can I have your children?” or begin to plan to combine your finances and apply for a mortgage the next day.

Finding and navigating a career path is as complicated and time-consuming as any other life-long activity.

“Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’” is not a career planning guide.
You cannot outsource career planning.
There is no app for this on Harry Potter’s Wand.

CAREER SERVICES PROFESSIONALS

What are they supposed to do? And what do they do?

The 2011-2012 Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools (Standard 511: Student Support Services) says just this about Career Services:

A law school shall provide all its students, regardless of enrollment or scheduling option, with basic student services, including maintenance of accurate student records, academic advising and counseling, financial aid counseling, and an active career counseling service to assist students in making sound career choices and obtaining employment.

Career services professionals are keenly aware of the words “to assist,” which means “to give support or aid.” It does not mean “do it all for you.” With student-to-professional ratios of 300-or-more-to-one, the notion that jobs could be handed to individual students might be aspirational, but it is unattainable.

With this tiny and insufficient guidance, during the past few years, career services professionals around the country have:

Invited and answered millions of emails, texts, and tweets from students and graduates;
Scheduled hundreds of thousands of one-on-one meetings;
Conducted hundreds of thousands of mock interviews;
Substituted websites for manuals and handouts [Note to Minnesota grads: I have one last paper copy of the 300+ page GreenBook];
Collaborated with alumni offices and bar associations to create mentor opportunities for students;
Shouted-until-hoarse about the benefits of clinics and pro bono activity;
Invited thousands of alumni and other professionals to speak to their students;
Partnered with student groups and bar associations to connect speakers and students;
Begged students to maintain contact and to keep them up-to-date as the reconsider their plans and goals;
Beseeched students who came to law school without plans or connections with lawyers to have regular conversations that might lead to forming concrete plans;
Met with any person or agency at any time or place that might lead to employment for a student or a grad;
Created interview programs and opportunities, both on and off campus;
Partnered with deans, urging them to ask for money AND ask for employment opportunities in the same breath;
Kept current with developing and declining practice areas so that the advice that they give is timely and current;
And more.

Working with individual students

GETTING A JOB The assumption, of course, is that everyone wants a job. That said, without making some connection with each student, connecting a student with a job that might be interesting, acceptable, or useful is difficult. Without telepathic abilities, career services professionals rely on students to ask for what they want.

NETWORKING Career services professionals rely on students to do their part of networking activities which cannot be outsourced. Students have to make the first call. It is something that they will all have to do on behalf of their clients soon enough.

REACHING OUT When you have the right information (“I am interested in Agricultural Law in Ohio), and you find a connection, make it. Introduce the student to the connection by email. This is different from the previous networking task, as it is a target of opportunity, not something that you can do all day every day, unless you have just a handful of students under your wing.

A TWO-WAY STREET Early November is busy for students and for career services professionals. Taking the first career path steps together and promising to create a partnership will benefit everyone.

Going to Work: Practical cues for managers & staff

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:57:00 +0000

A cheeky TechRepublic blog post, Is Your Boss an Idiot? reminded me again that communication -- or lack there of -- is one of the great pitfalls of going to work. More important, though, is that telepathy is neither a management tool or a career-management system, and managers and staff should stop trying to use it.

FOR THE BOSS:
Unless someone has been trained to supervise, he may attempt to use telepathy to manage his staff, triangulating with one Trusted Lacky by muttering "Why don't these idiots ever do X the way it should be done?"

Sadly, the Trusted Lacky is unlikely to ask pointedly: "Have you ever asked them to do it?" and "Have you ever explained how it should be done?" All too often, if the questions were asked, the answers would be "No."

FOR THE EMPLOYEE:
Perhaps because an employee has never worked in an office or perhaps because she mistakenly believes that everyone communicates exactly as she does with her friends, she has:

Misread or ignored visible cues from a boss that might lead her to believe that her supervisor is concerned or upset with behavior or work product. This could be cured by looking up from a smartphone and engaging with the people in the office.
Neglected to ask how her boss wants to learn about progress on projects. This could be cured by asking "How would you like to learn about my progress on projects? Would you like hard-copy memos, email memos, texts, phone calls or face-to-face meetings?" and "Would you like daily or weekly reports, or reports on some other schedule?

FOR EVERYONE: Ask for what you want. Be clear and unambiguous.

8 rules for phone or Skype interviews

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Get dressed. Put on shoes that tie so that you can't kick them off and get too comfortable. Wear a suit (or at least a jacket), without stripes or plaids that may be distracting to your viewer.
Sit at a desk or table. Sit up straight. Re-read your resume and cover letter and have them in front of you. Have pen or pencil and paper so that you can take notes.
Make sure that your phone is fully juiced or that your computer is Skype-ready.
If Skyping, make sure that whatever is behind you is NOT your laundry, your unmade bed or last night's dishes.
Never forget that you are taking to a human being who is judging you.
Even with Skype, you are relying primarily on your voice. Speak clearly, distinctly and in Standard English (or in the language in which you are being interviewed). It is unlikely that you will be interviewed in "Teen-Age Mall Rat," so avoid "I'm like, you know" which will undercut the power of your speech. Do not mumble. On the other hand, you are not speaking to the third balcony. Ask your interviewer for a sound-check at the beginning of the interview.
If you are conducting this interview at school, ask for a quiet space and then make sure that you can get EXCELLENT cell reception. If necessary, as your career office staff to use a land-line.
For reasons of confidentiality and ambiance (quiet enough so that you can hear and be heard), conducting a phone interview at a coffee shop is not a very good idea. Similarly, airports are generally awful locations for phone interviews.

Good luck!

Going to work: finding and taking criticism

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:44:00 +0000

When my career began to focus on the school-to-work transition, my eloquent friend, the writer Michael Dolan, offer this advice: “You know that you’re doing ok if they’re not yelling at you.”

Evaluations: when and where?

How, then, would you know when you are being evaluated? Sometimes it's hard to know what questions to ask of your new boss. Sometimes, as with an annual performance review, the agenda is unambiguous.

What you should hope for in the school-to-work transition is a patient and understanding teacher, willing to work with you as you acquire skills, and willing to give reality-based and useful critique when it is called for. Often the best technical lawyers are the least able to slow down to offer routine evaluations of each project. While you should never expect minute-by-minute support and evaluation, you should never stop never stop looking for sound criticism.

Evaluations: how to respond when it's not "Bravo!!?"

Your responsibility, when faced with an evaluation that makes you cringe, is to breathe deeply, remind yourself that you don’t know everything, and to learn from the criticism.

A great book
in a terrific series

It is also helpful to understand that your work will not be praised by everyone, and that you are certain to encounter people who believe that you are uniquely ill-suited for the job that you are doing.

Take inspiration from two of my favorite authors, DouglasPreston and Lincoln Childs, who have gone out of their way to collect bad reviews of their work. Think of it, they labor together to write intricately plotted and elaborately charactered novels, and there are people who don’t like the books and are not afraid to say so. True, the bad reviews are posted anonymously, but it is with good humor and humility that P&C post them.

Take criticism with good grace.

Do not argue when a person who is paying your salary suggests that you employ correct grammar and spelling in professional documents, and that perhaps your legal analysis lacks sufficient nuance to persuade a judge or jury. Although the language of the critique might be couched as a "suggestion," following through is not an option. Fix the problems or find other work.

Not an attack on your creative spark

Please know that your evaluator is not hell-bent on destroying your creative spark. In your personal writing, you are free to bend and embellish the English language and to create new forms of expression. Enjoy your opportunity to become bilingual: Standard English with Nuanced Legal Analysis, and Your Own Personal Creative Expressions.

Going to work: make a plan and work it

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:33:00 +0000

In this market, you have two career exploration options:

Repeat “there are no jobs” 100 times each morning and fret yourself into a frenzy, or
Make a plan and work your plan.

With all of the blogification about employment statistics and the shrunken job market, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that many, many law students get jobs. Driving yourself into the crossroads of Anxiety Alley and Despair Drive will take all of the energy that might have created a reality-based job and successful search.

Make a plan. Work the Plan.

If you know what you want to do, read everything about the subject or career path and begin to talk (yes, talk on the telephone or face-to-face) to the people who do the work. You should be reading current cases, blogs (both law professors’ and practitioners’ blogs), course syllabi from the best professors in the country, the latest news in the industries that are affected by this topic, and everything else that you can get your hands on. You should participate (not just join) professional organizations and the relevant sections or groups.

Take as your Role Model a patent lawyer of my acquaintance who has briefed every patent court case that has come down since he was a law student. He shares this information with his colleagues and is respected for his dedication, breadth of knowledge, and commitment to his work.

If you don’t know what you want to do, pick three topics or career paths and systematically do the tasks listed above. If you find something you hate, ditch it. When you find something that you like, ditch the other two.

What will happen if you don’t make a plan?

You may fall into employment. You will be relying on luck and gravity.
Because you cannot outsource gathering this knowledge, you may graduate with no job.
Should you be lucky enough to get an interview, your reply to “Why do you want to do this work?” will be shallow and lacking in substance. The difference between a candidate with a substantive body of knowledge that he has taken time and trouble to acquire and the person who replies "I liked the class," is a paycheck.
Should you graduate with no job, you will then have to begin the tasks outlined above. Instead of operating from the safe space of law school as an engaged and therefore interesting law student who is curious about practice, you will be an unemployed grad scrambling for a foothold in a difficult market.

Interview Practice Protocol & Checklist

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:30:00 +0000

A checklist for you

Whether practicing on your own or practicing with friends and colleagues, a Practice Protocol checklist will help you cover your bases and succeed in your interviews.

1. Handshake: firm, neither fishlike nor crusher

2. Personal presentation

Suit: pressed; cotton shirt (men)

Suit: women: if wearing a skirt (not too short)

Hair: cut

Shined Shoes

Portfolio and pen

No baseball caps, ever

3. Demeanor

Eye contact: direct

No fidgeting, drumming on the table, leaning back in the chair

4. Answers to questions (provide a list of practice questions)

Clear and direct

Thoughtful

Complete sentences with meaningful specific information

Never says: Ummm, and-ummm, I was like, I was like, you know

Can discuss every resume item

Can answer:

“Why do you want to work here?”

“Why should we hire you?”

“What do you know about our business?”

Has re-read writing sample and can discuss it intelligently

Has practiced some behavioral questions

5. Market information

Knows about the industry

Knows about the business

Knows about business and industry problems and issues

6. Local information

Knows about local conditions (market, geography, cultural)

Knows the location of the employer and can get to the office on time.

Asking for a Drink: the right way

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:35:00 +0000

Career services professionals generally agree that the most embarrassing stories from the worlds of recruiting and work revolve around alcohol. One way to avoid becoming the star of a Famous Career Adviser Story comes from the Always Correct Culture and Manners Institute's Etiquette Tip of the Week:

When you are invited to a cocktail party in someone's home and you are asked what you would like to drink, your response should not be "I'd like a Bombay Sapphire martini straight up with bleu cheese stuffed olives and have the vermouth blow the martini a kiss."

The proper response is "What are you serving?"

If you are hosting the party, be able to recite a few of the beverages that you have available, along with any specialty cocktails. Be sure to offer non-alcoholic beverages as well for non-drinkers and designated drivers.

Going to work: email communication blunder

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:59:00 +0000

In Philip Galanes Social Qs column in the NYTimes (September 25, 2011) he suggests that the solution to an email miscommunication is Professional Snarkiness. Bad idea.

Q: I’m very junior at my company, but meet with higher-ups, who appear not to read my e-mails. They often miss critical information, then send frantic e-mails asking why they have not been kept informed. I’d like to reply with a bit of bite: “As I e-mailed yesterday, the proposal will go out tomorrow.” Too much?

Anonymous, New York City

A. Not at all!! Though I might add a touch of boot-licking, if I were you: “Please let me know if that schedule is convenient for you.”

Should this junior exec follow these instructions and engage in Professional Snarkiness, he or she is doomed. Galanes should have urged the junior to have a face-to-face conversation with the individual managers and to ask how they would like to receive information. They might suggest:

Changing the email subject to clarify the content
Using "urgent" mode
Copying the managers' assistants
Sending hard copy
Texting
Leaving voicemail to let the manager know that they information in coming in an email

Junior professionals should never, ever allow themselves to be managed by telepathy, nor should they imagine that their supervisors can read their minds.

Al Coleman's Secrets to Success: a must read for first-gen professionals

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:48:00 +0000

Al Coleman, Jr.

Pave the Rocky Road to Success For first-generation professionals, the road to success can appear either rocky or barely visible. Without personal contacts and mentors, first-gen professionals can stumble and fail to achieve even the slightest bit of their potential.

This need not continue.

In Secrets to Success: The Definitive Career Development Guide for New and First Generation Professionals, Al Coleman Jr. has written a blue-print for first-gen professionals of all colors and backgrounds which provides critical, useful, and detailed instructions for finding and creating a path to success. In a short book whose most compelling chapters are on mentoring and branding excellent work, he also addresses self-assessment, educational and financial planning, and work-life balance.

Who is Al Coleman, Jr.? He is the son of Alfred W. Coleman III, a Liberian immigrant who lost everything in his homeland’s civil war, yet made his way into success the world of business. He died young (54), leaving his son inspired to create a document that would honor his father by helping to create a path for first-gen students who seek success.

Why pay attention to Al Coleman, Jr? He was a struggling “C” student in high school who made himself into an honors undergraduate who performed well in a number of Fortune 500 internships. He earned his law degree at a top 20 law school, and was promoted to a Director-level position at a billion dollar firm while earning multiple professional awards for legal and business leadership. He was teaching, presenting national speaking engagements, and mentoring high performing emerging leaders – all by the age of 30.

He writes from the heart and, most importantly, he writes from his own experience and the wisdom of others.

Mentoring An early childhood inspiration which opened a door to a nuanced view of mentoring came from one of his Mother’s friends, who said “While it’s wise to learn from your mistakes, it’s wiser to learn from the mistakes of others.”

He notes the dearth of minority and first-gen professionals in management and professional positions, but says that “pipeline” is a symptom and not the problem. Rather, he writes, being mentored is the single most important element of success, and in “Talk to the Future You” (Chapter 3) Coleman helpfully outlines the steps that should be taken to identify and nurture mentor relationships.

Starting early He knew instinctively that marching up to a stranger or a boss and saying “Will you be my mentor?” would be both inappropriate and pointless. He started correctly, and he started early:

[beginning in high school]… I participated in a science internship at a large multinational consumer products company in the Twin Cities. During my internship I made sure that I spent at least 30 minutes a week with my boss, a Manager in the department, and asked him as many questions as I could about how he got his current position. I didn’t want his job, but I wanted his lifestyle. I wanted to be paid for my intellectual talents rather than my manual labor. I wanted to be a creator rather than a server.

Creator or server? In Chapter 2 (The Facts: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You), he explores the career implications of the differences between creator and server, which echo issues in the current state of the economy in which professionals (creators) drive productivity and servers are supplanted by cheap labor or machines. Noting that servers have no place in key management or professional occupations, he opts for creativity and recommends it to others.

Excellent performance matters Sub-par performance has no place in Coleman’s toolbox. He endorses (no relation) Harvey J. Coleman’s Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Games Revealed branding theory called P.I.E., an acronym for Performance-Image-Exposure. When broken out, it asserts that the correct division among these elements is:

Coleman notes that “Performance” appears to be the least of the elements, but he stresses that it is the quality of the performance makes or breaks a career. Excellent performance getting lots of exposure is good; shoddy performance getting lots of exposure is bad. It can be a career-ender.

Real exposure Coleman urges his readers to be sure that hard work is seen by all of the stakeholders on a career path: “You can’t be promoted to the next level if no one knows what you’re doing or what you’ve done.”

Self-assessment Career development professionals will cheer his strong endorsement of on-going self-assessment. He suggests focusing on weaknesses (to fix them) as well as strengths (to improve them), and follow the profiles of successful individuals from whom best practices can be learned.

When he suggests that people “dream big,” he adds the helpful caveat of the need to be able to “pivot.” An excellent suggestion, because much can be learned from the challenges arising in a bump in the road. Also, plans engraved in granite can be exploded by changes in personal circumstances, in the economy, or in newly developed interests.

This little book should be required reading for high school, college, and professional students, new professionals, and the advisers and mentors who guide them.

Why Grammar Matters: not just the Oxford Comma

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 03:21:00 +0000

If you don’t care where the comma goes, you may want to re-think becoming a lawyer.

Long before bloggers at Lawyerist.com began debating the Oxford Comma, I always made this point to prospective law students during the years that I worked in law school career services.
Lawyers’ writing, which includes much more than briefs and court documents, requires an astonishing amount of precision. When ambiguity trumps precision, the door to expensive and embarrassing litigation may open. Saying “I’m sorry” will not insulate you:

from the difference between $4,000 and $400,000,000 of Officers’ and Directors’ Liability Insurance in a signed contract;
from your clients’ skepticism about your competence should your documents be littered with typos and grammatical errors (“I can spell. Why can’t my lawyer? What else is wrong with her advice? ”) [props to the excellent lawyer and writer Maura O'Connor]; or
from the understandable rage of a prisoner whose statute of limitations for appeal tolled because you weren’t clear about the difference between working days and calendar days.

All too often, law students want give short shrift to Legal Writing because it is either pass/fail or has fewer credits than other first year courses. This is a foolish and short-sighted attitude which law grads live to regret.

In addition to the task of teaching legal reasoning and writing, Legal Writing instructors care deeply about grammar, and they have a wonderful platform in which to share their concern and their passion. In a post on the Legal Skills Research Blog, Deborah K. Hackerson (St. Thomas, Minneapolis) links to an excellent post from Stanford Law Library's Rachel Samberg called How to Use Legislative History to Teach Grammar which describes a "might comma" teachable moment.

Teaching bright students who come from a variety of disciplines with a broad range of attitudes toward grammar rules is a challenge. In Statutory Interpretation in the Age of Grammatical Permissiveness: An Object Lesson for Teaching Why Grammar Matters , Susan J. Hankin (Maryland) makes many excellent points, not the least of which is that legal writing is, indeed, different from other kinds of writing. I once met with a 1L who was a poet who was distressed because she thought that her legal writing instructor was stomping all over her creativity. "No," I said, "you are learning a different kind of writing. After all, if your toaster were to burn down your house, would you send a poem to its manufacturer, or would you write a stern letter outlining duty, breach, causation, scope of liability, and damages?"

In the rush to learn "legal reasoning," students may neglect the fact that grammar (and spelling) are two critical components of legal writing which make their work useful and accessible to clients.