passthebatonblog

2nd Week of Work: Sync With Support Staff

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:41:00 +0000

If this is your first grown-up job, face it – almost every support staff person knows more than you. You may know more about some abstract points of law, but they know:

Where the courthouses are and how to submit documents on time and in the correct format;
All about individual clients, their businesses, their legal problems, and their expectations;
The five things that most annoy the attorneys for whom they (and you) work;
Who will return your texts and who has never, ever texted;
How all of the office equipment works;
How to get extra help for emergency projects;
Who is “in” and who is “on the way out;”
What errors that you might make (unintentionally) that might cost you your job; and
Much, much more.

Sync With Support Staff

The administrative assistant who you share with lawyers and other law clerks is not a mind reader, so you must:

Share your personal schedule.

When will you be in the office? People may look for you, and it reflects poorly on you if your assistant always says “I don’t know where he is.”

Share your project schedule #1.

After getting an assignment, the first thing you must do is share the deadline with your assistant. Because yours is not the only work that she handles, she may need to recruit extra help when six lawyers and clerks have documents due at the same time.

Share your project schedule #2.

If you have known about a deadline for weeks, it is inexcusable to surprise your assistant with a large document at 3 p.m. and demand that it be completed by 5 p.m. You may get away with this once. A second bite at that apple will insure that you have a terrible reputation with support staff.

A terrible reputation may lead to unenthusiastic cooperation. While sabotage is unlikely, no one will jump at the chance to work for you. People will notice you, and not in a good way.

Say "Please" and "Thank you"

No explanation required.

First Week of Work: Make or break your summer

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:33:00 +0000

First Day

Meeting people: Strong handshakes and good eye contact are key. Do your best to begin to remember names and functions. Ask for an organization chart and make notes. You will be both efficient and effective when you understand how work gets done (who works for whom? who is in which department?)

Getting started: Do not gripe at the amount of paperwork that you must complete. Commit to replying to all administrators' requests double-super-promptly. If administrators like you, they can save your reputation and your job.

Your office space: How do others personalize their spaces? With tiny tasteful photographs of their loved ones or 5-foot-velvet-Elvis paintings? Until you have a permanent job, find a comfort level that meshes with the office norm.

First Week: New Assignments

Take notes

Always take notes when you are given an assignment. Assigning attorneys do not know that you always remember every word that's spoken to you. It makes people nervous to give complicated instructions to someone who doesn't take notes, and your work will be suspect. People will consider you unreliable before seeing your work, and doubts may linger.

Questions to ask when you get an assignment.

Do you have a source for the best place to begin my research?
Have you handled matters similar to this one? (If "yes," ask for the name of the file.)
How many hours do you think that this should take?
When do you need this on your desk?
Do you want to see me before I have finished the project?
How should I format the results? (letter to the assigning attorney, memo to a client, etc.)
Are there research restrictions such as time on Lexis or Westlaw?
What style would you prefer? (persuasive, strictly factual, brief-like, memo-like?)
Will you want a paper or an electronic copy of the final document?

Following a very important direction:

When the assigning attorney says "Bill and Jane did work similar to this. Talk to them about the project," do not scurry back to your desk and send an email asking for everything that they know about Project X.

Your boss means for you to walk down the hall, knock on doors, and have face-to-face contact or a phone call if the lawyers are out of town. Following this instruction benefits you because your Boomer or X-er boss doesn't want to hear from colleagues that they were email-bombed by an unknown law clerk, and because she has handed you a golden opportunity to get to know more people in the office. Play your cards right, enhance your reputation, and do good work.

Be a pal. Share this advice with everyone in your Torts section.

******Susan Gainen has a suite of programs created just for law students: Alternative Careers, Second Career Law Students, Professionalism, Job Search Skills = Business Development Skills, Job Search Outside of OCI: The Forever Skill (unless you are a Ground-Hog-Day-2L). In addition to 25 years of legal career development activity (headhunter, law school career development, consultant), she is an artist. Her other workshops include "Open Your Heart and Close Your Wallet: Watercolor Postcards for Travelers," and "Cave Painting with Gesso."

Cover Letters: critical tools for an alternative career search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:20:00 +0000

Best cover letters

The best cover letters are door openers. They should show that you understand the job for which you are applying, know some current problems in the industry, understand problems specific to the business (two different things), and that you have recommendations for solutions or strategies for problem solving. Present these elements clearly, and employers will want to talk to you.

A letter that opened the door for an interview (and a job)

I had never been a law school career advisor when I applied to 125 law school deans in 1992. I did have 10 years of sales (food business and car business), a year of law practice, and six years as a headhunter for lawyers. This is the essence of my letter:

Dean's name spelled correctly
Institution's correct name (Law School, College of Law, School of Law? It matters.)

Dear Dean [Correct Last Name]:

In case it is not clear why a lawyer, car sales person and headhunter for lawyers ought to be your Director of Placement (that's what it was called in 1992), here are the four constituencies of the office, some of their problems, and a few recommendations.

The letter had two sentences about me and nearly two pages about life in a law school. Because law schools have the same constituencies and the same general problems, I did not have to demonstrate that I had been stalking the dean.

Another winner

After a frustrating year-long attempt to extricate herself from Big Case Litigation and to land a job as a non-profit development director, the candidate dropped her singularly ineffective "pick me, I'm a lawyer" letter and replaced it with:

Dear Non-Profit President:

I have served on several boards, worked on finance committees, and chaired two successful capital campaigns. I have always been deeply committed to [your issues], demonstrated by my active membership in [significant organizations.] I would like to be considered as a candidate for your open Director of Development position.

[The second and third paragraphs contained a succinct discussion of the differences between the roles of staff and board members in fundraising, and the challenges of managing on-going fund-raising and capital campaigns in a distressed economy.]

[Last paragraph.] In addition to my board service, I am a practicing attorney who has demonstrated commitment to public service by [short list of pro bono projects]. I hope to be able to harness my knowledge of active board service, my commitment to [your stuff], and the technical skills that I bring as a lawyer in service of your organization.

When she wrote "Pick me, I'm a lawyer," she distracted prospective employers from her relevant experience, commitment to the organization's work, and her transferable skills. Three weeks later, she had job offers.

Telepathy is not a job search tool.

You have to show that you have potential to get the work done. Although you may never have worked in that industry or performed the specific tasks that are critical to an employer's enterprise, you have to give her something to onto that will justify calling you for an interview. Unless you are applying for a job that is titled "lawyer," writing "Pick me, I'm a lawyer" is a non-starter.

*#*#*#*

Susan Gainen presented Alternative Careers for Counselors Without Secret Job Drawers at the 2013 NALP Educational Conference in April 2013. This post is adapted from one published by Bloomberg Law on April 10, 2013. The entire post, Cover Letters and Resumes: Critical Tools for Alternative Career Searches, can be found behind the Bloomberg Law-Law Schools pay wall, and it will be available to NALP members under the 2013 Conference Handouts tab by May 10, 2013.

Alternative Careers Conversations: Law Schools' Moral Imperative

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Even if there were a JD-required job for every law student and tuition were free, law schools would still have a moral imperative to introduce students to alternative uses for their JDs.

Law grads make choices

Law school career professionals know that each student is different, and that they all don't want to be securities litigators. These professionals counsel students and alumni, and present programs and panels about traditional and alternative careers. Sadly, unless the focus is on a superstar non-traditional grad with high-donor-level potential, there is often deadening silence instead of institutional support for alternative paths.

When NALP helpfully introduced its JD Advantage portal, even the idea was challenged in a particularly snarky Law School Cafe blog post. Regardless of the economy, imagining that every law grad would or should want to be a JD-required-lifer is deeply disrespectful to individual choice.

The Threshold Question: Why did you decide to come to law school?

How can a student who has never practiced law know what he or she wants to do as a lawyer? In six years as a headhunter and 17 years in career services, I observed (anecdotally) that:

10% of students came with mathematical and moral certainty about what they were going to do. Half did something else.
40% of students came with five eloquent minutes about wanting to do a particular thing. Having never practiced law, much of that eloquence failed to measure up to experience, and they changed their minds.
50% of students admitted that they didn’t know much about law practice, and that their minds were open.

While I had hoped that transparency discussions and high tuition costs might have moved these numbers, conversations with career services professionals indicate that not much has changed.

No JD-required-lifer guarantee

Law School Admissions professionals do not have magic powers and the LSAT is not a career-predictor. Until staff can be equipped with breath, blood or genetic tests to identify JD-required-lifers, failure to discuss alternative careers with students demonstrates an institution's delusional view of real career paths.

Even if the JD-required-lifer path could be made immune from changes in the economy, failure to equip students with tools for flexibility is irresponsible and mean-spirited.

Life happens: things change

What excites a 24 year-old may not compel a 35-year-old whose life experience, skill development, children, mortgages, elderly parents, and/or new business opportunities seem to be leading to another path. Without having offered even a hint of guidance or direction, when alumni get tired, bored, or frustrated, they can (and do) feel alone, and believe that getting to the next place is impossible.

Had alternative career paths been introduced – not as required or desired but as potential – some of the career-change panic might be tamped down.

All litigation, all the time: A law school option?

Scheduled to open in September 2013, the new California Desert Trial Academy College of Law has as its goal “Educating, training and developing extraordinary legal advocates,” which sounds as if the school is meant to be an exclusive ground for training trial lawyers and litigators. I look forward to following this school and its graduates to see whether they become JD-required-litigator lifers.

*@*@*@*@*

Susan Gainen will serve as Co-Vice Chair of the 2013-2014 NALP Career Services Professionals Course for Mid-Career Professionals, and she will present "Alternative Careers for Career Services Professionals Without Secret Job Drawers" at the 2013 NALP National Education Conference in Tampa.

Balancing Exam Prep and Job Search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:58:00 +0000

Students often want to stop searching for jobs while studying for exams or prepping for the bar. Clearing the decks of everything extraneous to studying seems like a great strategy.

Think again. Time management is a critical element in any professional practice. Make it work for you during exams.

Employers and Job Postings: Law School Exams

Ignore job postings at your peril. Employers in small organizations without a separate human resources staff do a lot of hiring in a purely reactive mode. When a lawyer interrupts the managing partner's lunch crying out "I need a law clerk NOW!" if the resources are at hand, a job will be posted. This often happens in April and May, with resume due-dates and interviews scheduled during law school exams.

Employers and Job Postings: Bar Exams

When lawyers in small organizations need lawyers or law clerks, the first consideration is meeting clients' needs. Because clients do not organize their business or personal lives around the bar exam, there is often hiring during the summer.

Networking Opportunities: Summer

Many bar associations have annual meetings during prime bar exam study time. Pay attention to the dates and carve out time to attend one or more of these events. Your willingness to give up a few hours to connect to future professional contacts will be noticed.

Many alumni and career services offices schedule lunches with alumni, law students, and admitted students during the summer. If you are in a city where one is scheduled, you must go. These are invaluable opportunities to network with alumni, who will be as helpful as they can should they learned that you are looking for work.

ARRRRGH. I can't waste a minute.

Malarky (maybe). Realistically review your study patterns. If you studied 18 hours a day, day after day after day, never taking a workout break, more than 10 minutes to eat, and six hours to sleep, you are exempt from job search during study time.

Everyone else can easily carve out two hour blocks for reviewing new job postings, conducting interviews, reconnecting with networking contacts, and attending bar activities.

Good luck!

Susan Gainen will present "Alternative Careers for Counselors Without a Secret Job Drawer" on April 25, 2013 at the NALP Educational Conference; "Watercolor for Travelers: No experience necessary" on May 8, 2013 at the Oakdale Library in Oakdale, MN, and demonstrate "Cave Painting: Whimsical Fun" at the Northstar Watermedia Society's 2013 Art-on-a-Line at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds on May 19, 2013.

Job Search Outside OCI: Spring Break Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:43:00 +0000

The first week of March is a defining moment for thousands of law students because even the most optimistic know that they are not likely to get a job through large firm OCI. Their resumes were not hidden under a stray file and the doors are finally closed.

Small and medium sized firms

Which is not to say that there won’t be job postings and some interviews hosted on campus before the end of the school year. April is a busy month for hiring because lawyers who are no longer focused on the law school calendar realize that summer is coming and that they ought to start thinking about hiring law clerks.

Are they clueless? No. After graduation, the law school calendar becomes a distant memory that is supplanted by their kids' academic and activity calendars and professional activities. Summer camp registration often triggers the "need a law clerk" response, hence the wave of recruiting that happens in April and May.

Public Interest/Public Service

If you are on a public interest job hunt, you probably have mathematical certainty about the financial situation of the agencies that you have targeted. If not, why not? There is no point in hanging on for a paid position when none can possibly emerge. If the agency has no funds, you have been unsuccessful in your application for funding, and you cannot work for free, it is time to make Plan B, which includes Building A Network in related fields.

Interviews during finals

Slightly off-putting for students are the interviews that employers want to schedule during finals. Yes, during finals. Busy lawyers managing their clients' needs do not care about school schedules.

What does this mean for you? You have three choices:

Do absolutely nothing because you have a trust fund;
Rely on law school job postings and compete with your classmates, students from area law schools, and students coming “home” for the summer for those jobs, or
Cancel your spring break plans and get serious about building a network that might help you get to the head of the line for posted jobs or, better yet, make yourself the only candidate for a job that you care about.

Building a network

If you haven’t chosen a primary interest practice track, pick three topics and:

Find three critical issues in the area and do enough research so that you will be able to ask four intelligent questions of an expert.
Using your alumni or career offices, LinkedIn, bar associations, or other resources, find five lawyers practicing in each field and make either phone or in-person meetings with those professionals. Follow the rules of networking and remember that you may not ask for a job during that meeting.
Schedule as many of these meetings as you can during Spring Break. Don't waste a minute.
Follow up with the people you meet, reporting on new things that you have learned and new topics that interested your contacts.

No excuses

Managing a difficult job search uses the same skills that you will employ when you manage a busy law practice. "I can't call people" and "I don't have time to research" are uniquely inneffective when managing your clients' business. They are equally ineffective in managing your own job search.

Reading:

Guerilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams, Kimm Walton.

Six Tips for a Spring Break Job Search (PTBblog)

Three Bs to energize your job search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Unless your loved one included a job offer with the flowers and chocolate, February 15 will be a good time to energize your job search. Begin with these Three B's.

Begin a Job Search By Ditching Your Baggage

Ruth Hayden, who writes and speaks on personal financial issues, wrote Start Where You Are, whose title I have adopted as the motto for launching job searches. If you start where you are,

you will look forward;
you will ditch the baggage (disappointment, resentment) from your previous searches, and
you will bring reality-based research to your efforts.

Begin a Networking Program

Start where you are and ignore your previous awkward false starts by making a coherent plan to make real connections. You are looking for people whose work interests you. You will find them through friends, family, career and alumni professionals, faculty, blog posts, syllabi, Google searches, professional organizations' websites, litigation records and the hundreds of other research tools that you have at your fingertips.

Commit to connecting to one person each week. Be prepared to ask meaningful, specific questions about work and career path.
Commit to keeping track of your contacts and following up on their recommendations for reading or for contacts.
Commit to circling back and thanking these people for their help.

Begin a learning activity

You can distinguish yourself from the pool if you have learned something relevant that you can discuss during a networking meeting or in an interview.

Do a pro bono project to gain client relationship, problems solving, writing, and (sometimes) trial skills that you can present on a resume and discuss in your networking and employment meetings.
Research in your area of interest. Candidates who have taken the time to learn about the issues and problems facing prospective employers tend to get noticed and hired.
Learn as much as you can about the business AND the industry so that you can present yourself as a person ready to work on multi-faceted problems, not just legal issues (which rarely exist in a vacuum).

_________________________________

Helpful links:
6 steps to jump start a spring job search
Networking should be purposeful, not puzzling
Before your first interview, talk to lawyers

New year: new recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:33:00 +0000

Q & A on the hunt for recommendations

Q: "Hi, Professor Smith, you called on me once in Torts two years ago. Will you be a recommender for me?"
A: "Who are you?" (Silently:"Where have you been for the past two years? What could I possibly write that could be helpful to you? Why in the world are you asking me? Did someone who knows you turn you down?")

#+*+#*+#+*+#++*

When you approach a faculty member for a reference, you will get the best results if you have made a connection beyond speaking eloquently in class or getting a good grade.

Best letters

The best letter of recommendation speak to intellect, work ethic, personality, and why you are particularly well-suited for a job. It also gives an employer a sense of who you are, and what it might be like to work with you. Speaking up in class last year (or five years ago) with no further contact makes it impossible for anyone to write an effective letter on your behalf.

You can't begin too soon to get to know the people on your faculty whose work intrigues you and whose minds challenge you.

How do I get to know a professor?

As a student:

Knock on the door and introduce yourself. Let Professor X know why you are interested in her scholarship. It isn’t enough to say “I am interested securities regulations.” You must explain why you have this interest. Be prepared to tell your story.
Bring a resume to this first casual meeting so that Professor X can put your name, your face, and your story together. Faculty stand in front of dozens or hundreds of students every day, and even with seating charts with photos, they can’t always remember everyone. Be helpful.
Say “hello” when you see Professor X in the hall. Make eye contact. Say your name if you have the slightest inkling that the Professor might have forgotten your name.
If you are really interested in Professor X’s scholarship, make sure that you read her recently-published work. When you have formulated some intelligent questions, drop by during open hours or ask for a meeting to discuss it. Bring coffee.
Once you have established some common ground and made yourself known, you might ask for a research assistant position or for a research project opportunity. You have a chance to develop your writing skills, get serious about a topic that interests you, and contribute to potentially important scholarship. Collateral benefit: your professor can speak directly about work that you have done for her. Gratitude is a great motivator.
Asking for the recommendation. If you have established common ground and a good connection, and (better yet) taken a class and performed well, ask for a recommendation. Even if you didn’t earn a top grade, the professor may be able to write a helpful and positive letter based on your common connection and your astute class comments.

As an alum:

Even if you have had no law school contact with a professor, you can still make an appropriate connection that might (repeat: might) turn into a recommendation.

Begin this way: If you have a professional issue that falls within the Professor’s scholarship, introduce yourself, offer to buy her a cup of coffee or lunch, and ask your question. If the answer is short, lunch is enough to begin this relationship. Unless you are doing pro bono work, if the answer requires research, make sure that you have a budget for outside research. To keep up the connection, offer to guest-lecture for her class.Former students often collaborate with their professors on papers, projects, and litigation.

Do not hesitate to contact your professors who have changed employers. Their relationships to students from their old schools can last forever.

How to ask for a recommendation:

The Job. Tell your proposed recommender about the job for which you are applying. Describe it fully and explain how you believe that your experience could be relevant. If the recommender agrees, ask about the format that he or she prefers for the contacts. Whether it is electronic (email or spreadsheet) or a typed list, it is your responsibility to make sure that all of the names and addresses are correct. If your Professor’s secretary will create the letters, be sure to thank him or her.
The Letter. Be prepared for your recommender to ask you to draft the letter. Think carefully about what meant most to you about the work that you did for your recommender, and put it into a context that will be helpful to your prospective employer. This is not easy. Check with career services professionals for guidance and review.
Future Requests. Should you have additional requests, check with your recommender to be sure that she is still available to help you. Update your situation. Provide the contacts in her required format. Mumbling a name and address on the phone will not get your letters written on time.

Letters of recommendation for federal judicial clerkships.

Some schools have systems for managing the judicial clerkship application process which has faculty recommendations as a key element. Follow instructions to the letter. Do not miss deadlines and expect them to be altered for you. Be kind to the staff who may be wrangling thousands of letters and applications.

Further reading: How to get good recommendations

Susan Gainen will present 2nd, 3rd or 4th Careers: Concrete Steps for a Life Changing Process at the 2013 Wisconsin Careers Conference (a program for undergraduates and graduate career professionals), and Alternative Careers at the 2012 NALP Annual Educational Conference. Her creativity workshop, Watching Paint Dry Can Be Fun, is for all ages. Three of her recent paintings from The Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul series are hanging in the Saint Paul (MN) 5th Annual Winter Carnival Art Show until February 3, 2013.

6 steps to jump-start a spring job search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:34:00 +0000

The beginning of Spring Semester is the right time to jump-start your job search. Here are six step to help you begin.

1. Check your tool box

Critical tools for a 21^st century job search are:

Electronic and paper resume. at least one version, more if you are approaching multiple types of employers.
Spreadsheet of networking contacts. Review your networking efforts from last semester. Be prepared to re-connect with old contacts and to develop new ones.
LinkedIn profile, Facebook, and blog posts. Update your LinkedIn profile with new accomplishments. Scrub your Facebook page and blog of anything that could come between you and a job that you might want. Yes, I know that in some places employers cannot ask for passwords, but they make judgments about items that are forwarded or that come up on Google searches.

2. Check in with career services.

While you frolicked during Winter Break, your career services professionals were hard at work doing research, making connections, and developing new avenues for you to pursue. (Yes, even if your law school was closed.)

3. Explore practice areas.

If you are unsure about what practice to pursue, do some research. You cannot outsource this activity, and waiting for a bolt of lightning to give you inspiration is not practical. Pick two or three practices and:

Answer these questions: Who does the work? Where is the work done? (geography, big cities, small towns; large firms, small firms, in-house, public service, public interest, non-profit) What training or education before or beyond a JD is useful or required? What are the hot or trending topics? What is the posture of the practice (litigation, transactions, regulatory, lobbying, etc.)? Is its practice more like a team sport (prosecution) or a solo activity (writing opinions for administrative law judges)? What industries does the practice serve? Do those industries look forward or backward?
Scan the leading casebook or hornbook and get a syllabus of a class to understand how the topic is taught.
Decide whether you might be interested in the work.
AFTER you have done some of this research, talk to a professor and then talk to lawyers who do the work. Do not approach a professional and say “I am interested in [your practice area]. Tell me everything you know about it so that I can decide whether I want to do it.” No one will help you.
After you have done this research and spoken to a number of professionals, assess your interest. If everything you have learned makes you cringe, thank everyone you have spoken with and begin again on a new topic. Nothing ventured; nothing gained.

4. Explore writing competitions.

2Ls and 3Ls should review journal articles and class papers against lists of writing competitions for which you can get publication credits and/or cash. Revise and recycle. Sometimes winners are invited to events (banquets, bar association meetings) to pick up their prizes. Usually the winners sit at the head table: great networking opportunities.

5. Commit to meeting one new lawyer a week.

Students committed to a single practice area should focus their networking on practitioners in that area. Everyone else should seek out lawyers in a wide variety of practice areas. With technology, you can make this work even if your law school is in a tiny remote town. Reflect on your research for names of prominent professionals. Look to your career professionals or alumni office for names of skilled alumni.

6. Understand the calendar that controls job application.

Apply promptly when summer clerkships are posted. Consider whether you are realistically available before you apply for a part time school year job. 3Ls should note that some state and local judges post immediate openings when their clerks leave for permanent employment. Those judges need to make immediate hires, and full-time 3Ls are generally not considered.

For more tips:

Going to Work: 6 tips for a spring job search (yes! 6 more tips)

1L Job Search: Substituting Interest for Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:46:00 +0000

Q I have no experience other than school, but I am very interested in three practice areas. How can I distinguish myself to prospective employers?

A Up to a point, strong, well-articulated interest can substitute for lack of experience. That "point" is precisely the place where you have to begin to invest in yourself.

The best way to be able to articulate interest is to do relentless information gathering BEFORE the first interview and to share the framework of your research in a helpful way.

If you haven’t test-driven your practice area with questions for practitioners, now is the time to do it. If you use your first employment interview to gather information, you will have wasted your time and your interviewer’s time. When your goal was to have appeared to be smart and sophisticated, you will have appeared awkward and ignorant.

HIRING A 1L

If an employer is willing to hire a 1L, her first choice would be the one who had taken time to learn about the work that she does.

BAD LETTER, YOUR CHOICE

You may use your cover letter to tell the employer how eager you are to learn and how much you will benefit from the clerkship. (Later you will understand that whatever you learned as a law clerk was a collateral benefit to you and much less important than any work that you might have done for a client.)

A BETTER LETTER

This letter describes your information-gathering strategy and demonstrates that you are strongly interested in the practice.

"I have spoken to three people who practice education law (solo practitioner working with families of children with special needs; labor lawyer representing a teachers' union; and a business lawyer representing a school board). I am curious about how your work fits into the framework that I am beginning to develop based on those meetings, my research that includes Westlaw, Lexis, and Google searches of hot topics in education law, and a very brief introduction to the complexity of education finance and some of the political issues that surround it."

Who would YOU want to hire?

But But But!!!!

If you don't want to do that level of exploration before an employment interview, you risk losing out to a candidate who cared enough to invest in himself. Should you explore a topic and find that you would rather eat nails than practice in that area, don't apply for the job.

You can't outsource this, and there is no app for it on anyone's magic wand.

MORE INFORMATION

Find more information on the passthebaton.biz blog using these search terms:

Interview Prep (leads to, among other things: 4-part-year-round interview prep plan)

First year (leads to 1st year students' first career services meeting: a beginning)

Networking (leads to 6 tips for a Spring Job Search

Interview Questions (leads to 3 steps to answering the toughest interview question: what do you want to do?

Interviewing (leads to Interviewing Best Practice = Lots of Practice)

Check out this lawyerist.com post 1L Job Search: Manage the Marathon, not the Sprint

Interviewing Best Practice = Lots of Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 13:02:00 +0000

Whether your endeavor is baseball, piano-playing, interviewing or conducting employee evaluation, the only way to begin to be comfortable, to develop and hone skills, and to find a path to excellence is to practice.

In Katie Yezzi's NYTimes Job Market piece "At Work, Practice Puts Perfection in Reach," she described how her boss urged her to practice before conducting employee evaluations, and showed how he practiced with her.

"Doug demonstrated some language I could use, and I rephrased it and tried it out, and then went over and over the main pieces of the conversation. When it was time for the review, I felt competent and calm, and was able to be entirely present and to listen," she wrote.

A message for interviewers and interview candidates

Conducting employee evaluations is just one activity that benefits from practice. Yezzi notes, "In fields like music and sports, the best performers always keep practicing."

Being interviewed (and interviewing) are activities that requires attention and practice. Make sure that you have prepared for your next interview by asking and answering hard questions.

_______

Best Final Exam Tip

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:53:00 +0000

Final exam questions range from apparently straightforward to flagrantly distracting with with roadblocks, potholes, and detours deliberately designed to create life-long-test-trauma memories.

The best way to get the most points is to answer the question presented by writing in the designated format: memo to client, memo to colleague, memo to file, pleading, short essay, etc. While you may get lucky with a generous professor who values a data-dump, don't expect to get points for questions that your professor didn't ask.

Read the instructions.
Read the instructions carefully.
Read the instructions three times.
Answer the questions.
Follow the directions to the letter.

Good luck.

____
Susan Gainen will present 2nd, 3rd or 4th Careers: Concrete Steps for a Life Changing Process at the 2013 Wisconsin Careers Conference (a program for undergraduates and graduate students), and Alternative Careers at the 2012 NALP Annual Educational Conference. Her creativity workshop, Watching Paint Dry Can Be Fun, is for all ages.

Five Rules for 1L Finals

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:24:00 +0000

The most shocking part of studying for 1L fall finals is looking at your first briefs and realizing how much they missed the mark. Your most recent ones are much better. Congratulations.

Rule One: Designated study space

If you don't already have one, created a designated study space that is both comfortable and conducive to serious study. Be honest and ruthless about reducing or (if possible) eliminating distractions, which might include toddlers, teenagers, spouses, non-law-student roommates, random noises, too convenient kitchens, and all forms of electronic activities. Set the rules and follow them. Because actual elimination of children and spouses is a felony that would torpedo your promising legal career, go to a public library which will have few, if any, distracting law students and might have other amenities. My local public library has Dunn Bros Coffee in the building.

Rule Two: Eat right.

The four food groups are not sugar, fat, salt, and caffeine.

Rule Three: Get regular sleep and exercise.

If you don't ordinarily study all night, abandoning your sleep patterns to try for all-night cramming is a recipe for disaster because you don't know how you will react.

Opening the door for the pizza delivery guy is not "daily exercise." On the other hand, doubling your regular daily workout and imagining that it will help your concentration is delusional.

Rule Four: Review old finals and talk to your professors' former students.

Law professors often follow exam-writing patterns (short essays, long essays, multiple choice), and they often look for the same things year-after-year. Former students will tell you about professors' preferences which might include a data dump, an outline dump, mock memos or sample pleadings. Some professors also demand correct spelling and perfectly punctuated and absolutely grammatical sentences and paragraphs. Knowledge is power.

Rule Five: Take practice exams.

Practice exams helped improve your LSAT score, and they will be crucial to your future bar exam study. There is nothing like real-time practice, so do as many practice exams as you can schedule.

____
Susan Gainen speaks to law students about Alternative Careers, Professionalism, 2nd Career Law Students, Job Search Outside of OCI: The Forever Skill, and Job Search Skills = Business Development Skills.

Pre-law Advice from a Law School Admissions Dean

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:31:00 +0000

No secret: The present and future of the legal employment market are in turmoil, and crushing student loan debt is the topic of lively and painful blogs and conversations everywhere.

But you still want to go to law school

If you are seriously considering law school after exploring the current and predicted future difficulties in the legal employment market, and you are prepared to take on the debt, ponder this list of considerations based on wise advice from Collins B. Byrd, Jr., Assistant Dean of Admissions at The University of Iowa College of Law:

Know why you are going to law school. If you do not know, explore what lawyers actually do before you get serious about applying. Talk to real lawyers about what they do and why they do it. Think about what they are saying (and not saying), and project yourself into their day-to-day routines.
Be flexible and become knowledgeable: your dream job will not be your first job after law school so you will have to learn about and be prepared for the twists and turns in legal career paths.
There will always be jobs in some practice areas, but those areas will change with the market and you will have to pay attention to changes in the economy that will (or won't) support those practices. Just because you want a particular practice area does not mean that it will be possible or profitable when you want to do the work. "Wishin' and hopin'" will not make you a real estate lawyer development lawyer during a deeply depressed real estate market.
This country is dealing with a lot of issues which will not go away in the near future. However, an outbreak of "justice" is not one of this country's afflictions. If you are determined to have a public service career, plan carefully, network relentlessly, develop and hone as many practical skills as you can, pinch your pennies, and live like a student while you are in law school.

Petraeus: collateral damage from girlfriend's email

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Just when we thought that we had mastered the the rules for safety, security, and appropriateness of our own email, we learn that CIA Director David Petraeus' fall from grace makes him collateral damage from his girlfriend's inappropriate emails.

Career advisers and human resource professionals are rolling their eyes and nodding their heads. This is something that no one would have thought to warn against, and it is one new thing that will be very hard to protect against.

From now to finals: strategies for Smart 1Ls

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Before November 15

Introduce yourself to your career services professional. Understand that this is not the meeting in which you will be handed a job. This meeting is like a first, tentative blind date, except you will need to tell the truth about your goals and ambitions, and be forthright about how much effort you are willing to put into a job search.
Write a resume and have it reviewed. A resume is retrospective and you will have multiple versions.

"The Everything Resume" which includes every job you have ever held. You will need the information on this resume to complete your bar application.
One or more additional well-edited resumes that you tailor for every job application or every category of employer.

Don't write a complete cover letter until you are applying for a specific job.
Commit to a Winter Break Networking Project. (See below)

Between November 16 and the end of finals:

Study. Get your outlines into tip-top shape. Get yourself into tip-top shape. Exercise. Eat from the four real food groups, not “sugar, fat, salt, and caffeine.”

Thanksgiving Dinner Project

Your loved ones are worried about you, your schedule, your job search, and your new-found ability to turn every conversation into a law school exam question.

Although you will have to explain over and over, and again and again, reassure them that you are doing all of the studying that you need to do, and that you cannot engage in a full-tilt job search until after finals. You should also add that historically, lots of jobs are posted in April and – believe it or not – the employers will want to interview during spring finals. Why? Because they have work that needs to be done, and they are no longer on school schedules and don't keep track of exam schedules.

That said, if you are applying to employers with December 1 deadlines, print the letters, resumes, and address labels, and enlist your loved ones in stuffing them (before the dinner begins and everyone has sticky fingers.) If you are lucky, your loved ones will spring for the postage.

Friends, Family, and Connections Strategy

Although NALP and ABA rules preclude you from applying for jobs before December 1, you may have a cadre of friends and family who are eager to help you. You are allowed to talk to people who are already known to you. Some may be lawyers, others may not, but they all either like you or your parents and want to help. Some will be deeply hurt if you don't ask for help. Be prepared to provide a resume and an elevator speech with meaningful specifics about your interests and goals. Do not say “I want a job, any job,” because it is unhelpful to the person who would otherwise be delighted to assist you. Never make it hard for someone to help you.

After finals.

Take a real break for a few days. You will need to decompress, and your loved ones will not appreciate hearing about the Case of the Thorns all the time.

Winter Break Networking Project

After a few months of law school, it’s time to talk to lawyers in their natural habitats. Seek out alumni, friends, family, friends of friends, and make appointments. Some lawyers are crazy busy at the end of the year; others will have plenty of time to talk to you.

You will ask for a short meeting, saying that after a semester of law school you would like a debriefing, and you have some questions about what they do based on what you are beginning to learn.

Be prepared to ask meaningful specific questions about what these lawyers do every day, where their clients come from, what their challenges are, and what they wish they had learned in law school. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about what lawyers do every day.

Wear a suit.

Related posts:
Interview Practice & Protocol (checklist)
Talking to Lawyers (includes questions to ask in a networking interview)
1L Job Search: Manage the Marathon, Not the Sprint
4 Rules to Manage the First Year
4x4: 4 Exam Tips and 4 Winter Break Guidelines
4-Part Year-Round Interview Prep Plan

Grant Writing: why lawyers should care

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:17:00 +0000

Grant writing is a skill that every lawyer should be able to do well.

Why?

Whether you work in public, private, or corporate practice or in academia, you will have a pro bono or community service obligation, and your grant-writing skills may be key to having your group achieve its goals. You might also have a job with grant-writing as a key skill.

Grant-writing is a type of persuasive writing with additional obligations.

You will need to:

understand the funder and its goals (hunger, homelessness, world peace),
understand your client organization's goals (must be in line with the funder's mission),
follow the rules precisely (answer all the questions, provide all of the requested information, submit on time, and in the required format), and
be prepared to make an oral presentation (sometimes).

You may need to call the funder with your questions (grant officers welcome your calls: they want to help). You will need to make sure that your organization follows the rules of the grant with obsessive precision.

Sounds like work for a lawyer, doesn't it?

Private practice

In academia, service is one of the "three legs of tenure." In private practice, one of the parts of the paths to partnership is community service. Some lawyers get away with sitting silently on Boards, doing an occasional uncontested pro bono divorce, or writing a big check, but many lawyers role up their sleeves and work actively with public interest organizations that live or die by grants. Lawyers who can craft meaningful, elegant, fact-intensive, and persuasive grant applications are invaluable. Additionally, lawyers can keep others on the board from mucking up this sophisticated fund raising endeavor.

Corporate practice

An increasing number of corporate legal departments are taking their lawyers’ pro bono obligations seriously. With grant-writing skills in your skills’ tool box, you may be uniquely positioned to help your employers’ designated agency achieve its goals.

Public sector

The development process grows more competitive each day. Federal, state, and local funding sources are drying up, and private funding for public interest organizations shrinks daily. All parts of fundraising require the heightened level of persuasiveness, creativity, and attention to detail that lawyers bring to their work. Grant-writing, both useful and necessary, will give you a chance to shine.

Academia

In addition to the service obligation which is one of the “three legs of tenure,” grant-writing is a key skill for academics. Long before language describing a law firm partner’s life was boiled down to “you eat what you kill,” much of academic success was just that simple: no grants, no research, no job.

Resources

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Grant Proposal Writing Tips

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grant Writing

Non-profit guides: Grant writing tools for non-profit organizations

Susan Gainen's Pass the Baton Lectures include Alternative Careers, 2nd Career Law Students, Job Search Skills=Business Development Skills, Professionalism, Job Search Outside of OCI: The Forever Skill. Through nanoscapes, she presents a creativity workshop called "Watching Paint Dry Can Be Fun.

One consideration before beginning a job search

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Despite a nearly universally derided dismal job market, where common sense might dictate keeping a job at any cost, employed lawyers continue to look for new work and new experiences.

Every job search needs a coherent narrative, something that can be part of an elevator speech or an interview. Before beginning a job search, every candidate should answer this question:

Why are you leaving? Are you:

Running toward something?
Running away from something?
Randomly strolling along?

Running Toward: If you are running toward something that has been a recent or lifelong goal, you will already have done a lot of research, possibly obsessively reading blogs and learning everything current in this new field. You will have made strides toward acquiring necessary new knowledge, and possibly, some new credentials. You will have begun to talk to people who do the work. You will have begun to build up a network of folks who you will be able to use as touchstones for referrals and reality checks during your search. You will have learned about the pay scale, and if a pay cut will be part of your new life, you will have begun to downsize, pay down debt, and make your own lunch. You may have begun to look at your $4 daily latte in a new light.

Running Away: Are you running from a job that you hate or running from people who have made you miserable? Honestly debrief yourself (or ask some friends to help you). Separate the misery-making tasks, toxic work environments, people you neither liked nor understood, your commute, your cubicle, and your wacko supervisor so that you can create a narrative that is matter-of-fact and not whiney.

If you are running from a bad relationship, know it, own it, and don’t whine about it.

Bad work environment? If you are running from a bad work environment populated by people who delight in making you miserable, consider that a similar job in a less toxic office may solve your problem. Understand your issues, though, so that you can ask questions that get to the heart of the culture of the next place without appearing too self-serving.

For example, if communication (or lack of it) has been an issue, think about the specific details of the problem and then craft questions that directed toward it. Some fair interview questions might be:

Please describe the department chair's communication style. Is she direct? Does she give assignments and feedback face-to-face? Does she encourage and support collaboration? If I won't be directly reporting to her, how would I get my assignments? How is work reviewed? Do people work in teams? How are they assigned? How is a team's work reviewed?

Hate your work You may discover that your troubles lie with the substance of the work. Don't despair. Do not imagine that the time that you have spent has been completely wasted. You have learned a lot, which you will see once you calmly distinguish between the tasks and the substance. Once done, you can move on to conduct a realistic job search that leaves behind the things you don't like.

Tasks: legal research and writing, working with clients (learning about their businesses, identifying problems, counseling, strategizing), client interviews, factual research and analysis, project management, statistical analysis, supervising and managing staff, lobbying, taking depositions, participating in hearings and trials.

Substance: family law, securities regulations, employment law, criminal law.

Yes, your next step is a hard one. You have to decide what you really want to do. You have taken the first step by identifying what you don't want to do and why you don't want to do it.

Randomly Strolling: This is the "keeping my options open" strategy, which may or may not lead to new employment. It operates on a continuum from:

"A new job might be a nice idea, but I'm not going to talk to anyone or write a resume" to
"Every time I go for coffee or meet anyone anywhere, I will ask about their jobs and whether there might be an opportunity for someone like me. I will keep a resume handy in my Google Docs."

It's guiding philosophy is "listen to hare-brained schemes," which you should temper with your common sense.

___
Susan Gainen's Pass the Baton llc lecture topics: Professionalism, Job Search Skills = Business Development Skills, Job Search Outside of OCI, Alternative Careers for Lawyers, 2nd Career Law Students. Her nanoscapes' creativity workshop is "Watching Paint Dry Can Be Fun: a conversation about individual creativity."

Meet - Plan - Go - out the door

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:23:00 +0000

If you have cubicle-itis, believe that your business phone has the wrong kind of power over you, or the chorus of "We gotta' get out of this place" haunts your dreams, it may be time to connect with people just like you through Meet! Plan! Go!

If you find yourself dreaming of a Career Break, longing to take off to explore strange places, learn a new language, backpack, wander, or otherwise get off the treadmill, make time on October 16 and go to one of the Meet! Plan! Go! "Stop Dreaming, Start Packing" programs in one of these cities:

Austin San Diego

Boston San Francisco

Chicago Seattle

Minneapolis South Florida

New York City Toronto

Each program will have speakers who have taken time away who can answer the questions you have and open the doors to questions that you hadn't begun to consider.

You will hear a keynote speaker, a panel of travelers who have returned from the road, and break out sessions with with individuals with resources and experience in travel planning, travel modes, travel options, friend-and-family skepticism, and re-entry concerns. They are prepared for all sorts of random questions, so bring yours. .

They did it, and so can you.

Great resource and inspiration: Katie Aune's blog, Katie Going Global: Travel Along a Road Less Traveled.

Law School Test Drive 3: Visiting Law Professors

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:30:00 +0000

Visiting a law school and talking to a number of professors can be a good idea or it can be a big waste of time. If you are prepared to ask questions that professors can answer, you may be satisfied with (although not necessarily happy) with the answers that you get.

What do you really want to know?

Begin by asking yourself what you really want to know, and then consider whether the professor with his or her experience is in a position to answer your questions. You might be curious about:

Curriculum: read the on-line course catalog thoroughly. Don't ask a question that is covered in the website.
The writing requirement: If it isn't covered on the website, ask about how you might fulfill it. First year will be a required class. What about second year? And third year? If there isn't a three-year writing requirement, you should ask why not?
Journals and Moot Courts: If is isn't clear from the website, ask about how members are chosen.
Time requirement for clinical programs: Ask clinic professors and clinic students direct questions about this, and then do not be frightened away by their answers. Most law students will say that their time spent in clinic was the most important and valuable in their law school careers. You will have to look long and hard to find someone who will discourage you from clinic participation.
Working during school: This is a question that is best addressed by career services professionals and you may want to meet with a staff member now. There is an ABA restriction on 1Ls in three-year programs that precludes career offices from providing individual career counseling to 1Ls before November 1, and from posting jobs that 1Ls might apply for until after December 1. Whether you work will depend on your available time, your desire for experience (paid or un-paid), the local employment market, and your need for extra cash.

Asking a professor?

There are a range of questions that you can/should ask, based on the professor's experience, which you can learn about from the school's bio page. You will learn whether he or she:

1. has public or private practice experience? how long?

2. did a clerkship? at what level?

3. teaches core courses, a series of upper level courses/seminars, clinic/practicum/ or legal writing.

You may be curious about the professor's career path and how he or she made choices. Understand, though, that law professors' career paths are paths for a minuscule teeny tiny number of lawyers. If "law professor" is your sole reason for going to law school, please consider developing a Plan B.

What do you want to know from THIS particular professor?

About his/her teaching philosophy? About the school's mission and how it controls or effects individual teaching goals or styles? How professors interact with one another in support of students' learning? About his/her actual research? How he/she recruits and uses student research assistants? Why he or she teaches particular courses?

If you have selected a professor because you are interested in his/her area of expertise because it represents a career goal of yours, be frank. Ask specific questions. What work did you do in this area? How did you begin? Did your academic interest flow from your experience? Or did your experience act as the springboard for your academic interest? Please speculate on the future of your academic interest as an employment opportunity for me.

Curriculum Reform?

In response to age-old criticism of law schools' curriculum focus on theory as opposed to practice, "Curriculum Reform" has begun to blaze its way through law schools. You can reasonably ask a professor what kinds of curriculum reform and change have been instituted and what changes might be expected.

Compare and contrast law schools?

You will be tempted to ask the professor to compare and contrast the law school with with other institutions. I suggest that you refrain from that. Law professors know at lot about where they work, a lot about where they went to school, something about where their lawyer-spouses or pals went to school, and not much else that is either useful or correct about other schools. This is one of the Great Flaws in the USNews & World Report ranking scheme, which asks professors and deans to give a reputational ranking for all law schools.

Employment-related issues?

You may be tempted to ask the professor about employment-related issues. I would suggest that you keep those questions in reserve until you know how much (if any) interaction the professor has had with career services. There are primarily three kinds of faculty: those who are deeply engaged with career services on behalf of their students; those who admit that they have no knowledge of if or how their students get jobs, and those who believe that career services is inefficient, inept, and utterly useless, which they have discerned by never having had a conversation with a career services professional.

Other references:

http://www.passthebaton.biz/2012/03/law-school-applicants-tips-for-test.html

http://www.passthebaton.biz/2012/03/law-school-applicants-tips-for-test_14.html

2nd, 3rd, or 4th Careers: Concrete Steps for a Life Changing Process

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:31:00 +0000

I am honored to have been selected to present "2nd, 3rd, or 4th Careers: Concrete Steps for a Life Changing Process" at the 2013 Wisconsin Center on Education and Work Career Conference in Madison, WI on Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Learn more about the conference here.

The Elusive Purple Squirrel: not really a candidate

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 20:35:00 +0000

The Elusive Purple Squirrel, seen here for the first time, lives in a jungle forest. As he eats many delicious pink and purple flowers, his coat is part of his protective camouflage. He is much sought after and rarely found.

He knows that in the world of human resources, that "Purple Squirrel" is code for a candidate with unbelievable and unrealistic credentials who is endlessly sought and never recruited by employers who don't really want to hire anyone because they are either unsure about the economy or paralyzed by indecision.

How can you know if you are in a "Purple Squirrel" search?

Has the job been posted and re-posted for more than three months?
Does it ask for extremely unlikely credentials such as "lawyer with 10 years of litigation and transactions" experience? [I don't make these things up.]
Have you interviewed more than four times?
After two interviews, you should have been able to get substantive information about the status of the search and the management team's agenda. If no solid information is forthcoming after two conversations (not phone tag exchanges), consider yourself Purple.

What do do about being in a "Purple Squirrel" search?

While it is tempting to file the experience under "waste-of-time," don't do it. Eventually, the green light might come to the Purple Squirrel search, and if your attitude has been good throughout, you may have a shot at the job. If the search is prolonged (and some can drag out more than year), you may have encountered a flock of recruiters and managers along the way. They will remember your good attitude (in a good way), and any grumpiness or whining (in a bad way.)

A Purple Small Friend

The Elusive Purple Squirrel is an original watercolor, and one of Susan Gainen's Small Friends. Find more Small Friends in the "The Small Friends' Chronicles." The first volume is a 70-page collection of whimsical creatures' portraits and stories, and it is available in softcover and as an ebook.

Purple Squirrel at zazzle.com

Find Purple Squirrel products at http://www.zazzle.com/the_elusive_purple_squirrel-239123331604813124.

There are no unsuccessful experiments...

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Whether you are considering a career change, taking on a new project, learning a new language, or otherwise re-arranging your life, you are about to engage in an experiment. Will it turn out just like you planned? If not, how will you think of it?

Alexander Graham Bell

Consider these wise words from from Alexander Graham Bell, on the realization that his aerodrome, a watercraft on pontoons, was not airworthy:

"There are no unsuccessful experiments. Every experiment contains a lesson. If we stop right here, it is the man that is unsuccessful, not the experiment."

From Digging Up James Smithson: famous inventor rescues the bones of eminent institution's founder (American Heritage, Summer 2012).

Book Review: Small Firms, Big Opportunity: How to Get Hired (and Succeed) in the New Legal Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:07:00 +0000

If what its authors say is true, that “….smaller firms are the largest and fastest growing section of the legal community,” then Small Firms, Big Opportunity: How to Get Hired (and Succeed) in the New Legal Economy (Linda Calvert Hanson, Samantha Williams, Decision Books, Seattle, 2012, 168 p.) should be a hot hit with lawyers and law students.

Calvert Hanson and Williams are law career services professionals who have used their years of experience in law practice, law school career services, law practice professionalism, and shared passion for small firm practice to create a useful tool for 21^st century lawyers. Their work on NALP (The Association for Legal Career Professionals) committees is brightly reflected in this book.

Bridging the gap with dense text

Small Firms is proscriptive, mincing no words in laying out the requirements for taking charge of a career in a small firm.Its dense text provides examples and detailed explanations that will help law students and new lawyers bridge the gap between what they might have learned in law school, and what they should think about as they approach and begin to work in small firms. This is not a quick read for a plane flight; it is a serious, searchable resource addressing virtually all aspects of small firm life.

Technical and social infrastructure

Calvert Hanson and Williams address technical and social infrastructure questions which are not part of a law school curriculum, and present too vast a set of issues to be fully covered in even the most well-developed career services program schedule. Defining “small” as 50 or fewer lawyers, gives the their book a large canvass and a broad constituency.

Small firms puzzle law students

Law students are correctly puzzled by the small firm job market which lacks the transparency – or at least the public hiring schedule – of large law firms and public agencies.In Small Firms, Calvert Hanson and Williams use their own observations, and the reflections of law students and lawyers to answer these questions:

Why consider small firm practice?
Where are the small firm jobs?
Why do I need to know about the business of practicing law?
How do I go about networking effectively with small firms?
What should I expect as a starting salary, and how do I go about negotiating?
What are the core competencies, and why are they so critical to my job search?
What steps do I need to take to succeed in my new position?

Full Disclosure

Calvert Hanson and Williams are committed to full disclosure about the pro’s and con’s of small firm practice. Chapter 3 begins with nine advantages of small firm practice over Biglaw work:

More hands-on responsibility sooner
Full case management and greater autonomy
More immediate client contact
Greater personal interaction with a larger subset of people
Ability to see first-hand how your work helps others
More collegial, family-like atmosphere
Greater flexibility and other quality of life distinctions
More integral involvement in firm decisions sooner
Potential to develop a new area of specialization as expertise evolves

The down side: no place to hide

They follow this with an acknowledgement that small firms are not for everyone, and include a list of possible disadvantages.

They note that small firms may be perceived as less prestigious, offer fewer high-end benefits, lower starting salaries, and that they probably lack formal training programs. For candidates, the job “fit” is extremely critical because there is no place to hide from people with whom you don’t get along. Finding and landing a position takes time and has no set timeline. Small firms are not usually located in prestige addresses with opulent surroundings, gyms, and weekly flower deliveries. Small firms rarely offer club membership, or the opportunity to attend CLE in the Bahamas.

With fewer support staff than at Biglaw, small firm lawyers may need to do their own administrative work. Finally, with “fit”so critical, lawyers who don’t get along with everyone on their teams may have no option but to leave.

Five chapters worth the price of the book

“There’s a First Time For Everything” (Chapter 15) and the five core competency chapters are worth the price of this book because they pull back the curtains on issues that are rarely mentioned and even more rarely explained. Without this information, law students and new lawyers increase their learning curves and increase their chances of torpedoing promising legal careers.

First Time for Everything: Chapter 15

Experienced lawyers have blotted out the memories of their first weeks at work, making many of them uniquely ill-suited to guide law clerks and new lawyers.They may be well-meaning, but if training begins and ends with stories that begin “Back in my day...” a new lawyer is lost.This chapter begins to fill the gap.

In six tightly-packed pages, Calvert Hanson and Williams take their readers through meeting new supervisors and colleagues (who may have spotted them on the internet), making a mistake (how it is handled can set the tone for an entire career), meeting new mentors (in a small firm they are unlikely to have “M” tattooed on their foreheads, and they may be outside the firm), communicating with partners (likely from different generations), handling first assignments (get clarification of everything!), and handling hearings all by yourself (what do you need to know and where do you need to go?)

Core Competency: What is that?

A quick search for “lawyers’ core competencies” yields 372,000 results, making it a well-trod but not particularly accessible subject. A survey of some of the results will likely leave a reader gasping for breath and asking “What does this mean to me?”

Core Competency and Biglaw

Core competency concepts have been the province of professional development (PD) professionals at large law firms and big agencies for more than a decade. Legal PD professionals have their own active association (Professional Development Consortium) and well-attended annual Lawyer Development Institute, co-sponsored by NALP and the American Law Institute. With the support of senior management, significant human and financial resources have been focused on identifying the skills and experiences that lawyers need to develop year-by year, and a great deal of time and money are devoted to creating, delivering, and evaluating training programs.

Unlike BigLaw, small firms rely on commercial or bar-sponsored CLE, expensive observation opportunities (every moment not billed is a dollar not earned), “throw them into the pool” assignments, and dumb luck. No plan. No standards. No guidelines.

A Core Competency Roadmap for smaller firms

Calvert Hanson and Williams have tackled this and created a roadmap. By setting out four categories (Business, Associate Skills, Personal and Professional Development, and Lawyering Skills) they open a graphic window onto what it takes to turn a law student into a lawyer.

An example of a critical competency: Business

Of the four business competencies, Business Acumen, Entrepreneurship, Quantitative Abilities, and Tech Savvy, Entrepreneurship is the most elusive. So often demanded and so rarely defined, they offer this particularly useful definition from Professor Jeff Cornwall, Director of Belmont University’s Center for Entrepreneurship:

…entrepreneurship is the process of identifying, evaluating, seizing an opportunity, and bringing together the resources necessary for success.

Blunt about Quantitative Abilities

Typical of the treatment of all of the subjects in this book is the authors’forthrightness about the basic quantitative skills that are required: understand basic accounting and statistics; use basic math and financial concepts for calculating fees and damages, present value for structured settlements, compound interest, interest rates, and profit margins; and (helpful) apply mathematical reasoning, statistical methods or cost-benefit analysis to analyze and resolve business and technical problems.

No excuses.

For inspiration and for reference

For students and lawyers exploring or already hired in small firms, this book is both inspiration and reference. It is packed with stories from lawyers in the trenches in the 21st century.

The Authors

Linda Calvert Hanson is the current Director of the Florida Bar’s Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism, and she chairs the Florida Bar’s General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section. She is a former Assistant Dean for Bar Success and Professionalism, and Assistant Dean for Career Development at the University of Florida College of Law. She has practiced in government and in small firms.

Samantha Williams is Director of Employer Relations at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, were she focuses on small firm outreach and employer development. She previously served as assistant director and associate director of career services at ASU, and she has worked an associate at large and small firms

Great advice from Amy Lindgren: Career transitions after major life events

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Gainen) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Amy Lindgren: Career transitions after major life events - TwinCities.com

Amy Lindgren's career advice is always spot-on. In this piece, the best, and possibly least-obvious of the bunch, is #6. Keep a journal.

Why keep a journal during stressful times?

While your writing may produce a future screenplay, in the here-and-now, writing is a necessary discipline with which you record your own truth about what you are doing or not doing every single day. It is also a record of what you really think about the results of your activities, the promises that you make to yourself (and whether you deliver), and, should you make sacrifices or changes in your goals for specific purposes, you have a record for future review.

It is not the tool that you use to record each personal, phone, email, or job application contact that you make. That is a different tool in your job search toolbox.

What might you learn?

You may find that the job that you take because you need income is not the job you really want and far from the job of your dreams. Your journal is helpful in two circumstances:

1. You like the job and it is working out in ways that surprise you. Life is full of surprises. Celebrate them.

2. You hate the job and hate your life. With the journal in hand, you have a concrete record of the deal that you cut with yourself when you took this non-dream job. Were you desperate for money? Bored out of your mind? Needing to move out-of-town? Whatever the reason was two years ago, your circumstances have changed, you have changed, and now you can begin the search for a new job from the position of an employed person who can say truthfully that:

"It wasn't a good fit;"
"It was an interesting challenge, and, although I like the people I work with, I believe that my skills are better adapted to..."
or whatever else is true that isn't whining.

Amy Lindgren: Career transitions after major life events - TwinCities.com