If you are still a law student, check out our best tips for how to succeed in law school.
For everyone, take some time to optimize your legal resume, polish up your networking skills, learn how to improve your performance on job interviews (including OCI interviews).
Even if the legal employment market seems bad, we don’t want you to feel desperate. Be careful padding your resume with unpaid internships and clerkships. If you’re at all entrepreneurial, think about how you can create your own niche or think about starting your own law firm.
Need more ideas? Join other innovative lawyers in the Lawyerist LAB.
In law school, the best and the brightest get jobs at Big Law, P.A., or get a clerkship with the Supreme Court and then move onto a glorious job at Big Law, P.A.
Usually the only talk of solo attorneys is “well, you can always go solo if you can’t find anything else.”
The truth is, some attorneys actually want to go solo and start their own firm.
And surprise, surprise, we work pretty hard—but we actually can make a comfortable living.
It is 1:30 in the morning, the night before I mediate a major medical malpractice case. I have spent dozens of hours in the last few weeks preparing. I tend to treat a big mediation the way I treat trial-I over prepare.
Preparation is my security blanket. I pride myself in knowing the case better than the other attorney. I spend hours crafting an opening which, if the mediation is unsuccessful, will lay the foundation for my later opening statement and closing argument in trial.
I spend hours crafting a PowerPoint, and then mercilessly pare it down the day before mediation. It isn’t time wasted–every minute spent reviewing testimony, editing video clips of stupid shit the defendant said, and anticipating defense arguments helps me to be as prepared as I can for my client.
I am as prepared as I can be for this mediation. For my client, I hope that I am successful. But ultimately, nothing I do, no outcome tomorrow, will change this fact:
My client will die.
At the end of my 1L summer, I took a job at the ACLU of Maryland. I loved my work, but felt fairly useless for most of the summer—I just didn’t know how to add value. Desperate to feel helpful, I was delighted when someone would apologetically ask if I could make copies or help put together a mailing. Finally! Tasks at which I could excel and add some real value (I am a wiz at putting together mailings faster than a speeding bullet). I earned some real points for enthusiasm, but I don’t think I impressed anyone with my legal prowess. My 2L summer, I worked at a large D.C. law firm. With another year of law school under my belt, I found myself able to contribute substantively in the legal arena for the first time. I praised the gods and didn’t over-analyze my growth at the time, but, in the interest of sharing, here’s what Dorothy learned.
One rainy Saturday, in my first year of law school, the Career Services Office had a big Career Day event. One of the presentations was by a lawyer who had recently gone solo after working first at a large firm and then at a mid-sized firm.
I’ll never forget it. The man laid out, in no uncertain terms, what life is like for a new associate. I still owe him thanks for that. He came across as an arrogant jerk. But one can forgive that if the jerk tells you important truths.
This is what I learned from the Man in the Grey Suit.
Keep Reading ⇒
My first year in practice, I found myself repeatedly undertaking tasks for the first time—drafting discovery, writing a complaint, taking a deposition, defending a deposition, or handling a first oral argument. Even three years later, there are multiple occasions for venturing into new territory—new types of representations, new motions, and new forums. I’ve found that approaching something for the first time requires a bit more caution and planning than diving in for the second or even third time to complete a task.
Job security is on the radar screens of most lawyers. Many lawyers, however, perceive that their jobs are very secure, when in reality they are not. Due to a false sense of security, these lawyers often neglect the networking they should be doing.
Three scenarios demonstrate this concept of a false sense of job security.
A Facebook acquaintance recently shared an article about social media. I know: You’re sick of reading about social media. But before you hit the back button, trust me. You might want to follow the writer’s advice. It goes against the grain. Shauna Niequist wants you to stop instagramming your perfect life.
Her article begins with this:
I keep having the same conversation over and over. It starts like this: ‘I gave up Facebook for Lent, and I realized I’m a lot happier without it.’ Or like this, ‘Pinterest makes me hate my house.’ Or like this: ‘I stopped following a friend on Instagram, and now that I don’t see nonstop snapshots of her perfect life, I like her better.’
Here’s the problem: Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram and all the other social media dreck exacerbates the pitch-black divide between what I thought my life would be like after law school, and how it has turned out so far. I’m simply not as big-time as I thought I would be as a law student.
These are dark days. While law schools and Biglaw continue business pretty much as usual, the good people at Law School Transparency continue to track how the lost generation of lawyers with no real job prospects grows every year.
Steven J. Harper, a Harvard Law grad and 30-year litigator at Kirkland & Ellis, has weighed in on the problems and suggested some solutions in The Lawyer Bubble. It’s the perfect book for a terrible time.
With May fast approaching, the time is ripe to find presents for the law school graduates on your list. While Thrive (a New Lawyer’s Guide to Law Firm Practice) may not be the best gift for every law grad, it is a perfect gift for those starting big firm practice. (You might, however, not want to pass off a copy to a friend who has not yet secured a post-grad gig.) An Anti-How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, this book details the ways to succeed through earnest hard work, dedication, and enthusiasm.
Many baby boomer lawyers are approaching retirement and considering succession planning options. Owners of small law firms with a handful of non-equity partners or associates frequently wonder if it is a realistic expectation to get bought out by the other lawyers. If so, how do you then decide the amount and structure? Like many law firm valuation issues, there is no simple answer to either question. The answers depend upon a variety of factors.
The original content within this website is © 2007–2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC.
