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Career Center: Advice for Midlevel Associates (Part 2)

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Welcome to Part 2 of our Ask The Experts article on long-term career planning, partnership prospects, and in-house careers, brought to you by the ATL Career Center, powered by Lateral Link. 
Last week, we shared advice about general career development from the Career Center’s Professional Development panelists: Morgan Chu of Irell & Manella, Mike Woronoff of Proskauer Rose, and Vivian Yang, General Counsel at Citysearch.
This week, we’re back with the panelists’ advice on the specific steps that associates need to take if they want to make partner or move in-house. Click here to read the full article and view other resources on the Career Center.  If you have tips or questions that you would like covered in future Ask The Experts columns, please email careercenter@abovethelaw.com.
Alternatively, you can read Part One here, and Part Two after the jump.


Finding Your Path – Part 2
The Career Center’s Professional Development panel was held on November 17, 2009 and hosted by Lateral Link and Proskauer Rose.  The following Q&A, Part Two, summarizes the panelist’s key pieces of advice so that all ATL readers and Lateral Link members can benefit from their insights.
Q: If you are a mid-level or senior associate who wants to work as an in-house counsel, what are the steps you should take to position yourself for an in-house move?

Vivian Yang: You are probably
already doing some of the things that will help you move in-house.  For
example, build relationships with both clients and colleagues who can
bring you in-house with them if an opportunity arises.  Creating
networks is important for all career planning, but particularly if you
want to move in house: she got her first in-house position through
attorneys she had worked with at her firm, who brought her along with
them when they moved in-house.  Also, don’t be afraid to let people
know that you are looking for an in-house position.  In-house jobs are
out there, but the openings are usually filled through word-of-mouth,
so you need to be on the radar of people, usually colleagues or
clients, who hear about in-house openings.  Another way to position
yourself is to consider what industries are prominent in the area in
which you live and focus your practice and your networking in those
areas.  For example, in Los Angeles, entertainment studios have large
in-house staffs, so someone interested in working in-house in Los
Angeles might focus their practice on media or IP and develop a network
of people who work in or with studios. 

Q: What specific skills are you looking for when hiring someone for an in-house counsel position?

Vivian
Yang: General counsel want to hire people who are experts at
something.  If you learn about an in-house opening that you are
interested in but you are not sure if you’re an exact fit, consider how
your background and skills could fulfill the job requirements.  Then
package yourself in a way that shows you do have the skills to meet the
general counsel’s needs.  In addition to looking for experts, general
counsel want to hire people with good judgment.  In-house attorneys
make decisions all day long without any back-stop; they need to be able
to communicate to the company’s business staff what the risk is of a
particular decision is and what the other options are.  The last thing
a general counsel wants to see from an attorney is a legal memorandum
with a 50-state analysis of an issue; they just want to know what they
can and cannot do.  An attorney who can’t answer the question, "What
should I do?" is an attorney who does not understand the law or the
business enough to trust their own judgment.  That attorney is not an
good in-house candidate.    

Q: What do firms look for when promoting associates to partnership?

Morgan
Chu:  Judgment is definitely at the top of the list.  Good analytical
skills are also very important but attorneys who have developed strong,
multi-faceted judgment will do the best in their careers, whether they
make partner or choose another path.  There is no school to teach you
good judgment but you can learn aspects of it by observing what other
people do in difficult situations, whether legal, business or
personal.  Ask yourself whether that person is exercising good judgment
– are they adapting, are they taking into account changed
circumstances, are they considering every possibility? 

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Mike
Woronoff: Positioning can also be important – consider where the need
is greatest at your firm, and make yourself an expert in that
practice. 

Q: Do associates need to bring clients the firm to
make partner?  How should mid-level and senior associates develop a
book of business?

Mike Woronoff: Associates at most firms do not
need to bring clients to the firm to make partner, although there may
be firms out there that do require that.  Realistically, since the
deals in many practice areas are multi-million dollar transactions,
there is no way that firms could expect that rising partners have
access to that kind of business.  However, mid-level and senior
associates can take concrete steps to develop clients.  Focus on
developing relationships with your peers, either other associates at
your level or with the junior business staff at your client.  Get to
know these people at an early stage, when none of you are in a position
to make decisions.  Then stay in touch as you progress in your
careers.  The pay-off is unlikely to be immediately, but five, six, or
seven years later, these will be the people who are in the position to
make decisions. 

Morgan
Chu:  Associates at his firm definitely do not need to bring a client
to the firm in order to make partner.  Regarding prospective business
development, take steps to make people remember you.  For example, if a
client talks with you about his love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and you
see an article or book about them, send him a email about it or chalk
the book up to client development and buy it for him.  Develop
relationships with clients or colleagues based on your common humanity,
not just on the terms of, "I am a lawyer and I provide services for
your company."  Develop these relationships and be patient – it may
take years for a collegial relationship to produce business development
results. 

Q: What advice do you have for mid-level or senior associates whose practice area has shriveled or disappeared?

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Morgan
Chu: The current economic downturn is not the first time practice areas
have disappeared.  Every few years, there are practice areas that
experience a boom, and then a few years later, a bust.  There are
always shifts occurring in the law and attorneys need to try to stay
ahead of the curve.  Associates who find that their practice area has
dried up simply need to find a new specialty, since it is difficult to
sell your skills if those skills no longer apply to any viable
practice. 

Vivian
Yang: Try to "fake it": apply what you do know and translate it into
another practice area.  Be flexible and build on your skill set to
develop the tools to move onto what you want to do next.  Sometimes
this means you will have to take a position that is a step down from
what you were doing before.  If people question why you want to pursue
a job that doesn’t exactly fit with your background or that you seem
overqualified for, explain that you are very interested in learning
about that practice and you are are willing to take a temporary step
backward in order to eventually take three steps forward.

Mike
Woronoff: Segue into another practice that is related to the one you
are leaving.  It can be difficult to reinvent yourself entirely
mid-career – for example, transitioning from litigation to
transactional work as a 5th-year associate – and most people he has
observed do not succeed at that kind of radical transition. 
Earlier: Career Center: Advice for Midlevel Associates (Part 1)

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