Winning The Race: How To Get The Job You Always Wanted
By following advice from those who lived it, you have a good shot at landing the job you want.
One of my goals for this column was to help readers who want to improve their lot in life. When I wrote about the chances of lawyers with modest backgrounds getting jobs with elite firms, I received scores of emails from attorneys who shared their rags to riches stories. Many of them did not attend top-tier law schools. Nor did they have upper-class backgrounds or social networks. They also did not have substantial books of business. But all of them did certain things that got them out of the unemployment line and into full-time, partnership-track positions at reputable law firms. Today, these untold strategies are revealed.
Invest money in your job search. You need a job. So do a hundred other unemployed attorneys you know. And in a few months, hundreds of people who passed the bar exam will also enter the job market in your area. All of you are using the same job search sites competing for the same open positions. So you need to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack. How do you do that? The same way politicians do it: with money.
First, look the part. Invest in a few custom-tailored suits. Buy high quality business cards. Be prepared to buy multiple people meals at trendy restaurants.
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Lots of knowledgeable people suggest investing in a blog to showcase your knowledge and writing ability. The blog should also display pictures of you hanging out with celebrities, socialites, politicians, and wealthy individuals to show that you are connected. Now a free, stand-alone blog won’t cut it. You have to invest in a professionally designed and SEO optimized blog which costs several hundreds of dollars per month. Also, you can’t blog and search for a job at the same time, so hire a ghostwriter. Hopefully he or she won’t copy and paste from someone else’s blog.
Next, join every bar association possible and attend every one of their networking mixers, CLE events, and “Judge of the Month” honorary parties. The idea is to be around the same people over and over again so they get to know and remember you. It’s particularly important that you get to know the officers of the organizations because by impressing them, they can connect you to the hiring partners of the firms you want to work for.
All of the above sounds prohibitively expensive for someone who is looking for a job. While everyone’s life circumstances are unique, it seems that people who have the desire, the grit, and refuse to play the victim somehow find a way to get the money. Those are the people that law firms want to hire.
Maintain good relations with your law school professors. Law professors have been unfairly getting part of the blame of the lawyer oversupply. If you think about it, they were only hired to teach the next generation of lawyers. Regardless of what you think about them, law professors may be helpful in getting you a job.
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Today’s law profs understand that law students need to have solid careers in order to appreciate the intrinsic value of a legal education. So they are spending their non-teaching time getting to know local practitioners. They then modify their curricula to meet their needs and get ideas for articles that provide practical advice for practicing attorneys. These law profs also invite practitioners and judges for guest lectures where they can interact with the students. They can also recommend select students and alumni to law firms seeking to hire someone, thus saving them from hiring expensive recruiters. These progressive professors should be commended for helping their customers instead of writing an essay hypothesizing how a despotic ruler of a nomadic tribe would apply the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in a cattle ownership dispute.
Also, many law professors have worked in prestigious firms before starting their teaching careers. While they should be praised for giving up their lucrative careers to teach, they may still maintain their prior connections which can be useful for students seeking to backdoor their way into a respectable legal job.
Commit to pro bono work. One way to demonstrate commitment to legal service is to help those who cannot afford to pay for it. But not only do you get positive karma and a tummy rub for helping the indigent, you may also get noticed by those in a position to hire.
Many bar associations coordinate pro bono programs for the local community. Sometimes, you may see lawyers from prestigious law firms leading the effort. This will be your opportunity to show them how the skills and tactics you used to help low-income families receive government welfare assistance can also be used to help multinational corporations receive government bailout money when the next recession comes.
A pro bono background signals to potential employers that you are willing to take on unglamorous work which is a common staple in most law firms.
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Finally, the person you help get back on his feet will one day return the favor. Suppose you are able to help someone temporarily avoid a foreclosure on his home. With the borrowed time, he was able to keep his dignity and save his family from the homeless shelter. A month later, he finds another job and gets a loan modification. Over Thanksgiving dinner, he reconciles with his estranged parents and siblings who dismissed him as a loser. One of the siblings knew a real estate attorney who needed to hire someone to help him expand his practice.
Your former client says, “You know, there was this attorney at Legal Aid who did a great job for me when the bank was giving me hell with the foreclosure. I’ll give you her contact information, so call her when you have a chance. Her name? I think it’s Ms. Achiblahblah or something like that….”
So there you have it. By following the above advice from those who lived it, you have a good shot at landing the job you want. If you have any success stories you want to share, please email me.
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Shannon Achimalbe was a former solo practitioner for five years before deciding to sell out and get back on the corporate ladder. Shannon can be reached at sachimalbe@excite.com.