Reinventing The Law Business: You Lost Your Job In A Law Firm – What Do You Do Now? (Part 2)

Tips from managing partner Bruce Stachenfeld about recruiters, networking, résumés, and more.

Bruce Stachenfeld

Bruce Stachenfeld

In this three-part series of articles, I give step-by-step advice on exactly what to do when you lose your job in a law firm. This is the second article. In the first article, I gave advice on self-analysis necessary before moving onto the actual steps to take. In this article, I go over those steps in detail. If you have not read my prior article before reading this one, I urge you to do so.

Here are the steps to be taken:

First – see if your employer will help you. If you didn’t have a shouting match with the managing partner on your way out, most law firms want to be helpful. They will likely want to have a good reputation in the legal market, including a general view that if things go wrong they are good to their departing lawyers, as opposed to the converse. They may even have outplacement. You should ask for the following (and of course you would also hope for severance and things of that nature; however, this article is not about things like that, which is not my specialty):

  • Your name stays on the website for a period of time.
  • Your phone is still answered or at least goes to voicemail.

Also, you may find that some of the partners and associates are your friends and will help you out. Indeed, it is possible that you might want to go in-house and a partner may send you to her client to create a win/win situation. Ultimately, you need to fashion the outline of a reason why you are leaving the firm that you can say with confidence and your employer can support. Of course, it is great if you can avoid out-and-out lying, which I do not advocate. I have found that sooner or later lies get discovered and your reputation is critical.

In any case, with some cooperation from your employer you may be able to truthfully take the position that you are still working at the law firm and looking for a new job for a legitimate reason. Many employers don’t out-and-out fire people – instead, they tell them that they “will be fired” in a period of time if they don’t have a new job, and they should find a new job while they are still in good standing.

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If not, things are harder but not impossible.

Here are some specific tips in no special order:

First – you need to pick a headhunter(s). I suggest no more than three of them. In regard to headhunters:

It is best to find one that specializes in the specific area of law in which you practice, and it is also critical to find a headhunter who will really take the time to get to know you as a person and be able to sell whatever attributes you have that are unique.

Sorry to say this, but don’t just assume that the headhunters are telling you the truth when they claim that they can help you. No offense to the headhunting industry, but just like any other industry, there are good (great) honest people that I have huge respect for, and those who just shove your résumé out the door and hardly know who you are or who the employer is – they are just playing the numbers. You want to be careful to avoid headhunters of this (latter) nature. The easiest way to avoid them is to ask your firm’s recruitment coordinator which are the headhunters she respects.

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If there is a particular firm you are interested in targeting, you should cross-examine to make sure the headhunter has a real relationship there. Otherwise the headhunter is doing nothing of use but just sending your résumé along.

Also, I advocate that you treat your meetings with the headhunters as actual interviews. If a good headhunter really is impressed with you, she will sell you aggressively to high-quality law firms – and the converse. You want to make an amazing impression and just tell the headhunter exactly what is great about you and can be sold to a third party. See the interviewing tips in my next article and use them all when you visit with headhunters.

Finally, don’t be afraid to go without a recruiter for a job where you have another way “in” or you know about the practice or the lawyers. There is nothing like the thrill an employer has when she gets your résumé without a headhunter involved and can avoid the headhunter fee. Trust me here – I know this very well.

Finally, finally, be incredibly careful that the headhunter will “only” send your résumé to law firms that you specifically approve. You don’t want two headhunters sending your resume to the same law firm. If that happens you could become toast as no law firm will want to pay two commissions. If you haven’t had this happen to you, trust me here as well, you want to avoid it.

Second – you need to network. This in and of itself could be a whole article, so I will just mention a couple of things here:

Tell all your friends and contacts what you are looking to do. Be specific, and narrow in focus, as to the job that you are trying to find. Don’t be vague and say that “I need a job.” Be specific that you are looking for a job in handling widget litigation in Montana. Otherwise no one will remember a thing about what you say and the networking will be wasted. Of everything I am saying in these three articles, this is possibly the most important, so I will re-emphasize it – it is absolutely critical to be specific and narrow about what you are seeking or no one will remember it and no one will be able to help you – even your mom won’t be able to be of much use!

Tell your contacts that you don’t need to meet with people only if there is a job opening – you would like to meet with anyone in the (specific and narrow) industry you are focusing on – whether legal or business – for information. You don’t know where these meetings will go.

In this vein, when you hear someone isn’t hiring, try to get a meeting anyway just for information. If someone “likes” you, they may send you to a friend or agree to help you. I can’t tell you what “will” happen as it is too random; however, I will say that the more you network the more likely it is that something good will happen in an unpredictable way

Finally, I urge you read the article I wrote for Above the Law, 7 Steps to Getting a Job as a Lawyer, which gives you some great advice (sorry to be a humbug in saying that).

Third – you need a résumé and – much more important – a cover letter that is compelling and exciting:

The résumé, I admit, sort of has to look kind of like other résumés; however, this is not an exercise in writing boring prose to fit in. It is time to put yourself out there if you can. Mention things that make clear that you are smart, hardworking, a leader, and good with people and whatever else you can think of. Of course, some personal things should be included at the end as conversation starters. But make no mistake — you want people to be impressed that you are super-smart, super-hardworking, and a super-team player who people love to have around.

Even more important than the résumé is the cover letter that you are using to get interviews or, with some tweaking, to help those who want to send you to someone else, to say good things about you. This critical point to keep in mind is that the cover letter is not “about you” – it is “about the person reading it,” and the first sentence has to be powerful. Here is an example:

“Dear Toby – I know you are building the top widget law practice in New York City so I thought my five years of experience on some of the most complicated widget deals might be of great use to you.”

My point here is don’t write your cover letter about what “you” want – consider only what the recipient wants, and you will be in good stead. Don’t take it from me – this is straight out of Dale Carnegie’s amazing book, How to Win Friends and Influence People (affiliate link).

Fourth, and finally, you need to get good at interviewing. That is the subject of my next article, which is the final article in this three-part series.

Earlier: Reinventing The Law Business: You Lost Your Job In A Law Firm – What Do You Do Now? (Part 1)


Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 70-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at thehedgehoglawyer@gmail.com.

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