Ask the Experts

The ATL Interrogatories: 10 Questions with Peter Devlin from Fish & Richardson

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Peter DevlinEd. note: This is the latest installment of The ATL Interrogatories, brought to you by Lateral Link. This recurring feature will give notable law firm partners an opportunity to share insights and experiences about the legal profession and careers in law, as well as about their firms and themselves.

Peter J. Devlin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fish & Richardson, assumed the firm’s top management position in 2000. Under his leadership, Fish has opened several new offices, expanded its burgeoning international practice, bolstered its reputation as a national firm at the pinnacle of the IP and business world, strengthened its financial performance, and positioned itself for further growth. Mr. Devlin’s law practice emphasizes client counseling in the areas of patent infringement and validity opinions, patent due diligence, product clearance, and licensing; and in U.S. and foreign patent prosecution, focusing on medical device technologies, electronics, and software. Before joining Fish, Mr. Devlin worked for Raytheon Company, first as an electrical engineer and then as a patent attorney.

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From the Career Files: How to Improve Your Résumé This Summer If You’re Applying This Fall

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Anna Ivey helps prospective law school applicants improve their résumé for fall applications.

Are you staring at your résumé and experiencing a mild sense of panic wondering how you’re going to beef it up between now and the time you submit your applications this fall?

You may be tempted to sign up for a flurry of impressive-sounding activities, but remember that quality matters a whole lot more than quantity. Admissions officers know what résumé padding looks like. In fact, they have a finely tuned antenna for that sort of thing. Any activity where you list your main contribution as “member” — i.e. just showing up — isn’t going to count for much.

You’ll also have to list start dates for your jobs and activities, as well as hours per week, when it comes time to apply. It will be completely transparent if all of a sudden you discover a grand passion for immigrant aid volunteering, or sustainability work, or the inner workings of the Dodd-Frank Act three months before you apply. Track records matter.

Read more at the ATL Career Center…

The ATL Interrogatories: 10 Questions with Gary Sasso of Carlton Fields

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The ATL Interrogatories. This recurring feature will give notable law firm partners an opportunity to share insights and experiences about the legal profession and careers in law, as well as about their firms and themselves.

Gary Sasso, president and CEO of Carlton Fields, represents business clients in securities fraud and consumer fraud class actions and other complex litigation at the trial and appellate level, in the financial services industry, energy sector, products manufacturing industry, and services sector. Before joining Carlton Fields in 1987, Mr. Sasso worked as a law clerk for Justice Byron R. White on the United States Supreme Court; and as a law clerk for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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The ATL Interrogatories: 10 Questions with Jim Maiwurm of Squire Sanders

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The ATL Interrogatories. This recurring feature will give notable law firm partners an opportunity to share insights and experiences about the legal profession and careers in law, as well as about their firms and themselves.

Jim Maiwurm, chair and global CEO of Squire Sanders, has more than 30 years of experience as a business and transactional lawyer. His work involves the representation of a diverse range of businesses — from technology startups to Fortune 50 manufacturers — in private equity infusions, public offerings and sophisticated domestic and international acquisitions, dispositions, financings and joint ventures.

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The ATL Interrogatories: 10 Questions with Larren Nashelsky of Morrison & Foerster

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The ATL Interrogatories. This recurring feature will give notable law firm partners an opportunity to share insights and experiences about the legal profession and careers in law, as well as about their firms and themselves.

Larren Nashelsky is the chair of Morrison & Foerster. Prior to becoming chair, Mr. Nashelsky focused his practice on U.S. and international restructurings, including Chapter 11 reorganizations, workouts, restructurings, secured financings and distressed acquisitions and investments. Larren is a graduate of Hofstra University School of Law.

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From the Career Files: The Fifth Step in Leaving Law Behind — Get Out There

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, in the fifth of five related articles, Casey Berman, founder of Leave Law Behind, a blog and community that focuses on helping unhappy attorneys leave the law, discusses the fifth step attorneys can take to leave the law. Previous articles in this series can be found here, here, here, and here.

As we discussed in the first four articles of this series, through Leave Law Behind, I work with many intelligent attorneys who nonetheless are unhappy and want to leave the law behind and do something else. They want to change their life and their work and their focus with the goal to be more satisfied, more confident, and happier.

I tell them the first step in leaving the law behind involves getting a handle on their money situation; to become as confident and exact as possible in understanding (i) their expenses, as well as any (ii) safety net and other sources of financial support they can call upon if needed….

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ATL Interrogatories: 10 Questions with Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein LLP

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The ATL Interrogatories. This recurring feature will give a notable law firm partner an opportunity to share insights and experiences about the legal profession and careers in law, as well as about their firms and themselves.

Richard Wiley is the nation’s preeminent communications lawyer. He served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, where he fostered increased competition and lessened regulation in the communications field. Mr. Wiley played a pivotal role in the development of HDTV in this country, serving for nine years as Chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service. As head of the firm’s communications practice group (the largest in the nation), his clients include Verizon, AT&T, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Motorola, and CBS. Mr. Wiley is a graduate of Northwestern Law and holds an LLM from Georgetown.

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From the Career Files: The Best Online Law Schools (J.D. and LL.M. Programs)

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Mansfield J. Park advises prospective law students on selecting an online law school.

Which are the very best online law schools?

This is hard question because there isn’t a clear ranking system — U.S. News doesn’t rank online degree programs (neither does Above the Law) — and actual first-hand information is scarce for online law schools. There isn’t much accountability at online law schools.

Let’s take a step back.

No juris doctor program at an online law school, at the moment, is going to give you the kind of career you would have if you attended a national top-tier law school like Harvard, or even a regional powerhouse (like University of Alabama if you live in Alabama).

Indeed, there are not that many online law schools, actually, that permit you to sit for any state’s bar exam. None are, at the moment, ABA-accredited (this is important because if you graduate from a law school with ABA accreditation, you can take the bar exam in any of the 50 states of the U.S.).

There are a lot more programs that offer a masters of law online if you already have a juris doctor.

So, with all of that as a warning, let me pick a couple of the best online law schools if you are dead set on getting an online law degree. Again, below, I consider juris doctor and LL.M. programs separately.

Read more at the ATL Career Center….

From the Career Files: The Fourth Step in Leaving Law Behind — Facing Your Fears

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, in the fourth of five related articles, Casey Berman, founder of Leave Law Behind, a blog and community that focuses on helping unhappy attorneys leave the law, discusses the fourth step attorneys can take to leave the law. Previous articles in this series can be found here, here, and here.

As we discussed in the first three articles of this series, through Leave Law Behind, I work with many intelligent attorneys who nonetheless are unhappy and want to leave the law behind and do something else. They want to change their life and their work and their focus with the goal to be more satisfied, more confident, and happier.

I tell them the first step in leaving the law behind involves getting a handle on their money situation; to become as confident and exact as possible in understanding (i) their expenses, as well as any (ii) safety net and other sources of financial support they can call upon if needed….

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ATL’s Unofficial Orientation to Law School (Part III)

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Today, we present the third and final installment of our three-part series of Google Hangouts aimed at helping prospective law students navigate the application process and the first year of school. This week, Joe Patrice is joined by Mike Sims, President of BARBRI, Alison Monahan, founder of The Girl’s Guide to Law School, and John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School.

Prospective students can sign up here to get more news and resources to begin their legal careers….

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