Associate Advice

Career Center Tip of the Day: Making Work-Life Work (Part 1)

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Coming off a successful year in which some firms even saw record-setting revenues and profits, many Biglaw associates are now the busiest they have been in recent memory. While this uptick in work may initially be a welcome relief for some, in the long run associates often find themselves struggling to balance an increased workload with life outside the firm.

Today’s Career Center “Tip of the Day” features advice on maintaining work-life balance. Despite what you may have heard, work-life balance isn’t just a program for new mothers. Sure, many law firms aim their work-life policies — like parental leave, reduced hours schedules, and flexible working arrangements — at parents. But the fact is that everyone needs to balance work and life, regardless of whether or not you have kids and whether or not you work at a firm that promotes work-life balance, if you plan to make a career out of Biglaw while staying relatively happy and sane.

We collaborated with Biglaw associates to provide practical tips for helping you to achieve a work-life balance in your daily schedule. The first set of tips is aimed at managing your work to help free up time for your personal life. Next week, we will feature tips aimed at helping you maintain your personal life. Of course, these tips come with the caveat that the nature of Biglaw means that at times the “life” portion of the equation can be non-existent. For example, if you are on trial or closing a deal, you may be expected to work around the clock. But eventually your trial will end or you will complete your deal, and you will have the opportunity to regain some semblance of a life. These tips are geared toward helping you do that.

On to the tips for managing your work…

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 5)

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In the first four parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation, assessing what the new firm is offering, analyzing the counteroffer of your current firm, and considering the ramifications (both tangible and intangible) of accepting the counteroffer and reneging on the new firm. Our final tip focuses on recognizing buyer’s remorse for what it actually is: fear of the unknown.

On to tip #5….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 4)

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In the first, second and third parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation, assessing what the new firm is offering, and analyzing the counteroffer of your current firm. It is now time for you to consider the ramifications, both tangible and intangible, of accepting the counteroffer and reneging on the new firm.

On to tip #4….

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Inside Straight: On Outer-Directedness

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Law firms, and in-house law departments, should be outer-directed.

I realize that I just invented the word “outer-directed,” and sensible people might choose to call this concept being “client-focused.” But “outer-directedness” is broader than mere client focus — and I invented the word, so it’ll mean what I want it to mean.

At a firm, lawyers should naturally be client-focused, in the sense that client work comes first and most internal matters come second. “Outer-directedness” implies not just client focus, but a more general external focus — devoting efforts to impressing the world, rather than to impressing others within the firm.

We should naturally spend our professional time serving our clients. And, in a law firm setting, we should spend our semi-professional time gazing out through our office windows, not peering inwardly down our own corridors. If a case just settled and you have some free time, spend that time impressing the world, not your colleagues. Join a non-profit board, work for a bar or trade association, write an article, give a talk. Raise both your personal and your firm’s profile. That benefits the world and serves institutional purposes. Don’t spend your spare time impressing your colleagues.

We should of course be nice to each other, but that’s civility, not having an undue inner focus. I’m opposed only to the stuff that goes beyond civility, which I’ll delicately call “office politics”….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 3)

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In the first and second parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation and assessing what the new firm is offering you, to determine whether it addresses the issues/shortfalls of your current firm. Today we’ll discuss how to carefully analyze your firm’s counteroffer to see if it is really better than the new offer.

More on tip #3…

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Inside Straight: Managing Up

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

The Harvard Law School career services office recently asked me to record a podcast on the subject of “managing up.” This got me to thinking: What the heck is “managing up”?

Fortunately, the woman from career services explained. She was interested in discussing how, as a junior lawyer, you manage the senior lawyer who’s supervising your work.

That’s not anything I’d thought about before, but (as readers of this column well know) that hasn’t stopped me yet, so I said I’d be happy to help with the podcast. Now I’m thinking about what I might actually say.

I’ve tentatively decided that the key to managing up is exactly the same as the key to managing down. In fact, it’s the key to basically every interpersonal relationship you’ll ever have: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Think about it: How should you manage down? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not have me, the father of two young kids at the time, fly to Cincinnati for what should be a five-minute meeting set for 11 a.m. on October 31, and then postpone the meeting for an hour, and then postpone it for another couple of hours, and then postpone it again, and then, after everyone else has headed home or to the airport to take their kids trick-or-treating that night, finally tell me at 6:30 that we’ll have to reschedule our meeting. If that ever happened, I might still remember the incident, with lingering resentment, eighteen years later….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 2)

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In the first part of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation to remind yourself of the reasons why you began your job search in the first place. Today we’ll discuss how to assess what the new firm is offering you, and how to determine whether it addresses the issues with or shortcomings of your current firm.

More on tip #2….

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Hipster. And Lawyer.

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Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, is available on Amazon (affiliate link).

Two guys from my high school. One year apart.

Hipster… and Lawyer.

Hipster plays in jazz band with Lawyer. They have the same academic advisor, and fall into a casual friendship.

Hipster has trouble in school. He plays drums and guitar, but struggles to maintain the grades. It’s nothing to do with behavior – everyone likes him. The academic advisor does his best, but after failing a few courses, Hipster’s expelled. He ends up bouncing from school to school, and manages to graduate, then heads to a halfway-decent state university known for partying. He spends most of his year there jamming with his buddies and soon drops out. They start a rock band, smoke dope, wear tie-dye, collect Grateful Dead tapes and call each other “dude.”

Lawyer thinks it’s a shame Hipster got kicked out of school. His own grades are A’s. He wins academic prizes, a scholarship to study in England, and advanced placement at Harvard, where he graduates magna cum laude. He heads to a first-tier law school, and places near the top of his class. An offer arrives from a white-shoe law firm.

Stop the tape…

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 1)

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The current installment of the Career Center “Tip of the Day” series focuses on helping associates evaluate the counteroffer. Since most law firms have trimmed the “fat” and reduced the number of attorneys on their payrolls, associates have been working harder and billing record hours. It is not surprising that many associates will be searching for jobs at new firms — and some will be fortunate enough to secure new positions. For the first time since the recession began, firms may actually be disappointed when one of their associates gets hired at another law firm, and are more likely to present these associates with tempting counteroffers.

We all know the studies and employment reports: it costs a firm more to hire new employees than to retain current employees. This fact is especially true for firms operating with fewer associates and an increased amount of work projected in 2011. It is important to be prepared and know how to react when presented with a counteroffer.

These tips will assist you in case you are ever put in the unenviable (or maybe enviable?) position of dealing with a counteroffer from your current firm. Now, on to the first tip….

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Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Six Steps to Becoming an Expert

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers.

So you’re at a small firm and you want to be successful. Good. Why you wouldn’t want that is beyond me. But if you want to be a successful lawyer, you need to make a name for yourself. If you don’t want to be a successful lawyer, you can leave this post now. We’ll wait. [Waits while the preternaturally mediocre leave ATL for Dlisted or whatever.] OK? The rest of you stick with me.

Look. You didn’t end up at a big firm, because you didn’t go to a top law school or because your first-year grades weren’t as stellar as they could have been. So you’re not going to be making a huge salary in exchange for billing 2,500 hours a year. Deal with it. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a very successful career as a lawyer. It just means that you need to take a different approach.

The most important thing you can do to make a name for yourself as a lawyer is to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Here are six tips on how to do it.…

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