Associate Advice
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Advertising, Associate Advice, Biglaw, Career Center, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad
Career Center: How to Thrive in a Difficult Work Environment
When you’re stuck at a job you loathe, what can you do to not only survive, but even thrive in it? Try these tips, provided to you by the experienced recruiters at Lateral Link.... -
Associate Advice, Bar Exams, Biglaw, Sex, Small Law Firms, Women's Issues
Size Matters: Small-Firm Spinsters, I Have Good News
Small-firm columnist Valerie Katz cannot really offer any more advice about how to find a job other than networking, networking, and going on informational interviews. Oh, and occasionally allowing yourself a good cry. She can, however, offer some priceless advice for how to get married thanks to a recent New York Times article.... - Sponsored
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Lexis Create provides simple access to internal and external knowledge — directly within Microsoft Word. -
Advertising, Associate Advice, Biglaw, Career Center, Lateral Moves, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad
Career Center: For Fifth Year Associates, It’s Decision Time
This week, Lateral Link Director Tricia McGrath shares the inside scoop on what fifth years need to do to make sure they stay on track to become partner, and avoid the pitfalls that come with being passed over continually. Law firm economics changed substantially over the past decade. Law firms now run like “businesses,” in […]
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Associate Advice, Drinking, Job Searches
How Alcohol Can Help You Network
There's a list that's been going around the past two days that purports to be A Drink-by-Drink Guide for networking events. Don't get your hopes up. It's not really drinking advice for legal networking events. It's regular advice for legal networking events that happens to use the word "drink" -- instead of "level" or "number" -- to demarcate the five tips in the article. Here's Elie's advice on how to look cool and confident while knocking back a few without getting so sloshed you end up on Above the Law in the morning.... -
Associate Advice, Biglaw, Money, Small Law Firms
From Biglaw to Boutique: Looks Like Rain
The traditional method of building a book of business no longer works for most associates. Firms now sometimes go so far as to actively discourage associates from forming too-strong relationships with clients, lest the associate leave and take the client with them. With these challenges, how can an associate ever hope to make the rain they will need if they want to open their own firm? -
Advertising, Associate Advice, Biglaw, Career Center, Holidays and Seasons, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad, Travel / Vacation
Career Center: Top 5 Tips for Escaping From the Office During the Holidays
Now that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, some of you may already be thinking ahead to the winter holiday season. That’s precisely what you should be doing if you want to take more time off than just your firm’s designated holiday days. For some associates, the holidays are a good time to use your vacation […] -
Associate Advice, Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Partner Issues
House Rules: How To Get an In-House Lawyer's Attention
In this week's edition of House Rules, in-house columnist David Mowry lets our readers know how to get his attention for all of the right (and all of the wrong) reasons.... -
Antitrust, Associate Advice, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Email Scandals, Litigators, Litigatrix, Partner Issues, Screw-Ups, Skaddenfreude
An Inside Look at the Skadden Annual Review Process
Today, we take an inside look at the annual review process for attorneys at Skadden Arps. In this special report, we'll provide general observations on the Skadden review process, highlight noteworthy comments from leaked attorney evaluations, and show you a few reviews in their entirety. If you're interested in learning more about performance reviews at one of the world's biggest and best law firms, please keep reading.... - Sponsored
Profit Powerhouse: Elevating Law Firm Financial Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar on April 10th, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm. -
Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Interview Stories, Job Searches
Should You Tell Them?
Some things are so obvious they really don't need to be explained anymore. Like it's icy in Iceland. Like it sucks working at a Biglaw firm. You kinda ought to know that by now -- which is why interviewing 2L's feels so heart-breaking. Will Meyerhofer should know; he's been listening to senior and mid-level associates for the past month, telling him how much it sucks interviewing 2Ls.... -
Associate Advice, Small Law Firms
Size Matters: Tell Me I Am Pretty
Small firm columnist Valerie Katz thinks that the year-end review, like the New Year's Resolution, does not work. Rather than getting feedback only once a year, you should make every day New Year's Day. Well, maybe not every day.... -
Advertising, Associate Advice, Biglaw, Career Center, Shameless Plugs, This Is an Ad
Career Center: Memo to New Associates - Welcome to Your Legal Career!
In today’s Career Center Tips Series, Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, legal recruiter and former hiring partner, discusses the challenges that new attorneys face in today’s world. No matter what the differences will be a decade from now, it is safe to say that young lawyers will always have similar personal and professional concerns as they […] -
Associate Advice, Partner Issues, pls hndle thx
Pls Hndle Thx: The Panhandling Partner
In this week's installment of Pls Hndle Thx, Above the Law's "advice" column, a reader wants to know what to do when faced with a panhandling law firm partner. Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com. -
Associate Advice, Litigators, Partner Issues, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Supervising Partners and Teaching Partners
Recently, small firm columnist Jay Shepherd talked to a fourth-year-associate friend who'd been working at a new small firm for several months. When Shepherd asked him how it was going, his friend said "great" in a way that suggested anything but. A partner was making his friend's life a living hell. What made this partner so horrible? It wasn't so much that the partner was horrible. It was that he was merely a "supervising partner"....
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Profit Powerhouse: Elevating Law Firm Financial Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar on April 10th, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm.
Sponsored
How Generative AI Will Improve Legal Service Delivery
Learn how emerging tools will likely change and enhance the work of lawyers for years to come in this new report.
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Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use.
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This AI-Powered Document Tool Will Meet You Where You Are
Lexis Create provides simple access to internal and external knowledge — directly within Microsoft Word.
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Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
If 2023 introduced legal professionals to generative AI, then 2024 will be when law firms start adapting to utilize it. Things are moving fast, so…
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Associate Advice, Job Searches, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: The Best Advice for Networking Events
How can you go about "marketing" and "networking" as an associate? There were no courses on these arcane arts in law school. Should you make a beeline to the nearest networking event? Small firm columnist Jay Shepherd makes the case for why you shouldn't.... -
Associate Advice, Job Searches, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Thinking of Quitting? Read This First
When a small employer loses a member of the team, it's a big deal. People will remember how you leave a place almost as much as they'll remember how you worked there. Jay Shepherd has some advice on how to quit your small firm job carefully.... -
Associate Advice, Screw-Ups, Small Law Firms
Size Matters: To err is human, but you are a lawyer.
Okay, you've made a mistake. Everyone does. What's the best way of handling the situation? -
Associate Advice, English Grammar and Usage, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: 20 Ways to Write Like a Tool
Being a lawyer is like being a member of an elite club, but sounding like a lawyer is sometimes the same as sounding like a "tool." Small firm columnist Jay Shepherd has come up with 20 lawyerisms that do nothing to advance the message lawyers are trying to send, and do, in fact, make lawyers sound like complete tools in their writing. -
Associate Advice, In-House Counsel, Small Law Firms, Sports
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Tell Them Why the Trains Are Late
As you probably know, the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup since the Nixon Administration. I’m no kind of hockey fan, but as a Boston sports fan, I took a passing interest in it. Which is to say that I watched Game 7 on Wednesday. Mine was a short ride on the bandwagon. (I […] -
Associate Advice, Job Searches, Labor / Employment, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: You Know What Kind of Law You Want to Practice. Now What?
I’m under the impression that many of our readers are looking for a new job, or at least thinking about it. Some of you are still in law school and haven’t lined something up yet. Others have been laid off by a firm and are trying to find a replacement gig. Still others are unhappy […] -
Associate Advice, Biglaw, General Counsel, In-House Counsel
Inside Straight: A Disquisition On Pile-O'-Crap Syndrome
Pile-o’-crap syndrome: We’ve all been victimized by it. In private practice, it arrives in the form of four boxes of documents (containing about 2000 pages each) delivered to your door with a single handwritten note of explanation: “Here are the documents you’ll need to prepare Smith for his deposition on Wednesday.” What does that note […]