If your job is wearing you out, or you just plain hate it, have you ever considered that you may be contributing to the problem? Lateral Link has come up with four bad office practices that are detrimental to your career.
Find out if you’re guilty of any of these bad work habits, and how you can break them….
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You detest your boss. You can’t stand your coworkers. You want to die if you have to work another 100-hour week. If that sounds familiar, then you’re in good company with many other attorneys who hate their job. Unfortunately, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe you’ve only been at your job for a year or less, or you have no other job prospects at the moment.
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….
Continue reading “Career Center: How to Thrive in a Difficult Work Environment”
Networking isn’t just for job seekers. And it isn’t even just for the rainmakers who bring in business. It’s what every attorney (and attorney-to-be) should be doing right now — whether you’re a first-year associate at a Biglaw firm or a senior attorney at a small regional firm. Too often, attorneys wait until they need something before they start networking. But by then, it’s too late to build an effective network from scratch. If you really want to make a go of having any kind of a long and successful legal career, learning how to network early on and effectively is key.
If you already have a network in place, don’t assume you are done because you keep in touch with a few friends from law school and attend MCLE seminars once every three years. Today’s tips, brought to you by the experienced recruiters at Lateral Link, will give you ways to improve your network….
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It’s that time of year again when associates will cash in their bonus checks and start mentally and/or physically packing their bags for their next move. Some are looking to lateral to another Biglaw firm, while others want to make a more dramatic change by going in-house, downshifting to a smaller firm or a government job, or moving to another city.
With lateral hiring picking up in various areas, there’s a decent chance that all the hard work you put into the job-hunting process will pay off with a job offer. But before you rush into accepting an offer, the experienced recruiters at Lateral Link have come up with the top three factors to consider when deciding whether a new job is right for you….
Continue reading “Career Center: How to Evaluate a Job Offer”
In the 19th century, Americans immigrated to Texas to escape debt incurred during the Panic of 1819, leaving “Gone To Texas” or “GTT” on their doors. In the 21st century, lawyers are immigrating to Texas for much different reasons. Or are they?
Why move to Texas? In honor of Texas Independence Day, held every March 2, Lateral Link Director Sara Gail, a third-generation Texan, explains why you should consider the Texas legal market….
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Although your office may have more Asians than the NBA, it may be far off from being a truly diverse workplace. But as long as your firm can count some minorities on its attorney roster, who really cares about increasing diversity anyway?
Clients, for one. As companies become more diverse, they expect their outside counsel to reflect a similar diversity. A firm that can’t demonstrate a real commitment to boosting its diversity is in danger of getting dumped or passed over by clients. In the long run, that may translate into no work, or even no job, for you. So how can you (minority or not) actively do your part to encourage diversity in your workplace? Here are the Career Center’s top three tips:
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In the age of texts, tweets, and emails, people want their information brief, fast, and in 100 characters or less. With such constraints, many law firm lawyers feel overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to elicit business without sounding like a cattle auctioneer.
While we are competing with thousands of sound bites of information on a daily basis, an effective tool is available to cut through this web of data overload — the elevator pitch. Below, we highlight five easy tips lawyers can follow to execute an effective elevator pitch….
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If you’ve ever been miserable at your job, you’re in good company. But a little job misery doesn’t necessarily mean that you should make a beeline for the door. Many people have compelling reasons to stay put.
So how do you know when it’s time to go? The Career Center, brought to you by Lateral Link, gives you some of the tell-tale signs that it’s time to move on.
1. Your job makes you physically ill. We’re not talking about an occasional headache, or a few sleepless nights in order to meet a critical deadline. Developing chronic conditions like migraines, stomach pains, sleep issues, depression, or anxiety due to work may indicate a serious problem for which you should see a doctor. If your health issues are caused by stressors that you can’t remove from your job, like the billable hour requirement, clients’ expectations, or partnership prospects, it’s probably time to change jobs or consider downshifting to a less demanding environment. No job is worth making yourself sick over — or worse, dying over….
Continue reading “Career Center: Is It Time to Go? Four Signs You Aren’t Where You Should Be”
Unless you work for Kirkland, Cahill, Irell or Boies Schiller, who all shattered the 2011 Cravath bonus scale, you may be feeling a little underwhelmed with your year-end bonus.
But don’t just go blowing it all away on a whim –- especially since that spring bonus check isn’t in the mail yet. Here are some ideas from the Career Center, brought to you by Lateral Link, on how to spend your bonus money wisely…
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Maintaining a good work-life balance can, in some cases, determine your longevity at your current job. Whether you’re a second year or a partner, the fact is everyone needs to balance work and life. This also means both parents and non-parents can take note of some of the tips we have in mind for you. If you plan to make a career out of Biglaw, it’s important to stay happy, healthy, and optimistic.
Speaking of optimism, it’s important to have a positive outlook, even when you might have to work around the clock on a big case. So what can you do to make sure you keep your head above water, and still manage to be on top of your game at work?
Continue reading “Career Center: Finding Your Work-Life Balance”
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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Watch to find out what some of our subscribers received in their May box!
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Gift with Purchase: Use code TRYFECTA1 at checkout when you spend $40+ in the Birchbox Man Shop. Includes a stylish Areaware bottle opener, a sample of TOWELDRY’s Paste Styler, and a sample vial of Atelier Mistral Patchouli cologne.
We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
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The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
