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…
Continue reading “Career Center: Don’t Waste Your Year-End Bonus”
We’d like to take a moment to thank our wonderful advertisers here at Above the Law:
If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, please download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!
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”
Whether you’ve been out of school one year or five, the art of time maintenance is one you shouldn’t ignore. Just like the balance between your personal and professional life should be important to you, you should also work to keep your law firm schedule and work habits as balanced as possible.
Following the pace of a law firm, its partners, and its clients as a former law student might be difficult at first, but time will show you what you’re made of, as hard work and perseverance pays off if you want to make it in the world of Biglaw….
Continue reading “Career Center: How You Should Manage Your Time”
We’d like to take a moment to thank our wonderful advertisers here at Above the Law:
If you’re interested in advertising on Above the Law or any other site in the Breaking Media network, please download our media kits, or email advertising@breakingmedia.com. Thanks!
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 corporate America parlance. In the last few years, many associates at top firms who thought that they were “on track” for partnership were unexpectedly passed over. Unfortunately, market conditions suggest that many more will be passed over in future years.
As a recruiter, I frequently speak with senior associates who were on the wrong side of partnership decisions, and as a result, realized the “out” side of the firm’s “up-and-out” policy. Many of these overlooked associates are now wondering how the train went off the track so quickly. Don’t the years of solid billables and strong reviews account for anything? For most of these associates, their best-case scenarios are a new position at another Biglaw firm with a three-year partner look — often going in to their new firm as a fifth or sixth year — or an in-house position at significantly less compensation (in most cases). Often, neither of these options is particularly attractive for the candidate.
How can you protect yourself from becoming a senior associate who has been passed over, has no business, and has limited job prospects?
Continue reading “Career Center: For Fifth Year Associates, It’s Decision Time”
I recently participated in a Room for Debate forum for the New York Times on the controversial subject of unpaid internships. Critics of these positions argue that such exploitative arrangements contribute to “constricted social and professional mobility, growing inequality, and an economy whose top tier is becoming less and less diverse” (in the words of Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy).
In my contribution, I offer a measured defense of unpaid internships — of the non-abusive variety, in which the intern receives a valuable learning experience (and doesn’t just do scut work) — and also a defense of the status quo (under which most unpaid internships are technically illegal, but enforcement isn’t super-vigorous). You can read my NYT piece here (or on page 9 of yesterday’s Sunday Review section, if you’re a print person). You can also read a piece by Camille Olson, a labor and employment partner at Seyfarth Shaw, over here (focusing on the legal aspects of unpaid internships, and offering general guidelines to companies considering them).
Speaking of interns, Above the Law is looking for one — a paid intern, for the record. Details appear below, along with general information about our hiring needs, and our policy on guest posts or outside contributions….
Continue reading “On the Legality of Unpaid Internships
(And: ATL seeks a paid intern.)“
Lateral Link Director Scott Hodes gives his assessment on one of the nation’s hottest lateral markets in recent years.
Florida has continued to represent one of the most active states in the country in terms of hiring. 2011 saw a resurgence of positions in almost all areas, which is good news for 2012 and beyond.
Litigation positions represented an overwhelmingly large portion of the lateral market, with corporate positions making up the next largest group of lateral opportunities….
Continue reading “Career Center: State of the Market – Florida”
This week, Lateral Link Director Scott Hodes gives us some insight into the increase in lateral hirings in the Empire State of the South.
Atlanta has emerged as one of the best lateral associate markets in the country. While 2009 was slow as in most markets, 2010 signaled a comeback, and 2011 confirmed the upward trend.
Corporate and litigation positions represented the largest amount of lateral openings, which is fairly typical in large markets. Corporate positions seemed to peak in the second and third quarters, while litigation was fairly steady throughout the year. There was also a huge boom in intellectual property positions, especially in the last three quarters, followed not too far behind by labor and employment, which remained steady throughout 2011….
Continue reading “Career Center: State of the Market – Atlanta”
First, a shameless plug. Then, back to business.
I’ll be giving my “book talk” about The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law at The University of Michigan Law School on Monday, March 5, and again at Northwestern University Law School on Tuesday, March 27. If there’s a chance your organization might be interested in that talk, and you’ll be in Ann Arbor or Chicago at the right times, please let me know. We’ll sneak you into the room, and you can get a sense of the topics that I discuss.
Now, the business: You are not a potted plant! When you transmit something, either within a law firm or to (or within) a corporate law department, add value. You are not — or should not be — simply a conduit through which things flow. You don’t impress people with your timidity, and you may well annoy people.
What am I thinking of?
Continue reading “Inside Straight: You Are Not A Potted Plant!”
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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:
Keep reading »
The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
Keep reading »
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