Job Searches, Small Law Firms, White-Collar Crime

Breaking Into White-Collar Defense, Small Firm Practice, And A Job Announcement

Small firms can offer tremendous rewards to aspiring white-collar attorneys.

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I’ve written before in these pages with career advice for lawyers who want to break into white-collar work and the many paths open to them.

If you’re an associate at a firm and you want to do real, in-the-trenches representation of real people who have been accused of a white-collar crime by the federal government, the process of getting there from under your pile of documents may be daunting. And that’s true even if you’re one of the lucky associates already doing white-collar work by looking at documents relating to an FCPA investigation, rather than, say, a mortgage class action.

While each of the options I listed before still makes sense, there’s another option I didn’t mention in that column. And, in light of where I now work, failing to mention that strikes me as a little silly.

If you’d like to break into white-collar criminal defense, you could also work at a small firm that represents people in white-collar criminal cases.

To be clear, when I say a “small firm” I mean a shop with fewer than 20 lawyers in it. When you start to get much bigger, the dynamics change a bit. And often you’ll find a firm that does a ton of blue-collar criminal work and a little bit of white-collar. That can be a little different, or not. See how the firm strikes you.

Upsides

There are some upsides to being an associate in a small firm. Here are some of the advantages:

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Client Contact — Often small firms give you a ton of client contact a lot earlier and more meaningfully than you’d get at Biglaw, and certainly more than you’d get in a U.S. Attorney’s Office. (AUSAs will sometimes tell you that working with victims is basically the same as working with clients. Anyone who would say that has never actually worked with a client accused of a criminal offense. But that’s a topic for another day)

Not only is the quantity of client contact bigger, but the quality often is too. It’s one thing to be the junior person taking notes in the corner while four other lawyers do the talking. It’s very different to be sitting next to a partner participating actively in the conversation or running parts of the meeting.

Stand-Up Time — There can be much more opportunity for actually doing things in court at a small firm. Obviously, how much responsibility you get depends on how quickly you can get the trust of the partners at the firm. But once you have that trust, there are fewer people in line ahead of you to stand up and be a real lawyer.

My firm, for example, had an associate start about a year ago. In that year, he’s been on two trial teams and had a substantial speaking role at one. He’s flown to the Midwest to argue a preliminary injunction and participate in a mediation—entirely on his own. And he has an appellate argument coming up in a few weeks. He’s a tremendously talented lawyer who other lawyers and — perhaps more importantly — clients trust to advocate well. Your mileage may vary.

Downsides

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There are some downsides too.

First, small firms tend to have the personalities of their partners to a greater extent than large firms. While big firms definitely have a feel that comes from how the partners there view the law, in small firms any particular partner’s approach to practice is less diluted.

Sometimes that’s great. (At our firm, we think it’s great.) Sometimes that’s really bad. And sometimes you won’t be able to tell until you’ve worked there for a while.

Second, because this is Above the Law, you’re likely wondering what the money is like. And, as with anything else in a small firm, it varies a lot. Some small shops pay little. Some pay a lot. Some do something more creative. Small firms, even thriving ones like mine, tend to sweat cash flow more than larger firms. Salary is the largest expense of any firm (unless they’re doing it wrong). Many small firms — mine included — pay small base salaries (relative to Biglaw, but probably quite large indeed compared to, say, traffic defense firms) with larger bonuses. This allows them (and us) to share risks and incentives equally — if you work hard, the pot of money will grow, and you’ll probably get a bigger piece of it. If you don’t work as hard, or if work slows down for a little while, you won’t be fired for being a huge overhead expense.

Third, while work/life balance can be better and you can often have more control over your life, that isn’t always the case. And when the really busy times come, as they always do, you’ve got less buffer. If you want to work a trial, you really can’t expect to also work 9 to 5. Though if I have to tell you that, you’re probably already so lost that it won’t sink in. If you want to stand up in court, you’ll need to put the work in. (The upside is that you’ll own the work in a much different way than you might in Biglaw.)

Getting Hired

The tricky part about getting a job at a small firm is that finding these jobs is hard. Many don’t advertise or recruit on campus. Often, a small firm’s hiring needs aren’t clear to that firm until about two months after it needs to hire, which makes timing for everyone hard.

Instead, small firms tend to rely on dumb luck in coming across someone who another lawyer says is a good lawyer and is looking. For a long time, that’s how my firm hired. I started working with one of my partners when I met her at a holiday party. I met my other partner through a law school classmate who just thought we’d hit it off. There is, to be sure, a large amount of chance involved in getting hired at a small firm.

That said, you can make your own luck. Networking in the white-collar community can let you know who is out there. And, to that end, the ABA white-collar conference is coming up in New Orleans.

Kaiser, LeGrand & Dillon Is Hiring

Also, my firm is hiring. Here’s a link to our careers page. Check us out. If you’re interested, we’d love to hear from you, but there are three things you should know.

First — to be blunt — we’re picky. All of our lawyers have gone to top-14 schools and done pretty well there. If the firm hadn’t hired this loser all our lawyers would have come from a top ten school. We may hire outside of T14 schools, but it would be a harder sell.

Second, we’re small, and life is too short to deal with jerks. If you seem like the kind of person who can’t save it for opposing counsel, or if people are always telling you to pick your battles, you’re likely not going to fit in.

Third, you really have to care about clients. For me, as I hope these columns make clear, representing people during some of the worst times in their lives is a calling. If you want to be a lawyer because you recognize that the law is, when at its best, a service profession, you can do well at our firm. We’re smart folks and like thinking about the law. But if you want to solve puzzles and make a buck, we’re not the place for you.

That’s why God made investment banking.

And, hey, if we aren’t right for you, there are lots of other firms out there.

Matt Kaiser is a white-collar defense attorney at Kaiser, LeGrand & Dillon PLLC. He’s represented stockbrokers, tax preparers, doctors, drug dealers, and political appointees in federal investigations and indicted cases. Most of his clients come to the government’s attention because of some kind of misunderstanding. Matt writes the Federal Criminal Appeals Blog and has put together a webpage that’s meant to be the WebMD of federal criminal defense. His twitter handle is @mattkaiser. His email is mkaiser@kaiserlegrand.com He’d love to hear from you if you’re inclined to say something nice.

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