In-House Counsel

Book Smarts Versus Street Smarts? Don’t Forget To Hire Both

GPA and law school pedigree will still weigh heavily on hiring decisions, but street smarts are quickly becoming a leading factor.

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Each year as spring slowly begins to turn to summer, I find myself eagerly awaiting a lessor known third season, that of hiring season.

Between the combination of newly minted JDs mere months away from flooding the market and seasoned attorneys experiencing a spring awakening testing the waters of a new employer, I always seem to find myself awash with résumés this time of year.

While admittedly résumés from Tier 1 schools and those with the best GPA still catch my eye first, over time, I have begun to place an ever growing value on a trait not normally captured on a résumé, that of street smarts.

What is street smarts in the legal world you might ask? After all, individuals capable of graduating from law school and passing the bar should be evidence enough of some semblance of street smarts, right?

Not always.

I will never forget the the first few months on the job of a very well-credentialed new hire of mine we’ll call Joe. Joe’s parents either never taught him what an “indoor voice” was or Stentor was his favorite character in Illiad, because, wow, could his voice carry.

Once we went to a lunch where I had to physically kick him under the table as he loudly discussed one of our latest cases after failing to notice one of our opposing counsels sitting nary three tables away. Even though his suggested approach to the case was brilliant, his lack of street smarts almost proved costly.

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Another one of our well-pedigreed new hires took it upon herself to email our hospital network’s CEO within the first week of her job with a detailed memo of all the ways in which she believed our hospitals were not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It turns out she had spent the first week of her job keeping a detailed log of our perceived ADA shortcomings and thought our CEO needed to be aware straight away. Never mind that she worked in our contracts department and these sort of matters were normally handled by our compliance department with support from our CEO on a strictly as needed basis.

Again, her research and insights were spot on, and actually helped inform some of our future remodeling efforts, but they probably could have been delivered in a manner that did not make our CEO think our hospital was a ticking time bomb for the next high-profile ADA complaint.

So what is street smarts in the legal world?

Unfortunately, it’s a bit ineffable, but to poorly quote Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”

Each of these attorneys has gone on to have successful legal careers in their own right, but just not in the positions I initially hired them for. Joe has gone on to do quite well as a personal injury attorney, while our ADA eagle eye now happily works on our compliance team where she has done remarkable work.

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Yes, GPA and law school pedigree will still weigh heavily on my decision to interview and hire, but street smarts are quickly becoming a leading factor for me as well.

If anyone has advice on how to capture the street smarts intangible on a résumé, I am all ears. Until then, I will have to continue to let Justice Stewart be my guide.

Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at [email protected].

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