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....
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....
Depositions by Filevine help with scheduling, tracking goals, and trial prep.
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 […]
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 [email protected].
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"....
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....
Legal and operational leaders are gathering May 6–7 in Fort Lauderdale to confront the questions the industry hasn't answered—with a keynote from Amanda Knox setting the tone.
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....
Okay, you've made a mistake. Everyone does. What's the best way of handling the situation?
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.
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 […]
Most law firms, big and small, that have adopted AI are making the same mistake: they bought a tool for their lawyers and called it a strategy.
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 […]
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 […]
Have you ever messed something up for a client? Ever make a mistake that was yours and yours alone, that caused your client a problem and you and your firm some embarrassment? If you haven’t, then you haven’t been practicing very long. Because you can’t practice for a long time without making some mistakes. It’s […]
There is a neighborhood in Chicago that smells like chocolate. The reason is due to Blommer Chocolate Company’s Chicago factory. I have never been inside, but according to a documentary I once saw regarding chocolate factories, inside there is a chocolate river, Oompa Loompas, and an eccentric chocolatier. Much to my surprise, there was an […]
I have become obsessed with LinkedIn lately (and not just because of their recent IPO). I am trying to become one of those people with the 500+ connections. So I troll the website for potential contacts on an hourly basis. Yesterday, I found a few guys with whom I had gone to law school. These […]