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March 2005
By William Seaton Legal recruiters, aka headhunters, have been a part of the legal landscape since the early 1970s. Alternately praised, vilified, ridiculed and sought after, they are the shadow player in the career game. They can be annoying when you don't need them but your best friend when your career path needs a machete chop through the jungle. First things first: recruiters are the product of law firms and the competitive fires that smoldered in the seventies and burst into a bonfire in the eighties. Without the growth drive of the major firms and the concomitant shedding of the profession's white gloves, recruiters would just be a minor asterisk in the story of how lawyers build their careers. In other words, recruiters didn't create the movement; the movement created recruiters. Second, recruiters are a non-event for most lawyers. Controlled by the big firms that pay their substantial fees, they are all looking for the same big game, meaning mostly lawyers from one big firm to fill a slot at another. That means top academic credentials and name-brand employment. All others need not apply. Delimited by those criteria, one to five percent of the population will get a return call from a headhunter, if they haven't gotten a cold-call first. Some recruiters like to think of themselves as agents, either to flatter themselves or their quarry. Truth be told, they are more like commodities brokers than Leigh Steinberg. Major law firms, in and of themselves, shed associates at a frightening rate and the recruiters' job is to divert the turnover to the next way station. Recruiters sometimes actually meet their placements but more often it's just a paper transaction. So for the few of you who are "recruitable," a few tips. There's a saying in technology that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. The same applies to engaging a recruiter. If you know the firm or firms you want to apply to, go ahead. Why saddle your hire with an additional fee? You gain no extra points with your "agent." Firms that use recruiters only hire lawyers that are recruitable in the first place. Use more than one recruiter but don't use half a dozen. They'll try to talk you into an exclusive engagement. That's because you represent the fee, so they don't want you dating anyone else. They'll claim it means better service but with the size of the fee at stake, they have plenty of incentive. That said, don't work with every recruiter who calls. It's dizzying and risks the conflict of multiple referrals to the same employer. Finally, if you are going to use a recruiter, pick carefully. For heaven's sake, meet with them first. If they won't meet with you, hang up the phone. If this person is going to represent you, vouchsafe for your credentials and pick up a tidy sum in the end, you need to sit down with them, look them in the eye and get, if not a sense of professionalism, at least some simpatico. After all, it's your career.
Microsoft Consolidates Outside Counsel
Denver Market Heats Up
Federal Government Continues to Grow as Employer
This month's column deviates from our usual question and answer format because it addresses a question that you the readers haven't sent me, but which regularly comes up when lawyers seek to transition to a new job. The issue is this: What do you do when your friends, family, spouse, or significant other aren't as supportive as you would like when it comes to your desire to make a career change? The first thing to realize is that this phenomenon is surprisingly common. Based on my work with clients, there are three recurring reasons why the people in your life might be less supportive than you would like of your desires to make a career change. First, they may not understand what you do, or what is involved in being a lawyer. Significant others, spouses, family, and friends often take pride in the fact that we are lawyers, and sometimes don't perceive why lawyers would be dissatisfied. For example, they may wonder why or how someone who makes as much money as some lawyers do could be unhappy with their job. Their views of what it means to be a lawyer are often shaped by television or other cultural depictions, but they haven't experienced the less glamorous aspects of lawyering. I do come from a family of lawyers, and even I had difficulties conveying to my mother, who has practiced law for more than forty years, what it was like to spend three months working on a 7 million page document production. Second, there may be differences in values between the attorney seeking to make a change and the people who usually comprise their support system. For example, I had a client who was the first in their family to graduate from college. She had worked for the same law firm for five years. Her parents couldn't understand why anyone would be so unhappy about such a job; they had different expectations about jobs than she did, and largely saw a job as something you had to do to make money. Not surprisingly, they had a tough time understanding or supporting my client's interest in finding a position that focused on a different substantive area of law. Third, and most commonly, potential career changers and the people around them might evaluate risks differently. For example, when I left an in-house position to start my own career counseling firm, other lawyers with whom I worked said that they couldn't afford to take such a risk. I felt their reaction was ironic, given that the company for which we were working had previously had a mass, spur-of-the-moment layoff. I saw starting my own company as a way to take more control over my life. And they emphasized, not without good reason, that walking away from a biweekly paycheck involved a significant amount of financial risk. There is no universal answer to the question of how much risk you should take, or how others will perceive the risks you are taking. But be aware that, as you make career transitions, people's assessment of risk might affect their reaction to your plans. So what to do if the people around you aren't as supportive as you would like them to be? A two-pronged approach seems to be most effective. First, understand that this reaction happens fairly frequently, and is often temporary. Most of the time, the people who are expressing reservations about your plans are well meaning; they have your best interests at heart. And they often become more understanding after you have completed your career transition. At that point, they see that you are happier; are not sleeping under bridges, and have otherwise landed on your feet. Of course, this might mean that they are least supportive when you need them the most—during the process of going through the transition. So what do you do before and during a career transition? Find people who share your vision. This may require you to change the pattern of your interactions with others. When I started Successful Career Strategies, I spent more time with entrepreneurs and others who owned or managed businesses. Not only did they have information that was useful to me, they also seemed to understand what I was going through better than friends and family members who were employees. This is not to say that that the process of making a career transitions necessarily creates tension with family and friends. Nor am I discounting the potential for family and friends to be supportive of you career transition. If you are fortunate to be surrounded by people who support and understand your desire to make a career change, this isn't an invitation to become paranoid, or a suggestion that you isolate yourself in monk-like seclusion. But if you do encounter reactions that are less than helpful, consider exploring with those around you the three most common causes of tension that were identified above. Above all, recognize that, while you might be disappointed and frustrated by the reactions of those around you, their reactions need not be an absolute barrier to making the career changes you want to make. Career Counselor's Corner questions are answered by Gideon Grunfeld, President of Successful Career Strategies, Inc. (www.scslawcareers.com), which specializes in helping lawyers take control of their careers in and outside the practice of law. You can submit questions to Mr. Grunfeld at gideon@scslawcareers.com
This month's Don't Do This probably seems obvious to most of you. Yet many job seekers come to interviews at law firms and other legal employers with their cell phones, beepers and other electronic accessories turned on. So, to state what should be the obvious: turn off your electronic devices. It's usually an honest mistake. After all, there is no one reminding you of these things like there is on airplanes and in movie theaters. Still, although most people are wired these days, there are those on the other side of the table who will find it insulting to be interrupted by rings and beeps.
Dressing the Part While some things about lawyer life have been simplified in recent years, one thing that continues to perplex most lawyers is something that should be simple - what to wear to work. In the old days, way back in the early 90s, it was pretty simple. You graduated from law school, you went to Brooks Brothers, bought a few suits, wore them to the office and looked pretty much like everyone else. (Or, if you were a summer associate, every day you wore your high school graduation suit that still almost fits, thinking the different colored shirts would keep people from noticing.) Then things got complicated. First there were Casual Fridays. Then the business casual dress code came along. Funny, even though we billed these new developments as "casual," they were anything but. Instead of mindlessly going to the closet each morning and picking out something that looked almost exactly what you wore the day before, lawyers were required to think about what was appropriate or inappropriate to wear to the office. This caused much stress - even more so as the dress code became a sliding scale as certain individuals at law firms pushed the envelope of what fit within the definition of business casual. Business casual came along during the days when even the deli down the street was putting "dot com" after its name. The thought was that if you wanted to be up with the latest developments, you also had to leave the suits at home - so as to not turn off the twenty-something CEOs of your firm's clients. Suits, after all, were for the old stale firms still representing old stale clients. Business casual was a way to show that you were with it - that you "got it." More recently, there's been a swing back the other way toward more traditional garb around the firm. Hopefully, you haven't thrown away that high school graduation suit just yet. Whatever the current trend may be, remember that you're a professional and, even though some will claim not to care, dressing the part does make a difference. Like it or not, some clients and potential clients will see how you dress as a sign of what kind of lawyer you are. They might also see it as a sign as to how serious you are about your job. If this doesn't ring true to you, let's think about an extreme example. Imagine a situation where you showed up at a client meeting dressed in what you wear around the house on a Sunday morning. That would make a statement. So does showing up for before clients dressed like you are serious about your business. Some lawyers won't like hearing this about law firm fashion. After all, one of the reasons lawyers open their own firms is so that they can set their own rules. One of the rules they might not have liked at their previous law firms is being told how to dress. They yearn for the freedom to be able to wear jeans and tennis shoes to the office and not suffer the consequences. That's fine - on days when you know no clients will be coming to the office. On days when you plan to meet with clients, you should be dressed for the occasion. When clients show up and you don't expect them, keep a more formal change of clothes in your office. Even if you think the above advice is wrong, you must admit that it won't always be wrong. In other words, different clients will react differently to different situations. The risk that comes from wearing a suit, however, is much less than it is from dressing like you just got in from a jog. In other words, you want to make a good first impression and the likelihood of a suit hurting that first impression is far less than are the jeans and tennis shoes. Brooks Brothers is open until 6:00 pm.
What is the leading civilian occupation of inmates in American prisons before they are incarcerated?
(a) Lawyer (answer at end of newsletter)
In 1969, 61 percent of the New York State Legislature was made up of lawyers. Today it is 34 percent. In the California Legislature, the percentage of attorneys has fallen from 48 to 22 percent during that same period of time. Nationwide, 22 percent of all state legislators were lawyers in 1976. Today, it is less than fifteen percent.
www.LLRX.com Trivia answer: -- (c) Cook.
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