What I learned from New Jersey (and other holiday fairy tales)

After a too-long trip plane ride back to New York, all that was left at 9:30 p.m. last night was a quick trip from Newark to Brooklyn.  Only a few minutes into the ride, we were brought to a halt on a bridge in the aftermath of a 4 car accident.  Along with hundreds of other (I assume) weary holiday travelers, we sat, engine off, watching helplessly as police officers and firemen milled about the scene.  It was clear after a few minutes that there were a couple of people involved in the accident who were loaded onto ambulances–luckily nothing looked too serious.  Everyone sat in their cars.  No honking, no yelling, everyone sat patiently.

It’s as though everyone knew that the situation was outside their control.

At just over an hour in, the entire crowd reached a tipping point.  It became apparent that the people involved in the accident were long since taken care of, and none of the officers had since made any attempt to clear a lane for traffic, or to even acknowledge the now HUNDREDS of headlights lining up for miles.  No one on the scene moved with a spring in their step, it became incredibly frustrating.  The honking started.  Two gentlemen in a van in front of me started yelling for the police to “let us the *bleep* out of here.”

It was an interesting lesson, though, in how we manage the realities of what we can control, and what we can’t.  Sometimes, the situation we find ourselves in is just something we can to deal with.  I found myself thinking about the market and those lawyers who feel that the situation they find themselves in (less work, or more grave, out of a job).  There are obstacles that we have to accept, and losing patience doesn’t help that.  Getting mad and angry at everyone around isn’t any kind of solution.

But, just as my crowd of fellow bridge-sitters did, when it’s time to start thinking about solutions to the problem, the level of frustration in the face of inaction is overwhelming and incredibly frustrating.  As obstacles like those the market is facing continue longer than we were expecting to have to manage them, how do you keep your head on straight?  Are you the type to jump out of your car and yell at everyone you can get your hands on?  Do you lean on your horn?  Or do you watch for all of the signs of progress you can find, so you’re prepared with your engine on when the traffic starts to move?

Happy Holidays and Here’s to a Better 2009

It seems that everywhere I turn these days, I run into someone who has an impressive story of struggle, despair, stress and overall disgust for the year that is (and soon to be was) 2008.  Not only has the economy taken a drastic turn for the worse and caused a spike in unemployment (and fear in those still employed), but it seems as if 2008 was filled with an unusual amount of sad stories of loss and despair.  Even I have to admit that 2008 was not my favorite year.

But here is the good news: 2008 is almost over!  And with that comes a brand new year filled with brand new opportunities.  It’s time to put the past behind us and move forward with a new sense of energy and optimism.   January and February bring the busiest months for lateral hiring, so we expect to see more firms looking to bring on attorneys of all levels.  Moreover, with the new Obama administration coming in late January, there should be a sharp increase in regulatory work for law firms, including financial services, anti-trust, health care, environment and energy/biofuel regulation.  This will undoubtedly result in an increase demand for attorneys in these areas.

And even though the economy may not fully recover in 2009, we are already seeing a significant increase in bankruptcy filings (which is usually followed by an increase in other areas of litigation) that should continue throughout the year.  Demand for bankruptcy and litigation attorneys should rise as a result.

So, for all of you who can classify 2008 as a “crappy” year, let it go.  There are only a few more days before we can officially wipe our hands clean and move into what I hope will be a better year for all of us.  Here’s to 2009!

Bah Humbug

Bah humbug

There is no denying it.  The legal profession is in a recession and it is unclear when the cycle of layoffs will end.    If you are like many lawyers, you are not as busy as you would like to be.  If you are one of the unlucky ones, you may have already been laid off.

In trying to provide support to those of you who are feeling the stress of this down turn, I have posted a number of items on my blog (including here and here) and my BCG colleagues have posted on this blog (including here and here).  While none of us are trying to deny the reality of the situation, we have pointed out that there are things you can do to soften the psychological blow.

I have taken my own advice to heart.  After all, a slow down in hiring is not exactly ideal for those of us in the recruiting business.  So I go to the gym, I think of how much better off I am than many other people, I reach out to friends, and I spend time with my family.

But yesterday it hit me.  Little is going to change in the next two weeks.  Although I have candidates in process, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be hired before the New Year.  In short, I had a hard time getting going yesterday.

I thought about my own advice (going to the gym, calling friends, etc.) but then I realized that there was an important piece of advice that we have all left out.  Simply put, while it is important not to dwell on the negative and while it is equally important to take action in order to avoid sinking into a depressed state, it is also important to acknowledge the negative feelings.  They are there and they won’t simply go away because we repress them.

So I thought about my predicament and lay in bed about an hour longer than usual.  Then I headed off to the gym to get my day started.  And now I am looking forward to some of the things I plan to do over the holidays that don’t involve work.  I’m sure I will have my moments in the next two weeks.  But I will not try to exorcise my feelings without acknowledging that they exist.  Keeping it all bottled up will only have negative consequences in the future.

What’s In (and what’s out) at Law Firms and Beyond

This was a year for the record books. “Change” was the word of the day for over 300 days in a row. The past eleven and a half months were a lesson in the contrast between abysmal and exhilarating. The year is drawing to a close at last and as we bid adieu to 2008, we welcome the dawn of a new era in our collective history. It is a fitting time for an inventory of what is “out” and what is “in” as we begin 2009. I am crossing my fingers like everyone else that the next Baby New Year is a bundle of joy and a lot less colicky than 2008. I am tempted to take off my shoes and toss them at the back of the departing year’s head! But that would be so 2008 of me….. Here’s the list:

Is it New Year’s Eve yet? Best Wishes for the holidays and an abundant and enjoyable 2009.

Choosing The Small Versus The Large Firm

The recent Madoff ponzi scheme, the similar ponzi scheme of the Dreier law firm and the complete meltdown of Blagojevich, the Governor of Illinois, have all got me thinking.

All over our country there are countless people who are trying to be something they are not. They want more money because they feel this will somehow do something more for their lives.

What does this mean for your legal career?

In my years of recruiting I have seen so many attorneys through good careers away by only being concerned with the money. Most often the highest paying firms often offer attorneys the least chance for partnership. Time and time again, however, most attorneys go with the short term prospect of more money over the possibility of making partner and winding up in a stable law firm.

The way most attorneys think is very confusing to me. The instability that many expose themselves to is very confusing to me. I think that the most intelligent thing attorneys can do in the present day economy is to find a law firm where they are going to be secure.

Several years ago I was interviewing with a law firm in Los Angeles that paid below market rate. I liked the people in the firm and it seemed like a very nice place to work. The partner in the law firm who was the name partner told me while he was interviewing me that I would never make as much money in the law firm as at large law firms, but that I would always have a job. He told me about the stability of the firm and its partners and that this was a very smart place for me to be practicing law.

I chose not to work at this firm and instead chose recruiting. That was almost a decade ago.

Since that decade has passed the law firm I was working at when I interviewed with the small firm in Los Angeles has gained and lost so many partners I do not think I know anyone there anymore. Many of the partners from this firm are no longer practicing law. In addition, I have watched people that I know early in my career work at a succession of 7-8 jobs in different law firms during this same period of time.

This small firm that I interviewed is still there. With one exception, each of the seven partners who interviewed me when I interviewed with the firm are still there. The firm is still chugging along and the people who work there seem secure and happy. When I got married several years ago I even hired this firm to do my will and some other formalities. The people there are all happy.

The attorneys in this firm still make a bit less money. Who care, though? They are happy and have security and are not playing crazy games with their careers. I really respect this firm and its attorneys. Had I chosen to work in that firm instead of recruiting, I would respect myself for choosing that firm.

You need to be careful with your career and the choices you make.

Pay to Play in Politics; Pay to Stay in Law Firms

The pay-in for equity partners at DLA can be as much as $150,000, according to an article published in The National Law Journal today. Could it be the new trend for similarly positioned globalized law firms? Here’s a link to the article discussing the likelihood that non-equity status may be a thing of the past and “pay to stay” may be the wave of the future: http://http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202426727867

Why Wall Street Always Blows It

A cautionary tale for anyone who lives to see the next financial bubble:
Why financial bubbles form; why they will always form; why everyone is to blame for the housing bubble (real estate brokers who encouraged individuals to buy at high prices, mortgage brokers who sold adjustable rate mortgages that would eventually reset, Alan Greenspan who kept interest rates low for too long, home buyers who bought homes they could not afford, the regulators who were asleep at the switch and Wall Street types who sold securities which were backed by risky mortgages) and how all parties acted rationally.

Fewer New Partners = Senior Associate Logjam

As firms go through the annual pomp and circumstance of announcing a new class of partners for 2009, one trend is unmistakable — for most firms, the honor roll is getting shorter. Although the press releases and tombstone ads are just starting to trickle out, even a quick perusal of the most recent announcements reveals a fairly drastic reduction in new partner promotions.

How to Have a Happy Holiday in a Miserable Economy

I am dreading the holidays. I wish I could pull the covers over my head and not come out again until January 2nd. I haven’t always been like this. In a normal economy, I charge into the season and charge up my credit card just like everybody else. But now, in the midst of a grave economic crisis, how does one gaily spend and celebrate? (Spending and celebrating having become interchangeable and inextricable concepts in

Should You Work With Recruiters Who Offer You Bribes or Kickbacks to Take Jobs?

At BCG Attorney Search we do not bribe candidates to take jobs and we cannot possibly understand why anyone would possibly offer a kick back to a candidate for taking a job. We do not do this. Working with a recruiting firm that offers kickbacks is one of the most harmful possible things you could do for your career. Notwithstanding, we can understand both points of view in terms of why people would want to get kickbacks from recruiters and why recruiters would offer them.

You should understand that there are business and other implications of recruiting firms that do this and also, candidates that take these kickbacks. Finally, you should be aware of some of the ultimate penalties and benefits to your career that could come about from your taking kickbacks from recruiters.

We can understand why a candidate would want to use a recruiting firm that gives them $10,000.00 or whatever it is when they place them. That’s a lot of money anywhere. It would be a lot of money to me. When you get that $10,000.00 it’s almost like a justification for moving. It’s a bonus of sorts from the firm that is hiring you. It makes you feel important. It does all sorts of positive things. So I understand why people would want to work with a recruiting firm that does that.

Likewise, I understand why recruiting firms would want to offer it. It is a great way to drum up business; especially if you advertise it. You can advertise that you pay money to people when they are placed. That’s something that certainly will draw in lots and lots and lots of candidates. People are attracted to money - even if the prospect of taking this money means they are taking a huge risk with the course of their lives. For example, people become actresses in pornography movies and prostitutes - most often for money. They do not realize that this one simple decision to do either of these things could have devastating implications for them for the rest of their lives.

There are essentially two issues with taking kickbacks from recruiters if they place you. One of them is a business issue. The other one is an ethical issue–sort of a baggage that you are going to have to carry with you when you walk into a law firm and the partners and everybody there will know what you did. Also, the firms that are interviewing you may base part of what they know about you on the fact that you work with a recruiting firm that pays kickbacks.

The first thing is from a business standpoint. I really think you need to understand that running a solid, research-oriented recruiting firm, for example like BCG Attorney Search, takes an incredible amount of money. It’s more than a significant portion of the placement fee. It’s a heck of a lot of money.

We have costs of research. We have programmers. We have data bases monitoring firm openings. We have researchers monitoring firm openings. We have proofreaders going over letters from us making sure we are making a good impression on our clients. We are going to conferences. We’re holding meetings and conferences with each other to talk about the legal recruiting industry. We’re doing lots and lots of things. We’re entertaining law firms consistently and on an ongoing basis. We have managers that are managing the process and overseeing. We’re providing reviews. We’re screening recruiters.

It’s probably not millions, but thousands of things that are done to run a recruiting firm–a solid recruiting firm that endures. The issue is that running a recruiting firm that endures takes a lot more than a small amount of money. It takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of money to subscribe to all the legal publications and to make sure we are on top of the jobs that are advertised in there and on top of the news that is happening with law firms. That is a significant, significant thing when you are working with a recruiting firm; all that work that is done behind the scenes.

If you take a $40,000.00 placement fee, and out of that placement fee $10,000.00 goes to the candidate that doesn’t leave the recruiting firm with a lot of money to pay its recruiters. More importantly, it hardly leaves it any profit margin if it is operating itself effectively. If it’s a fly-by-night operation or an operation that is not emphasizing those things then it doesn’t matter. For the most part, 10% is 25% of $40,000.00. Very few businesses in this world have 25% profit margins; hardly any of them do. Maybe some software businesses do but very few that involve humans doing research and work have 25% profit margins.

So that is something for you to think about when you are using a recruiting firm that is paying you a kickback–the money to run the firm is coming from you. You are paying for the work that normally would be done by not having the work done because you are really sacrificing something. That is a very, very important thing. Every candidate wants to know what is in the market. There are small firms that pay huge salaries and there are big firms that pay huge salaries. But you need access to every single one of them and that’s extremely important. Being on top of that information is extremely important. Having quality control in a placement firm is extremely important. All of this stuff iswhat makes a solid recruiting firm. That’s why our firm has made thousands and thousands of placements. That’s why it endures as an institution is because the work that we do is very, very good.

The average placement fee that a recruiter charges is typically 25% of your annual salary. However, in some cases law firms that are not as selective with candidates will negotiate this fee downward. If the law firm negotiates enough and if a recruiting firm is offering you a $10,000 kickback, there may be nothing left at the end of the day (or hardly anything left) for the placement firm. This means, essentially, that the firm offering you a kickback will not be able to get you a job at the firm because there will not be enough money involved.

There is another point we’d like to bring to your attention. That is the fact that when you are taking these kickbacks from firms, think about the fact that the firm that is getting a resume from a placement firm that does that knows that if they hire you they are giving you a kickback in order to hire you. That raises serious, serious ethical concerns.

We are in the legal profession. The legal profession is very staid. It is changing certainly, and there are firms that aren’t staid like that. But for the most part it’s very staid. Because the legal profession is so staid, you have to understand that when a firm gets a resume from a recruiter that is giving a kickback to you, that makes a lot of them very, very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that they may not be willing to hire you or they might not be willing to interview you. That’s a major thing. I would say that more than half of the firms know that and are uncomfortable with it; almost all of them know it.

Think about the fact that when you are going to work in a new firm or trying to interview with a new firm, you may have a harder time getting an interview if you are working with a recruiter that doesn’t necessarily have resources to go out and spend time with the firm, or who is paying you a portion of the placement fee because the firm may not like the fact that you are getting that. So you may get fewer interviews; think about that.

On the BCG Attorney Search website we have hundreds if not thousands of law firms that we made placements at. That placement number iswhat it is for a reason. The placement number is as high as it is because we go out and do a lot of work; we develop relationships. When a firm is seeing our candidates, they are seeing someone that they know is coming to them because they have chosen their firm. They know that our firm has provided them research and done lots and lots of work. So, that is just another thing.

Just think about that when you’re in the firm, you’ve probably gotten a kickback. That’s something that is going to raise serious concerns. That may actually lose you the interview. Frankly, I don’t care how good the market is; even if the market is on fire, you are still not going to get a lot of interviews in places you should or could. If the market is poor, that is going to hurt you even more. Many of the best attorneys out there may want to work at one or two firms. If those one or two firms aren’t going to use you because they view what you are doing as an ethical problem, you have a serious concern..

Now, there is another issue that we need to bring up that is very important: When you take these kickbacks from the recruiters, you are putting yourself in a situation where you’ll go into a firm and they may think, “Well, this person will leave for a little bit of money, $10,000 or $15,000.00. This person will take this amount of money in order to leave.”

That’s a lot of money. Don’t think that isn’t, and don’t believe the firms don’t think it is. That raises serious concerns too. It raises concerns about your loyalty.. It raises concerns about your judgment. Those kinds of concerns are the ones that prevent you, in a lot of cases from making partner or may foreclose that altogether if firms have loyalty concerns. If you can be prodded away for $10,000.00, or whatever the amount is, that is a major, major concern..

So, in summary, we do not believe it is a good idea for anyone to take kickbacks from recruiters and especially recruiters that go out there and advertise the fact that they are doing it. You are short changing yourself. You are making a deal with the devil. You are probably going to get interviews with fewer firms than you possibly could because a lot of firms will think it is unethical and won’t interview you or hire you.

Also, you are going to go into the firm with the idea that you could be prodded away shortly with a short amount of money and it’s going to raise questions about your loyalty. You have a career that is potentially worth millions and millions over the course of your career. Maybe even tens of millions of dollars if you do it right; probably tens of millions of dollars and that is a serious concern. All these things raise major concerns about using a recruiter that takes and gives kickbacks. You probably won’t even know there are jobs out there because they won’t have resources to do it.

We urge you. Use your head and think about these things. It’s not in your best interest and not being in your best interest, why would you risk your career and aspects of your career that are potentially worth tens of millions of dollars for a little short blip on the radar of 10 or 5 or whatever thousands it is? Don’t make that mistake. You could end up penalizing your career forever.