Consider both the specific legal market and the cost of living when making a geographic move

Many of you probably read the title of this post, rolled your eyes into the back of your head and thought “wow, this woman is a real genius.  Who woulda thought cost of living mattered?”

Yes, I get it.  Everything thinks about cost of living when they contemplate a geographic move, but apparently not everyone believes that it will apply to them or thinks that each specific legal market differs in terms of compensation.  For example, I recently worked with a delightful corporate associate who wanted to move from the East Coast to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He had about two years of solid, sophisticated corporate experience from a firm that paid him a base salary of $170K a year.  When we began the search for a new job in Milwaukee, I explained to him that firms pay much less there than they do in Washington, D.C., partly because of the difference in cost of living, but also because the market simply supports lower salaries.   I even went so far as to say that the major firms in the area start their first year associates at $110K to $115K.  My candidate responded to this by saying that he understood this and was prepared for a significant decrease in compensation.  However, when an offered rolled in at $119K, this candidate was less than impressed.

Let’s just say that I was confused, to say the least.  After all, I had warned him of the market and the cost of living change, and he claimed to be prepared.  When I asked him for an explanation, he said that he had gone to a website that calculates the difference in cost of living between specific cities, and according to that calculator, my candidate’s $170K salary on the East Coast should translate to $125K or more in Milwaukee.

Now, I am a big proponent of due diligence, and I have no problem with the various cost of living calculators out there on the internet (although none of the websites that I have visited provide even remotely similar calculations to one another), but a generic cost of living calculator is not going to take into account the specific legal market and what types of salaries it supports.

My candidate was right– according to a number of cost of living calculators in the internet, someone making $170K in Washington, D.C. should make around $125K in Milwaukee.  But for the most part, Milwaukee law firms do not care what the equivalent salaries are in various cities.  They care about their competition in the market and what the other firms are paying their attorneys.  For whatever reason, the large firms in Milwaukee generally pay a little less than their equivalents in Washington, D.C., and it is a candidate’s job to understand this before undertaking a job search.

Frustrating as it might be, a law firm is not going to pay an associate more than it pays everyone else because s/he is coming from a market that pays more, even after adjusting for cost of living, so if you want to move to a city in which this is the case, you must be prepared.  If not, you are bound to be disappointed at whatever offer(s) you receive.

I bet that most of you reading this think you know how things turned out for my candidate in Washington, D.C.  Sadly, most of you are wrong.  Even after I explained the differences in the legal markets, my candidate still felt under-compensated at $119K, and he ultimately turned down the offer, admitting that Milwaukee might not be the best place for him after all.   And you know what?  I think he is right.

Make no mistake, I do not fault this candidate for turning the offer down based on a salary that was $6K less than he thought he deserved, and it is not my place to judge him for doing so.  In fact, I give him a lot of credit for recognizing that he would be unhappy at a lower salary, even if everything else about the job and firm was perfect for him.  Having said that, I can guarantee that I am not going to allow this to happen in the future, even if it requires me to drill into my candidates’ heads that cost of living is not the only thing to consider when moving geographic locations.  Each market is different and pays its associates what the market will support, and every candidate that contemplates a move needs to know this from the start.

Listen up Ladies: Evaluating and Rethinking What’s Important to You

I recently read an article on Forbes about the tendency for professional women of my generation to burn out of their careers by age 30. Seeing as how attorneys spend three years getting their JD and typically don’t receive that degree any earlier than age 25, that only leaves five years of practice before burning out! I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a very good return on investment to me. As a recruiter, the most common reason candidates contact me is because they don’t like their current job and they want to find a job that they will like, which makes perfect sense to me. Everyone should like their job, given how much of their time and identity it consumes. But, for women especially, career goals and aspirations can change with time as your life at 35 is likely different than it was at 25.

As you consider whether you need to look elsewhere for career satisfaction, make sure you take both an objective and subjective approach to evaluating new opportunities. Though this advice can be helpful for both men and women, the aforementioned article got me thinking about how a woman in her early to mid-years of law practice should think about her career.

1. What do you enjoy the most about your practice? What do you enjoy the least? Is there a way to maximize what you like and minimize what you dislike by joining a more widely or narrowly defined practice group?
2. Do you prefer working for several different people or having one main point of contact? If it’s only one point of contact, is there a particular gender or work style you respond best to?
3. At this point, is compensation or lifestyle more important? What do you think your answer will be in five years? Try to create a hypothetical sliding scale of how many hours you’d be willing to sacrifice per week/month for a corresponding amount of money.
4. Does your current employer have women in power/leadership positions? Have these women been able to work flexible schedules or taken time off after having children? If so, are these women able to serve as mentors to you?

Of course, these are just a few questions to get you started as you consider whether you should change jobs before you reach that burn-out level. Regardless, it’s important to be proactive in your assessment of your current career and where you would like to it go in the future, so start taking stock now!

The original article I referenced can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2011/11/11/why-millennial-women-are-burning-out-at-work-by-30/

What do you have to offer your future employer?

Here’s some practical advice for senior associates, of all practice areas, looking to make a lateral move: start thinking about your business development prospects and what you can do to market yourself to potential clients once you make your lateral transition.  While this advice is of particular importance when considering lateraling from a large national or international law firm to a smaller national or regional law firm (as these firms almost uniformly ask about a candidates business development plans prior to or during the interview process), it also holds true for senior associates looking to transition to larger firms as well.

Consider putting together an informal business development and marketing plan that explains to law firms what you have done in the past to network and establish your presence in the market, as well as what you plan to do in the future. For example, be prepared to discuss your prior and future publishing activities, including articles, client alerts, blog postings, and white papers. You will also want to discuss any conferences you have attended and/or presented at, as well as online networking activities (again, blogging comes to mind).  You should also consider prospective client contacts, both among existing firm clients, law school classmates, personal contacts and other possible sources of referral business.

You should offer to provide this information to potential employers even prior to being asked for such information. Presenting this information to prospective employers in a thoughtful and concise written format will often make the difference between receiving and not receiving an offer. Although law firms don’t necessarily expect senior associates to come in with a book of business, they do want the assurance, particularly at smaller or more regional law firms, that prospective hires are business-minded and are thinking about their potential long-term contributions to the firm.

Taking Charge of Your Mentoring Experience

Mentoring relationships are as old as the legal profession itself. In the earliest days of legal practice, mentoring and apprenticeship were the only way lawyers could learn their craft. Although legal training is more formalized today, mentoring remains a key component of attorney professional development. This is because mentoring was, and continues to be, one of the most effective ways to pass on skills, knowledge, and cultivate critical professional relationships.

Attorneys at all levels can reap benefits from the guidance and instruction of a good mentor.  In addition to providing necessary instruction and development of legal skills, a mentor can help associates navigate the often tricky internal politics of a law firm, become a much needed ally and advocate, and help expand the associate’s professional network both inside and outside the firm.  Associates over the years have reported mixed experiences with law firms’ efforts to provide formal, structured mentoring programs. For some, the mentoring relationship is a vital piece in the associate’s development. In these instances, the mentor’s guidance and shared expertise becomes an important part of the associate’s skill and relationship building and fosters a sense of loyalty to both the mentor and the firm. For others, the relationship feels like a perfunctory, “box checked” experience offered by the firm to satisfy internal and external demands and perceptions, but ends up being a program which has little if any meaning or effectiveness.

It has been my experience that structured mentoring programs often struggle (or fail) because associates are matched with partners either randomly or based on practice area. There is usually little effort to ensure compatibility in terms of a shared background or common interests.  As many partners and associates will attest, a meaningful connection is really at the heart of the most effective mentor-mentee relationships. And although it may seem counterintuitive, it is not necessary for a mentor to share the same practice area as the mentee.  In fact, this arrangement is sometimes preferable to both parties because the associate has the option of being more open and honest about matters pertaining to skill development, firm structure and politics, and the associate’s true career aspirations.

Mentoring relationships can also falter if associates sit back passively and wait for the partner to take the lead. As with most things in life, if you want a successful mentoring relationship, you have to take control of the situation and assume responsibility for keeping it going. Much of what you get out of your mentoring experience depends on your willingness to be proactive and to ask for what you need. This begins with finding the right mentor. If your assigned mentor is clearly not a good fit, ask to be reassigned to someone with whom you think you might be more compatible. If that is not possible, an informal (i.e. unassigned) relationship with a superior in the firm with whom you feel a connection or would like to get to know better can serve the same purpose.

Once the relationship has been established, assume that it is up to you to keep the relationship moving forward. You may wish to create a list of objectives to be clear about what you would like to achieve from your interactions with your mentor. Clearly outlined objectives can provide structure to your meetings and serve as a useful guide with which to measure your progress. You may wish to consider the following when creating your goals:

• What exactly do I want from this relationship? Skill building? Networking opportunities? Career guidance?
• What specific opportunities can this particular relationship provide me?
• What do I hope will be different for me as a result of this experience?
• How will I measure success as the relationship progresses?

Keep in mind as you move forward in the mentoring relationship that the focus of your meetings should be on the successful achievement of your goals.  It is important that you continue to play an active role in the relationship by assuming responsibility, staying organized, and keeping the momentum going. It is also critical that you demonstrate respect for your mentor’s time.  Keep the following pointers in mind when meeting with your mentor:

• Take responsibility for initiating meetings.
• Know in advance what you wish to discuss at each meeting. Prepare an agenda, either mentally or literally.
• Balance your comments with positive experiences and challenges you are experiencing. Come to meetings ready to share experiences that moved you closer to achieving your goals as well as experiences that set you back.
• Solicit feedback from your mentor on what he or she is observing in you.
• With your mentor’s guidance, assess your progress, identify setbacks, and determine next steps.

Remember that in addition to a meaningful connection, the success of any mentoring program depends on the mentees’ willingness to be actively involved in their own success. If the relationship is not helping you to meet your objectives, it is important to speak up so the appropriate adjustments can be made.

If the opportunity is right, it is worth the wait.

At least once a week, I feel like I end up lecturing my candidates on being patient with respect to the firms with which they have interviewed.  Having  been a candidate myself, and therefore at the mercy of the law firms, I completely understand how painful the process can be, but I am surprised at the number of candidates that sour on a firm based on the time it takes for it to respond with an offer or rejection.  For example, I am working with a strong corporate candidate with a stellar background in M&A and securities.  Originally from Chicago, she moved to Colorado about four years ago for family reasons, and she has been working with a top firm in Denver since then.  She is now looking to return to Chicago, and based on her credentials, we had no problem getting her an interview with one of the best firms in town.  In fact, the firm was impressed enough with the candidate’s resume that it skipped the initial round of interviews and went straight to flying my candidate into town to meet the entire practice group.

The interview went well from the perspective of my candidate, and she returned to Colorado hopeful that she would receive an offer from the firm.  And that is when the painful portion of the process began.

A week passed.  She emailed me for updates.  I followed up with the firm and received some initial feedback that was very positive.  However, because the attorneys in the group were so busy (hence the need to bring on another associate), they had not yet been able to interview the other two candidates they wanted to meet before making a final decision.  I relayed this information to my candidate and promised to follow up the following week.

The following week came and went, and as promised, I followed up with the firm.  Nothing to report.  Same thing for the next week.  Finally, about three and a half weeks after the interview, the recruiter called me to apologize for taking so long to get back to me, and then informed me that the group still had no decision on my candidate’s interview.  I immediately informed my candidate that she would need to sit tight for another week or more, but by now she sounded a bit annoyed and said something like “when a firm delays likes this, it usually means they are not interested.”

Um, not true.  Not true at all.  I cannot tell you how many firms I work with that have taken weeks—make that months, to get back to me post-interview, and many of them have extended offers to the candidate.  The passage of time, especially when dealing with a large, busy law firm, means nothing other than the group has not yet made a decision regarding the candidate’s interview.

In the mind of the candidate (stereotypically speaking, of course), it should not be that hard for a firm to get its people together to decide whether to hire someone with whom it has interviewed.  Thanks to email, the group doesn’t even have to meet face to face—just circulate a couple of messages about who likes who, and then make a decision based on the majority vote.  Shouldn’t take more than a day, right?

Wrong.  The reality is that no matter how much a firm likes a candidate, client work comes before recruiting.  That means that if a client matter arises unexpectedly, recruiting decisions are placed on the back burner, and a candidate can be left waiting for weeks for an answer.  Likewise, if hiring decisions need to be approved by the Hiring Partner for the firm (or worse, a committee of attorneys in charge of hiring), additional delays may result if one or more of these attorneys is not available to provide approval.

This is precisely what happened to my corporate candidate in Colorado.  The firm gave some initial feedback that was positive, but before they could interview the other two candidates they planned to interview, the head of the group was pulled away on a serious client-related matter.  My candidate was left to wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Waiting is the worst.  I think we can all agree on that.  But just because a firm leaves a candidate waiting for weeks (or even months), that candidate does not get to jump to conclusions that the firm is not interested.  In the case of my Colorado candidate, not only did she start to assume there was no interest on the part of the firm, but she started to get angry with the delay and called the firm “rude” and “inconsiderate.”  I did what I could to counter this, but my candidate became more and more convinced that the firm was stringing her along, and with each passing day, no matter how hard I tried, her bitterness grew.

Then, as luck would have it, the offer came.

And instead of just being excited to have the offer, this candidate had to work through her bitterness in order to get back to where she had been shortly after the interview.  At one point, she almost turned down the offer because she felt as if the firm did not want her “enough.”  Eventually, after much discussion, she realized what I knew all along:  firms are large institutions that often move at a snail’s pace, but this does not mean that the firm is not enthusiastic about a specific candidate.  It simply means that we need to learn to be a little more patient.  After all, if the opportunity is a good, long-term fit, it is worth the wait.

FEMALE PARTNER GIVES GREAT ADVICE TO WOMEN WORKING IN FIRMS

As a former practicing female attorney who now counsels my women attorney candidates on gender issues they are experiencing within their own firms, I particularly loved this article below.  Adrienne Randall Bond discusses how she has thrived as a female partner practicing in the Houston area.  Ms. Bond ultimately transitioned away from BigLaw to find her way, but she has good advice for female attorneys in all firms, big or small.

http://www.law.com/jsp/tx/PubArticleTX.jsp?id=1202520675454&slreturn=1

Tis the Season for Lawyers with a Computer Science or Electrical Engineering Background

As most IP lawyers know, market needs are constantly shifting depending on the kinds of technical expertise required by client matters. For months, there might be an overabundance of patent litigation and prosecution positions listed for candidates with a mechanical engineering or a biology background, while at other times it seems all law firms want are lawyers with chemistry backgrounds.

For the last couple of months, law firms on both coasts have unquestionably been focused on IP litigation and prosecution candidates with undergraduate and/or advanced degrees in electrical engineering or computer science. This trend has been consistent throughout our markets, including New York, Boston, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles and – while it has been a notable trend for the last couple of months – it will likely end soon, as firms shift their focus to candidates with other technical backgrounds.

For those of you with a technical background in computer science or electrical engineering: this is the season for you to seize new opportunities.  Even if you are not certain whether you ultimately want to make a move, now is the time to explore options, since the market is currently heavily favoring candidates with your background.

If you are a patent litigator or prosecutor – and you are at all contemplating a move within the next several months to one year – pick up the phone and contact a recruiter who can help you explore options and capitalize on the market while it is working in your favor. Lastly, keep in mind that the job search and hiring process can take a while. It’s best to start early so that you create every possible advantage and opportunity for yourself.