Can Experience as a Patent Prosecutor Benefit a New Attorney?

Before entering law school next fall, I will have a year of high-tech patent prosecution experience as a patent engineer.  How much will this experience benefit me when seeking an IP/Patent associate position with the big firms?  Can it make up for not being at the top of my law school class or not being from a top 25 law school?

Your experience as a high-tech patent prosecutor will certainly strengthen your application and should compensate for the fact that you have not graduated from a top 25 law school or at the top of your law school class.  Patent prosecution attorneys are typically in high demand, and the pool of attorneys with the appropriate technical background is small.  Your background will likely make you eligible to sit for and increase your chances of successfully completing the Patent Bar.

Attorneys with scientific undergraduate or graduate degrees are highly in demand in the Intellectual Property arena.  Moreover, attorneys with technical expertise in certain scientific fields are far more likely to obtain employment as a patent attorney than those without such expertise.  As a result, the pool of potential candidates for patent positions is particularly small.  To top that off, your technical experience as a patent engineer will provide you with the technical know-how to understand the technical intricacies of patent prosecution, infringement and negotiating and drafting tech-related licensing agreements and briefs.  This puts you at an advantage over many of your law school classmates.

While there are certainly differences that could be pointed out, for the most part the expertise of patent attorneys falls into the following categories: (1) the life sciences, (2) chemistry & pharmaceutical, (3) material science, (4) electrical engineering, (5) physics, (6) mechanical engineering, (7) medical devices, (8) computer science.  In terms of demand, the greatest demand is for attorneys with backgrounds in electrical engineering or computer science. There is also a strong demand for attorneys with biotechnology, biochemistry or organic chemistry backgrounds.  The lesser demand is for those with mechanical or chemical backgrounds.

The fact that you appear to have both a technical degree and a patent prosecution background, when coupled with a law degree, makes you a unique and highly desirable candidate for law firms.  While there are certainly many people who graduate each year with technical and science degrees, very few of these people may have any interest in attending law school because there is usually a good market available for these individuals, even without a law degree.  Therefore, you will be a fairly unusual commodity with a law degree.  Additionally, the demand for patent attorneys is compounded by the fact that the need for patents has continually increased dramatically.  For example, a recent article in the Legal Times stated that the number of patents issued each year has increased 30-40% since 1990.  During the same period of time, the number of software patents increased by approximately 200%.

It is important to mention, one of the reasons your background is valuable is that it makes you eligible to sit for the Patent Bar.  In order to even sit for the Patent Bar, an applicant needs prior scientific or technical level training at the Bachelor’s degree level in a science or engineering field (or significant college credits in one of these fields).  Assuming you have the requisite training to qualify to take the Patent Bar, you must also pass it, and the pass rate for the patent bar exam is much lower than for most bar exams – it typically ranges from 28% to 40%. In the 1996 exam, for example, 968 people passed, and 1794 failed.  Your engineering background and prior patent prosecution background will certainly help your chances of completing the exam successfully.  Once you pass the Patent Bar, you will have all the elements in place to have a successful law firm career.

I did notice that your question assumes that you will not be at the top of your class in law school, even though you haven’t started.  Although you will likely be a marketable attorney, graduating at or near the top of your class will dramatically improve your opportunities with top-tier firms.  I strongly encourage you to focus on your performance in law school.  Although you may still be quite successful without stellar grades, graduating at the bottom of your class may be a significant hurdle for your success, especially with respect to opportunities early on.

In conclusion, it seems as though you have all the pieces you need to begin law school and do well throughout your career.  I recommend that you focus on your grades, and pay careful attention to the firms that have an Intellectual Property practice, especially those that offer summer associate internships.  One of the best ways to make inroads with a firm is to take a summer associate position, so that you will be in the pool of law students from which they choose full-time associates.  We wish you the best of luck!

My Advice to Recruiters About Resumes and Cover Letters

General Resumes and Cover Letters

The resume and cover letter are among the most effective of the tools an attorney can market themselves with. Our goal at Legal Authority is to ensure that the resume and cover letter are as effective as possible. In order to make our resumes and cover letters as good as they should be, we must be as consistent as possible in the methodology with which they are created.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that the resume and cover letter are uniquely personal to the individual. In each interaction with a candidate, we should look for three strengths the candidate has and seek to bring these out in the cover letter (if possible). Everyone has selling points, and our most challenging job is to find these. I will speak more about this in future correspondence.

The most important components of the procedure are (1) KEEPING IT SIMPLE; and (2) REMEMBERING THE “GOLDEN RULE”— GRAMMAR, SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION MUST BE PERFECT.

The only way we can be effective with the resumes and cover letters is to keep them simple. By looking for three strengths in each candidate, we can ensure that they are doing their best to sell themselves. We need to remember that the most important service we can provide is to ensure that our candidates use perfect punctuation, grammar, and language in their resume. We can (1) bring out their strengths, but (2) cannot do much to modify the pasts of our candidates. Accordingly, it is important to ensure that our candidates make a flawless resume

RESUME GUIDELINES

1. IF IT IS NOT BROKE-DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FIX IT.

Some resumes are simply fine as they are. They do not always need to be fixed. Trying to fix resumes which do not need work simply slows down production and the candidate’s job search.

2. IF IT IS NOT BROKE-PRAISE IT.

Many people go through life without hearing much praise. This is especially true in the legal profession where the very nature of the work invites constant criticism from professors, employers and clients. If the resume is good—tell the candidate it is. Tell the candidate the advantages of having a good resume and how this will ensure they get their materials faster. People will like you.

3. IF IT NEEDS WORK, SIMPLIFY IT BY FINDING THREE STRENGTHS WITH THE RESUME AND URGING THE CANDIDATE USE THESE AS “SELLING POINTS”.

Because a resume is a summary of someone’s life accomplishments, people can become overly verbose and descriptive with their resumes. In the legal profession, in general, employers want to know:

A. Where you have worked;

B. What your academic qualifications are; and

C. What makes you unique:

i. Why the person is unique (Reason 1)

ii. Why the person is unique (Reason 2)

iii. Why the person is unique (Reason 3)

This list could be expanded upon; however, that is essentially all employers care about. People cannot do much to change either “A” or “B”. The only thing they really have control over when you speak with them is Reason “C”. Long and overly obtuse descriptions in Reasons “A” and “B” are not necessary unless they are furthering one of the three selling points in reason “C”.

4. STANDARD FORMAT FOR MOST RESUMES.

A. Contact Information-name, address, telephone, email.

B. Education (if the person has been out less than five years-if not, invert “B” and “C”)-law school, followed by college. If special honors were received in school, the resume should note this.

C. Experience-the most recent job first, followed by other positions. Only legal positions should be listed if person has been out of law school at least five years. Describe (1) name and location of employer, (2) title, and (3) two to three line description of experience.

D. Optional-Interests section, bar admissions. For attorneys with experience, an attachment describing significant transactions or cases worked on is a good idea.

COVER LETTER GUIDELINES

The main guidelines for writing cover letters is similar to the resume writing pattern

STANDARD FORMAT FOR COVER LETTERS

Law Student (numbers are paragraphs)

1. Contact Information-from whom and to whom.

Expression of Interest in an Interview (Optional-Reason 1,2 or 3).

(Optional) Education-description of educational qualifications (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3).

(Optional) Description of Experience-Legal related job experience (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3)

(Optional) Why have certain geographic preferences. (Optional-Reason 1, 2, or 3)

(Optional) Closing-rehash of elements used above.

B. Experienced Attorney

1. Information

2. Expression of Interest in an Interview (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3)

3. Experience-one paragraph of most relevant recent and past experience (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3)

4. (Optional) Educational Experience (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3)

5. (Optional) Why Seeking New Position (Optional-Reason 1, 2 or 3)

6. Closing-rehash of elements used above, rehash of elements above

The Best Way to Prepare for a Job Search and Interviews

Several years ago when looking for a position in Los Angeles I interviewed with numerous law firms.  In virtually every one of these interviews I ran across an attorney who knew not one, not two, not three—but numerous, numerous attorneys in my current firm.  If this is the case in a market the size of Los Angeles (and the market in Los Angeles is huge), I cannot even imagine what it must be like in smaller markets.  For example, I am from Detroit.  I grew up in  a suburb of Detroit.  When it came time for me to decide where to work in law school, when I started interviewing with firms in Detroit I knew many of the attorneys before I even arrived at the interviews–they were the parents of people I grew up with.

The following are my suggestions for the best way to prepare for a job search and interviews:

1. Know you are always being watched, observed and judged

When I was in high school I remember that one of the best looking girls in my school was known to be a prude and someone who would date boys but never let anything all that exciting happen.  She was also a star athlete and a student counsel leader and a very respected student.  My parents were divorced and lived about an hour apart.  I lived with my father.  The funny thing is that this same girl also had parents who were divorced and spent a lot of time in one city visiting a parent.  The funny thing about this girl was she had the exact opposite reputation in the city where she did not live full time.  Her strategy it seemed, like the strategy of many, was to have two separate personas.  She knew that if she behaved one way in her school and around people there she would experience fall out.  She also knew that by keeping her “wild side” in another town this would not affect her directly in her own back yard.

In life we are always being observed.  We are being observed in our communities.  We are being observed in our jobs.  We are being observed by our peers.  We are being observed by our superiors.  There are a lot of people out there who understand that.  The smart woman discussed above certainly understood that (albeit, in a different context).

When I went to look for a job in Detroit, despite the fact that I had not spent time in the city since high school I already knew which firms I would likely get jobs in and which ones I likely would not.  This had nothing to do with the prestige of the firm-it had to do with the people inside the firms.  I knew that I had been close to certain people growing up and their parents like me.  I also knew that I had not been close with others and had made some enemies along the way.  Sure enough, when I started applying for jobs in Detroit I was preceded by my past.  The Detroit legal community is small enough that most people know one another.

In everything you do in the public arena you are likely being observed, watched and judged.  The people you need today will likely have some impact over events that may happen to you tomorrow.  It is as simple as that.  Like the woman discussed above, you need to do everything you can to maintain a strong public face at all costs.

One thing about interviewing in law firms is that there will likely almost always be someone there you have known from a time before.  That person will likely have a say in what is happening to you in your new position.  Be aware of this and you will be preparing for interviews every second of every day.

2. Remember that the best lawyers can spot other good lawyers and you cannot “fake it”-you are always preparing for interviews just by doing a good job with your current work

There are many people out there who go to work in jobs and for whatever reason are not challenged.  Most often the people who claim they are not challenged are the same people who go out of the way to not challenge themselves.  We all know the type of person who does not challenge themselves in the job.  These are the sorts of people always looking for shortcuts and other methods to do as little work as possible.  I have never understood this sort of person-but they are there.  This sort of person is also the same one who is likely to be very defensive when asked about something they do not know but think they should know-”oh, I already know that!” they will say.

When you are good at something and really doing your job you have the tendency to get “immersed” in your subject matter.  Over time the subject matter and its intricacies and innuendos becomes almost second nature to the good student.  You also become more astute and a level or presumed understanding emerges between people who understand the subject matter well.  Little tidbits and other bits of understanding emerge.  Two people who are very good at something share a similar understanding.

When you are interviewing with a truly excellent lawyer, they will also be able to tell if you share this level of understanding.  If you are a slacker and not a hard worker, or someone who does not consistently challenge their mind, they will see right through this.  This level of understanding is particularly important at the higher levels.  You need to always be working hard and doing good legal work even when you may not want to make long-term plans to be at your current firm.  This is essential.

3. You need to go into your job with a sincere and 100% desire to make it work and switch jobs infrequently-if at all

Until the 1980s, the majority of workers in America and in law firms rarely changed jobs-if at all.  One of the major changes that happened was when the Japanese started importing cheaper and better cars into the United States.  American car makers (a major industry at the time) could no longer afford to be as loyal to their employees and mass firings and layoffs became increasingly commonplace.  Furthermore, pensions were fairly rapidly phased out at most companies in favor of 401ks-because employees began to be more “portable” in their jobs.  Much of the changes that were occurring in corporate America soon found themselves into law firms and other legal hiring organizations.

Despite that fact that attorneys can switch jobs at a whim in the current economic climate, switch jobs is not always the smartest thing to do.  Young lawyers (especially) like to feel as if they are in control and more valued by their employers than they value them.  In addition, young attorneys are likely to move for a slight bump in salary, an attorney in the firm they do not like, or some other trivial sort of factor.

These are not good reasons to move.  In fact, there are few good reasons to leave most legal employers.  The best reason and the only reason is if there is something inside your current firm that is so endemic to the firm and so pervasive that unless you leave your career will never go forward.  These factors also should be near 100% beyond your control.  When you join an employer it is much like getting married.  If you show a lot of commitment to your current employer you will be respected if you have to leave due to factors outside of your control.

The reason all of this is important is because the person interviewing you wants to trust you.  If the person or organization interviewing you does not trust you and believes you may leave for a trivial reason then they are will be unlikely to hire you.  If your reason for leaving is sound and the next firm who hires you believes you are likely to remain on board in the face of adversity then they are more likely to hire you.  People want to have people with staying power in their organizations.  No organization is perfect and all organizations go through ups and downs.

Conclusions
In everything you do-both inside and outside of work-you are always preparing for your job search and interviews.  You need to remember that the time to prepare for interviews and a job search is before you ever know you will need to prepare.  Being a good attorney and a job searcher is something that takes the same amount of time and effort to achieve.

How Valuable is an LLM?

There is no question that an LLM degree in a particular discipline can be quite prestigious, but let’s tackle the issue of whether obtaining one will meaningfully increase your chances of obtaining a better position.

LLM degrees are not for everyone. But they can be beneficial to some attorneys. For foreign lawyers who have obtained their law degrees in other countries, obtaining an LLM degree may be the only way that they will be able to get licensed in certain states. We have seen a marked increase in the number of foreign attorneys who have come to the United States hoping to find meaningful work opportunities here once they have received their LLM and passed the bar in a particular state. Sadly, not all of these attorneys have fared well in the job market here. However, without question, if they are interested in returning to their native country with their U.S. LLM in hand, these attorneys are likely to be highly regarded and may even have a strong shot at being hired by a US firm doing business with an office in their own country.

For attorneys in this country, an LLM degree may or may not be a suitable choice, depending upon the practice area. For instance, an experienced civil and white-collar criminal trial lawyer without a technical undergraduate degree may not benefit from obtaining an LLM in intellectual property law. Intellectual property law in the areas of copyright and trademark, as well as technology and licensing have recently been badly hit by the collapse of the tech sector, and consequently, many attorneys in this area have been hard pressed to find work, despite their strong credentials and expertise in this practice area. For recent law school graduates, particularly those with little to no practical hands-on work experience in the area of intellectual property law, obtaining an LLM may not be a suitable choice at this juncture in their career.

Not all LL.M. degrees are created equal. One of the most respected LLM degrees to receive is in the area of tax law. Indeed, many firms make it almost a prerequisite that their tax attorneys have also gone on at some point in their career to obtain an LLM in tax, regardless of whether their practice area is corporate and partnership tax, international tax, or even ERISA and employee benefits. Consequently, many graduating law students, particularly in this market and especially if they are not graduating from a top tier law school, may find it useful to go right on for an extra year of study in order to have the added cache and prestige of an LLM in tax.

Tax law is obviously not for everyone. But it is a specialty that will always be in demand and many tax lawyers are capable of handling a number of transactional business matters in addition to their tax counseling and advisory work. Very few corporate transactional lawyers can say the same for being able to also do the quite complicated tax aspects of a business deal. In the areas of ERISA and employee benefits law, so few lawyers have this expertise, that the added cache of an LLM makes them an attractive candidate to virtually any quality law firm, even if the attorney did not originally graduate from a top-tier law school.

The same cannot necessarily be said of other practice areas. While there is no question that an extra year of specialized law studies in a particular practice area, whether it be international law or intellectual property, or health care law, will certainly enhance one’s resume, it is unlikely that an LLM will in and of itself make the difference in your job search.

Not all LL.M. programs are created equal. US News and World Report publishes a yearly report on the best law schools in the United States. Resources such as these are available to help you research what law school excels both across the board, and with respect to certain specialties. In considering an LLM program, do your due diligence and speak with the school’s placement office and find out the number of recent graduates who received job offers upon completion of their studies. Find out which law firms came on campus to the school to actually recruit for attorneys from the program. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, bear in mind that, with the exception of a few truly top ranked law schools such as Columbia or N.Y.U. which probably have a number of law firms from several parts of the country recruiting on campus, most LLM programs only attract indigenous law firms. Consequently, if you want to practice as a healthcare attorney in Florida, don’t go for an LL.M. in healthcare law in Ohio. No matter how successful that particular school’s placement record is in Ohio, there is little chance a Florida firm will be knocking on your door.

Conclusion. While an LLM can be a prestigious credential for some attorneys, it is not a panacea, even in a poor economy, for recent law school graduates with little to no work experience in that practice area. The most notable exception to this is in the tax arena. For experienced attorneys seeking to jump-start their careers or change practice areas, an LLM may prove useful, provided the practice area is in demand and provided the school they choose has a good track record.

How Do I Increase My Marketability After a Layoff?

As I currently approach my 4th month of unemployment after being laid off from a major firm, I am wondering if there is anything I can do to increase my marketability to law firms? I cannot change my past work experience or my law school credentials, obviously, but is there something else I could do that I am overlooking?

Being out of work is frustrating, for sure, and the feeling that there is nothing you can do to change your current situation probably increases your stress level exponentially. As you said, what’s done is done, and you have to focus on the future. We have seen far too many attorneys literally give up on the practice of law entirely after getting laid off during their first few months of practice. In the past several months we have seen attorneys who graduated from Top 25 law schools and worked for a few months at AmLaw 100 law firms before getting laid off become (1) a restaurant hostess, (2) a garbage man, (3) a salesperson in a men’s boutique clothing store and (4) a trainee assistant manager of a Pizza store. Nothing is wrong with any of these occupations; however, if these choices were motivated by the perception that no attorney jobs were available, these occupational choices were wrong. More often than not, the attorneys who give up are those coming from the largest and most prestigious firms. Their thoughts run something like “If I cannot practice at a very high level, I do not want to practice at all.” We believe this thinking is severely flawed because, as this article will demonstrate, you can find another job if you approach your search in the right manner.

First, you need to think geographically. You are currently living in the worst market in the country. Barring circumstances that tie you to the Seattle region indefinitely, a move to a healthier marketplace will provide you with more available opportunities, which will give you more opportunities for success. One of the strangest phenomena we have ever witnessed is talented attorneys who give up on the practice of law because they refuse to move. Detroit, Michigan used to be one of the largest legal markets in the United States several decades ago and, by today’s standards, there are fewer than 10 large law firms there. If attorneys continued to stay there instead of following the jobs, their chances for employment would be significantly reduced. While the change from an industrial-based to an information-based economy is certainly beyond the scope of this article, the fact of the matter is that certain legal markets simply contract at various points in time. Many of these markets never return to their former glory. Who knows if Silicon Valley or Seattle, for that matter, will ever be what they once were. The point is you should not let geography influence your future. You went to law school for a reason and your current geographic location should not be something that you let influence the next 25-plus years of your life.

There are tens of thousands of law firms throughout the United States and the idea that one of them does not have a job waiting for you is an absurd thought. Unfortunately, far too many attorneys accept this thought. Does this really make sense to you? If you have been practicing long enough for a legal recruiter to represent you (usually one year), then you should contact one and let them help you in your search. If not, you should find a way to apply to as many of these law firms as quickly as possible in order to increase your chances of getting hired. While job boards do not traditionally have advertisements for entry level attorneys, you should review as many potential openings as possible. In addition, you should investigate using a service such as Legal Authority to try to apply for positions in your existing market or other markets that interest you. It is extremely unlikely that you will not find a position with an aggressive approach.

Second, if you are just considering the largest, most prestigious firms, you may have to aim a little lower. While we most likely would not have said this in the heyday of the economic boom, at a time when many large firms are severely restricting their hiring, it may make sense for you to consider taking a position at a less prestigious firm. You may come across a smaller firm that might actually be in “growth mode,” unlike larger firms in the area that are experiencing financial troubles. While we are not advocating working somewhere that you regard as beneath you, giving smaller-to-midsize firms a chance should not necessarily be considered settling. When the economy does recover, your resume will look a lot better for having worked somewhere than if you were to be unemployed for a few years. It is possible that you will like the different atmosphere of a smaller firm, and perhaps your experience and know-how can even help that firm grow.

Third, you may be able to find immediate employment with the government. Clerkships, often seen as the domain of newly-minted attorneys, can increase any attorney’s marketability. More law students are likely to search for a clerkship as first-year associate hiring dwindles, so the competition may be tough, but your experience may impress a judge enough to take you on. Not only will you be working, but you will be learning more about the justice system which can only help when the clerkship ends and you want to seek out a law firm opportunity. In addition, you may be able to locate an opportunity in a local prosecutor’s office. In any of these jobs, you will begin to develop the skills of an attorney that you do not necessarily learn during law school.

Fourth, your law school record may be etched in stone, but there is always the opportunity to go back to school and further your education. While LL.M degrees are not for everyone, they have proven to be an asset to some attorneys who can get them in the right areas and at the right schools, especially for those with somewhat unimpressive law school records. Similarly, for intellectual property attorneys, getting an advanced degree in engineering or even one of the natural sciences could help your cause.

In conclusion, while none of these methods are guaranteed to get you a job, anything is worth a shot in dire times. The economy will recover, as it always does, and when that happens, it will be better to have built up some experience and improved your resume than to have sat back and ridden it out. The holy grail of many firm lawyers is partnership at a large firm, and the best way to obtain that is by proving yourself consistently throughout your career, no matter what roadblocks stand in your way.

Something Most Recruiters Will Never Tell You: The Way Most Recruiters Recruit

Every individual recruiter’s style has a certain merit.  Nevetheless, when you are dealing with recruiters it is important to be aware of their particular recruiting style.  As the head of a national recruiting firm, I speak with legal recruiters both within and outside of my recruiting firm each day and have become quite familiar with various recruiting styles.  If you use a recruiter for your job search, the recruiter you use will undoubtedly have their own particular style.  It is important that you be aware of your legal recruiter’s particular recruiting style because this will determine how successful the recruiter is for you.

In my experience, there are three main styles of recruiters.  The first type of recruiter I call the Cougar.  The Cougar typically most concerned with making the perfect match and does not submit people to a lot of firms or work with a lot of candidates at one time.  The second sort of recruiter is the Market Penetrator.  A Market Penetrator typically works with many candidates at one time and submits their candidates to many firms at once-often regardless of whether they have a position.  The third sort of recruiter is the Database Lover.  The Database Lover generally is somewhat literal and submits only highly qualified candidates to active openings.  Unlike the Courgar, the Database Lover is a little more literal in terms of their approach to recruiting and placement.

Each recruiting method has its own sets of advantages and disadvantages.  The recruiting styles of the Cougar, Market Penetrator and Database Lover are explored below.

I
THE MARKET PENETRATOR

A Typical Market Penetrator Placement.  The Market Penetrator spends a couple of hours each morning studying law firm websites for openings.  They also are very interested in law firms and read most periodicals and legal newspapers they can get a hold of.  The Market Penetrator may even spend some time in front of the television reading Martindale Hubble.  The Market Penetrator wants to know everything they can about the market because they believe this will allow them to make placements.  While the Market Penetrator may meet with law firms on an ongoing basis, their belief is that the market is huge and that their emphasis should be on the global picture.

The Market Penetrator decides a certain type of attorneys in a certain practice group is in demand.  They have openings for that attorney; however, they also believe a good attorney in that practice area will be marketable at firms that do not even have openings.  The Market Penetrator takes out a few ads in legal periodicals and job posting boards seeking those sorts of attorneys.  The Market Penetrator makes a bunch of calls.  When the Market Penetrator starts finding candidates, they submit them to a large number of firms-firms with openings and firms the Market Penetrator believes have openings.  As their candidates get interviews, they submit more candidates to the firms that it sees are interviewing its people.  Without ever forming a particular close relationship with any law firm, the Market Penetrator makes a placement.

The Market Penetrator’s method of recruiting and placement is based upon sheer force and aggressiveness.  This Market Penetrator’s recruiting method is based upon the belief that the (1) respective candidate’s goal is to get the best possible job and (2) the candidate needs to be aggressively marketed because (a) they will find a job (through the recruiter-or otherwise), and (b) the recruiter should be the one who gets them the job.  The Market Penetrator also believes they cannot possibly know everything that is going on in their market and must constantly be pushing to market their candidate to new and potential opportunities matching the candidate’s interest.

Under the Market Penetrator’s method of recruiting and placement, the recruiter will seek to represent a high number of candidates under the belief that they are constantly taking the pulse of the market (through submitting candidates to employers) to see where the opportunities are most likely to be. This, in turn, enables the recruiter to be able to make choices about proper submissions due to the constant feedback the market provides.

The Market Penetrator typically takes a candidate and researches (1) current jobs, (2) past jobs in a market, and (3) potential jobs.

First, the Market Penetrator will know the current jobs where the candidate is or is not a good fit and will choose these jobs from the list of active jobs in the database.   The recruiter will always attempt to interest a candidate in the positions that are most appropriate for a candidate that are active.  The Market Penetrator will also likely do independent research to find active jobs for its candidate.

Second, the recruiter will then look at past jobs and, depending upon the candidate’s practice area or-the strength of a given market-will also select a certain amount of past jobs for the candidate if there is a likelihood in the Market Penetrator’s mind that the same firms may have the same openings again.  While it is not always the case, if a candidate is in an obscure practice area where there are typically very few active jobs, the recruiter will spend a great deal of time studying past openings.

Third, the recruiter will use Martindale and knowledge of the market gained from reading legal periodicals and so forth to develop a potential list of firms to “hit” with the candidate’s materials in order to see if the firm has any interest. In some instances, the firms the recruiter “hits” will be firms the recruiter and/or recruiting firm has not dealt with in the past and does not even have openings.  This method of recruiting is something that not many recruiters necessarily do; however, it deserves mention since it is a tool in the Market Penetrator’s arsenal.

1. The Advantages.

The Advantages of the Market Penetrator’s method of recruiting and placement are:
(i)  They are likely to assist the candidate in applying to the majority of the places the candidate is likely to work;

The Cougar is likely to expose its candidates to majority of real and potential openings in the market at one time.  Through their in-depth understanding of the market, the Cougar develops a level of market insight and intelligence that surpasses what most candidates could ever know.

When working the a Market Penetrator, most candidates do not need to do much work for themselves in their search. They can rest assured that their recruiter knows where openings are and are most likely to be. Using a Market Penetrator largely eliminates the need for a candidate to use multiple recruiters.

(ii) They are constantly turning up new jobs as firms they may  not approach (i.e., firms with inactive jobs or no jobs at all) express interest in their candidates (a Market Penetrator may sometimes get a new fee contract from a law firm every week), and

The idea that a recruiter may approach firms without specific openings on a candidate’s behalf is something that is quite alarming to individuals who are not recruiters (and even some recruiters).  Nevertheless, a good Market Penetrator approaches firms only after a very careful study and an educated opinion that their candidate may be a good fit for the firm.

You need to keep in mind that the Market Penetrator believes the market is massive.  The Market Penetrator also believes that no amount of intelligence can ever provide it with all of the openings in the market.  The Market Penetrator believes the best way to learn of new openings beyond those they already have is to be constantly taking the pulse of the market.  For this reason, as firms interview their candidates they develop new openings for candidates who they work with later.  Ironically, Market Penetrator’s typically have the most real openings.
(iii) They are giving the candidate the broadest possible  choice of opportunities to make an educated decision about where they might work; and,

The Market Penetrator is able to give their candidate a broad range of choices of where to work.  In a given city, there may be over 25 places where a candidate could potentially work.  Each hiring organization is different and some candidates are likely to be more comfortable in some hiring organizations than others.  By giving their candidates so many potential options and choices, the candidate the Market Penetrator represents may actually have a more fulfilling career.

(iv) The Market Penetrator approaches firms that other recruiters are not approaching and therefore their candidates have a better opportunity of employment due to less competition

Because the Market Penetrator is approaching firms that other recruiters may not, there may be less competition for these jobs.  Accordingly, the Market Penetrator’s candidates may be more likely to be hired.
2. The Disadvantages.

The disadvantages of the Market Penetraror’s method of recruiting and placement are:

(i) It takes a lot of work in terms of research and this comes
at the expense (most often) of forming strong relationships with employers and candidates;

A Market Penetrator must spend a great deal of time doing research.  In fact, the Market Penetrator’s whole method of recruiting is based upon doing a great deal of research.  While this may not seem like that bad of a thing, most recruiters are “social animals” who go into recruiting because they enjoy interacting with people on a very frequent basis.  Accordingly, this recruiting method is not something that all recruiters are comfortable with.

The research a Market Penetrator does is often consuming enough that they cannot spend a great deal of time getting to know their candidates and clients personally.  This lack of in-depth personal attention can be somewhat detrimental in that the recruiter cannot understand the complexities of various personality types at work in making a good match possible.

(ii) It generally results in a lower percentage of interviews
vis a vis submissions than other methods; and,

Because a large portion of the Market Penetrator’s work is exploratory, their candidates may often be introduced to employers that are not the most ideal fits for the candidates.  Accordingly, while some recruiting methods are very likely to result in a high percentage of interviews, the Market Penetrator will likely get its candidates a lower percentage of interviews when compared to the number of submissions it makes.

(iv) firms may become annoyed because they are receiving
“unsolicited” resumes.

An unsolicited resume is one the firm does not request and does not come in response to a specific opening.  If a recruiter sends too many unsolicited resumes to a given firm, the firm will become annoyed and may request the recruiter does not send them any more candidates.  If this occurs, future candidates will be prejudiced by not having actual opportunities available to them when the firm does have openings.

II
THE COUGAR

A Typical Cougar Placement.  ACougar calls up a law firm and asks to meet with the law firm.  The recruiter visits the law firm and spends time meeting with the hiring partner, recruiting coordinator and other attorneys in the firm.  In the meeting the recruiter “hits it off” with the law firm and the firm gives the recruiter their openings.  The recruiter also establishes a strong bond of trust with the law firm and both understand each other very well.  Over months or years the recruiter and law firm establish a very strong bond of trust. The recruiter has a very good sense of the types of candidates the law firm is likely to interview and hire. The Cougar may visit with the law firm several times per year.

When the recruiter is in the market, they are very focused upon this law firm’s hiring criteria.  They primarily ignore candidates who do not fit the law firm’s needs.  They spend time calling “ideal candidates” and running a limited amount of advertising.  Many attorneys may not actually know the name of the recruiting firm the Cougar works for and, quite often, the Cougar may even work alone out of their home.  The Cougar spots the ideal candidate and meets with them.  The Cougar says many good things about the law firm and the candidate meets with the law firm and is hired.  The Cougar has made a placement.

It is a little known fact that recruiting is among the world’s oldest professions.  For as long as human beings have worked for compensation, there have been others who have recruited others to do work for others and been compensated for finding others to do this work.  The Cougar’s recruiting style has literally been around for thousands of years and is among the most traditional types of recruiting.  Long before databases, computers and even classified advertising, the Cougar was plying their trade.

As the name suggests, the Cougar lies in wait for the ideal candidate (or hunts them by calling) and knows the exact jobs to submit the candidate to and the best candidates likely to fill that job.  The Cougar’s method of recruiting and placement is based upon the idea that (1) they know the jobs very well where the candidate is likely to get a job, and (2) by having a very highly developed sense of the market and good understanding of their clients they are likely to get their candidates the best interviews.

Under the Cougar’s method of recruiting and placement, the recruiter spends a great deal of time thinking about the firms and potential candidates for those firms.  Very few candidates may be represented at one time; however, each candidate represented is likely to get interviews.  A candidate may be submitted to as little as one or two firms.  In addition, the recruiter tends to form very close relationships with a limited number of firms.  This, in turn, results in the recruiter’s candidate being looked at quite closely.  The recruiter also forms an excellent and very close, trusting relationship with each candidate they represent.

In situations where there are as many as ten potential opportunities in the market for the candidate (i.e., active jobs) the recruiter may submit the candidate to as little as two or three jobs under the belief that the candidate is most likely to be a “fit” at these firms.  The Cougar knows their market and is highly selective with their candidates and the firms they submit them to.

It bears noting that this is the most typical method of recruiting and placement among recruiters nationally.  The reason for this is due to the fact that it works.

B.  Cougar Recruiting Examined

The Cougar’s method of recruiting and placement is based upon having a very strong focus.  This focus has both its advantages and disadvantages.

1. The Advantages.

The advantages of the Cougar’s method of recruiting and placement are:

(i) They make placements other recruiters would likely not make (and learn about jobs first);

A Cougar forms a very strong relationship with hiring authorities.  This is the nature of the Cougar and in most cases the Cougar is simply not comfortable working for hiring organizations it does not have a very close relationship with.  As a consequence, the openings that a Cougar has are all real openings where the hiring organization has a definite need.

In addition, because the Cougar’s relationship with the hiring organization is so close, the hiring organization may not provide these openings to other recruiters for fear of upsetting the Cougar.  Therefore, the Cougar is more likely to make placements with these hiring organizations and have access to opportunities other recruiters may not.

(ii)  They have a very good understanding of the types of candidates firms are likely to hire; and,

When a candidate is approached by a Cougar (or finds a Cougar via an advertisement), the candidate’s time is not being wasted if the Cougar decides they are a good fit.  If a Cougar is working with a particular candidate, the odds are very high that the candidate has a strong likelihood of being interviewed and hired by the particular hiring organization.

This level of understanding is beneficial for everyone.  The candidate has access to “inside information” about a particular hiring organization and can make educated decisions about whether they want to interview with the hiring organization or not.

(iii)  They form very close trusting relationships with their candidates.

Because the Cougar is most often not working with many candidates at one time, they can take the time to really understand the people they are working with.  In addition, because the Cougar is so concerned about its candidates being a good fit for each hiring organization it is doing work on behalf of, it will ask its candidates numerous questions and get an in-depth understanding of its candidate to ensure that it is making as good a fit as possible with its clients.  The Cougar is typically very concerned with what their clients think of them.

While a Cougar is compensated by the hiring organization, its recruiting style is also very conducive to representing candidates for a very long time until the “perfect fit” comes along.  A Cougar may work with a candidate for months or even years until it finds the perfect opportunity for them.  This is the way Cougar’s like to operate.  Accordingly, a candidate may be well served when an excellent opportunity does come along.

2. The Disadvantages

The disadvantages of the Cougar’s method of recruiting and placement are:

(i) By taking on so few candidates they miss numerous
opportunities to make placements;

The Cougar is extremely focused.  Their focus is upon having strong relationships with a limited number of law firms at one time.  Because of this focus, a Cougar will miss numerous good candidates in the market and numerous places where they could make placements.  The Cougar does not care, though.

(ii) They develop fewer new jobs and an in-depth understanding of their markets through proactive marketing of candidates; and,

The Cougar does not seek to develop a high number of jobs.  They only care about the jobs their clients have.  Accordingly, the Cougar can offer their candidates only a limited number of opportunities at one time.  If a candidate is seriously seeking a new job, they may not be well served using a Cougar who will only introduce them to a limited number of openings.
III
THE DATABASE LOVER

A Typical Database Lover Placement.  The Database Lover spends a great deal of their time studying active openings in the database of their recruiting firm. Since most Database Lover’s work at large recruiting firms, they have the benefit of a large stable of potential candidates to work with.  The Database Lover will examine openings that the recruiting firm gets each day and reach a decision about the sort of openings they would prefer to recruit for.  Whether through an advertisement, a cold call, or an existing relationship, the Database Lover gets a particular candidate they would like to work with.  The candidate is submitted to active openings matching the candidate’s profile in the database.  A certain number of these employers interview the candidate and offers are extended.  The candidate accepts one of the offers.  The Database Lover makes another placement.

The Database Lover’s method of recruiting and placement relies principally on the use of a database to make placements.  Very few recruiters utilize this method of recruiting and placement and those that do are typically at large recruiting firms with sophisticated databases.

Under the Database Lover’s method of recruiting, candidates are sent to firms with “active” openings in the recruiting firm’s database.  This recruiting method is based upon the belief that (1) if there is a real job, the candidate should be marketed to it, (2) the most likely source of a placement is with a real job, and (3) firms should be treated with respect and only shown candidates when they have made us aware they have a specific opening.

Under the Database Lover’s method of recruiting and placement, the recruiter will monitor active jobs closely and watch for candidates matching these jobs.  Here, the recruiter will typically submit candidates to the active jobs they can find.

1. The Advantages.

The advantages of the Database Lover’s method of recruiting and placement are:

(i) They are able to provide firms with candidates matching their
openings on an on going basis (and not upset firms with  unsolicited resumes in the process);

The Database Lover submits candidates in response to actual openings that employers have.  As employers have openings, the Database Lover will provide them with candidates.  Employers know that the Database Lover only sends them candidates if they have an actual opening.  Accordingly, firms come to rely upon the Database Lover for a steady stream of applicants for their positions and most often are not annoyed with the Database Lover’s recruiting efforts.

(2) If they are aggressive, they can approach employers with
openings in odd areas (e.g., Maine, Sacramento, Indiana, Saudi Arabia) with appropriate candidates that are likely to be direct hits;

One advantage of the Database Lover’s method of recruiting is that it is quite literal.  Because their emphasis is not on knowing markets like the Market Penetrator, or knowing firms like the Cougar, the Database Lover can often be quite effective.  This is particularly so in areas “off the beaten path” where employers may have openings for an extended period of time and see few candidates.

For example, if there is a firm in rural Maine with an opening for a patent attorney and the Database Lover finds and excellent candidate willing to interview with that firm, their efforts may have a very high rate of success.

2. The Disadvantages.

The disadvantages of the Database Lover’s method of recruiting and placement are:

(i) They do not necessarily ever get a thorough market coverage
because they are responding to actual jobs for the most part;

The Database Lover’s method of recruiting is quite literal.  They look for actual openings and put their candidate’s into competition for those openings.  The method is not based on research or identifying “market trends” like the Market Penetrator’s method of recruiting.  Accordingly, the Database Lover may miss many potential openings for their candidates.

(ii) They may not take on candidates where they do not have
actual openings; and,

Because they are almost exclusively dependent upon a database, the Database Lover may fail to place many candidates whose skills and experience make them extremely marketable if they do not have actual openings to submit the candidate to.

(iii) Their candidates are competing with every other candidate in
the market being submitted by a recruiter to the same firms.
The Database Lover is not the most creative sort of recruiter.  Therefore, they could be said to be somewhat “masters of the obvious” in that their approach is quite cautious.  Because they do not rely on the sort of research a Market Penetrator does, or develop the strong relationships a Cougar does, the Database Lover will miss many openings other recruiters might locate.

IV
CONCLUSIONS

While there are certainly many different types of recruiters, I believe the following characterizations show most heavily the types of differing recruiters there are.  The above explanation could be dramatically expanded with more examples and insights; however, for the most part these are the three main types of recruiters.

Make no mistake about it: The Cougar thinks they do the best work, just as the Database Lover and the Market Penetrators believe they do the best work.  The fact that there is any tension between competing methods is a sign of a healthy organization and in any good recruiting firm you will find recruiters who gravitate towards one method of recruiting or another.  While I hesitate to say this, if your recruiter cannot explain their particular style of recruiting to you they may be doing something wrong.  You also may be more comfortable working with one type of recruiter or another.

No method is the wrong way.  Instead, I believe that a combination of each of these ways offers the best method.  When you are working with a legal recruiter it is important to understand what type of recruiter you have.  Your recruiter’s particular style will explain the results they are getting for you in your search.

The Importance of Law Firm Economics to Your Legal Career

The notion that a partner or associate must produce 2,000 or 2,400 hours of billable work yearly virtually assures that some clients will be overbilled.
…
Of course, almost all firms have stated policies that forbid…unethical and illegal billing practices.  The extent to which these policies are actually followed depends on the firm culture, on unspoken messages that leaders of the firm send to its lawyers.
…
When money becomes the primary goal, a law firm may end up choosing to systematically inflate client bills and even to bill for expenses not actually incurred for those clients.
–Seth Rosner, American Bar Association Journal, May 1992

One of the most important aspects of your legal career-and almost among the most mysterious to young attorneys and others working both inside and outside of law firms-is law firm economics.  The economics of your particular law firm will have profound significance in terms of what happens with your legal career.  Many legal careers end up being quite successful in certain law firm economic environments where they might fail in other economic environments.  Smart attorneys and law students should have a good understanding of law firm economics before joining any law firm.

The problem with law firm economics is that very little exists out there to explain it.  Law firms certainly do not tell their associates how the economics of their firms work.  Many law firms do not even tell their partners how the economics of law firms work.  Certainly this is something that is rarely if ever be taught in law school.  Different law firms are built and operated in different ways; however, to succeed in a law firm you must have a good understanding-or at least follow-many of the unspoken rules that govern law firm economics.

At the outset it is important to note that there are several different models that law firms follow.  The purpose of this article is to explore the common economic model that governs large and midsized law firms at the law clerk, associate and partner level.  The purpose of this article is not to explore how staffing of paralegals and legal secretaries works inside law firms-which is a separate topic entirely.  I should note that this is not a pleasant article to write because much of what it says is a critique of the legal profession.  Nevertheless, what is true cannot be ignored and you will have a difficult time succeeding at a high level inside a law firm unless you understand its economic model.

A. The Importance of the Billable Hour To Law Firm Economics

It is important to be ever cognizant of the fact that most large and midsized law firms are run to be profit centers and to make as much money as possible.  In this regard, the way law firms make money through their arrangements with clients must be understood.  There are many different sorts of billing arrangements from fixed fee, to contingency.  Nevertheless, in almost all cases large to midsized law firms prefer the billable hour approach.

Historically, law firms simply billed clients by what they perceived as the “value” of the work they were doing-or quoted a fee up front.  In many cases law firms would quote a fee upfront and that would be what they charged.  In still other cases, at the conclusion of a case a partner in the law firm might even look at the size of the file they and their associates had worked on an tell their secretary something to the effect of: “That feels like about a $2,000 file.  Send them a bill for that.”

There was a point in time when the billing done by attorneys was not based on the billable hour.  At some point not too long ago (within the past 40 years) a gradual transition occurred to lawyers basing the value of their time on the billable hour.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, lawyers routinely billed their clients relatively standard fees based upon their experience performing a particular service.  For example, a simple will might cost $50 at the turn of the century; an uncontested divorce, $200; and, a house closing, $100.

Some clients, however, complained that such fixed rates led to price fixing and extraordinarily high hourly rates for some lawyers.  For their part, lawyers responded with the Br’er Rabbit defense.  “Please, oh, please,” they pleaded, “don’t throw us into that briar patch of hourly rates. Oh noooo!”  Citing the concern over price fixing charges, the agreed to hourly rates as a standard for the industry and touted it as a consumer-protection measure.
Donald E. deKieffer, How Lawyers Screw Their Clients, p.28
Because of this sweeping change, the legal landscape has been altered quite dramatically.  Today, the economic engine inside most law firms is based on the billable hour.

As an aside, I can tell you that I am not sure if this was the best move.  In my position as a legal recruiter and having spent the past several years talking to countless attorneys on a daily basis, I do not think I have ever encountered a single situation where an attorney was told they were billing too much-or that they worked too much time on a single project.  Conversely, I have encountered episode upon episode of the reverse occurring.  Compensation and even many hiring and firing decisions inside most law firms are now based more on production than value produced for the client.

Generally-and indeed almost always-the law firm as an institution is almost never guilty of padding its bills and the time its associates work on various matters.  I have never personally encountered an episode of this occurring.  However, law firms do as institutions push both their partners and associates to pad their bills. Since the client is being charged on the basis of the billable hour, the client will receive an accurate bill for the hours reported by the attorneys who worked on a given matter.  Whether or not this bill accurately reflects the amount of time necessary to complete a given task is another story.

The point of this discussion is that once you are inside a law firm it is essential that you understand the importance of the billable hour in the law firm’s profitability as well as the law firm’s personal evaluation of you. As will be explained below, the significance of the billable hour will be different at each point in your legal career.
B. The Economic Significance of Various Seniority Levels Inside a Law Firm

The organization of most American law firms is as follows.  First, the law firm generally will have a least a few law clerks who are law students or waiting for bar results.  In large law firms, most law clerks are called summer associates.  Second, the law firm will have junior, midlevel and senior associates.  Third, the law firm will have attorneys at a counsel level and partners.  At the partner level, there may also be levels of partners such as income partners and equity partners.  At each stage of your seniority with a law firm, your value to the law firm will change and the expectations the law firm has of you from an economic perspective will change.

1. The Law Clerk

Most organized law firms have law clerks.  Law clerks are typically called summer associates in larger law firms; however, many large law firms employ clerks who are in school during the school year.  The law clerk typically makes anything from no salary, to an hourly salary ranging from $10 to $50 an hour, to a weekly salary that can be in excess of $2,000/week in some of the larger law firms.

The law clerk’s purpose from the law firm’s perspective is that it allows the law firm to do recruiting while simultaneously having the opportunity to “try before they buy”.  Law firms will generally use law clerks for tasks which are not necessarily profitable for the law firm but helpful to the firm nevertheless.  For example, a summer associate may be used for research the firm needs done on an important matter.  Or, a law clerk may be used during the summer or school year for mundane tasks that the firm does not want its associates working on.

One of the largest points of the summer associate and law clerk program, though, may be somewhat unspoken.  A large reason I would argue that these programs even exist is so that law firms can evaluate whether law students can play the economic game inside of a law firm.

A couple of years ago I received a telephone call from a summer associate inside a large Manhattan law firm who had just received their first review from their summer law firm.  The law firm was unusually harsh on this summer associate and made several trivial comments about her attitude, “drive” and focus.  In fact, the law firm said so many negative things I asked the summer associate to stop talking after 5 minutes or so.  It was clear she would not get an offer to join the firm following the summer if she continued this way

“How many hours did you bill?” I asked.

“I have been billing about 35 hours per week,” she said.

In my position, I learn to recognize the warning signs and had some very brief advice for this summer associate.  I asked the summer associate a few brief questions about how assignments were handed out and then offered the following advice:

“Get all the work assignment you can that are not billable to firm clients.  The reason you want these is because you do not want to be unethical.  Then, for every nonbillable assignment you get, work like there is no tomorrow.  Bill at least 70 hours a week for the next 5 weeks of your summer.  Work weekends and whenever you get a chance.  That is all you need to do.”

At the end of the summer, out of the 18 summer associates in her class, she was one of 5 to get an offer.  The firm’s praise of her at the end of the summer was glowing and very, very strong.

This is, of course, a very sad commentary on the status of the American legal profession.  Nevertheless, in virtually every case where I have counseled an attorney in serious trouble with their law firm I have found that a large portion of the reason they are experiencing difficulty has to do with how hard they are perceived to be working, the number of hours they are billing and-by extension-the amount of money the law firm is making off them.  This is something law firms take very seriously.  In only one instance out of the 100+ placements I have personally made over the past three years has one of my candidates ever been fired.  When I spoke to the law firm about why the associate was being fired, one of the first things they complained about was the fact that the associate frequently left to office before 5:30 pm.  I did not need to hear much more.

Many associates inside law firms often find themselves in a position where they are claiming that they do not have enough work and that partners are not assigning work to them.  When questioned closely, I often find that these same associates are often perceived as not working hard enough (i.e., billing enough hours) on the assignments they receive from partners.  Because partners are individually and as a group compensated based on the amount of work the associates they assign work to do, many partners would rather assign work to an associate who is going to work extremely hard on something and bill many hours-rather than an associate who will figure out a way to get the work done quickly and just as effectively.

Whether one calls this a “conspiracy” or something else, the fact needs to be understood that in many law firms associates are expected to bill the maximum amount of time they can to given projects whether it is warranted or not.  This is reinforced through bonuses that are given to the hardest working associates (those who bill the most hours) and in other more subtle ways (such as not assigning work to associates who get work done as quickly as possible).  As an attorney working inside a law firm, you are choosing a career where a large portion of your [perceived] value to the firm comes through how many hours you bill and not necessarily your legal skill at all points in time.

2. The Junior Associate

One of the most basic rules of law firms is that nothing is often as it seems.  This is especially true with the junior associate.  Law firms love to tell their junior associates that they are unprofitable and that the law firm does not make money off of them.  In some respects this is true.  However, the real fact of the matter is that junior associates are profitable-but not as profitable as midlevel to senior associates.

Junior associates are one of the most important components of the law firm economic engine.  There are several reasons for this; however, a great deal of the reason for this is simply that clients do not have a very good understanding of the law firm economic engine.  No matter whether the client is a large or small one, they do look at the bills that law firms send out.  Let me share with you the billing rates of a particular law firm that I am somewhat familiar with:

Law Clerk (Summer Associate)  $140/hour
1st Year     $170/hour
2nd Year     $215/hour
3rd Year     $265/hour
4th Year     $310/hour
—-
Partner      $400+/hour

The fact of the matter is that a partner, in almost any law firm, can do most legal type assignments for clients much, much faster than the junior associate.  In fact, I dare to say that in many cases a junior associate could work on a certain matter for one or two days that a partner could figure out in 15 to 20 minutes.  If you are an associate with more than one year of experience in a large law firm you should be aware of this.  You have undoubtedly seen numerous associates in your own firm work several hours more than they would need to on an existing assignment.

In some respects, then, the employing of junior associates by law firms would not make a lot of sense, then.  Every year large crops of junior associates are hired by law firms all over the United States to begin work on important legal matters for the firm’s clients.  These associates need a great deal of training to become effective at their work.  These junior associates are also an excellent source of profit for the law firm.

In considering the above billing rates you need to consider it from the point of view of the law firm and also the client.  I personally hire attorneys all the time for the companies I work for.  When you hire a law firm, you are generally working directly with a partner who will figure out the “most efficient way” to get the work done for you.  Early on in your legal matter, there are usually a variety of legal matters that can be researched and analyzed.  The partner may already understand these issues; however, he or she will generally say something like this to the client:

“Before we figure out what we are going to do, it would be best to get the answers to the following questions …. I could work on it but my billing rate is quite high.  I would recommend me asking junior associate X to do the work.  Their billing rate is almost ½ of what mine is and …”

The work is then handed off to a junior associate.  The junior associate knows that they are valued by their firm based on their individual productivity (i.e., how many hours they bill) and they have every incentive to work just as hard as they can and as many hours as they can on the project.  The partner then can do more interesting work and rest assured that as many hours as possible will be given to the task and the bill correspondingly increased.  None of this is to say anything dishonest is occurring; however, on many levels it may be:

1. The junior associate may be asked to research questions which the partner does not really need to know the answers to;
2. The junior associate may not have highly developed research skills and will spend more time than necessary on the project;
3. The associate will be under the belief (in most law firms) that the memo they produce for the partner will need to be 100% flawless in its language and grammar and may spend 2-3 times longer just perfecting the memo’s syntax and so forth rather than simply giving the partner the answer;
4. Upon answering the question, the partner may think of new issues they want the associate to explore.

You should get the idea.  Regardless whether it is legal research or another task, after a certain amount of work by the junior associate a bill is produced.  When the bill is produced the partner may have the following conversation with the client:

“Well, I am certainly glad we used junior associate x to do this work.  There turned out to be a lot more issues that we need to consider and which I was not aware of.  I really wanted to ensure we did a good job here and I know it is a bit more than you wanted to spend, so I have reduced junior associate’s billable hours on this by 20 percent.  I really appreciate you trusting us with this assignment.”

This sort of conversation repeats itself all over the United States probably thousands of times a day.  The economics of the junior associate make a tremendous amount of sense from the law firm’s perspective-especially if the junior associate is playing the game (and if they have a steep learning curve with each assignment they are, almost by definition going to be playing the game).  The amount of work the junior associate may do on a given project is nothing short of extraordinary.  The junior associate can make the partner look like the “good one”; however, because their billing rate is so much lower.  In addition, the junior associate will spend far more time than necessary on most projects and therefore actually end up making the law firm more money.  In the process, the law firm is able to train the junior associate on the client’s dime.

I want to assure you that there are many law firms out there that do not necessarily follow this model or approve of it.  Nevertheless, this is the norm at most law firms and the ability to marshal large platoons of junior associates on various projects can be quite profitable to law firms.

3. The MidLevel Associate

After getting between 2 and 3 years of experience, an associate becomes a midlevel associate.  If you speak with junior associates from top law schools working in major law firms throughout the United States, they will often say things like “I am just doing this for a year or two.”  One reason for this statement is that they see so many of their fellow associates leaving for careers outside of the law once they become midlevel associates.  The reason many of these attorneys leave is that once they are midlevel associates they are under the firm’s microscope and have entered a world where they are actually beginning to be expected do the work of competent lawyers.  The midlevel associate is also at a level where they cannot fool either the client or the law firm with their legal skills developed during their time as junior associates.  By this point the midlevel associate is expected to be a highly developed billing machine, relate to clients and do good legal work.

The midlevel associate is someone who can be quite profitable to a law firm. The midlevel associate is someone who fills a very good niche for the law firm.  First, the midlevel associate can be given assignments by partners and then even delegate a lot of this work to junior associates.  Partners enjoy not having to deal with junior associates because they do not for the most part know what they are doing.  If a midlevel associate is good, they will have the ability to gauge how much work the partner expects to occur by both them and the junior associate(s) on a given matter.  Second, the midlevel associate is usually competent enough to get most of the work done-or figure out how to get it done without asking a lot of questions.  Third, the midlevel associate’s billing rate is not as outrageous as a senior associate or a partner’s billing rate.  Therefore, they are also a good candidate for giving clients the appearance of being available to do work at a low cost (albeit, work more complicated than that typically given to junior associates).

Most law firms have a party line that the most profitable type of associate is the midlevel associate.  Midlevel associates are almost always the best candidates for legal recruiters because they offer several advantages that other types of candidates do not offer law firms.  First, midlevel associates are trained and know what they are doing.  Second, midlevel associates can be assigned work without being threatening to partners (most of the time).  Third, midlevel associates can be hired without being threatening to senior associates and upsetting the balance of power and appearance of upward mobility inside a law firm.

Consider again these hypothetical billing rates:

Law Clerk (Summer Associate)  $140/hour
1st Year     $170/hour
2nd Year     $195/hour
3rd Year     $235/hour
4th Year     $265/hour
5th Year     $295/hour
6th Year     $325/hour
7th Year+     $345/hour
Counsel     $365+/hour
—-
Partner      $400+/hour

As you should be able to see above, the billing cluster for the midlevel associate (3rd through 5th year) does not appear nearly as threatening to the client as does the billing rates for the senior associate (6 year +) or the partner.  Paradoxically, the midlevel associate is also quite effective and, in many cases, almost as effective as the partner.

Consider a hypothetical $100,000 matter a partner of the firm brings in.  Here is one scenario regarding how the billings may be divided up:

$100,000 Matter Distribution

$15,000 15% Percent of Billings Of Matter Generated
$30,000  30% Percent of Partner’s Individual Billings (What the partner works on themselves)
$55,000 55% goes to Firm Overhead and Partnership Distributions

Under this economic model (and every firm’s economic model is different for partners, but each has some similarities to the model above) the partner is compensated most highly for the matters they work on themselves.  They are compensated individually less for the work that others do on their matters.  Here, the partner has more incentive to work on matters themselves and bill at a higher rate than they do to have others within the firm work on a matter.

Every type of work assignment a partner gets will be different.  For example, some projects may require a partner do all of the work themselves.  For the most part, though, in order to hold onto clients a partner will need to give others within the firm work.  Partners inside law firms are all running little individual businesses.  If partners price their services too high then clients will go elsewhere.  If the partner does not price their service high enough then the partner will lose money.  The goal is to find a balance.

The utilization of midlevel associates is something that is actually beneficial to clients in many cases because the work will be done more efficiently than by a junior associate and also quite effectively.  Because of the effectiveness of the midlevel associate, firms utilize them quite often and in most law firms very little of their work needs to be written off or justified to clients because it is well done.

4. The Senior Associate

The senior associate represents a very dangerous beast to most law firms.  A senior associate generally has at least 6 years of experience.  At the senior associate level, most attorneys know exactly what they are doing on various projects.  Their legal knowledge may be as good or quite comparable to partners.  However, there is very little demand in the marketplace for senior associates and this is largely true due to the operation of firm economics.

The reason that senior associates often represent a problem for law firms is that the billing rate of a senior associate will approach that of a partner.  If partners are required by their law firms to bill a certain number of hours, they will be unlikely to give work to senior associates because it will cut into the partner’s individual productivity.  Unless a firm has a great deal of work coming from clients that are ready to pay large hourly rates, partners would rather do the work themselves than give it to a senior associate.

In the law firm environment, the senior associates must get as many billable hours as possible in order to survive.  In order for there to be a great deal of work for these senior associates, the law firm must have a lot of work that can be billed out at high rates to senior associates.  Even if the law firm does not, the presence of a senior associate creates pressure on partners to generate work to give to these senior associates.  The senior associates that are the best at getting work will have the highest billable hours and be the most likely to survive inside the law firm.

It is also because of their high billing rate that senior associates in most large law firms begin feeling pressure to generate their own clients.  The senior associate who is able to generate massive amounts of work-whether on their own or by being given work from partners in the firm-will be the one who is seriously considered for partner or a counsel position.  If the senior associate cannot generate this work, they will be asked to leave at some point because they will not make sense to the firm from an economic standpoint.

5. The Partner and Counsel Level Attorneys
Many partners will tell you that they wished they were associates again.  The most successful partners will not.  At the partner level, the responsibility will be to perform good legal work and continue to generate work whether it be from other partners or outside clients.  In addition to being self-sustaining, the partner is also expected to feed the economic engine of junior to senior associates with work (at the largest firms).

C. What The Economics of Law Clerks, Associates and Partners Means to Your Legal Career

Your success in a law firm based upon the billable hour will be based-at every single point in your legal career-upon the ability to generate revenue through the billable hour.  This is much harder than it may first appear.

As a law clerk and summer associate, you will be evaluated based upon your work product and how much other people like you.  You will also be evaluated whether or not you show promise to work under the law firm’s economic paradigm.  The summer associates and law clerks I have seen not get offers in my career for the most part were the associates who did not fit in under the law firm’s economic model.  They told partners certain work did not need to be done or did various projects for the firm with little enthusiasm.

At the junior associate level, your responsibility will be to do the work you are asked to do and to work as hard as you can on the work you get.  In most large law firms, the junior associate working ridiculous hours is something that is certainly romanticized.  The reason this is seen as such a good thing and that the culture of most law firms portrays it as such is because this is something that is quite profitable to law firms.  Law firms make a great deal of money from junior associates toiling long hours.  In order to succeed in a large or midsized law firm, you are going to need to work hard for the most part if you are going to succeed.

Midlevel associates are actually given work because (1) they are efficient and (2) can do the work competently in most cases.  While midlevel associates may be profitable to most law firms, their real value is to the client who can get their work done competently at a reasonable price.  In order to succeed as a midlevel associate you are going to need to be competent and you are also going to need to work hard.

Senior associates must ensure they get as much work as possible to survive.  The ability to get work will determine their success.  Whether it comes through other lawyers in the firm, or the work is generated on their own, the need is the same. The same holds true for parters.

Depending upon the size of the law firm, the importance of the economic model remains the same: To work as much as possible.  When an attorney chooses which law firm they want to go to work for the most important thing they should be considering is whether they can realistically move up the given law firm’s food chain with their given set of skills and work ability.  Given the economics of most law firms, this will not be possible.

From most law student and a lateral associate’s perspective, the very best firms to go to work for are the largest and best law firms.  These are also the firms, coincidentally, that have the highest salaries and the most flushed out economic models.   This may be the best choice for you, or it may not.

For any lawyer, the key to survival is to generate work.  The work can only be generated if there is work to give.  In large law firms with massive clients, they will at most points in time have a limited amount of work to give out at the partner, counsel and senior associate level.  The amount of work available to give out will increase dramatically at the midlevel an junior associate level.  In order to succeed under this economic model, by definition you need to work hard at the junior associate level.  You then need to become competent at the midlevel and get as much work as possible.

The senior associate to partner and counsel level involves the ability to continue working.  Because this is so difficult, it is at this point that many attorneys go in house or to smaller firms.  The lure of an in house position is an escape from the competition to get work.  The lure of a smaller firm is most often lower billing rates which means that clients are more willing to give the firm’s attorneys work that would otherwise go to larger law firms and thus can be worked on by senior associate level attorneys with much lower billing rates.  Another lure of the smaller law firm for senior associates is that they can attract their own clients with lower billing rates. At a large law firm that does work for large clients, the billing rates may be so high as to all but foreclose bringing in all but the largest clients.

At the end of the day, you need to understand that surviving under the law firm economic model is almost entirely dependent upon your ability to continue working-and working as much as possible.  How you achieve that is up to you.  You are not going to get more work, though, unless you prove you will work hard, play the economic game and get the people with the work (whether they are other attorneys inside your firm or outside clients) to like you and give you work.

Should you talk about other interviews in your interview?

One of the questions I receive quite often from attorneys I am working with is whether or not they should talk about other interviews while they are interviewing with a law firm.  Let me emphasize one thing: This is one of the more important questions you will ever be asked in an interview.  Regardless of your qualifications, how you respond to this question will have a direct bearing on whether or not you receive an offer from the law firm asking you this question.  Be very careful as to how you answer this question.

At the outset, it is important to point out that you do not have to answer this question but should.  This question will also often not be asked.  Indeed, it is my opinion that this question is entirely inappropriate.  In no instance should you even volunteer this information unless you are asked. The problem is that if you are asked this question you will look bad if you refuse to answer it.  Not answering the question gives the employer the impression that you will similarly “hide the ball” when you are working for them.  It also does not do much to assist you in establishing a bond of trust, empathy and understanding with potential new employer.  Therefore, it is my opinion that his question must be answered. There are two important rules you must keep in mind when answering this question.

First, you need to understand that most firms are unlikely to give you offers unless they think you are their first choice firm.  There are certainly exceptions when firms make offers to people who they do not think are their first choice law firms.  As a general rule, though, if a firm believes you are their first choice you will be better off.  Because I am a legal recruiter, I see instances all the time when attorneys go to work for law firms that initially were not their first choice.  Many firms are very good at recruiting and can convince most people to join their firm when they extend offers-even in the face of competing offers.  Nevertheless, for the most part a firm wants to believe you are their first choice and this will have a direct bearing the substantial majority of time on whether an offer is extended.

Second, how you justify why you are interviewing with the firms you are interviewing with will also have a direct bearing on whether or not the firm makes you an offer.  In addition to knowing that you are their first choice, law firms also want to know that you are likely to remain with them after joining.  They also want to know why they are the best fit among potentially competing offers.  Furthermore, the law firm wants assurances that it is not making a mistake making an offer to you.  How you justify where else you are interviewing will have a direct impact on your potential success in terms of getting an offer.
1. Before You Ever Tell An Employer Who Else You Are Interviewing With The Firm Must Believe You Are Their First Choice

I have a quick story from personal experience that is related to law firm interviewing-albeit, indirectly.  I am an Area Chair for the admissions office of a major American university in Los Angeles.  In this position, I am largely responsible for ensuring applicants to the University in my area are interviewed.  While I am not the one making the ultimate decisions as to whom the school admits, I do put together reports on everyone I speak with and express my enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for each applicant.  I would have a hard time believing that my reviews do not carry at least some weight in the admissions process.  This year I probably interviewed 50 students for the school.  This school is generally ranked a “Top 10″ American college; however, in some years it is slightly lower.

As is typical of most interviews, I speak with the high school students about their dreams and aspirations for college and ask them why they are interested in attending the University.  Because I also attended the school, I have a decent understanding of the sorts of students that are likely to be happy and fit in well at the school.  This experience is derived largely from personal experience of having attended the school myself.  In my experience, the sorts of students I believe would be a good fit for the school are also the same sorts of students who seem the most enthusiastic to me and give me the most compelling reasons for wanting to attend.

One challenge of these interviews is trying to decide who among a great number of highly qualified individuals really wants to go to the school. If someone is not qualified for the school, my job is easy because I know they will be rejected.  Because the University is a highly ranked school, the majority of students I speak with inevitably are applying to schools like Princeton, Yale and other similarly situated schools.  Accordingly, one of the first questions on my mind is this: Why my school and not another highly ranked one?

This situation is compounded by an obvious fact: While I certainly believe the school I am interviewing with is the top university in the United States (and could argue convincingly about this all day) it is not the number one ranked university and probably has never been.  Now if I was interviewing for a university consistently ranked number one in the United States, I would think that the university was every student’s top choice.  Because it is not the top university, I know that several people I am speaking with would probably rather go to a more prestigious university.

Now if you think about this, this rationale is very similar to what goes on when law students and attorneys are interviewing with law firms.  In an extreme, if you are interviewing with Skadden Arps Slate Meager & Flom (“Skadden”) and a small 15 person law firm in New Jersey that pays less than half of what Skadden does, most rationale observers would presume that you would rather go to Skadden than the small 15 person law firm.

Imagine for a moment what the 15 person law firm is thinking if you tell them that you are interviewing with Skadden.  Do you think that you would really want to go there?  Now imagine what Skadden is going to think if you tell them you are interviewing with the small 15 person law firm.  They are likely going to think that you are not that marketable, for one.  Or they might think that Skadden is a reach for you and want to help you advance.  You need to put yourself in the shoes of the person making hiring decisions because what they think will determine whether or not you are ultimately hired.

Why do I ask myself if the student really wants to attend the university I am interviewing for? I ask myself this question because I want to make sure that if I put a strong recommendation behind the person they are likely to attend the school.  Do not get me wrong: If you are a stellar applicant you will still get a stellar recommendation.  But someone who really wants what you are offering is always going to be far more attractive than someone who does not.

What the University does with this information is their business.  However, I do like to be able to say “the University is this person’s first choice and I am confident they will come if they are admitted.  I believe the person that the school is their first choice because of X, Y and Z.  Furthermore, they are the sort of person I imagine would do quite well there because they share so much in common with others students I knew while there.”

When a law firm is interviewing you, the same sort of logic applies.  Law firms receive numerous applications from highly qualified individuals constantly.  If a law firm thinks you will never take an offer from them, they are not going to be interested in speaking with you.  In the event you do get an interview, if the law firm thinks you are just looking to go to the most prestigious law firm (and they are not that prestigious) then the law firm is not likely to make you an offer.

As an aside, I should note that I see this sort of phenomenon all the time.  I deal with attorneys at some of the top law firms in the world on a daily basis.  Many of these attorneys want to go to smaller firms that pay far less.  While most of these attorneys are under the impression that the smaller firm would “die” to have them, the opposite is most often true.  If the attorney is coming from a far superior law firm, the smaller law firm and its attorneys might be intimidated by hiring the attorney because they never worked in such a smaller law firm.  People do not like to spend time with those they think (or others think) are superior to them.

You can draw on personal experience in this analogy.  One example would probably be a lot of your high school friends if you went to a public school and now practice law.  A lot of these people probably have not done much with their lives.  You are not the same people anymore and they are not as comfortable around you anymore.  They are uncomfortable because they perceive inequality.  Surely this does not apply to all your past friends, however, I am confident it applies to many of them.  Regardless of how you may feel with this continued association, they are not like as likely to be as comfortable.  This is also one reason people do not tend to marry outside their social class, for example.  It creates too many difficulties due to a perceived superior and inferior role.  No one likes to be around others that remind them of their potential inadequacies.  Law firms are the exact same.

I am an expert in getting attorneys jobs inside law firms.  I know nothing about in-house placements, or other sorts of legal-related placements.  Law firms, by their nature, are strange and unique creatures.  Law firms want to save face.  Having someone take another offer over them makes the law firm look bad in their eyes.  It makes them feel inferior.  This sort of event makes it seem to the attorneys that interviewed the candidate that the other law firm is a more attractive alternative.  It is also a negative vote of confidence from you if you do not take an offer if one is extended.

So how does the question of whom you are interviewing with fit into the equation?  First, you need to answer this question.  This question will rarely be asked at the beginning of the interview, though.  This is a very important question to answer and it must be answered correctly.  Before you ever answer this question, though, the law firm you are interviewing with must-and I mean must-know that they are your first choice.  If the firm thinks this then telling them everywhere you are interviewing can help you.

Back to the situation with the 15 person New Jersey firm.  You could still very easily get an offer from this firm if you play your cards right.  First, you need to walk into this interview and convince the firm that you really want to work there.  Maybe you know someone at the firm that has said good things about it.  Maybe they practice in an area of law you have been interested in since high school.  Maybe their office is right across the street from your house.  Maybe you want to work in a smaller firm so you can make partner.  You need an arsenal at your disposal to give the law firm compelling reasons for hiring you.  If you give the firm enough reasons that you are a good fit, they will look upon the fact that Skadden is interviewing you as something that verifies your worth in the market.  The firm needs to think that you will be their first choice over Skadden.  You taking an offer from them over Skadden will be a major vote of confidence in the small firm that is something the firm will use to impress upon its attorneys as to what a great place they are.

When I am interviewing candidates for the University, I can answer the question of whether or not the candidate is really interested in my opportunity in several ways.  For example, if the student has 1580 on their SATs, is Captain of the football team, student counsel president and first in their class and my school is the only top school they are applying to then my job is easy. The student most likely is most interested in what my school offers.

Even if the student is applying to several more prestigious schools, I can still judge whether or not this same applicant really wants to attend the University by several methods: (1) If their parents went to the University and they have always wanted to go there, (2) If they attended the University for summer school, (3)  If they worked for a professor of the University during high school, and (4)  If their life has been profoundly influenced by the work of some professor they want to study under.  You should get the idea.  Even without this a stellar applicant will still get serious consideration.  The point is your interviewer wants to say “this school is their first choice and I believe it.”

A law firm wants the same assurances that they are your first choice.  These assurances need to be given at the interview stage and they need to be given early on. This is not an article about interviewing and I cannot tell you how to interview.  I can tell you, though, that when a law firm believes you are their first choice you will have a better chance of getting an offer with the firm.

In an improving market (which this is) you are likely to get more than one interview and may very well end up with several offers. Accordingly, you may often be asked in interviews who else you are speaking with and so forth. How you address this question will actually have a strong bearing on whether or not an employer hires you.

2.                 How You Justify Why You Are Interviewing With Other Firms Will Have A Direct Bearing On Whether Or Not The Employer Hires You

There are several scenarios that you should be aware of and each one merits a separate response.  If you have prepared the interviewer properly, you will do very well when asked where else you are interviewing.  The potential scenarios are: (a) you are not interviewing with any other employers, (b) you are interviewing entirely will less prestigious firms, (c) you are interviewing with a mix of firms, corporations and other types of employers, (d) you are interviewing with a mix of more prestigious and less prestigious firms, and (e) you are interviewing with all more prestigious firms.  Given the importance of each of these hypotheticals, they will all be discussed below.

a.                  You are not interviewing with any other employers

If you are not interviewing with any other employers then you should tell the firm so.  If you are in law school and this is occurring, the firm should be under the impression that you are just starting the interview process if this is the only interview you have so far.  Employers do not want to feel as if you are the black sheep and someone without a lot of options.

If you are interviewing laterally, it is perfectly acceptable to tell the employer that you are not interviewing with any other employers.  In this situation, the rationale for having only one interview should be that (1) you are not interested in a new job for the sake of a new job, and (2) the only reason you are speaking with this firm is because they are a perfect fit for your interests.  The firm needs to think they are a perfect match for you.  There are several additional reasons firms like to hear you are interviewing only with them:

?It makes you look loyal to your current employer-by stating that you are interviewing with only one employer, it makes it seem as if you are not doing an “all out” search to find new positions.  You are only interested in this one interview because the firm matches what you are seeking so closely.

?It puts the firm in a position where they know if they make you an offer you are likely to take it-By having only one interview, the firm can give itself more assurances that if an offer is made to you that you will likely take it.

?It puts the firm in a position where they know if they make you an offer you will not choose one of their competitors over them-If you inform the firm that you have only one interview, the firm will have the assurance that they will not look “lose face” if you take an offer from one of their competitors.

b. You are interviewing entirely with less prestigious employers

There are some potential positives to this admission.  The positives are:

?Since we are the best firm, if we make the candidate an offer they will most likely come here.

?If the firm is more prestigious than the one you are currently at, the employer will think that you are trying to “move up”.  It is almost axiomatic in American culture that we respect individuals who are trying to move up and improve their lot in life.  After all, most of our ancestors were immigrants at some point and moved up the ladder.  Indeed, some of their offspring are now even lawyers!

If you tell your interviewer that your other interviews are will less prestigious employers, you may have a problem.  Here, the firm will certainly think to itself: “Can’t this attorney get an interview with better firms?  Is there something wrong with them that we are missing?”

In this situation, you need to be very careful.  One way to approach this is to state that you only are applying to places with openings and these are the only firms you are aware of with openings.  In this way, the firm will believe that you are applying to these other firms and them simply in response to what you know.  While in all likelihood you probably applied to more prestigious firms and have not heard back or were rejected, if the former is true you need to make the firm aware of it.

The most important thing you can do in this situation is to make it clear to the firm that you are qualified to work for them.  For example, if you are interviewing with less prestigious firms that pays far less then tell the more prestigious firm that money is not a concern for you.  Here, you can tell the firm you are most concerned with finding the “right fit” and that the less prestigious firms have a lot of attributes that might not be immediately transparent.  In this instance, you put yourself in the position of someone who is more concerned with practicing law in the right environment than someone who is concerned with making as much money as possible.  This sort of characterization can only help you.

There are many ways to get creative with this response.  In sum, the most important thing you can do in a situation where all of your interviews are with less prestigious firms is to make the firm aware that (1) you are very interested in them, (2) seeking to move up, and (3) most concerned about finding a good fit.

c.       You are interviewing with a mix of different classes of employers such as law firms, government offices and corporations

This is also a potential problem for you.  If you are interviewing with different classes of employers beyond law firms then you also need to be extremely careful.  The problem with this is that law firms are unique institutions.  Most law firms have a billable hour requirement, have a division between partners and associates, encourage you to develop business and so forth.  While I have written extensively on this topic before, the point is that law firms are unique institutions that have great respect for their own way of practicing law but look down on those who do not practice law under their methodology.  For example, many law firm attorneys consider government attorneys lazy bureaucrats and look upon going in-house as a way to escape the pressure of law firm life.  While these generalizations are not necessarily true, what is important to realize is that law firms think this way and believe that individuals that do not want to practice inside a law firm are not cut out for law firm life.  Accordingly, telling a law firm you are interviewing with the government or and in-house employer is not necessarily in your best interest.

How you address this question is up to you.  You must tell people where you are interviewing.  If you are asked what other law firms you are interviewing with, then tell them what other law firms.  You need to be honest with employers and not doing so is not only ethically wrong but will come back to haunt you.

If you are interviewing with an employer that is different than a law firm and are asked about this, you are going to need to let the employer know why you are going out on these interviews.  There can be many potential explanations.  Perhaps a friend asked you to interview with an in-house employer, you are interested in environmental law and interviewing with the environmental branch of the United States Department of Justice so you can get more experience doing environmental trials.  Whatever the explanation you give for these other interviews, though, it is essential that you let the firm know that (1) a law firm is your first choice and (2) the other employer represents an opportunity for you to get significant experience and “move up” in terms of your skill level and so forth with a law firm.

In any law firm interview you go on, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is leave the firm with the impression that your actions in seeking to leave your current employer are motivated to “move up” and become a better attorney.  However you phrase the fact that you are interviewing with other types of employers than law firms, this point needs to be made.  Law firms want to hire winners.  The fact that you are interviewing with non law firms interviews a lot of potential doubt in the law firms mind that you are not committed to practicing law in a law firm.  Make them think the alternatives you are exploring to this are just as demanding.
d.      You are interviewing with a mix of more prestigious and less prestigious firms

The issue in this situation is about the most normal occurrence for attorneys interviewing with law firms.  Most attorneys that are interviewing are speaking with more prestigious and less prestigious firms.  Here, your case does not need to be as compelling.  Like in all the situations discussed above, the employer still must be left with the impression that they are your first choice.  In addition, the employer must have a basis for understanding why you are interviewing with more than one firm.

Assuming that you have done your job of giving the employer the impression they are your first choice., the employer should also understand why you are speaking with so many different sorts of law firms.  Here, the employer needs to be aware of why you are doing such a broad search.  Accordingly, the employer needs to be aware of why something is seriously wrong with your current employment situation.

This is again a delicate topic.  In all interviews you never want to leave the employer with the impression that you harbor any sort of ill will towards your current employer.  Employers typically do not like attorneys who say bad things about those they work for because they believe that they could one day be on the opposite side of this.  This simply makes you look bad.  What you do need to do in the interview, though, is convince the employer that your current employment situation is preventing you from reaching your full potential.  You need to project that you are leaving your current employer because you are trying to grow.

By upward momentum, I mean that your desire is to be better at you job, get more business, get better work and so forth.  In sum, you should always try and portray yourself and your job search as follows:

While your decision to join your current employer was a good one, you have continued a pattern of “growth” that has characterized you from the very beginning and is evident in everything you have ever done.  While it is unfortunate, your current firm is limiting your growth potential.  The environment of the firm you are interviewing with offers this growth potential and that is why you are speaking with them.  In fact, the growth potential of the firm you are interviewing with offers is “hands down” the best of the bunch in terms of the employers you are speaking with because of X and Y and Z …

If you were someone in charge of determining who you were going to hire, which candidate would you want to hire (1) someone without compelling reasons for being interested in your firm, (2) or someone who needs the environment your firm offers to grow?  I am sure you can see the logic of this.

It is a fundamental human characteristic that we want to feel good about ourselves.  Finding someone who needs an organization like ours to thrive and letting them work with such an organization is something that makes hiring authorities feel good about themselves.  You need to give employers compelling reasons for hiring you.

Moreover, giving yourself “upward mobility” makes you sound like a winner and not a loser.  People want to associate with winners and not losers.  Firms want to hire winners and not losers.  Give yourself upward mobility.

e. You are interviewing entirely with more prestigious firms

Given what has been said above, this section should not require a great deal of analysis. Here, you want to make the law firm believe that they are your first choice and that you will accept an offer from them if extended.  The firm needs to feel special and understand your reasons for choosing them over competing opportunities.
3. Conclusions

You need to understand that how you address where else you are interviewing will have a major impact on whether or not you are hired.  This, in fact, is one of the more important secrets to interviewing effectively.  If there is one thing you take from this article it should be this: Always make the firm you are interviewing with feel like you are their first choice.

Long Term Success in With a Single Employer

If you go into any firm that has been around more than twenty or thirty years you will inevitably find a handful of attorneys who have been there from the very beginning of their careers.  These well adjusted souls will typically report to work each day at a similar time and have managed to be the only ones presumably left in the law firm after generation upon generation of attorney coming and going.

Many attorneys do last for decades in the same firm and there are characteristics which uniformly seem to characterize these sorts of attorneys.  While I am a legal recruiter, I do have a great deal of respect for attorneys who in this day and age are able to “stay put” at the same firm for a long period of time and remain at single firms throughout their careers.  None of this is to say there are not really good and solid reasons for leaving a law firm or other legal environment if the going gets impossible.  I am the first to admit that there are legal employment environments that can be intolerable for many.  Nevertheless, you need to keep in mind that if a legal employer has been around for 30+ years there is a chance the employer is doing something right.  Before leaving it is often wise to take inventory of yourself.

There are certain characteristics that tend to characterize attorneys who stick with the same legal employer for long lengths of time and also certain characteristics of this sort of employment situation.  These characteristics are discussed below:

1. Attorneys Who Remain With the Same Firm for Long Lengths of Time Are Generally Very Committed to Their Jobs

Many people were raised with the idea (or have the idea) that fidelity to an employer is something that is simply expected.  The unwritten rule is that if you are not treated horribly then there is really no reason you should ever end up leaving a job.

One of the saddest but also the most refreshing things I have seen as a legal recruiter is when I interview and meet with attorneys who have been with the same firm for 20 years or more and whose firms are going under-or who are in a position of being forced to look for other opportunities.  When attorneys like this look for a new position their rationale is most often that something profound has happened at the firm that is making their separation necessary.  These attorneys appear as if they are going through a divorce or have just had a death of someone they are very close to.  For these sorts of attorneys, leaving a position is something that would be unthinkable and only in the event of a massive trauma.

This sort of fidelity between employers and employees reminds me often of people who have been married 50 years or more.  There is a mutual respect that comes out of this and a thinking that both need one another.  I believe that this sort of thinking is really missing in this day and age.  While this may not seem related to careers, a statistic I once saw in a social science class showed that as divorce rates went up in society so did rates of drug abuse, suicide and other associated societal ills.  The bond between an employer and an employee is a powerful force that in its best form is much like the bond between a husband and wife with a very committed relationship.  Both sides respect and accept one another with certain conditions but for the most part unconditionally.

The attorney who is committed to their job is in many respects similar to someone who is committed to anything-there may be something else out there but they have decided to remain loyal.  This sort of attitude is a very healthy one I believe and can also make these sorts of attorneys very settled.  I know an attorney that was called by a rival firm and offered over $1,000,000 a year by this firm when he was making just barely above half of that.  He was not interested in the money and was more concerned with the bond he had with his current firm.  This is how it works when there is commitment on both ends.

2. Attorneys Who Remain With the Same Firm Are Not Interested in Office Gossip or Reasons Not to Succeed

In every organization there are typically people who are not succeeding at their jobs.  These people generally are not doing their work in a competent manner and are also often looking for ways to cut corners with their work.  Most organizations will generally call out this behavior and then speak with the employee. Some employees correct their behavior and others simply get mad at the organization.  Some employees may be mad at their organizations for no particular reason at all-or may be angry with a previous organization and simply transfer their anger to their most recent organization.  I remember a recruiter once telling me never to hire someone who had been fired from their last job.  People who have been fired from their last job will typically take out their anger on their next organization he told me.

With anger a part of every legal employment organization, you need to understand that there are always going to be people in the organization who have a lot of anger towards their employers.  These angry employees will start rumors, attempt to share their anger with others in the organization and often subtly (or not so subtly) forecast “gloom and doom” for their employer.  This is how rumor mills get started and these sorts of rumor mills are prevalent in every legal organization there is for the most part.

Attorney who remain with their employers generally do not participate in these rumor mills or even pay attention to them.  At certain times in an employer’s history there are likely to be calls of “crisis” of seemingly epidemic proportions as lots of people leave, for example.  At other times there will be other issues.  The overwhelming characteristic of attorneys who remain at firms for long periods of time is that they generally pay no attention to these rumor mills whatsoever.
3. Attorneys Who Remain With the Same Firm for Long Periods of Time Generally Are Not Interested in Being Grandstanders-They Are There to Do Their Jobs and Do Them Well

I once heard someone say that the most successful people are often the most screwed up.  I am not sure if this is true, but there is some wisdom in every saying like this.  Attorneys who are able to remain with the same employer for long periods of time are generally not concerned with “getting ahead” to the same extent as many other attorneys are.  Many attorneys who are extremely concerned with getting ahead will often leave saying they are looking for better opportunities because they are interested in immediate advancement.  In other cases attorneys will try and show up various attorneys in their firm.

Attorneys who remain at their firms for long periods of times are generally most interested in just doing their jobs.  They have faith in their organizations and that things will work out for them.  They are not loud and do not go out of their way to attract attention to themselves.  Their main concern is to simply do the best job possible.

What ends up happening to attorneys who remain focused on their work and not grandstanding is they end up getting ahead while other attorneys end up putting their foot in their mouth.  I remember when I first started practicing an attorney who was first in his class from a major law school and the Editor in Chief of his school’s law review.  Everyone thought this particular attorney was really on his toes and someone likely to have major success at the firm.  This attorney wrote articles on his spare time, argued with firm partners about the finer points of law (and was right when he argued).  While this attorney was very smart he thought he was so good that he ended up sabotaging his career in the long run when he called a newspaper to discuss a case he was working on and ended up being quoted on the front page of the Los Angeles Daily Journal.  The fallout from this incredible incident that the attorney left the law firm a month or two later and never worked for a large law firm again.

These sort of incidents aside, it is important to keep a moderately low profile in order to have long-term success in a law firm.  It is never wise to raise your swords and capture the limelight.  While someone can win a sword match for some time, they will eventually lose-and in a sword match (which your legal career could be compared to)-the loss is usually permanent.

4. Attorney Who Remain With Their Firms for Long Periods of Time Are Typically Do Good (But Not Necessarily ‘Brilliant’ Work)

An attorney who remains at their firm for long periods of time typically has learned to “pace themselves” and manages to do work on a day-to-day basis that is good but not necessarily extraordinary.  This does not matter.  I would estimate that the majority of the battle of being an excellent attorney is simply showing up.  Sure some people can do extraordinary work; however, the brightest flame is not always the longest burning flame.  The ability to consistently show up and do the work is the most important aspect of being a long-term performer in a law firm.

The smartest attorneys out there are often the ones who end up having the most problems in the practice of law.  Attorneys who can consistently show up for work and do an excellent job send the message to colleagues, clients and others that they have the ability to get the job done.  In the end it is all about getting the job done.

5. An Understanding of ‘Insiders’ and ‘Outsiders’ Typically Develops Between Attorneys Who Remain At Their Firms For Long Periods of Time

After an attorney has been with a law firm for an extended period of time and understanding develops between that attorney and others who have been at the firm a long period of time.  An institutional understanding also develops.  This understanding seems to say something to the effect of “people may come and go but we are the ones who are committed to this organization and we are the heart and soul of this place.”  A similar sort of understanding that develops is that “we owe each other because we have each demonstrated a commitment.”

Bonds form between people who have been part of the same organization for long periods of time.  These bonds are often invisible-but they are real bonds.  These bonds are powerful and make the organization and forces within it come to the defense of those who are committed to the organization during times of organizational change and reorganization.  These sorts of bonds are something that get stronger over time as an organization changes.  After some time attorney who have been with the firm for decades are simply treated as part of the very fabric of the firm and virtually unquestioned.

Conclusions

While it may seem odd for a recruiter to write a story in defense of attorneys who remain at their firms for long periods of time, remaining with a firm for a long period of time is something that is meaningful in this day and age. There are many characteristics that of attorneys who remain at their firms for long periods of time and these characteristics in my experience are usually found in most attorneys who demonstrate this level of stability.

A final factor is that in my experience attorneys who remain with firms for long periods of time are often less tormented than the average attorney.  By looking for reasons to like and respect their organization rather than find fault, they find themselves in organizations which ultimately welcome them.

Finally, it is always important to remember that if a law firm or other legal organization has been around for 20 years or more the chances are it is doing some things very right.  There will always be people who succeed in these organizations and, of course, always those who leave or fail.

Is There a Need for Patent Attorneys With PhDs?

I have a Ph.D. in molecular genetics with a specialization in population biology.  I have been a post-doc for several years and I am interested in changing careers and moving into law.  I have thought about law school but I am intimidated by the thought of acquiring more debt, at least for now.  I have been told that patent law is in need of technical specialists in sciences and that this might lead to financial assistance later for law school.  What is the reality of this and how much of a need is there for someone with my background in IP? My training is suitable for cases involving forensic evidence, as well.  What are the opportunities there? How difficult might it be for someone who has spent most of their career in an academic setting to make the transition into law?

Your question is interesting and one that I encounter quite frequently as law firms continue to expand their Intellectual Property (“IP”) practices and Ph.D.’s look for options outside of the lab environment.

People holding doctorates in the biotech, biology, chemistry and the computer sciences areas are in high demand by law firms with strong IP practices.  Over the past five to ten years, the biotech field has grown dramatically and, as a result, law firms, and particularly IP boutiques, have developed fairly sophisticated IP practices, successfully filling their ranks with attorneys with undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and chemical engineering.  Many (but certainly not all) firms have supplemented these practices with technical advisors and patent agents, scientists who typically hold Ph.D.’s but who don’t necessarily have law degrees.   Sometimes, these advisors/specialists come on board with no legal training.   With or without training, these specialists are employed by the firm to assist with the preparation of patent applications.  Technical specialists will generally also prepare to take the patent bar exam, which allows them to prosecute patents before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”).   Law firms usually require their specialists to take this exam within the first year or two of coming on board.

Most Ph.D.’s find the law firm environment extremely stimulating and quite challenging.  Ph.D.’s often comment that they are very attracted to making the transition from the lab to the law firm environment because of the increased opportunities to write – and write more abundantly.   Interestingly enough, we have found that after passing the patent bar, many patent agents decide to go on to law school for the career advancement and the increased compensation the law degree affords them.   To assist them in their efforts, many law firms have in place both formal and informal law school reimbursement programs to enable these specialists to go on to obtain a law degree.   In fact, some Ph.D.’s have successfully completed their law school degree at night while working full-time in the IP department of a law firm.

Transitioning from the academic setting to the law firm environment can be a challenge.  Many agents are faced with billable hour requirements (which vary among law firms), something which even a first year associate in a law firm will tell you takes some getting used to.  In addition, depending on how far along you are in your career (and it sounds like you have been a post-doc for several years), beginning a career as a patent agent or specialist in a law firm may require you to take a step back in compensation in order to achieve your long-term career goals.  However, the earnings potential you would achieve as a patent attorney is most likely far greater than that which you could ever achieve as a Ph.D.   In your role as patent agent or specialist, you will be required to deal with a wide range of individuals, from attorneys and paralegals within the law firm to clients and professionals outside of the law firm, so flexibility and good communication skills will be essential components for your success.  Finally, law firms are extremely demanding environment, but also intellectually stimulating and rewarding.   Most Ph.D.’s who contact us are already well-published in their fields and, thus, like the idea of “getting out of the lab,” being exposed to new ideas, and having the added plus of doing different types of writing and analysis.

We believe that as more scientists are exposed to the law firms and the career opportunities there, that these types of jobs will become increasingly competitive.  However, for Ph.D.’s with chemistry (especially organic chemistry) and biochemistry backgrounds and strong academic records, we believe excellent opportunities are fairly abundant.  This is especially true given the recent developments in the genetic area, namely stem cell research and cloning.