Looking for Employment? Consider Labor & Employment!

If you are just starting out in your legal career, or are a junior litigator looking to specialize, I would highly recommend considering labor and employment law as a practice area.  We saw corporate and real estate opportunities disappear during the economic downturn (though both practice areas are now coming back strongly on the West Coast).  General litigation comes and goes, and there are so many general litigators on the legal market that competition is beyond fierce for any open position at a good firm.

Labor and employment law, however, is a relatively specialized practice that is almost always in some demand, and as happens to be especially hot right now – even just looking at the Los Angeles market alone, I see nearly a dozen open opportunities for labor and employment attorneys at the mid-level, and there are at least one or two opportunities in every major West Coast market.

The reason for this is fairly intuitive – if the economy is up, companies are hiring more employees, and perhaps re-tooling their benefit plans to accommodate a larger workforce and/or make their company more attractive to prospective hires.  If the economy is down, companies are laying people off, which often results in a high risk of litigation over anything from the reasons for termination to disputes over benefits determinations.  In other words, regardless of the state of the overall economy, companies will always have a need for legal expertise in this area.

Practicing in this area will also provide you with a lot of options for firm size and location – most all major law firms have some type of labor practice group, and there are a good number of firms who specialize their entire practice in this area, from the boutiques up to larger national labor firms with hundreds of attorneys.

If you are a younger attorney looking for a potential career direction, consider a specialty in labor and employment for the reasons outlined above.  And if you are an experienced labor and employment litigation associate looking to make a move, now is a fantastic time to get in touch with a BCG recruiter to discuss your options!

The Hottest Current Market on the West Coast: Patent Law

Looking at the legal job market now and over the past year, it is immediately obvious that patent law is an extremely in-demand area, and that trend looks to continue into the foreseeable future.  If you are a patent agent or attorney looking for a new position, however, there is one big catch: a very specific subset of patent law comprises over 90% of the recent and current demand, namely patent agents and attorneys with a background (read: a formal degree) in electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and/or physics.

Patent law is a very specific enterprise when it comes to hiring demands, and law firms are on the whole requiring two things from their potential candidates: an actual formal degree in one of the aforementioned fields, and actual experience in prosecuting or litigating patents in those fields.

We have seen firms routinely pass on excellent candidates who have substantial experience working on prosecution of computer software, hardware, wireless communications, or related electronics technologies, but do not have a formal technical degree.  To some extent, this represents one of the fundamental tenets of law firm hiring, which is that hiring is driven by a demand for work, and that work is provided by clients who want to see attorneys with particular credentials handling their matters.

Actual experience in prosecuting and/or litigating patents is also essential if you wish to be considered for a position in the law firm market.  Entry-level positions are quite rare, and even for those positions firms typically like to see some history of patent prosecution work, so if you are currently in law school, graduate school, or hoping to break into this field in the future, you should look into every possible avenue to obtain substantive experience in drafting patent applications.

If you do happen to be an attorney or patent agent with a degree in electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and/or physics, and have more than a year’s worth of substantive experience in patent prosecution or litigation, your options are wide open in nearly every major market on the west coast, from Seattle and Portland in the Pacific Northwest, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or San Diego in California, and all the way down to Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona.  If you fit this description and have ever thought about making a lateral move, it is rare to see a market so strongly trending for one very specific subset of credentials and experience, so you should definitely take advantage and reach out to a top legal recruiter to discuss your options.

Salary Realities in a Lateral Move

A large part of my work as a legal recruiter is helping candidates move to a different geographic location, rather than switching firms within the same city, and quite often this involves a candidate moving from a large market (NYC, Chicago, LA) to a smaller one (Seattle, Portland, Phoenix).  Candidates making this type of move are typically making it to be closer to family, because their partner or spouse needed to make their own career move, for a change in their quality of life, or some combination of those three.  For obvious reasons, what is never the case is a candidate moving from a large market to a smaller one in order to increase their salary.

Even though places like Phoenix, Seattle, and Portland are still major cities, the salaries on average are quite a bit lower, and thus there can be a little bit of a sticker shock for lateral attorneys once they see the actual number in an offer letter.  For instance, the total annual compensation (base salary plus bonus) for a sixth-year associate at a big firm in a major market can exceed $250k, but that same associate would likely see a maximum total compensation of $200k in a best-case-scenario in Portland or Seattle – in other words, a 20% net cut, and the gap can very often be wider.

I always prepare my candidates for this reality at the outset of their job search when they are interested in these markets, because when I meet with recruiting coordinators from smaller market firms, one of the main things they emphasize aside from preferring candidates with strong local ties is that they need the candidate to be prepared for the lower compensation levels.  Some firms will even bluntly ask at the outset if a specific candidate would accept a hypothetical offer in their standard salary range before proceeding with the interview process, which I think is very fair since there is no point in spending everyone’s time if a candidate will end up insisting on an amount that is not in line with the firm’s compensation structure.

It is certainly appropriate to negotiate for a stronger compensation package if you are a stellar candidate in a practice area with high demand, and I always try to help my candidates get the best deal possible, but the simple reality is that you will have to be prepared to take a hit in compensation when lateraling to a smaller market despite what you may be “worth” in a larger market or at your current firm.  Even though a formal offer does not come until the end of the search process, you need to think about it very seriously from the start!

Cataloguing Your Experience

Regardless of whether or not you are in the midst of a job search, taking the time to thoroughly and quantitatively catalog your legal work experience to date can be a highly beneficial exercise.  I’ll start first with a few examples of what this might look like depending on your practice area, and then discuss the benefits of doing this in the context of both an active job search or as a useful metric for making yourself a better attorney.

Corporate and Real Estate: Typically called a “deal sheet” or a “list of representative matters,” most transactional attorneys will have a 1-2 page list of their most recent and/or most significant deals, ideally separated into specific categories such as “M&A,” “Finance,” “Restructuring,” or whatever transactional subcategories are appropriate to the type of work the attorney has done.  Essentially an extension of a corporate attorney’s resume, helpful details also include the total value of each matter and the attorney’s role or tasks performed on each matter (e.g., served as first chair on an acquisition of the assets of Company A by Company B, valued at $50 million dollars).

If you are currently conducting or thinking of embarking on a job search as a transactional attorney, firms will request a deal sheet the majority of the time, so it is a good idea to keep one up to date as you progress through your career so that you do not have to scramble to put one together when the time comes.

Litigation: Most firms will not request or require a representative matter list from their litigation candidates, however I still find that it is extremely helpful for litigation candidates to do a survey of all their past work to list the cases they’ve worked on and the tasks they performed for those cases.  Helpful information for each case will include the type of case (e.g., contract dispute, fraud, securities litigation, etc.), the type of court (e.g., N.D. California, First Court of Appeals of Texas, etc.), and the attorney’s role or tasks performed in the case (conducted percipient and expert witness depositions, drafted motion for summary judgment, second-chaired jury trial, etc.).

Even if you do not submit the full list to firms, having a catalog of your past work will help you quantify your experience and explain to a potential future employer what value you bring to the table in your resume and cover letter.  “Conducted over 15 depositions of percipient and expert witnesses in state and federal commercial litigation matters” sounds much more impressive and concrete than a bullet point that simply says “deposition experience.”  Creating and having such a list on hand is also going to be invaluable for interview preparation, as you will inevitably be asked to describe your work experience in particular areas, and it is easy to forget or omit important aspects of your work if you have not recently thought about them.

Additionally, if you have a mix of general class action business litigation experience as well as a decent amount of labor and employment litigation experience, you can pull the most relevant information from your representative matter list to create different versions of your resume to target job listings seeking different experience.  Your resume will be the first (and perhaps only) thing a hiring partner sees from your application, and so you want to convey as best as possible how your experience fits with the job listing and the particular practice group to which you are applying.  This is much easier if you have created a representative matter list beforehand.

Patent Agents and Attorneys: Patent practice is quite specific, and most patent practices will often specialize in servicing particular types of clients in particular technical areas.  Thus, the hiring partners in any given patent practice will want to know the depth and extent of a candidate’s experience with the technologies most relevant to themselves and their clients.  If you are a patent agent or attorney, you should put together a list of the patents you have drafted and office actions and appeals you have worked on, categorized by particular technical area (e.g., Software: drafted 25 patent applications, responded to 10 office actions; Wireless Technologies: drafted 5 patents and responded to 2 office actions).  You should also make sure to have a writing sample, preferably a published patent application, for each technical area in which you have expertise, as firms will often want to see how you grasp and present the technical issues as well as get a sense of your general writing ability.

Why This Is Helpful:  Cataloguing your experience in this manner is obviously helpful in your job search for a number of reasons.  If you are a transactional attorney, a deal sheet will likely be a required element of an application.   But even if it is not required in your practice area, as I mentioned above, a catalog can help you tailor your resume and cover letter to a particular position.  It will also help you prepare to discuss your experience in an interview generally, as well as help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your experience to date that may require explanation – for instance, you may have extensive briefing experience as a litigator but lack deposition experience, and this may come up as an interview question.

Even if you are not on an active job search, taking the time to catalog your experience can help you generally in your legal career.  It will help you identify what aspects of your experience may be lacking so that you can actively seek out work on future matters that will broaden your experience and make you a more effective attorney.  It can help you identify particular types of matters that you enjoy more than others, which is useful in focusing on a specialty as you become more advanced in your career or, alternately, it may prove a catalyst to request a different type of work if you realize you are being passively pigeonholed in a particular practice area that you do not enjoy or may not be sustainable at your current firm in the long run.

With how busy most attorneys are, it can be easy to get mired in responding to day-to-day tasks and making the next bonus check without ever bothering to take a step back and look at the progress of your career to date as well as your broader goals for the future.  At the end of the day, however, your career is your own, and you will be doing yourself a favor if you take the time to catalog your experience to date to see where you stand and, more importantly, where you want and need to go in the future.  And of course if you conclude that you need to move on from where you are right now, your friendly neighborhood legal recruiter is there to help you out.

Tips for Litigators

The majority of resumes that have come across my desk in the past year have been from litigators.  Litigation is typically a fairly steady practice area whether the economy is up, down, or sideways, however the market is also perpetually flooded with an excess of litigation candidates, so I thought it would be helpful to provide a brief overview of what background credentials and experience are most attractive to law firms seeking lateral litigation candidates.

Top Credentials: Top grades from a top law school, a clerkship (federal is better than state), and high-level moot court experience are always preferred.  The first two are generally desired no matter what the practice area, but it is especially true in the context of litigation.  In fact, many highly-regarded boutique litigation firms will not even look at resumes from candidates outside of top-10 law schools, regardless of that candidate’s other credentials.  This isn’t meant to discourage otherwise excellent candidates from being expansive in their search, but it does help to be realistic about your chances if your credentials as a litigator are not absolutely top notch.

Deposition and Trial Experience: Deposition and trial experience are critical.  Unless you are still in your first or second year, your attractiveness as a lateral candidate will be severely diminished if you do not have deposition experience and, ideally, some trial experience under your belt.  Discovery and motion practice are good to have, but they are pretty much a given for all litigation associates and nearly every firm will prefer a candidate with even a modest amount of trial work to someone with extremely extensive motion practice experience.

It is a well-noted irony that younger associates at the biggest firms are often stuck languishing on huge discovery projects (i.e., lots of doc review) compared to their smaller-firm counterparts who may need to handle cases from day one.   If you are a litigation associate at a large firm, I would really recommend seeking out a pro bono case where you can get federal court litigation experience, and ideally direct trial experience, under the guide of a partner or more senior associate – this is often the quickest (and sometimes only) way to get this on your resume early on in your career.  It may seem unappealing to pile a pro bono case on top of all your other work, but trust me – it’s much less appealing being stuck with nowhere to go as a mid-level litigation associate because your resume is too thin on substantive experience.

If you are a litigator at a smaller firm, however, you still may not have the last laugh if you are trying to make a lateral move to a larger firm.  The mid-to-large firms definitely seek candidates with experience, but in marketing their services to clients, credentials are king, so you ideally need to have both and (unfortunately, in my opinion), candidates with stellar, high-level experience from a small name firm will often have trouble getting traction at larger firms, unless they have…

A Specialty: Your best bet in becoming an attractive litigation candidate, aside from great credentials and deposition and trial experience, is to develop a specialty in your litigation practice.  Firms can go out and find thousands of general litigators, but oftentimes have trouble when their hiring needs are precipitated by an excess workload in a particular specialized litigation practice.  For instance, in the current market I am seeing an overwhelmingly strong demand for candidates with extensive labor and employment litigation experience, a large demand for litigators with securities experience, and of course the ever-present demand for patent litigators with backgrounds in electrical engineering or computer science.  In contrast, hardly any firms are seeking just a general background.  Demand for different specialties comes and goes, but you will significantly increase your prospects by specializing as early as possible in your litigation career.

Conclusion: If possible, you will ideally have a combination of all three categories above: top credentials, deposition and trial work, and extensive experience in a specialized area of litigation practice.  If not all three, take as many steps as you can to fill in the gaps, even if you do not envision moving on from your current firm for a couple more years, because they will make you a better litigator if you stay put, and a better candidate if and when you decide to move on.

How to Approach Your Application or Interview

When you were in law school, one of the first things you were likely taught was that it you should analyze a case not only from your client’s perspective, but also from the perspective of the opposing party.  In theory, this would help you determine both the strengths and weaknesses of your position, and also give you a better understanding of the issues as a whole.  Whether you are looking at dry technical arguments, or engaged in an extremely personal family law mediation, being able to understand the perspective of the party opposite is one of the key skills that every successful lawyer should have.

I have noticed, however, that the majority of attorneys engaged in a job search entirely fail to apply this technique to their job search, which is unfortunate because it can ultimately help you to become a much more successful candidate when done correctly.

Your job search is ultimately about you and your career goals, and that is as it should be – you should target firms and practice groups that match what you would like your current and future legal practice to be.  However, in order to get that perfect job, what you need to do is to put yourself in the mindset of the attorneys who will be hiring you and tailor your application materials and interview responses to their needs.  After all, they are the ones who will ultimately decide whether you get the job, and what they are looking for is the candidate who is best going to help meet the needs of the clients, the partners, the practice group, and the firm.

If a particular job posting seeks specific experience, make sure to highlight any related experience you have in the resume you submit for that position.  Ask questions of any interviewer, especially partners, such as “where could you use the most support in your practice right now?” or “what precipitated your hiring need right now?” and use that information to express how you would be able to contribute to what the firm needs.  There are many ways you can tailor your approach, but the overall point is that you should be thinking of everything in the application process through the lens of the people making the hiring decisions.

This is not to say that questions regarding the potential for career advancement, the type of work you will be given, or a firm’s work culture are not appropriate or important, but first and foremost you need to establish as an applicant that you can provide what the firm is looking for.  A particular position at a particular firm might be your dream job, but it’s no use if they offer the job to someone else!

Did I Get The Wrong IP Credentials?

I work with a lot of IP candidates, and the IP market for both attorneys and patent agents is somewhat unique.  For general attorneys, whether it be litigation or transactional, it matters more where you went to law school and what you have in the way of work experience than it does what your undergraduate major was (with the caveat that it never hurts to have, say, a finance background if you are doing finance transactions).  But in the IP world, if you are an otherwise strong candidate, your job prospects will likely hinge on what it says on your degree depending on what the legal market is looking for at any given point in time.

There is currently an intense demand for attorneys and patent agents with degrees in electrical engineering and/or computer science.  In fact, nine out of ten IP positions on the west coast are seeking such a background, and many firms will not even consider a candidate without a formal degree in these areas, regardless of that candidate’s knowledge and experience.  In speaking with partners and recruiting coordinators at law firms, it is clear that this dynamic is driven by client demand.  Thus, current job-seeking candidates with degrees in the life sciences are finding that their opportunities are few and far between (we have seen a recent small but significant uptick in demand for life sciences IP on the east coast, and are optimistic this will start to be the case on the west coast towards the middle part of next year).

What this means for you as an IP candidate is that, if you have a degree (even a Ph.D.) in a particular technical area, and you are finding that you are not getting any traction with law firms, it is not because you have “bad” credentials, it just means that you will have to pay attention to the market and either have the patience to wait for demand to pick up in your field, or make sure to jump on available opportunities if your background is in high demand at the moment, because that can always change as the hiring cycle and market moves on.  In either case, a good recruiter should be able to inform you about the state of the market, and the likelihood of landing interviews quickly or tempering your expectations and having patience to wait for the next market cycle.

It’s Been A Week and I Haven’t Heard Anything

If you are embarking on a job search in the current legal market, it will require you to simultaneously have the patience of a saint as well as be prepared to respond to a potential opportunity at a moment’s notice.  Hiring is always driven by law firms, of course, and given the current market conditions firms are not only being more cautious with their hiring but also have an incredibly large pool of applicants from which to choose for each position.  The combination of these two factors alone means that even if you are a very strong candidate, it can often take a few weeks to hear a response either way.

Believe me, I am just as impatient to hear back as my candidates – after all, I want to get them great jobs as soon as possible!  But I also understand the concerns of law firms when it comes to the perils of lateral hiring, the need to screen for the best possible candidate who will stick around for the longest possible time, and the incredible amount of work it takes on the part of a law firm’s recruiting coordinator to review resumes, get feedback from busy partners, manage interview schedules, and correspond with applicants and recruiters on top of their regular human resources duties.

That being said, however, you have to also be ready to respond and do your best to make yourself available for interviews on short notice should an opportunity arise.  Given the relatively small number of jobs available, you do not want to miss out on an opportunity because another candidate was able to interview and fill the position more quickly than you.  It is a good idea to stay on top of your schedule, and even to let your recruiter know what your current availability looks like every few weeks or so just so they have that information on hand if and when they receive an interview request for you.

All this is a long way of saying that it is a buyer’s market, so have patience and try not to get frustrated with how much time your job search takes, but be ready to jump on an interview request right away if it comes up!

Maintaining Control Over Your Job Search

It can be very difficult to conduct an organized and coordinated job search, especially if you are doing so as an attorney while continuing to manage a significant workload with ever-changing deadlines, especially when travel for interviews is involved.  Using a legal recruiter can help ease the burden, because a good recruiter will do a lot of the legwork for you, such as writing an excellent cover letter, proactively reaching out to law firms, keeping track of responses and maintaining follow-up communications until a decision has been reached on your candidacy.

It is incredibly important, however, to make sure that you always maintain control of your own job search, and specifically to keep track of where your resume has been sent.  What I recommend when you are beginning your search is to create a spreadsheet to keep track of where you have submitted your resume, either directly or through a recruiter.  If you are submitting your own resume, a spreadsheet will help you keep track of where you should be following up and when to inquire about the status of your candidacy (I typically recommend following up with a brief email every 2-3 weeks that reiterates your interest in the firm, provides any relevant updates such as significant changes to your experience, competing interviews and/or offers from other firms, etc.).

If you are working with a recruiter, a spreadsheet will help you keep track of where you have already applied so that you can better focus your job search and avoid the issue of duplicate submissions.  A good recruiter will always get your permission before submitting you to a particular firm, both to ensure that the firm is a good fit for what you are looking for, but more importantly so that you know who has already seen your resume.  This is the way I do things because I think it just makes sense and is much more professional, but I am always surprised at the number of candidates I speak with who find this approach to be different and/or refreshing based on their past experiences with other recruiters.

Unfortunately, I have had a number of instances where I have informed a candidate about an opportunity at a particular firm and gotten their permission to submit their resume only to have us find out that a prior recruiter they had worked with had already sent the resume to the firm without the candidate’s permission.  This is problematic for a number of reasons, primarily because a duplicate submission demonstrates a lack of organization and clear communication (both of which are essential traits for an attorney hoping to land a job at a good law firm), but also because law firms do not want to deal with any fee disputes between competing recruiting agencies.  Either way, it is not good for the candidate’s prospects, and I care that my candidates do as well as possible in their job search.

If you care about being focused, coordinated, and professional in your job search (and you should – it’s your career, after all!), then it is paramount that you keep track of the firms to which you have submitted your resume.  And of course, if you are going to use a recruiter, you should take care to pick one who will communicate openly and honestly and allow you to maintain control over your job search.  If you don’t know where to find one, my colleagues and I may have a suggestion…

Doing Your Homework – Law Firm Websites

This may seem very obvious, but it always bears repeating because of how greatly it increases your chances of a successful job search and/or interview: always do your homework.  Your recruiter will be able to alert you to opportunities in your desired location, help market you to law firms, and ideally provide you information about how and why particular firms would be a good match for your background and experience, but at the end of the day, it is your own personal research and preparation that will be the driver of your job search and interview success.

One of the best things you can do in researching a firm, whether in making your initial decision to apply or in prepping for an interview, is to make extensive use of the law firm’s website.  Again, obvious right?  But depending on how the firm has organized their site, it can sometimes be difficult to find the relevant information, even for me, so here are a few helpful tips that can get you started:

1) Size of the office you are applying to – you may be looking at an AmLaw Top 50 firm, but depending on your market, the firm’s office there might be on the smaller, bigger, newer or older size.  Most firms now have features where you can search attorneys by office and get an accurate tally.  Many of my candidates have often been surprised that they are able to find a more intimate, personal experience at a “big” law firm if the firm’s office in their city happens to be on the small side versus a mid-sized regional firm with an office of 50-100 attorneys that still feels big.  If you are looking for a particular feel or dynamic, this is a great way to sort that out.

2) Who you would be working with – oftentimes more helpful than a search by office to determine the size, some firms will let you narrow your search of the firm’s attorneys by practice group as well.  Running a search by office and practice group is an excellent way to be able to quickly browse the profiles of the people you would potentially be working with, and can sometimes be the fastest way to determine whether a firm might be a good fit for you.

3) What type of work you would be doing – following up on the last point, once you know who is in the practice group in a given office, you can browse the profiles of those attorneys to figure out the type of work they do and see if it matches up with your background and interests.  “Litigation” covers a lot of territory, as does “corporate.”  If all the attorneys in a given practice group do insurance coverage, and you are looking for broad commercial litigation, it might not be a good fit.  The more helpful profiles will be those of the partners – they will be more likely to have a list of representative matters and clients than junior associates, and they will also be the ones assigning you the work if you are an associate candidate.  If you are a partner, browsing the profiles will help you determine how much complementary experience and potential for collaboration and cross-marketing a particular firm might offer you, which can be of utmost importance in maintaining and growing your client base.

4) Is the firm growing in your practice group – even candidates inclined to do their own research oftentimes fail to explore one of the more helpful resources on a law firm’s website: the press releases.  More specifically, the press releases specific to your practice group that discuss lateral partner moves and/or practice group expansion.  For instance, I recently had an IP candidate who was seeking to join a firm with a growing IP practice, as the one at his current firm was stagnating with a lack of overall support.  I knew from looking at press releases that a particular firm’s Silicon Valley office had recently brought over a couple IP partners, and that the firm as a whole had been hiring new IP attorneys regularly over the past year in order to build that practice group globally (in their D.C. and China-based office particularly).  This not only confirmed the potential fit for my candidate, but when he mentioned this during his interview with the firm, the partners were impressed that he was aware of this information.

There is obviously more information to be had the deeper you dig, but hopefully this will give you a good start in knowing how to research a firm and what to look for in determining a potential fit with your interests and preparing yourself for a more successful interview.