The 5 General Principles of Career Development

There are basically five general principles to keep in mind when thinking about your career in the law:

1. A legal career should be particularized. It should meet the interests, abilities, capacities and priorities of the individual lawyer. In simple terms, you should not live out someone else's dream.
2. Legal careers are built out of credentials and increments that tend to define the alternatives presented at the next decision point. You should choose from current opportunities recognizing the values of the credentials and skills you are accumulating.
3. There is a significant change in your marketability in seeking a second job. Actual work experience adds a major new credential available to those evaluating you for a second position.
4. The supply and demand for lawyers varies by geography, by practice area, and by the passage of time.
5. During the competency building years you would do well to consider employment alternatives as time investments. What long term returns will be generated by each alternative? What elements of competence will be obtained? What will your resume look like after three years in each alternative position? And how will that advance your long-term career interests?
   

   ---

Competence Building

A lawyer's training does not end with graduation from law school. In fact, many would say that a law degree is merely the document that gives you the right to learn to practice real law. Thus, the first several years of law practice are about competence building.

An ABA Task Force on Legal Competence has defined legal competence as encompassing three major themes:

1. Legal knowledge: knowledge of substantive law and of the legal system.
2. Legal skills: ability to apply that knowledge to the diagnosis and solution of client needs or problems, and to produce relevant products and services.
3. Management: efficiency in the production of these solutions, products, and services.

One of the first things a young attorney must do is determine the type of law he or she wishes to practice. It is important that every lawyer spend a considerable amount of time exploring the numerous options available. Speak with family, friends and acquaintances who are lawyers. Discuss practice areas with law school professors. Search out summer associate positions that will allow you to rotate through a number of disciplines. Intern during the school year and sign up for clinical work. Research growth trends: what may be a thriving practice area today may be less viable in five years.

Once the initial decision is made, what happens next will depend on how easily you adapt to the practice area. Do you find yourself excited about the projects being given to you? Are you happy doing the necessary research that will permit you to counsel knowledgeably on the subject matter? Do you find the work rewarding? Can you see yourself doing the same type of work 15 years from now? If so, congratulations, you've found your niche. If not, be prepared to make a change early in your career.

How early? No more than two years after you commence practicing. That having been said, it becomes increasingly difficult to change practice areas with the passage of time.

Law firm, corporation or government? Your decision will depend to some extent on your chosen practice area. Working for a law firm will give you the greatest flexibility if or when you may wish to change jobs. Just as a good law school is a credential, so is good law firm experience. When deciding on the type of employer you want to work for, you should first determine your long-term career goals and what experience is going to prove most valuable.

Law Firms:

Law firms present the broadest range of practice areas and offer the best arena in which to hone specific legal skills. They also may offer the potential to work on projects outside your chosen field from time to time.

Keep a few statistical trends in mind:

1. People who start in very small firms tend to remain in small firms, or go into solo practice or government.
2. Those starting in small firms appear to have access, by movement or expansion, to medium sized firms or small firms.
3. People starting out in medium sized firms have access to large firms or business.
4. Those who start out in large firms appear to have the greatest number of options: A high percentage remain in large firms (narrow specialties, high salaries). They also have access to medium sized firm, small firms, and corporations
   

Working for Corporations:

Some attorneys want to work for corporations. While corporations do recruit on campus and seek to hire entry level attorneys, they frequently prefer to hire lawyers with two to five years of experience.

If your choice is to go in-house, consider the following:

1. The trend of "beefing up" corporate legal departments has, to a large extent, reversed. There are fewer positions available.
2. An in-house attorney's earning potential is often significantly lower, despite better benefit packages.
3. Unlike law firms, law departments are pyramidal in structure. If your goal is to become General Counsel, you may need to make several strategic moves to get there.
4. Corporations are especially vulnerable to mergers, acquisitions and downsizing - any of which can impact an in-house attorney's job security.
5. Generally speaking, the legal community still perceives large law firms as providing the best training ground for the development of basic lawyering skills.
6. Contrary to popular perception, many in-house lawyers put in as many hours as do those in private practice.
7. In-house attorneys are able to get involved with the "business of the business" much more quickly than outside attorneys can. While their hours may be long, many have a sense of greater control over their time without the pressure of billable hours.
   

Working for the Government:

Working for a governmental entity can be tremendously rewarding, but unless you plan to make the government your career, choose your path carefully. Probably the broadest distinction to be made between types of government attorneys is between the litigators and the non-litigators. You can gain valuable experience doing worthwhile, substantive work; and government often offers the opportunity to gain specific expertise in fields less available in private practice or a corporation. Keep in mind that, as one government attorney put it, "the usual government dilemma is that if you're a political appointee, you must leave at some point; and if you're a career appointee, you can't get promoted beyond a certain level".

Making Lateral Moves

Unlike the past, it is rare for an attorney to join a firm as a first-year associate and end up retiring from that firm as a senior partner. Indeed, in today's marketplace where firms are competing for a finite amount of business, the trend is for law firms to grow by hiring the attorney that represents desired clients at another firm.

When should you make a lateral move? Putting aside compensation-driven change, an attorney should address the following issues, not all of which are relevant at each stage of the attorney's career:

1. Can I expect further professional development at my present firm?
2. Does my present firm have an expanding client base in my practice area?
3. How valuable is my practice area in relation to the others at the firm?
4. Do I enjoy the people with whom I work?
5. Does the firm culture and environment represent my ideal of what a firm should be?
6. Do I want to be a partner at the firm?
7. If I do want to be a partner at the firm, how realistic are my chances?

There is no set number of lateral moves an attorney should or should not make. If the answers to the questions reasonably justify a move, new opportunities should be explored. Caution dictates that, except for rare occasions, an attorney should remain with a firm for at least one year before seeking a change.

Business Development

If you become associated with a law firm, it is never too early to start thinking about developing business. For most firms the ability to bring in clients is an important factor in partnership decisions.

How do you go about marketing your experience? In addition to the traditional methods of speaking with relatives, friends, college and law school classmates and the like, publish articles, speak at seminars, join civic and charitable groups and other organizations, become active in your church or temple, sit on municipal boards and, importantly, watch how the partners in your firm generate business.

Perhaps the most valuable tool available to attorneys is a business development plan. These plans come in several forms. After 3 or 4 years of practice attorneys should put together a realistic annual business development plan, against which they may measure their performance at the end of the year. By commencing this process early in their careers, attorneys will have the opportunity to refine their plans to eliminate non-productive activities and concentrate on the plan elements that have been most successful. Further, the existence of the business plans over time will provide a historical view to a potential employer on the ability of a candidate to perform as he or she predicts.

Since business plans are individualistic, we coach our candidates on the essential elements and form. Please contact us for more details.