Given recent economic conditions, many Legal Authority clients choose to make the switch from corporate to litigation each week. While this is not always the best choice if you believe that you are particularly suited to doing corporate work, it is an option that Legal Authority clients have chosen with increasing frequency. Conversely, a couple of years ago many attorneys were choosing to make the switch from litigation to corporate. To give you a sense of the mechanics involved with making a switch, we have profiled a recent Legal Authority client who successfully made the switch.

Mark*, a 2001 graduate of a top five law school, had little more than a year of experience as a corporate attorney with a major US law firm’s Silicon Valley office (the office closed in 2003). Mark’s circumstance was particularly dire because he (1) was a corporate attorney, and (2) had failed the California Bar Exam–not once, but twice. Mark’s law firm had the same policy as many other major law firms have: If you fail the bar exam more than once, you must leave the firm.

While Mark’s circumstance was unique, the situation in his particular legal market and practice area was not. In addition to having assisted numerous other associates from top Silicon Valley law firms land new jobs, Legal Authority was also already quite familiar with the events that were occurring inside Mark’s own law firm because we had already assisted numerous corporate associates from the same class at the same firm as Mark switch firms within the past several months. Indeed, we had even assisted a partner from the same firm move who informed us that he believed the firm’s office was in danger of closing. While we had assisted these individuals locate corporate or in-house positions, Mark’s situation was something that we believed required a far different approach.

Prior to contacting Legal Authority, Mark conducted his job search for a few hours every day, trying numerous methods for getting a position. Mark scanned online job boards, contacted recruiters, and asked his law school for alumni contacts. By January of 2003 — more than 7 months after being let go — Mark had not received a single interview. After unsuccessfully trying to get a job through a preeminent San Francisco recruiter, the same recruiting firm recommended that Mark contact Legal Authority.

Despite all of the gloom, there were some positives to Mark’s prospects by January of 2003. Fortunately, Mark ultimately did pass the bar on his third attempt. In addition, Mark graduated in the top 50 percent of his law school class. Having seen many of his fellow associates get laid off (several at his own firm were even let go while he was studying for the Bar Exam his third time), Mark was not entirely committed to doing corporate work. In fact, Mark had become so disillusioned with corporate practice, that he was not sure he even wanted to practice law at all. Nevertheless, Mark believed he owed it to himself to push forward. With almost $100,000 in student loans from law school, and a family to support, Mark felt a need to continue working as an attorney.

Mark was initially skeptical about using a service like Legal Authority, according to Legal Authority Employment Advocate Melissa Zelada. Melissa, herself an attorney, had to spend a great deal of time with Mark educating him about Legal Authority and discussing his job search. According to Melissa, “Mark’s search was complicated by the fact that he really stood no chance of getting a corporate position. Not having the bar and competing with scores of other corporate attorneys who had not been fired for failing the bar twice made his prospects very dire. In addition, Mark was conducting his search in one of the worst areas of the United States from an employment perspective. Mark believed that if a firm did not advertise a position or hire a recruiter to track down a candidate for an opening, they were not worth contacting.”

Melissa also knew that Mark’s search was not going to be an easy one: “Here was a super candidate who had both found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and had not passed the bar after two attempts. He was also in the virtual epicenter of the economic downturn. He was a junior corporate associate and had not worked in over six months. I knew that Legal Authority could help Mark despite his situation.”

Melissa and Mark spent over two hours on the phone strategizing options. Mark accepted the idea that it would be in his best interest to move out of corporate law and into a practice area that was currently more in demand and would be more stable, like litigation. As a summer associate at both a major New York and Silicon Valley law firm, Mark had been exposed to enough litigation work that Melissa knew that Legal Authority’s Resume and Cover Letter Division would be able to do an excellent job both highlighting his litigation skills and helping Mark make a plausible case that he really wanted to do litigation work. In addition, Mark spent one year as a litigation paralegal prior to enrolling in law school, and had enjoyed the litigation work there.

“When I was a first and second year student in law school, all anyone was talking about was corporate, corporate, corporate,” Mark told Legal Authority, “Everyone knew that being a corporate associate could be a ticket to a super in-house position and stock options. When I was a corporate associate, I gradually came to realize that being a litigator was probably more suited to my personality. To me, corporate attorneys were just too uptight.”

While it may not sound all that significant, making the change from corporate to litigation was a major career decision for Mark. Melissa also felt there was a lot of strength in providing Mark with a rationale to do litigation work and that his decision was justified in his own mind. According to Melissa, “Mark wanted a job. He could have applied to scores of firms in the Bay Area for a corporate position and gotten another one-most likely at a firm of less than 20 attorneys that would not have cared about the Bar Exam, but it would have nevertheless been difficult with his particular circumstance. When I sensed he did not really enjoy corporate anyway, it was somewhat refreshing because I knew he would have a lot of choice in the litigation realm.”

Melissa and Mark believed that the best strategy was to follow his heart and go for a litigation position. In the San Francisco legal market, like virtually every legal market, far more firms do litigation work than corporate work. Finally, the corporate market at the time was in horrible shape. Mark ultimately decided to approach 300 large and medium-sized law firms with litigation departments to secure his litigation position.

Mark and resume specialist Christopher Dacus worked on several versions of his resume and cover letter with Legal Authority. Dacus, who received his Master’s Degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, had counseled hundreds of attorneys in his time as a professional writer. According to Dacus, the largest challenge with Mark’s cover letter was that Mark really needed a job and would basically take any position offered, and he needed to portray strength while not appearing desperate.

According to Chris, “Mark didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket. Essentially, he was hoping that a corporate position would open up for him if the litigation strategy failed. When I am working with our clients at Legal Authority, I am always cognizant that my goal is to ensure that they get a job.”

Mark’s final cover letter and resume reflected that he had litigation and corporate experience. While the cover letter emphasized Mark’s litigation interest but also mentioned his corporate experience in enough detail that employers would see it.

Mark received his Airborne Express package from Legal Authority on a Saturday. On Sunday he signed his cover letters and mailed them on Monday. What happened next surprised Mark. By Wednesday, Mark had received 5 interviews. While 4 of the 5 interviews were with medium sized firms, the fifth interview was with the San Francisco office of a major New York City-based law firm. By Friday, Mark had received 11 interviews, and by the middle of the following week he had received 16 interviews.

Mark called Melissa the day he received his first interviews. Two weeks later, he called Melissa again to tell her he had accepted a litigation position with a mid-sized San Francisco firm — at a salary identical to his former one. And what happened with the San Francisco office of the major New York law firm? Mark was quite clear: “When I got my call back after my screening interview, I stalled and ultimately never went back. I do not think I am ever going to want to work for a big firm again. Who needs that? I expect to be a partner in five years at my present firm. If there is anything I would recommend to attorneys searching for a job it is this: Don’t use Legal Authority as a last resort. I could have been employed more than 6 months ago if I had used Legal Authority in the first place.”

*Names have been changed to maintain privacy, but this is a 100% true success story.

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LEGAL MYTH:

 If I use the NALP Guide, Martindale, or my career services office, I will find my perfect job.

LEGAL AUTHORITY:

You can follow the crowd and the same old tired list of leads, or you can take action and contact us. Legal Authority is the leader in finding jobs for law students from over 200 law schools.

Legal Authority has more legal hiring contacts than any company on Earth—over 75,000 of them. We have more legal hiring contacts than Martindale, NALP or your career service office. We have a staff of over 35 attorneys and researchers updating our hiring contacts 24 hours a day. In addition, we have professional writers on staff who will review and revise your resume and cover letters so they have the greatest possible impact. You would be surprised to find out how many law students use Legal Authority to find jobs. Law students use Legal Authority because it works.

 It is no secret that following the crowd and finding a job through your career services office, networking, and applying sporadically to jobs on posting boards can be “hit or miss”. You can compete with everyone else at every other law school trying the same tired old methods of getting a job or you can take action and call us. No one but Legal Authority can help you apply to every specific type job you might be interested in.

At Legal Authority, we have the resources to get more law students jobs than any other single organization we are aware of in the United States.

Our database contains contacts for virtually every law firm, corporation, government office, and public interest organization in the United States (we can even help you go abroad). We will review and revise your resume and help you apply to any employer you want to—anywhere. And our service is also extremely inexpensive. Let our Attorney Employment Advocates speak with you about your job search and how they can get you your first job.

Find out how law students across the United States are getting their first job. Sounds easy? It is. Sounds smart? It is.

Now you’re thinking like a lawyer.

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Graduating from law school is certainly a job in itself… now it’s time to take the next step–landing that dream position! The interviewing process can be an extremely daunting task; while being able to sell yourself to a particular firm is, of course, the primary goal; there lies a plethora of guidelines every recent law school graduate should follow.

In order to attain that first interview, your resume and cover letter will be the first impression a hiring authority will have of you; these documents need to be flawless, as there is no room for error. Once the interview date has been set, intense preparation should follow. This includes researching the firm’s area of expertise, its well-established track record and gathering as much information about the person you will be interviewing with are all key factors a candidate should gather beforehand. Being prepared with detailed questions to ask the hiring authority is vital to a successful interview. The specificity and detail of these questions should be given a great amount of thought and, in turn, will demonstrate to the firm that you have done your homework. The day has finally arrived… the interview is only a few hours away. You have completed the needed preparation and are beaming with confidence.

Dress for Success-this cannot be overemphasized enough. This will be the first time you will be meeting your potential employer and you want to make a lasting impression. From your enthusiasm about the opportunity to what you wear on the interview are all taking into account and analyzed by the interviewer. Making sure your suit is neatly pressed and your tie is stain-free is just as important as what you say during this time. Other non-verbal communication such as your posture, handshake and maintaining eye contact are crucial as well. Nervous gestures, although understandable given the situation, need to be curtailed too.

Once the series of questions have begun, your answers need to be well-defined and thorough in order to demonstrate how you will be an asset to the firm. Although saying you pay close attention to detail and have a strong work-ethic are important, it is recommended that you apply these qualities to experiences you’ve had in the past (i.e. summer internships, clerkships, etc.). This will allow the firm to see how you handle different situations and obstacles when they do arise. By doing so, the firm is able to gain more insight into your character and abilities to successfully get the job done.

The interview is coming to an end and you have eloquently articulated why you deserve the position. Although many law firms require multiple interviews before an offer is made, you should always close the interview by asking for the job. This simply reiterates your strong desire towards the firm, while demonstrating a certain level of confidence on your part. The last step, and one that is commonly overlooked, is sending a thank you note to the firm for their time and consideration. This simple gesture adds a personal touch and distinguishes you among those other candidates.

By following these guidelines, your odds of a successful interviewing campaign may greatly increase.

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Opportunity—it’s one of life’s most invaluable assets and often under emphasized. It’s that hidden treasure that can change lives. While many spend countless hours in search of the perfect one, the most coveted opportunities are found where one usually would not look.

Many times, a successful job search requires opportunity. The ability to give yourself the best possible chance in life requires that you search all avenues, streets, roads and highways. By doing so, you will not only be able to uncover those positions you never thought existed, but you may find a new outlook on life as well. While one’s education, experience and community involvement certainly play a vital role in your search, the ability to present yourself to that firm or corporation begins with opportunity, first and foremost.

Legal Authority does just that. Our services provide you with endless opportunities. Each and every one is precious. In order to pursue all of your career goals, you must first be able to give yourself the best possible chance to succeed. Let us be part of your journey!

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We would like to tell you about Legal Authority and how attorneys and others in the legal profession throughout the United States have proven Legal Authority is the most effective way to find their next position. We help hundreds of attorneys get new positions each month and we are not a recruiting firm or job posting board.

In fact, we are several times effective than a recruiter or job posting board. We have helped numerous attorneys from AmLaw 100 law firms, the General Counsels of Fortune 500 companies, and even law students. Our Attorney Employment Advocates can help you too.

Fact: According to the National Association of Law Placement: “The most common means of obtaining a job was a letter or other “self-initiated contact” with the employer…”

Fact: Legal Authority (www.legalauthority.com) is the largest portal of legal employment opportunities in the world, seamlessly bringing attorneys and employers together throughout their career cycle. With the largest database of legal employers anywhere, Legal Authority has contacts for over 750,000 legal employers in all 50 states and over 150 countries.

What We Do Works

At Legal Authority, we are getting attorneys and people in the legal field positions every day of the week because what we can do for you actually works. Consider: We have the largest database of legal employers in the world and there is probably better than a 99.9% chance that your next legal job will be with an employer in our database. How you get to them is up to you — you can do it now or you can do it later.

Be Smart

In today’s legal market, over 85% of all available attorney positions are never publicized. The most efficient way to get these positions is through targeted mailing. Legal search firms fill less than 5% of all available positions. We have heard over and over again that “networking” is simply not the most effective approach. Ads posted on job posting boards or in classified sections of legal newspapers often draw well over 1,000 responses.

We are not a recruiting firm or a job posting board. Simply put, we are the legal profession’s direct link to employers. At Legal Authority’s core is our strategy of allowing individuals to apply to legal jobs on their own, which drives our capabilities into a one-of-a-kind employment continuum, with our database at its center. We can cover any given market more efficiently, cost-effectively, and in less time than any source, anywhere.

Choose Professionals

We have a staff of over 40 attorneys, researchers, and writers who are updating our contact information 24 hours a day. Nobody tries harder to get attorneys positions. In addition, one of our attorneys will effectively revise your resume and cover letter to ensure that it is as good as possible. Do not make the mistake of approaching employers without having professionals review and revise your resume and cover letter.

Delay at Your Own Cost

With salaries for most attorneys exceeding $50,000, delay can be extremely costly. At an annual salary of $120,000, for example, you are losing $10,000 each month you are not working. This does not even reflect the amount of money you are losing in benefits and other employer-sponsored perks. If you are unhappy with your current position, or your organization is in trouble, the emotional costs of remaining with an employer can be even more severe.

Choose Legal Authority

All we do is assist attorneys in getting positions. We are empathetic with each attorney’s particular circumstances and we will do our absolute best to assist you. We have the largest database of legal employers anywhere. However you are going about your job search, getting your resume in front of the decision makers is what it is all about. We can help you get your information in front of the people you need in order to get the jobs you want.

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On-campus interviewing allows the largest firms to troll for what they define as the best candidates, (i.e. those with the best grades, law review membership, and class rank). However, most law school graduates have the skills and knowledge to succeed in most firms. Very often, law firms consider potential additions to their firm when they receive a resume in their “off-season”, namely, before or after the on-campus interviewing program. Also, many firms do not want to go through law schools’ frustrating on-campus schedule or bear the expense and lost time of traveling to schools, and they simply fill their ranks with students who demonstrate the initiative to send them a resume.

Legal Authority literally gets thousands of law students jobs each year. We have helped law students from every American law school. Some of these law schools had on campus interviewing programs and others did not (or had extremely limited ones). U.S. News and World Report statistics show that at many law schools, 60% of graduates are employed at graduation and, then, over 95% are employed within six months of graduation. Because we speak with numerous attorneys each day, the reason for this seems self-evident: Many attorneys who are not employed at the time of graduation get positions later. Unfortunately, these other attorneys not employed at graduation are often getting positions that are a last result more than a conscious career choice — poor paying jobs, or those with little chance of advancement.

Legal Authority ensures that law students and practicing attorneys realize their true market value because we assist them in contacting the segment of the market they are interested in, without relying on only the firms who choose to interview on-campus, or the firms recommended by their school.

It is not surprising that few law students get positions through on-campus interviewing. Only a small cross-section of firms even interview on-campus at second tier schools and these are most likely “local” firms. Out of the firms that interview on-campus, an even smaller percentage is likely to do the type of work you want to do. And, even if a given firm does the type of work you want, they are generally only seeking attorneys at the very top of most second tier law school classes. As a result, the range of potential opportunities cannot help but be quite limited.

In contrast, Legal Authority assists law students with contacting every single employer that does what they want to do. You will actually be contacting hundreds, and even thousands of opportunities, available in the markets you choose. By following this route, you ensure that you have access to each and every opportunity possible and realize the greatest “return” possible from both a financial and psychological standpoint. By making every possible contact, you know that you have left no stone unturned.

Each day across the United States, law students get positions through Legal Authority. We simply do not believe there is a more effective means for law students to get positions. We have seen so many law students succeed using our service that we often wonder what would have happened to the careers of these law students if they had not used our service and followed the “traditional” route. Compared to on-campus interviewing, our service is profoundly effective in ensuring that law students locate positions that best match their interests.

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Legal Authority’s Legal Outplacement Program is comprehensive and structured to meet the needs of employers looking to scale down particular members of their workforce and direct them into more efficient career directions. Whether your organization is restructuring, or responding to your perception of a particular employee’s needs in the marketplace, we can help.

Because we have the largest database of legal employers anywhere, we can be effective in helping attorneys transition into new roles within virtually any city in the country where they may need to seek alternative employment. Allowing Legal Authority to help manage your outplacement program can result in significant savings when you consider the value of goodwill from past employees and the moral advantages of ensuring that past employees locate meaningful positions.

Step One: Needs Analysis

The first step of our outplacement service involves analyzing the current needs of the employer we are consulting for. Generally, all initial contact with our offices involves exploring your particular outplacement needs and explaining the solutions we can provide. Our goal in the needs analysis stage is to explore the delicate issues surrounding your need for outplacement services. Once we have done this, we will be in a better position to understand the needs of the individuals within your organization we will be assisting with outplacement services. All information shared with Legal Authority is held in strict confidence and your particular needs are never discussed with the employers you will ask us to represent.

Step Two: Employee Assessment

We believe that one of the most useful things that attorneys can do when switching jobs is to take the time to understand where they are coming from and where their interests lie. Accordingly, we will generally conduct an in-depth telephone interview with each employee to determine exactly where their interests lie and their career objectives. Additionally, we have found the use of the Strong Campbell Interest Inventory and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tests useful. We will generally offer this information to your employees and give them the option to complete this information and learn from its feedback. In initial discussions with a given employee, we will attempt to identify job sources they may not have considered initially such as current contacts and other sources of position.

Step Three: Allowing Employees to Learn from Assessment

Once we have had an initial discussion with your employee, we will generally send them several books which are tailored to their particular interests and career aspirations. At a time of change, we have found that many attorneys are hungry for information and this information can come from several sources—including us and other publications. In most instances, we will make an effort to get reading materials into an attorney’s hands within 48 hours of our initial contact with them.

Step Four: Resume and Cover Letter Creation

After our initial contact with an attorney, we will make an effort to work with them to craft and revise a cover letter. Depending upon the situation a given employee is coming from, we may prepare the resume and cover letter for them and allow them to revise additional drafts of the resume.

Step Five: Employer Identification

Using our database, we will work with each employee to help them approach employers in the given areas of the United States they are interested in. We can approach as few as one legal hiring organizations or as many as 500. Our job is to ensure that your given employee gets a new position through our efforts. Since we are not an attorney recruiting firm, our candidates benefit from the fact that no recruiter is involved in their job search and that our only objective is to provide support to help your employee find new work.

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Law firms across the country are now more than ever focused on strategic planning for growth and expansion in a legal marketplace that places high value on sophisticated talent and timely delivery of legal services. With the increased surge toward growth and expansion both domestically and globally among the top international and national law firms, partners with a significant level of expertise and business are in high demand. Irrespective of the size of their book, their practice area, or other factors which may play a part in transitioning to another law firm, most partners have a number of factors influencing them to leave their current firm and affecting their ability to transition their business to a new law firm. Partners who are cognizant of, and prepare for the factors that might affect their ability to transition their business, will be better positioned to move their book when the right opportunity presents itself. Some of the issues facing partners transitioning to a new law firm are discussed in more detail below.

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If you’re trying to find the perfect legal job, there’s probably something you don’t know. Before you start searching, you need to enlist the best legal job search tool in the world: Legal Authority.

Competitive law students and lawyers who have been successful in their job searches would never be willing to share this important secret with you; but I’ve made it my business to help attorneys get jobs, so I want you to have this key piece of information: More than 85% of all open legal positions are not published anywhere.

They’re not listed on job boards or in classified ads. You won’t read about them in attorney magazines, and you probably won’t even hear about them from a recruiter. Law firms and other organizations around the country are waiting to hear from you, and you don’t know who they are, where they’re located, or what kind of attorneys they need.

Legal Authority has developed a three-part method to help lawyers just like you get their ideal jobs quickly. Here’s how it works:

1. We find the perfect employer for you.

Our database contains more than 98% of all legal employers in the United States — altogether, more than half a million legal employers. We employ hundreds of researchers who work to identify legal employers and hiring contacts and then classify this information based on organization type, size, and geographic location. Developed at a cost of several million dollars, our database has a large scale and a degree of accuracy that is unmatched by the data available through law schools or other job-search companies.

2. We create the perfect legal resume for you.

Once we’ve identified your ideal types of positions and employers, we will assist you in crafting a flawless resume and cover letter that will show potential employers you’re the perfect fit for their organization. We employ dozens of skilled resume writers who will work with you personally to create for a resume that makes you stand out. A good resume is the critical starting point in your job search, and we design more successful legal resumes than any other company in the world.

3. We give you all the resources you need to apply to every position that fits.

Finally, once you’re fully satisfied with your new resume and cover letter, we will mail you as many copies as you need. You will receive your complete, printed, and customized application materials to forward to the employers you select. All you will need to do is sign your cover letters and stamp your envelopes.

If you used any other resource, you’d still be ruling out hundreds of job opportunities simply because you’d be starting with a limited scope. You’d be wasting your time and your money. When you use Legal Authority, you’ll be applying to every relevant organization; your job search will be as thorough, professional, and focused as possible.

No other method can compare with Legal Authority’s proven effectiveness. Go to LegalAuthority.com today to learn more about how to improve your job search and finally get the results you deserve.

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