1. Active Job Openings from the BCG Attorney Search Database

The first type of openings we send you are job openings from the BCG Attorney Search database. BCG Attorney Search has a staff of over 200 people and a massive data center and data set well over two decades in the making that monitors every law firm we can find for openings.

We get job openings in the following ways:

• Law firms provide them to us proactively (high-priority job orders). Because of our market presence, hundreds of law firms contact us each week requesting our help filling various openings they have. Law firms email us, fill out online forms, and call us to discuss their job openings. We typically send these openings to you immediately if you are a good fit for those firms when we receive them.
• We solicit these jobs from law firms (standard job orders). We solicit law firms on an ongoing basis to provide us with their openings. In response to these solicitations, law firms regularly will submit their openings to us.
• Monitoring law firm websites for jobs (employer jobs). Law firms will often post their positions on their websites. Using a data center, we spider these firms websites for their openings and then manually and automatically classify these positions based on their practice area and location. We cannot spider many law firm websites, and to find their positions, we manually search their websites for openings on a rotating basis (every few days) and then send you these jobs.
• Most law firms do not have career sites. We monitor outside sites where the law firms post their jobs (employer job solicitations). For law firms without career sites, we monitor more than 25,000 different websites where law firms post jobs, including commercial job boards, legal and non-legal websites, bar association sites, and other websites.

Advantages of Applying to Job Openings. When you apply to job openings, you apply to the law firm's open jobs. Because this is an active job opening, the odds are excellent that the law firm will hire someone in response to this opening. Most employers hire from the first crop of applicants because they want to fill the position immediately. If you are among the best candidates from the first pool of applicants, your odds of getting hired are outstanding.

When an employer has openings, they have an identified "business need" they are trying to fill. They have actual work to do. When an employer has an identified business need, you are going into a situation where your skills are needed.

Disadvantages of Applying to Job Openings. When you are applying to job openings, you will compete with everyone else applying to the same openings. If you are not the strongest candidate, your odds of getting hired are slim. Depending on how well marketed the law firm's opening is, you may be among one of a few applicants or countless other applicants. While there are always a lot of job openings in the market, many openings remain open long after the employer has extended an offer to another candidate. Most employers post a job; they start interviewing and making offers from the first pool of applicants. While conducting interviews, waiting for offers to be accepted, and ensuring conflicts clear after the offer, the job may remain open.

When you conduct your search by only applying to active jobs, your search may often take longer because the first openings you apply to may be technically "open." Still, the employer is not interviewing people because they have already started the process with others. You often need to wait for "new" openings and begin the process of competing for those before your search gets real momentum.

Many job sites also leave up positions long after the employer may have filled them. For example, some job sites will leave a job that an employer posted 90 days ago. When BCG Attorney Search gathers these positions, we often don't know how old the position is. In addition, some law firms will leave openings on their website indefinitely justifying this that they may need people like you in the future, or their human resources department may simply forget to take the job description down. Other job sites may never take openings down because they believe these jobs will assist them in attracting extra traffic from job seekers.

You Will Have the Best Chance of Getting Hired for Active Job Openings, and you will be most likely to be hired for active job openings when:

• You Apply Quickly and Are Among the First Applicants. Most firms hire from the first applicants they receive and ignore the later application applications.
• The Job is Not Widely Known About or Advertised. Lesser-known positions are easier to attain than those widely known about or advertised. The fewer people know about a job, the easier it is for you to get hired because there will be fewer applicants, and the law firm will hire from the applications they receive. Sometimes employers will place ads in small regional publications, tell a single recruiter about them, put them on an obscure corner of their website, or otherwise.
• You Are in a Niche Practice Area Without a Lot of People Like You in the Market. You may have rare skills that are not common in your market. In a market like Nashville, TN, there may be only one attorney with experience in a practice area like international arbitration. If you are in a niche practice area like this, the odds are that you will have a good chance of being hired.
• The Market is Hot in Your Practice Area, and Firms Are Desperate for People with Your Background. If you are in a bustling practice area and law firms cannot get enough people like you, your chances of getting hired improve dramatically. Specific practice areas can become extremely busy due to economic and other factors.
• The Job is in a Smaller or Unpopular Market. Law firms in many smaller, unpopular markets have difficulty attracting talent. These law firms receive far fewer applicants than law firms in major markets, making it challenging to attract attorneys. Even law firms in suburbs of many major markets have difficulty attracting talent.
• The Job is With a Firm No One Knows About. Large law firms can draw attorneys to their firms based on their brands. Many smaller firms, newer firms, and firms in niche practice areas may not be widely known. Law firms in these markets have a much more difficult time attracting attorneys than others.

2. Inactive Job Openings in the BCG Attorney Search Database

An inactive job opening is an opening that we had in the past that is no longer active either because it has been filled or expired. Inactive job openings are helpful because they show law firms with a business need for people like you. They went to the market to fill an opening in the past (by contacting us, posting jobs on their website, or posting positions on online job boards) and hired a candidate like yourself.

BCG Attorney Search started operation in the late 1990s and has saved every job it ever had. Because of this, we have a vast database of information we can draw on to develop the insights and distinctions (among many) for the expired jobs law firms have posted in the past:

• Certain Law Firms Are Always Hiring Attorneys in Various Practice Areas. We can see law firms that always have openings in each practice area by reviewing expired jobs. For example, some patent law firms may post positions every few months over several years seeking a specific type of patent attorney effectively meaning they always have openings for patent attorneys. Regardless of whether the law firm currently is advertising an opening, we know it would not make sense to not send this law firm to you because the odds are excellent they will look at you closely.
• Certain Law Firms Hire Attorneys in Various Practice Areas Periodically. Some law firms seem to hire attorneys in different practice areas like clockwork. For example, a law firm may have an opening every two years for a tax attorney with one to three years of experience. The firm may have made regular hires for a decade or longer. We do not know why this is, but if the law firm has always hired tax attorneys periodically, we know the odds are excellent that they might be interested in you if enough time has gone by.
• A Past Opening for Someone Very Close to Your Background Shows Us the Law Firm is Likely to Be Open to Interviewing Someone Like You Now. You may speak German and have worked in a US law firm in Germany for two years as a corporate attorney before relocating to San Francisco to work with a law firm that works with startups. If a law firm in Silicon Valley had sought a corporate attorney to work with German startups trying to come to the United States three years ago, we would be doing you a disservice if not told you about this position.

We make hundreds of placements each year, placing people with law firms that had openings in the past and matching attorneys to these. For example:

• Five years ago, a law firm had sought a patent attorney with experience patenting lenses used to diffuse lasers in a smaller Texas market. We had an attorney in Cleveland that had this experience and was in his late 60s. We sent him this previous opening, and both the candidate and the firm could not believe they had found each other.

The Advantages of Applying to Inactive Job Openings. When you apply to inactive job openings, you are applying to law firms where the law firm has gone out to the open market to find someone like you many times. There is a good chance history may repeat itself if you are a good fit for what the law firm seeks.

When You Have the Best Chance of Getting Hired for Inactive Job Openings, you will be most likely to be hired for inactive job openings when:

• Your background is like the firm s other attorneys. Suppose your experience is similar to the firm's other attorneys (the quality of your current firm, credentials, and other factors). In that case, the law firm is much more likely to be interested in you despite not having a job opening than if this is not the case.
• The law firm has a solid client base in your practice area. If the firm has a substantial client base in your practice area, they are likely not to worry about giving you work, paying you, and ultimately profiting from it.
• There is a shortage of people like you in the market. If there is a market shortage of people like you, the law firm is more likely to hire you. You may have exceptional, unique skills, or simply that many people with your credentials do not exist in the market. Suppose you are a Stanford Law School graduate who clerked on the United States Supreme Court, and you are looking for a position in Beaufort, South Carolina. In that case, you will probably get interviews with firms there regardless of whether there are openings.
• You are relocating to the market from another market. When you are relocating to a market, the law firms that see your resume know they can get only one bite at the apple because if they do not hire you now, someone else in the market will. If you are relocating, you stand a better chance of getting positions with firms in the market that do not have openings than if you are not relocating.
• The firm knows you or knows who you are and thinks positively of you. If the firm already knows who you are or something about you, they are much more likely to be interested in interviewing you for inactive job openings than if they do not know you.
• You have compelling reasons for wanting to be at this firm. The law firm may do the exact type of work you want to do and have an excellent reputation for this work, may represent a tremendous growth opportunity for you, or have other qualities that make it the perfect fit. Law firms listen to these sorts of pitches.
• The firm is better than the one you are coming from, and your career shows a path of upward mobility. Law firms love hiring people trying to improve who are hungry and upwardly mobile. Many attorneys are not, and introducing people like this into their ecosystem strengthens the firm.

However, the most significant advantage of applying to inactive job openings is that you are not competing with others for an active job when you do so. When you are not competing with others, you may be the only applicant the firm receives. You are much more likely to be hired if the law firm has a need. Law firms with a need would much rather hire without sorting through scores of resumes, interviewing multiple people, and making offers that may be rejected than hiring one highly-qualified person who applies to the firm. The firm also knows that if you are applying to them without a job opening, you are different than an applicant to a job posting. You are more likely to be interested in the specific law firm.

Over 85% of our placements at BCG Attorney Search are with firms with no active opening. Your odds of getting a position with firms that do not have openings are often much better than with firms with openings because (1) there is no competition for the job, and (2) if the firm has a business need, the firm may hire you.

Applications that come in when there are no job openings stand out. Here, you are saying: "I want to work for you. We are a good fit for each other. What do you say?" Unsolicited applications get more attention than applications in response to advertised job openings: "I'm one of many who would like to speak with you."

Another advantage of applying to law firms without openings is that even though they may not have a need now, they may shortly. They will hold on to your application, may think about it, and when they do have a need, will call you. We have candidates get interviews with firms they applied to weeks or months ago that did not have openings that decided to interview them later when needed.

The Disadvantages of Applying to Inactive Jobs. When you apply to inactive jobs, recall that the employer may not have a business need to hire you they may have neither the work nor money to pay you. Without the work or money to pay you, the employer has no reason to interview you. If the law firm does not have a need, they may not even respond to your application and may ignore it. When you apply to inactive jobs, you are, to some extent hoping to catch the employer's attention. This is the risk, but we believe the potential reward more than justifies it.

3. Recommended Law Firms that We Believe Are Likely to be Interested in You

BCG Attorney Search will also recommend firms to you. We recommend firms to you for many reasons (this is a whole science). However, this is also among our most effective tools for tracking down good places to work. Attorneys who received recommended firms are either very appreciative of sending these or nervous about our motivation for sending them. They may believe that we are submitting them blindly to firms to "see what sticks" and not performing our jobs in organized or well thought out ways. This could not be further from the truth; we typically recommend firms to you under one or more of the following conditions:

Priority 1 Recommended Firms.

• Our most effective method is finding the firms most likely to interview and hire you. There are firms that we have experience with and are tracking in certain markets and locations: the number of current and past openings in your practice area, resume views of people like you, and over 40 other confidential factors. These firms are likely to interview and hire people like you. We will recommend the firm to you by using an internal algorithm that considers various factors and assigns points to firms based on their probability of interviewing you. While this involves some artificial intelligence, and we cannot always "pinpoint" why a firm is likely to be interested in you, it guides us in making recommendations for the firms most likely to hire you at all points in time.

Priority 2 Recommended Firms.

• The law firm had interviewed or hired someone like you from us recently when there was no job opening. Law firms and candidates in BCG Attorney Search rank between 1 and 5 (with 1 for the very consumer-facing and 5 for the very large client-facing). When a law firm has recently interviewed or hired someone like you in the past, and the firm employs people with your background, we will match you with this firm and send it to you. While this may go against what you think you know about job searches, it is how we make most of our placements. Despite not having openings, some law firms hire people on an ongoing basis that fit specific profiles. The recommended firms have "point values," which decrease as time goes by without interviews or hiring (with hiring being worth more points). The higher the point value of the law firm, the more likely they are to hire people like you.
• The law firm had interviewed and/or hired someone like you from us when there was a job opening. We recommend these firms to you. Recommended firms also have points and other associated values (which we may or may not share with you).

Priority 3 Recommendations.

• The law firm is ranked very highly in local, national, or other rankings for your practice area in the firm s location. Numerous publications and organizations rank law firms in different practice areas and locations. BCG Attorney Search, for example, maintains rankings of top law firms based on our internal ranking criteria. Most legal newspapers and publications also rank law firms, as do online publications, area-specific publications, and associations. Some of these rankings are more trustworthy and relevant than others; some are more rigorous and thought out, while others favor law firms that advertise with them. Regardless, these rankings are appropriate, and we use them to recommend law firms you should apply to.
• The law firm is the only law firm in the market that hires attorneys with your background and qualifications.
  • o Not all law firms hire attorneys coming out of clerkships. If you are coming out of a clerkship, we are likely to recommend law firms that have hired and interviewed attorneys coming out of clerkships from us before. In contrast, we will not recommend law firms that have specifically told us they do not want to see attorneys coming out of clerkships.
  • o Not all law firms are interested in attorneys who are senior without portable business. Once you become a senior associate and do not have business, many law firms will close their doors to you; others will not care. We will recommend law firms that have interviewed senior attorneys without business if appropriate.
  • o Some law firms never will interview an unemployed attorney, and others have no problem with this. If these law firms are willing to look the other way if you are unemployed and have done this with our candidates in the past, we will recommend these to you.
  • o Some law firms never interview attorneys not licensed in their jurisdiction who will need to take a bar exam to get admitted, and others will. Firms in markets like California and New York often require lateral attorneys to have the bar exam before they consider hiring attorneys. Since it is often difficult to get a position laterally without the bar exam in certain states, we recommend firms that do not require this.
  • o Some law firms never interview tax attorneys from an accounting firm; others will. Most large law firms only hire lateral tax attorneys from other law firms.
  • o Some law firms never interview attorneys from non-law firm practice settings; others will. Many law firms never hire attorneys coming directly from in-house positions. Others do not care. We may recommend firms that have interviewed other in-house attorneys from us before if you are currently working in-house.
• Our research shows that attorneys from your firm who have previously worked in your practice area have moved to a specific law firm next. About half of the attorneys in the United States have active accounts with BCG Attorney Search. By searching for these attorneys and researching where they have gone next, we can identify "feeder firms" that are likely to be interested in you. While this sounds simple, it is a ton of work and one of the reasons that our market research can be so useful to you.

We track all of the above information from law firms and recommend law firms to you based on these criteria. A lot of thought goes into providing you with firm options, but the firms we recommend are often your best option, given your specific background. Because certain law firms have specific standards, recommending firms allows us to track down firms likely to be the best fit for you.

The Benefits of Applying to Recommended Firms. Using recommended law firms enables us to target the firms that we believe are most likely to be interested in you due to various factors involving the firm's strengths and our past interactions with them. Using highly proprietary artificial intelligence, machine learning, and research, we can suggest a small set of firms from a massive data sample of thousands of firms that would otherwise probably be a waste of your time applying. Because recommended firms are a good fit for someone with your background, firms are often delighted to see someone like you when you approve those firms.

To emphasize the power of recommended firms to you: Over 85% of our placements at BCG Attorney Search are with firms without current openings. If you approve recommended firms (firms without a specific opening), you are more likely to get interviews (and jobs) than just applying to job openings. Stated another way: FOR EVERY 100 PLACEMENTS WE MAKE, 85 OF THEM ARE WITH FIRMS WITH NO OPENINGS (RECOMMENDED FIRMS), AND ONLY 15 ARE WITH FIRMS WITH JOB OPENINGS.

YOU ARE ALMOST 6.5-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET A JOB WITH US BY APPROVING RECOMMENDED FIRMS THAN JUST APPROVING JOB OPENINGS!

The Disadvantages of Applying to Recommended Law Firms. While there are significant advantages to applying to recommended firms, there are some potential disadvantages:

• When you apply to recommended law firms, you often apply to law firms without current openings. The firm may not have a need and may not pay attention to your resume. You may have good odds of getting an interview if the firm currently has work to give you, but you have no way of knowing before the submission.
• At different times, the economy may also be languid for specific practice areas (or there may be an oversupply of attorneys like you), so even if you apply to all the recommended firms in the market, you may not make progress.
• Your academics, quality of experience, stability, resume quality, and other factors may make it difficult for you to get interviews even with firms that appear to be the best fit.

4. Firms We Research Internally and Find for You in Our Internal Database Internally Researched Law Firms

In many markets, there are thousands of law firms. Out of these thousands of law firms, we may only have three job openings and perhaps as few as twenty recommended firms. A lot of extra work is required to find places for you to work.

There are so many law firms that they require tens of thousands of dollars in computer bandwidth in our data center to keep up with their constant name changes, the additions of attorneys, and more. We locate firms on state bar lists, legal periodicals, Best Lawyer lists, and others to build a massive, proprietary internal database that classifies law firms based on their types of clients and practice areas and ranks them. Also, we maintain a 100+ person research team that adds firms to our database from various online and other public directories of law firms.

When you approach us, if you are interested in doing a proactive job search, we will search our database and add these law firms to your account. They will not be law firms that are necessarily "recommended" because of our past interaction with them or their recognized strength in your practice area. However, these law firms will likely be good fits for you because of the type of work. Because of the strength of these firms, it would be a mistake for us not to search out firms doing this sort of work for you.

• Example 1: Class Action Labor and Employment Defense Attorney.
• Example 2: Mergers and Acquisitions Attorney Specializing in Representing Biotech Companies.
• Example 3: Plaintiff s Personal Injury Attorney Specializing in Lemon Law.
• Example 4: Municipal Law Attorney Specializing in Land Use Law.
• Example 5: Medical Malpractice Defense Attorney.
• Example 6: Food and Drug Law Attorney Specializing in Shampoo.
• Example 7: Attorney with a Federal Appellate Clerkship interested in a Boutique Appellate Firm with Other Highly Credentialed Former Law Clerks.
• Example 8: Family Law Attorney Specializing in Adoptions.
• Example 9: Trust and Estates Attorney Specializing in Life Insurance Settlement Contracts.
• Example 10: Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney.
• Example 11: Asset Finance Attorney.

In each of these eleven examples, depending on the size of the market, it may be difficult to find these firms interested in you without us going outside of (1) current and expired job listings or (2) recommended firms (from lists or our previous clients). Instead, we need to research our database to find these firms. This research is powerful. It works, and it is something that gets our candidates interviewed daily.

When we research these firms for you in our database, we typically do the following:

• We search the law firm s practice area in our database and identify all the firms that do the sort of work you do.
• We search the law firm's "About Us" section entered into our database and search for firms that advertise themselves as doing the sort of work you do.
• We review the number of attorneys in the law firm s practice area matching yours and see if their backgrounds match your background.
• We view the law firm's description of its past work.

The Advantages of Applying to Internally Researched Firms. Internally researched firms are likely to match your background and experience. Because these firms have not come to our attention due to (1) current or past openings, (2) market recognition on various rankings and lists, or (3) our past interviews and other interactions with them, these law firms are often highly excited to see someone with your background. Because they do not receive many applications and may not even know how to recruit, these law firms are "ripe," and you do not compete with others when you apply to them.

Many of these law firms are overly enthusiastic when they see your resume and hire you quickly, without the sort of screening and review processes a more visible firm would likely have.

• Many of these researched law firms may have a strength in a practice area that is not very popular.
• These researched firms may be small, even very small, but still have excellent clients.
• Some of these firms may be new, have a few established clients that do not require them to have a market presence or other qualities may make them off-the-radar.

As stated previously: Over 85% of our placements at BCG Attorney Search are with firms without current openings. If you approve internally researched firms, you are more likely to get interviews (and jobs) than if you just apply to jobs. Stated another way: FOR EVERY 100 PLACEMENTS WE MAKE, 85 OF THEM ARE WITH FIRMS WITH NO OPENINGS, AND ONLY 15 ARE WITH FIRMS WITH JOB OPENINGS.

YOU ARE ALMOST 6.5-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET A JOB WITH US BY APPROVING INTERNALLY RESEARCHED FIRMS THAN JUST APPROVING JOB OPENINGS!

The Disadvantages of Applying to Internally Researched Firms. Most internally researched firms do not have openings for attorneys like you.

• When you apply to an internally researched firm, you often apply to law firms without current openings. The firm may not have a need and may not pay attention to your resume. You may have good odds of getting an interview if the firm currently has work to give you, but you have no way of knowing before the submission.
• Certain practice areas are not in demand (or there may be an oversupply of attorneys like you), so you may not make progress even if you apply to all the internally researched firms in the market.
• There are still factors like your academics, quality of experience, stability, resume quality, and other factors that may make it difficult to get interviews even with firms that appear to be the best fits.

5. Firms We Research Externally and Add to Your Notification List Externally Located Law Firms

Externally located law firms are just that: law firms that we find that are not in our database. We discover these firms with obvious tools like Google and non-obvious ones like paid news databases and Standard Industry Classification Codes (SIC Codes). Because of this willingness to lower hiring standards, they're unknown and will often grow dramatically and be happy, impressed, and even grateful you found them. These unknown firms are where the greatest need and opportunities are. In most cases, these are relatively new firms that provide growth opportunities you will not find in more established firms.

We typically learn about law firms and put them in our internal database when the following happens:

• We find the law firm in a directory.
• The law firm sends us a job.
• The law firm is on a list or ranking (for its practice area, location).
• The law firm posts a job on its website, and we find it.
• The law firm posts a job on one of the thousands of job boards and legal publications, and we find it.
• The law firm is mentioned somewhere on a resume we receive.

Keeping up with this information is a huge undertaking, and it is also imperfect.

While many firms list themselves in countless public online directories (FindLaw, Martindale, Attorneys.com, and others), most do not because of the cost. Instead, these law firms are most likely to (1) build a website and (2) let Google find them. The law firm needs to be proactive enough to contact these publications and list themselves.

Google finds every law firm if they have a website. It sees them if they are mentioned in a news story and do not have a website. Google is much more effective at organizing and tracking down law firms than any directory ever could be. It is difficult to see how human-curated guides can be anywhere near as comprehensive as Google. Because Google is so effective, we maintain a team that supplements research for our candidates with firms we find through Google.

Thousands of new law firms are starting up daily. The first thing these law firms do is launch a website. At the same time, thousands of small and large law firms that have existed for a long time without websites, only listing themselves in directories, are setting up websites each day. Google finds these firms too.

Finally, certain attorneys may have unique experiences that traditional research might never find. For example, what about an attorney experienced in a new practice area? The only way to find law firms doing this work would be to search Google for mentions of this practice area.

We also search news stories in services to identify law firms that may not be listed in directories or even have websites (it is more common than you would believe).

We can find many more targets for you in large and small markets alike than we would otherwise find not using external research.

Advantages of Doing External Research. External research is compelling. While most people doing a job search concentrate on the obvious firms, external research allows us to find law firms that are entirely virgin that no one else in the market may be aware of. These law firms might be perfect fits for you, pay well, and represent a tremendous opportunity for professional growth.

Over 85% of our placements at BCG Attorney Search are with firms without current openings. If you approve externally researched firms, you are more likely to get interviews (and jobs) than if you just apply to jobs. Stated another way: FOR EVERY 100 PLACEMENTS WE MAKE, 85 OF THEM ARE WITH FIRMS WITH NO OPENINGS, AND ONLY 15 ARE WITH FIRMS WITH JOB OPENINGS.

YOU ARE ALMOST 6.5-TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET A JOB WITH US BY APPROVING INTERNALLY RESEARCHED FIRMS THAN JUST APPROVING JOB OPENINGS!

The Disadvantages of Applying to Externally Researched Firms. Most externally researched firms do not have openings for attorneys like you.

• When you apply to externally researched firms, you often apply to law firms without current openings. The firm may not have a need and may not pay attention to your resume. You may have good odds of getting an interview if the firm currently has work to give you, but you have no way of knowing before the submission.
• At different times, the economy may also be very slow for specific practice areas (or there may be an oversupply of attorneys like you), so even if you apply to all the externally researched firms in the market, you may not make progress.
• Although a law firm may be externally researched," factors like your academics, quality of experience, stability, resume quality and other factors that may still make it difficult for you to get interviews even with firms that appear to be the best fits.