How To Get The Best Job Possible
[00:00:00] I was a summer associate at a smaller firm and accepted an offer to return. I am at top law school I accepted the summer associates and post-graduation offers from this firm because I didn't get a job with a bigger firm.
Now, with applying to larger firms. Would this be ethical? Is it late to begin looking? If I wanted to do a three-hour job search, where would I start? It was very difficult to find open positions in litigation for my class. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Okay. So I'm going to answer this question and probably what I consider the right way but not necessarily wrong.
One of the things that you have to understand about being an attorney regardless of the practice area, that you're in, is you do need to look out for yourself. And what that means is, you need to put your interests long and short term first when you make important decisions. And again, this is a very important thing. So, if you go talk to your school about what you're considering doing. Your school will say, bad you should go to work regardless of the school. You should work where you accept that. They're doing that because. The school is putting their interests first, which means, they want to make sure that future people make sure the employer is not upset with them. That's what they're going to
[00:01:00] do now in your position you need to decide, what is best for you in the long run and the firm's position. If the firm doesn't have enough work, firms lay people off and do not let them start all the time, even with law students. The law firm has the right. It may decide not to even bring you on even after making you an offer. And they won't do it probably this year because it's a good economy most of the time they have that offer your position is, I'm assuming as you want to get the best job possible.
You have two people standing in your way, your school or in your conscience. So, my opinion is that what is going to be best for you in the long run and just going to a bigger firm, isn't what's past necessarily a big firm.
And there's a presentation that I did a couple of weeks ago about the benefits of working in the largest firm possible. The bigger the firm, the more options you're probably going to have in the future whether you want to go or regardless of what you want to do a larger firm will give you a lot more options.
So there are benefits to going to work in a larger firm. The other thing is, if you go to a larger firm, even though you may make more money and so forth it may be harder for
[00:02:00] you to become a partner. You may have less employment security because people, especially litigators typically will lose their jobs in larger law firms after a few years.
So all sorts of after they get more senior there's also, you may have worse hours there. All sorts of reasons that you may not want to see. With your, where you're at. But what I would say is if you accepted an offer and you feel like that's what you want to do as best. To go there if you feel like the analysis is in your favor, but if you feel like you need to work in a larger firm, because of whatever reason, then I would do a couple of things.
The first thing I would do, I don't know if any new regulations about, if you accept an offer, you can't do things or, in terms of recruiting I'm not aware any, but maybe there are. I certainly see nothing wrong with talking to people if it doesn't, in, in other firms to see if that may be something you want to do there, even though you weren't a summer associate in different firms you do have the option of applying to larger firms.
And even though the market may be slow where you're looking at the market is not slow naturally. There's if you're a top-six law school you can probably go to
[00:03:00] work in almost any market in the United States. If you're in Chicago, for example then, you may find that California at Los Angeles is very busy or New York city is very busy or DC is, probably not that busy, for litigation, maybe busy, I don't know. So you have to be careful, but what, you do need to understand those. At some point, the law firm may check your references at the firm that you were at, over the summer. The odds are pretty rare that they would unless they were almost positive and then give you an offer.
But yeah, that's kinda how I would think about it. The only other thing I would recommend doing that's very common is if you want to go to a larger party, you should try to clerk. So clerkship with a federal district judge or appellate will make you much more marketable. And then you can probably go to work at a larger firm and you'll get very good experience and have someone critiquing your writing and so forth for a year.
It would be awesome. So that would be what I would do. If I was in your situation, I would probably take a clerkship, and the smaller firms not going to care and we'll assume you'll come back. And if you don't come back, you can go to work at a larger firm and get clerkship owners and those sorts of stuff, and then get very good training right out.
One of the things I wanted to say to all young attorneys and law students on
[00:04:00] this call is your first job, your first one to five years of practice are really about getting trained. That's the most important thing to realize. So, know the better training you get the better off you're going to be in the long run, because you're going to learn like all these skills that I was talking about today with writing and things like most people never get exposed to that.
Most attorneys do not come out of, after their first three or four years of practice as very good writers, they don't come out with the best logic. They don't know how to make decisions in the correct way and analyze information. And you learn a lot of that stuff early on. You can learn that by working with a very good judge.
You can learn that by working in the best, big, with the best people in the best firms. You can learn that if you work in a very good boutique where you're working with very good people, but the first one to five years is about training. You should never worry so much about prestige and money.
Getting an incredible experience, incredible training, because that training is going to go long way in your career. If you're 26 years old right now, what's your 20, 20, or 25. When you come out of law school,
You can practice. People now practice into their [00:05:00] eighties. You'll probably be practicing into your mat. You'll probably be working into your nineties maybe longer because people live a lot longer.
The groundwork you lay early on in terms of the habits you learn is going to be extremely important and all this stuff is about learning, to think through issues, learning, writing properly, learning to spend your time around the best people you can. It's all very important. I told the story a couple of weeks ago, but I just want to bring it up again very quickly.
I spent I used to be involved in the self-improvement industry and there was this guy that I met and he had he'd made probably hundreds of millions of dollars putting on real estate seminars and then and then he'd gone and something had happened, I don't know, repeat exhausted themselves and gotten in trouble or something, not in trouble, but just, just life fell apart.
And so he spent like one or two years. Going around and meeting the Dalai Lama and all these people to anybody that he could spend money to get education from about the meaning of the world, life and everything and spend a couple of years just traveling. He wrote everything down, but of course, he didn't know how to write clearly. I read all this stuff and couldn't understand it. And so I've met with someone that worked with them
[00:06:00] very closely, and I was like what is it that this guy understood? And basically what he understood is that then this is a very simple model to put together for you, but the people you spend your time with determine the type of person you are.
It took me a long time to figure out. If you spend time with the best attorneys when you're young. You will become like them and learn their skills and have a much better career. So if you can spend five years getting really good training, those five years are going to make you a very good attorney.
And then for the next 60 years of your life, which is two times as long as you've lived at that point, you can be a very good attorney, whereas if you don't spend time with those attorneys or with those sorts of people when you're young, you won't do as well. I was reading a book about early development and most of, our right and left brains.
Our left brain, reasoning doesn't start developing until you're a couple of years old, but your right brain, which is emotions and stuff develops pretty much your first two years, based on how your parents interact with you. So they give you a lot of attention when you smile and stuff that has a long-term impact on the type of person you become.
It's the same thing with, why do people try so hard to go to good colleges? Why do people try so hard
[00:07:00] to go to prep schools? Why do they try so hard to get on certain teams and so forth? And it's really because of the people type of person you become. So as a young attorney, you're because you go to a top-six law school, the pressure there which makes sense is working in a big firm, work in a big firm, work in a big firm.
And the idea is that that's because those groups push that. And if you're going to a small local law school and outside of Detroit, your pressure would be working this, try to work in this big, Detroit firm. If you can't work there, a couple of big Detroit firms, maybe you could work, do this other thing.
So the groups of people you're with determined the pressures and stuff and your aspirations, but also you're trained. I would recommend, anything you can do, if you're a young attorney to work with the best people you can, that is going to have to give you the best results in the long run and spend your time around the best possible people. I had one other experience and I was just mentally shut up and move on to the next question. But I think it's a very important question, but you're asking because it ties into so many things. When I was practicing law at my last law firm, there was this woman there that was a partner in the firm and she wasn't doing well and she'd and was very angry.
And but anytime someone worked with her, they would
[00:08:00] quit right after working with her. And then they would not practice law again. One woman had gone to Columbia law school and worked with her and she'd become a waitress. And another guy had gone off the deep end and was, traveling and there were just all these stories.
Just one a call you to do work for her. And then, within a couple of months, the person's not practicing law anymore. And it was literally that upsetting and of course, the story goes that I worked for her, and reached the conclusion that I didn't want to practice law anymore within months of working with her as well.
She was just very unpleasant. Couldn't understand anything with me was very political because she got in the head. So if he didn't, she didn't like you when she couldn't let anyone that did work for her, she'd be mean she would, play games. And so, it was how she was able to get ahead.
She had the same education, there's everyone at the firm so the people you're around often determined the kind of person you become. And that's one of the reasons why you look for positions and you look, you try to work with the best people you can and go to the best schools. It's all because of that.
It's something to remember in your career because the people that you're around and you spend your time with will determine the type of person that you become in your career. That's going to have
[00:09:00] a lot of long-term impact in your first job can determine that working with a judge that you like can determine that all these things can determine them.
Someone once said to me, which is an interesting thing, I was talking to my dad and I was someone hadn't worked out at the company and I was saying yeah, but there, nothing good is happening with them. And he said, you should be proud of, when you should want good things to happen, to the people that leave.
That should be what you're thinking about. And so, he was right, and this was 20 years ago. And since that time, all sorts of people, in this profession that are doing very well and well-regarded certainly didn't have exposure to that when they started and they become very successful.
You want people associated with you to become successful so you want to be part of organizations where good stories about people that leave are people that have been there in the past, not bad stories. That's very important. So I hope that helps me answer your question.
