2022.03.30 Acquiring A Summer Legal Internship As A Law Student
[00:00:00] So we'll get started. So it was funny. Like I I walked into our studio like just a few minutes ago and most of this stuff I can talk about all day because I do this for a living. And most of these webinars are based on articles I've written. And so when I saw this, it was about getting a job as a legal internship in a summer.
And it's the law student. I was actually pretty upset because I'm like, this is for this. And these webinars are generally for practicing attorneys. But what happens is these are these topics are actually chosen. I think based on inquiries and things that people want to. So I, I got very mad about it and I was mad a couple of minutes ago, but then I thought, okay, this, if this is something that people want to know a lot about then I will give this talk and and I'll make this talk hopefully if you're a law student watching this or a recent graduate or you're watching this in the future this hopefully I'll speak to you and make this among the most important talks that you'll ever hear in your career because this is getting a job as a legal internship, as a law student, or getting your first job when you get out of school and so forth is extremely important.
Now I don't [00:01:00] know what this article is, cause I certainly do not recall writing an article called this. So I'm going to give you guys and girls some information that I think is very important to understand about your mindset to start, and then I'll go through this PowerPoint that I wasn't happy about but I do want people to understand really the mindset that you need to have in order to get a position as a, whether you're a a law student or a practicing attorney and really the mindset that you need to carry with you throughout your career in what's ultimately going to make you successful.
And many times it's one thing people can say one thing to you and and that can can make a huge difference in terms of your career. And and that is really is what I'm going to do to you today. So one of the first things, a story I want to tell you is I want you to imagine your worst enemy, and I don't know who your worst enemy is but you probably [00:02:00] have a, a worst enemy somewhere, someone maybe when you were growing up or someone.
That you Matt recently or in the past or someone that did something bad to you, and I want you to think about, what you would do to that person. If you could, would you beat them up? Would you kick them? Would you talk about them behind their back?
Would you make sure they were in jail? What would you do to that person? If that person was if you had the option and what would be your fantasy of what you could do to that person? Like how much could you hurt them? And and think about what would you do?
Like what would be to you would be the right resolved. And it could be someone that was beating you all on the playground. It could be a teacher, but just think about, what you would do. And when I think about topics like that I it's, people that have may have done really bad things to you.
You really you may want them isolated, you may want them ineffective. You may want them crying. You may want them I don't know. I don't know what or what you want to do to them, [00:03:00] but you probably are not you probably do not think nice things about them and and you want to make them ineffective and and really take away their power or whatever it is, or their power over you.
And and you can imagine someone and you might even want them dead in a way. And that's I don't know what you want, but what I'm saying to you right now and what I want you to think about is being in the legal profession is extremely stressful for people. And and and you're coming up against a job market that in, in, may welcome you.
But you're always going to be trying to get better jobs, and they're not going to welcome you that the hardest to get jobs are not going to welcome you. And you're coming up against the foe which are other. Students and people you're competing with for the same jobs. You're coming up against people inside of firms and other places you're trying to work that our company that don't may not want you there.
And it's a very competitive market. And you need to be understand the first thing [00:04:00] is that you need to be strong in order to succeed, because if you're not you will just get pushed around just as you would want to push around your enemy. And and I'll tell you, I've seen a lot of attorneys and law students and people that become attorneys that have been destroyed by this because it's a very difficult John and and there's a lot of competition.
And so you have to be very strong going into it. Otherwise you are going to get pushed around and you will get pushed around by the same force of people that you would push around your worst enemy because when you're in law firms, when you're in companies, wherever you are there's always people that are gonna want to see you fail.
And there's going to people that are gonna want you to succeed too, but there's people that are gonna want to see you fail. So you need to be very prepared and realizing that there's a lot of forces that are coming against you. One of the biggest complaints that I see when I, it's funny, when I talked to partners in law firms and the most successful partners is.
They often say the hardest part of the job is, other partners being [00:05:00] out to get, and and get your clients your ticket to make sure you don't get compensated as much to to to make you look bad in front of others, to, all these different things.
And so you have to realize that you're going into a profession with great rewards and a lot of great things, but at the same time you're going into a profession where people are going to be necessarily out to get you and you're going to have to be strong and and realize that, and they're competing for the same jobs and they're doing everything they can to get ahead.
Whether it's grades, whether it's their their interview skills, whatever it is according to the best law school. And here it gets people that want to see you fail. So that's the first thing you need to understand. And and they're gonna come at you with the same force that you would come at your worst enemy.
And and if they, if you do fail, they're not going to really care. That's the point. So that's one of the things I want you to understand that you need to come in with that mindset and know expectations that that you're going to be able to Get around that because no one does. And that's the first thing.
And it's one of the most shocking things. I think when you're becoming an [00:06:00] attorney is seeing regardless if you go to the best law school in the country or that, one of the top law schools, they seem the amount of rejection, not that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk a little bit briefly about some of these things.
And some of the things I think are important I'll then scroll through the spreadsheet. And then what I'll do is I'll answer any questions that people have I'd recommend as skinny, as many questions as you can, because the answers that you give are things that will help other people.
And I would also recommend just just, thinking about the things that I'm saying today, because th they will help you quite a bit if you take them to heart and understand them. So the first thing I want you to understand that, if you're looking for a job or you have ever been, you're looking for your first job, or you're looking for a job as a summer associate or whatever it is is that you are in the legal profession and supposedly becoming an attorney.
And what attorneys do is they represent other people with problems, [00:07:00] very serious problems, by the way people are accused of murder. They are their companies are sued for millions of dollars. They are they, people are I don't know they are injured and they lose legs and arms and all sorts of bad things happen to people out there.
And when they do happen and to companies, those companies and people need representatives. And what that means is they need attorneys that will guide them through and find solutions to their problems. And we'll represent them and make sure that no stone is left unturned and that they win. That's the job of an attorney.
And a job of an attorney is to protect people and to protect companies and to get things done, to get transactions done, to find solutions and all that sort of stuff. So the. That anybody out there has a difficult time finding a job to me is among especially in the legal profession is something that just shouldn't happen.
Because as a, someone that wants to be an attorney, you should be able to do the research to [00:08:00] find the the positions that are out there. You should be able to have the skills to network and go find different types of opportunities. You should be resourceful. And and being able to contact people that have opportunities and find them.
And and you serve as health should not have a bunch of excuses that are out there for reasons you can't find a summer internship or a summer job or something along those lines. That is absolutely insane. Because this is among especially if summer job is among the most, the easiest things especially if you want it to be non-paid to, to accomplish in your career.
And it's going to be a lot, it should be a lot easier than anything else that you do that you're doing for clients. If you want to be an attorney and you want to represent people you need to have the ability to also fundamentally represent yourself. So there's a lot of secrets that people learn as you get deeper into the the legal profession and a lot of things that people learn.
But one of the things that employers do not like especially in major cities where there's a lot of people applying for the same [00:09:00] jobs is they really dislike people that are unemployed because they figure, first of all, if the person's unemployed, they may not want a job because, or they're just not a good attorney if they're having a difficult time finding a job because the most fundamental aspect of being able to, be a representative is to be able to represent yourself.
So you need to be able to represent yourself. If you're looking for a job, it's the most important thing, and you cannot allow others to take your power. Just as I told you that if you have enemies that enemy is going to want to isolate you and put you down and so forth there, there are people out there and groups that will take your power.
Like when I was I've talked to law schools are actually 99% of them have very good, a career services office sits, for example, now they all do. Years ago I got a call from a a career services office of the law school that was then a top 25 law school. And now it's one 50 or something.
And and they were mad that I was telling their students in articles online to [00:10:00] not just apply to the firms that the do on campus interviewing to find jobs, but to go out and find jobs independently, that they counseled their attorneys only to work with the lists they gave them and not to apply and send out a lot of emails or, letters and stuff to other firms because they wanted to have control over the the recruiting process for the attorneys.
And that again is giving away your power. You do not give away your power. You apply to every place you possibly can. When you're looking for a job, that's I, an attorney that's controlled by other attorneys has given away. One of the things I see, and again, I'm, I have been doing this for a long time and run companies.
And so I watch what attorneys do attorneys also give away their power to other attorneys. If a solo practitioner at a person at a two or three person law firm is going up against a big law firm that big law firm will often intimidate the person and and take away their power and wind cases based on that.
So you cannot give away your power as an attorney [00:11:00] to be good to because as an attorney, you need to take control of your career and not give away your power. And that means you, you don't allow others to necessarily even control your job search process. So one thing that happens if you're an existing candidate to BCG as an attorney you probably noticed that that I personally will send you a lot of opportunities.
I will not hold back compared to what other recruiters do. And the reason for that is because that a lot of times people will try to control your job. Search. Other recruiting firms will try to control your job search, but we our differences, we're trying to give people a ton of opportunities and that's what I'm trying to do for my candidate.
So the first thing, I just want you to make sure you really understand when you're looking for a position as a law student, or as you have two. You have to take things into your own hands. You have to think about what you would do to a client. And you have to realize that you're up for client.
If you were trying to help someone get a job, what would you [00:12:00] do? Would you be passive and say, go to this website and try these three firms and apply to them, or would you tell them you have to do whatever you can. What would you do if your life depended on it? What would you do to make sure that you were able to find every opportunity out there?
Because a lot, a lot lies on this, by the way. One of the things if you look at there's an article that I wrote, types of attorneys, law firms avoid hiring or prestigious law firms avoid hiring. If you want to work in a law firm especially a mid-size to one that, serves companies and has larger clients you do need to work as a summer associate or in some sort of summer job in a law firm, because if you don't, it's going to look like that's not what you're interested in doing.
And I will be completely Frank with you, anybody that goes to any American law school, regardless of whether it's even accredited, you can get a job in a law firm in the summer, because there are so many people out there that will, that there's so many law firms. It boggles the mind. I find just by us doing [00:13:00] research.
Hundreds per week of place, new ones that are popping up each week they're all over. And so anybody that wants to work as a law student should be able to find them. So I guess you have to ask yourself, when you're looking for a job as a law student what is it that you do to find a job well you basically will do whatever it takes.
You will apply to as many places as you can. You will make personal contact with people that went to your law school that may be at certain firms. You will make sure that your resume, you will read and study and make sure your resumes as good as possible. You will watch webinars that I've done on my resumes.
You watch webinars about cover letters. You'll get advice from your school and other people about it. You will you'll do whatever you can to get the best results. And so that's kinda what I wanted to open with. And I want you to understand that, when you're getting a job you're doing what attorneys are doing.
The most basic component of being an attorney is being able to represent yourself and to [00:14:00] get results. And there's plenty of people out there that can't even represent themselves that frankly shouldn't be working in the legal profession. And then why would you, why would, if you were a client trust, someone that can't even get a job.
It doesn't, with your future, if, if the person can't even look out for themselves and get a position and think about that, you need to you need to really think about that. Can you do more research? Can you reach out to more people? Can you make sure your resume's fixed?
Can you ask more people for advice? Can you, all of these are questions that you need to ask and I'm sorry, but I see so many people out there. When I say so many, hundreds of. More per week that are unable to get any motivation anywhere in their legal career because they they don't fix these things.
And so just think about, what it's like representing yourself and think about how hard it is and the enemies. The fact that that the market out there is very competitive and you're not going to get ahead. Unless you are able [00:15:00] to represent yourself in an effective way.
And that goes for everything that goes for your personal life, it goes for your your EV everything that you do, you need to be able to represent yourself effectively, because if you don't the world's gonna eat, you. Think about how many people that have given up think about it could be your own parents.
It could be people that you knew in college. It could be people that you known in law school. It could be who gives up, they give up because the world is so fricking hostile. And the and it's tough. It's not easy. So you have to be able to represent yourself and you have to understand that no one out there is going to look out for you.
You're your own lawyer right now. And that's what the job is, and you're going to be tested based on your skill to represent yourself. If you get an ex a good have a good experience as a summer associate, in a firm that can help you much.
It's a very good thing to get it later. If you if you have a don't get an offer or you have bad personal relationships in your [00:16:00] first summer that our second summer that can help you. And so in order to have a good opportunity or more opportunities in the legal profession this is all very important now, does it really matter that much in the long-term?
No, none of this stuff where you went to law school if you got a good summer job and stuff, doesn't really matter that much in the long-term because if you come out of law school at the age of 25, you will presumably with very little, few exceptions be practicing law. If you stick with it 50 years from now, so three lifetimes or, one or two more lifetimes, then you've already lived.
So the legal profession there's some advantages to starting at the top, but you can also climb there later. And this is these are just some things I guess, that were put in this article by here, but these are not anything that I think are that important.
So I'm, let me just go through this. It doesn't even sound like it was written by an American let's see, broad patient group resumes. Okay. Yeah, so strong stepping stone, the Concerta employer and all this stuff. Again, I don't yeah, no way all this is about [00:17:00] here. Let me see yeah, about what happens if you get an offer versus what happens if you don't get an offer.
Okay. This is just about how to work as a summer associate. There's a very good article by the way. It's called a guide to being a summer associate in a law firm and it's on a law crossing and it's a long article. It's probably like 15, 20,000 words and I would definitely recommend reviewing that article.
And this is about clothing playing with superiors. Yeah, I honestly do not think much of this is a guide to being a summer associate is going to be that useful for you. So I am just going to spend through this and I apologize for this particular content here, cause I'm just not very enthusiastic about it.
Mr. Kaley robe. Okay. Yeah, so this is just a lot of information about working as a summer associate but I would recommend reviewing if you want what I would like to do. I'm going to actually go through this in a different way. Sorry. Give me one second. I don't know what happened.
I am going to give you a little bit different of a presentation about [00:18:00] this and walk through what I think are some of the most important aspects of getting a job and then also as a summer when you're working in the summer being able to keep a job.
So just give me one second here. I'm going to actually pull up a word document that I'm going to share to make it easier for you guys.
Alright, here we go. Sorry about that. It's funny, but yeah, this webinar, I have no idea what that topic was today in the PowerPoint. So I showed up for it and I was like, this is just unbelievable. So I do want to provide you guys a lot of value today and the content but our girls and also, but I that webinar topic is just, first of all, article was written by me.
So there's a few things I just wanted to go over with you guys that weren't on on that webinar thing. And again, I apologize. This has just been this is the first time this has ever happened, but this webinar is not based on anything I've done.
So I, I wanted to I'll just add lib this, make sure you guys get the information that's going to be helpful to you. And I've given this talk about time, so I am able to provide very good information.
But [00:19:00] the first thing is when you, in order to get a position as a summer associate there, there are, there's a bunch of webinars on BCG.
If you go under the webinar tab and there's webinars on BCG that talk about how to find a position. And and there's a lot of options out there in terms of how to find a position. And I want to really go into them in quite a bit of detail with you right now.
But one of the main things you want to do. You want to make sure you track down all the possible places you could work as a summer. And what that means is that means basically doing research and the research, is if, do you want a law firm? Do you want to work in the government?
Where do you want to work? And if you want to, if you, when you find those places then you target them basically by applying and you don't need to apply to places necessarily. If they don't need to have openings, you can apply to places without openings. So in most and I'm try to open my browser a little bit, but every, government there's judges and every city and state in the country there's law firms and pretty much every [00:20:00] city state in the country and all you need to do is find them and apply to them.
It's not, none of this is really that difficult. Now, if you want to work in larger firms and so forth, we're going to talk about the ways to interview and so forth in a minute, but you need to apply to places. The other thing you need to do is you also need to and you can another good site by the way.
And this is one, I own it. So it's not the, interest disclosure, but law crossing, contained. Pretty much every job that's on any of these sites that you can find now you can apply to jobs that have openings which is fine. But but if you apply to jobs that have openings, you're going to be community, you're going to be competing with other people.
That's one way, but law crossing, you can do that for, and you can apply to pretty much anything that you find. And I would if I was looking for a job, especially when they have summer jobs and they have all sorts of anything that's been advertised, they put on there and then you can also just apply proactively to places that don't even have jobs.
Like you would find a mock crossing, the mistake that people make [00:21:00] when they're searching for jobs. Is they, the biggest mistake that law students make is that they limit themselves geographically. So that's a huge thing. And I'll talk about that in a second geographically, or they limit they limit the number of places and procedures level places.
They apply to number of places, and this is what all jobs searches. And so why does this matter? Okay one of the mistakes is if you limit yourself geographically, like a lot of people will say. I only want to work in say someone said, I only want to work on Honolulu, which is a, it seems like it would be a nice place, waiting in Hawaii.
Then you're competing with every single person that wants to work on Honolulu, which may be a huge number. The most common market that people make this mistake, where there are places like New York. So if that's the only market you want to work in, there's lots of people that also want to work in New York and you might be trying to work in New York from Omaha.
I don't know or some [00:22:00] market that has nothing to do with New York. And and if you limit yourself geographically, a lot of times that's going to hurt you, especially if you don't have any connections there. So the biggest advice I can give you when you're applying to different places is you need to look at lots of geographic areas and preferably.
Places where you have the connection, which is where you're going to have the most luck. So geographic areas preferably places where you have connection, which would be where you grew up where you went to college or. Look at a lot. Those sorts of things. So this is one of the mistakes that people make the other mistake people make.
And this is actually a very funny mistake, but it used to be that there was only kind of one source of law firms. It was, this is before Google and everything came out and people were able to search. It was people would only apply to firms that were in the Nalco guide.
And that's a very limited number of people. That's people pay thousands of dollars a year to be in there maybe more and would only apply there. And then if they didn't get a job from that, they would think that, there was something wrong with them. In most markets if you if you're using [00:23:00] directories, which are things like Martindale BCG has a law firm directory there's a lot of problems with that.
So you need to really use Google and other search methods to find all the firms that do what you want to do. In, in the market, you're in, so search for firms in the market, you want to work in and, know, in the markets you want to work in and then apply to the Manuel that's one of the other big things.
And then the next thing the other mistake that people make is they limit themselves to a certain practice area without certain practice area without, understanding the more. One of the things that a lot of people used to do, and they don't do this as much anymore, but people will say, oh, I want to work in environmental law without really realizing, that maybe environmental law is not the most after practice area.
And then they will apply to all these firms saying, I want to do environmental law, or they'll say, I want to do IP litigation, not realizing that IP litigation is not an active practice area. So you need to, basically when [00:24:00] you're young, you need to position yourself as wanting to get experience and and not And not limit yourself into practice here.
So I had an experience I'll just tell. So I was I was a summer associate in a big New York law firm. And and and then after the position in the New York law firm, I was after I graduated from law school, I was going to be go clerk for a federal judge. And and at the end of the summer I, I decided, I probably should be a litigator instead of doing this, because I'm doing a clerkship.
And and then, and, but even though all this firm did was it was mainly almost all corporate. They certainly had a litigation. And so when they asked me at the end of the summer, I was in this kind of dark conference room with these partners. They asked me what I wanted to do. I said, And I said, are you sure?
And I said, yes, litigation. They said, not corporate. And I said, yes litigation. That was a mistake because they actually needed someone to do corporate work and and they would have [00:25:00] hired me. They would give me an offer right. Then probably for corporate. But then they were like, okay we'll let you know if you're getting an offer in a couple of weeks and, thankfully I, it doesn't matter cause I didn't go there, but everything worked out for me.
But the point is that you need, you can't limit yourself to certain practice areas without understanding the market. And so if you want to, if you're going to. Affirm. That's like a local loft bus. Go say, you're going to I don't know. You're going to a school, that's a local law school in whatever market you're in.
And and you suddenly started thinking you can do corporate law with major law firms and you're in the middle of your class. That's probably not the right practice area to apply to, especially when, most of the jobs from people, coming out are going to be in family law and other things like that, not to say you have to do that for your whole career, but you don't.
You don't want to limit yourself like that. So that's another thing that I would just really caution you is not to limit yourself to a practice area, not to limit the number of places you applied to and not to limit [00:26:00] yourself geographically. And that, that can be those can all be very helpful.
And again, as an attorney, your expectation is that you're going to be able to represent yourself and get the result you need, which is a job, that's it. You don't need to. Your goal is to get the best result you possibly can for yourself as a client. In the, in the firm.
So that's just a, a big thing to think about, because, so those are some of the big mistakes. Now, the final thing I wanted to cover with everyone is who gets hired. So when you're interviewing do you need to understand who gets hired for different positions and for positions.
And and what is it you need to do to stand out and what is, what are the kind of the questions that your resume and that you need to show in person in order to get hired? So let me just do those real quickly. And and so th the players are really asking these questions when they see your resume and when they interview what employers are asking and when you work there in the summer, what are employers asking?
And and this is important to understand for everything that [00:27:00] you're doing, because you have to understand the questions that are important for employers. So the first one they're asking when they see your resume as can you do the. And what that means is if you're interviewing for any type of firm they're basically taking a look at your resume and and or after working with you in the summer or wherever, and they're asking themselves whether or not you can do the job.
And that means, do you look smart enough? Do you seem smart enough or enough motivated enough,
skilled enough and so forth to do the job. And in most cases, especially for young attorneys they're not really getting a lot, they don't really need a lot of detail. They know that most people are going to be pretty green and are going to need to learn, but they're just asking themselves whether or not you can do the job, whether or not they think you can.
So if you're, if you go to a top law school and and you do well there and you apply to a major firm and they look at your resume, they're going to [00:28:00] probably think, yes, this person can do the job. It doesn't necessarily mean. That you'll get hired, but but they know you can do the job.
So they're going to start asking other questions as well. Now if you go to a very poor law school and you, or whatever, and you don't do well there then they're going to assume that you probably aren't going to be able to compete at the intellectual level that you'll need to, which is fine.
Again, you don't have to really worry about that. And there's other ways you can compete especially as you get older, but again, you would not want to play necessarily professional basketball or something if you didn't have the skills and wouldn't feel bad about that. And not everyone certainly there's a lot of people out there that are much smarter than I am and and that's just what it is.
And I, I'm happy with my limitations. Okay. The next thing is, do you want the job? So that's the other question they're asking themselves. Do you want the job and do you want the job means, when you show up, do you seem willing to learn? Do you seem eager for the job?
Have you learned about the job before [00:29:00] you go out and interview, job, sorry. You learned about this. How are you prepared for, are you prepared for the interviews? Are you're, what are you well-prepared or just general actives, are you well-prepared,
I'll prepared do you D do you seem, does your background seem sort of person that would do it?
So I had a, I had a couple of experiences in, in my career pretty early on we're this kind of question w was answered. So I interviewed with when I was in to do your seam, I interviewed with I know it was called Nader Hoffer or something.
It was a, it was a trading very famous trader when I was in college and he came to our college and he he interviewed people for two days and he was a very well-known. He had a big trading company down in Chicago and and he only brought up. Two people to interview. And it just so happens that, I was a road scholar finalist and he was the other guy he brought back was a also I think the, I don't even think he knew that because it was on my resume, but he chose [00:30:00] two people that seem very motivated and stuff to interview.
But I got into this interview with his staff after I was brought back and and and they looked at my resume and they're like, this is not something you're going to do because you, everything about your resume. Let's take care of, you want to go to law school and and we would be insane to hire you and they were right.
That's what I was looking to do. And so it's the same thing with you. If someone looks at your resume and they see that everything you've done is different than working in a law firm for example, if you're trying to work in a big corporate law firm and everything about your resume shows that, you've been extremely active and I don't know some sort of political party and and that's really where all your interests lie, then they're probably not going to hire you.
I've also seen people that do stuff like, everything on their resume. Like they'll put things on there I'm on the entertainment law society. And then I was, I did the I was in the entertainment clubbing and college and I I wrote a book about our, I wrote a law review article about entertainment law, and then there's suddenly applying to be a patent attorney or something [00:31:00] like, obviously people are going to know that you don't want the job and when you interview, and if you work during the summer, they're going to be able to understand whether or not you want the job.
So the. The important thing to understand is that the law firms and any employer is going to be able to look at your resume and they're going to understand, and they're going to also understand when they interview if you really want the job and there's going to be, are you from the area?
What is it about you about you that makes it seem like you want the job and and so you have to have some sort of connection and, you have to figure out how to make that come through. What is it about you that makes it look like you want the job you have to make that come through in your resume and also in the cover letters and so forth that you do.
And and then when you interview and then when you work there and so there's just different types of people that that will want the job. And if you, if the law firm doesn't think you're going to want the job then they're more likely to hire someone else now, another big one.
And these are the, the the things, and this is for summers and other people but [00:32:00] they're also asking themselves, can you be managed? So think about all the places that you've worked and and your career and that, that you've seen or people that you've worked with whether in school or the, or that you've known in school, or you've known in different areas that maybe could or could not be, man, I don't know.
I can't get the. Thank you come up here. Let's do it this way then. But all the people that couldn't necessarily be managed, so being managed means follow instructions. It means you'll listen to what said to you, I said to you, it means you will will respect authority. You will not talk behind people's back, not talking in supervisors back.
It means you will learn from mistakes steaks.
Basically when you, when it comes down to it, what school is. It's basically teaching people and a lot of respects to be managed. And then a job is the same thing. When I was a summer associate I saw people [00:33:00] not get jobs in most cases and people don't get jobs because they can't be managed.
They do stupid things or they don't follow instructions or they they're people that undermine their peers around them or their supervisors, they they can't be managed and that's a big thing, and if you give if there's things on your resume that make it look like you're not going to be able to manage people, aren't going to like that.
So they can tell by your resume, by the way, too, if you can be managed, if you start putting things on. Show that you're really into different types of activism and things and highlighting that people are don't employers don't like that they want to see if you sh if you have a huge sections of your resume, like when I was applying for jobs, I don't know what the hell was wrong with me now that I think about it, but, I'd put stuff on there about how I was running this asphalt business and how I get all this and how, what a big deal I was, and that's not the kind of person that can be managed again, you're working for someone else that was showing, that I couldn't be managed.
One of the big mistakes I've seen with Yale law graduates for one is there's all these things on their resume. Typically like these [00:34:00] policy things and stuff that. Make it pretty clear that not only did they not want the job but they're probably not going to be able to manage when they get there because they're so self-important, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being super smart and self-important, but it's not necessarily the kind of person that can be managed in a law firm.
Someone that thinks they're too smart for your business, or thinks that they know better. It's not someone that can be managed. These are businesses trying to get things done. In my own company if someone can't be managed, then they don't, then they don't work out. It's just, this is how it is and all businesses, it's how it is in school.
It's how it is. And every law firm, and this is one of the things that people are looking for. A lot of people can make it through the system and get into law firms, but then they get there and they can't be managed. And that's a big thing. Also, and so these are questions that people are asking about that.
And then another question they're asking is, do you look like you'll do the job? Long-term do you look like you will do the job term.
And and this is extremely important. So think about, your [00:35:00] resume and think about, when you're applying places and think about if you were looking at you do you look like the sort of person that, that law firm is going to keep around that, that will stick around forever.
So what you know, and this is a huge mistake by the way that a lot of law firms make. So they hire people that clearly are not going to do the job long-term, but they don't always know that. And so this is, this is one of the things that I also recommend. So what does it mean to do the job?
Long-term it means that that you're likely that, means that you're likely to stick around and make the best of it.
It means you need, the job
means the job's not a stepping stone
means you have connections to the area. Hopefully it means the job represents what's important to you.
You and fits with your background and all that sorts of thing. So what is it? So just some examples. And I, again, I've given a lot of these, those of you hope been on these meetings before you may have heard [00:36:00] some of these examples before, but I'll just tell you how law firms think about it. So one of the first things is when you're applying to firms if you are applying to a firm, that's a very, if you're at a major law firm and applying to a law firm, that's very small, for example where you're going to make, one third, the salary and the work's not going to be that sophisticated.
They're not going to believe that you're going to stick around one third of the salary. You're not working on very sophisticated work, unless you have a very good story. They're just not going to think that you're, you look like the kind of person that's going to do that job long-term if you are in if your experience is in a major market and you're applying to, from some affirm in a small market and there's not really any connection to that, they're gonna also believe that you're not willing to do the job long-term.
A funny story that I had when I was applying to Firms in Los Angeles while I was going to clerkship. For whatever reason back then the search of the Los Angeles metropolitan area on Martindale or whatever brought up Fresno, which is this area, that's a [00:37:00] place where a lot of people don't want to live because it's not LA it's more like a farming community.
That's in the middle of the desert. And people are not that psyched about living there. So I got these calls from these firms in Fresno and they're like, what in the world would you be interested in working for Fresno for? And and I didn't really have a good response. And so the point is, and they were like we're happy to talk to you, but not if you don't have any reason to be here because people anybody that we ever hire, that's not from Fresno gets here, looks around and leaves same thing with other Susan Bakersfield and so forth.
So if the firm doesn't look like a place where the employer doesn't look like a place where we're going to work longterm, then the employer, it's not going to keep you around. If the employer sees lots of movement on your resume, meaning you've been doing all these different things they realize you're unlikely to stick around.
If you are have something on your resume that indicates that you're unlikely to, I, I wrote an article once about people from different backgrounds and I actually had to take it down. But it was, it talked about [00:38:00] what happens when law firms hire people that are, from these very, upper-class kind of, where, if you hire someone who's from a family worth hundreds of millions of dollars the odds of that person sticking around are very slim because, you have to you have to be committed to this and you have to want to do it.
Long-term and you ha generally law firms want you to work. They want you to be, need their money and need their approval and need all this. And so that's another, so law firms want you to look like you're going to do with the job term. So it's very easy typically to get your first job.
Once you start having a lot of movement on your resume it starts looking like you're not going to do the job long term, and that can harm you a great deal. And so law firms and all employers want to hire people that can do the job long term. I'll tell you one more story, because I think this is one of the most important things.
Anytime I've hired someone to work in our company, if the person was at their last employer for 10 or 12 years then the odds of them doing the same thing when they come to our company are very good. Like people that are committed and stick, stay [00:39:00] with places do the same thing, no matter what they go, what happens, they don't, they're the kind of people that, Don't create trouble or when there's trouble around them, they don't use that as a reason to leave.
They do good work and therefore employers keep them around. And so that's one of the reasons like the longer you can stay at an employer and the more you look like you're going to stick around there, longterm, the better off you're going to be. And that's a very important thing and it's really one of the most important things you can learn.
As you need to look like you're going to do the job. Long-term one other thing connection to the geography. When I worked with lateral attorneys what happens is you have two different types of lateral attorneys. The first type of lateral attorney you have is someone that is in their market and they might be, they might be I don't know, let's say they're a workers' compensation attorney or litigate or something in Dallas, and they want to get another job in Dallas and that's fine.
So that person will do a search, but say you have the exact same workers' compensation or litigation attorney who's coming from. Arizona [00:40:00] and and they want to go to Dallas. Maybe they're admitted to the Texas bar. Let's just say, I don't know, but that the person that's coming from Arizona if they're from Dallas originally and the re leaving because they want to go home they're actually much more likely to get hired than the person who's local.
And the reason is because the law firms, assuming that, that person's going to come to their firm and settled down, whereas the person who's leaving their existing firm is more likely to leave in the future. So it's important to understand that that what happens is in the way law firms are judging you, is they're looking at whether or not they believe you're going to stick around.
And so you need to be able to convince people of that in your applications, in your interviews. And then when you get to work there. So if you get to a law firm and you're there for the summer, and you're saying I like this firm, but I could get a job at a firm paying 50% more. And they know that they're more likely to make an offer to someone that they think is going to stick around than you.
Trying to get rid of your sense of entitlement looking like you want the job and looking like the person who's going to do the job long-term is going [00:41:00] to help you. Then another question, the law firms asking and this is an important one is do we like you. And do we'd like you, and this one is a very important question.
And and law firms, you don't need to be any type of specific personality to get a job at at most firms. I Obviously you can get a job as a, being outgoing. You can get a job as a nerd, you can get a job, all sorts of things, but being likable means, non-threatening to people many times it means you're not threatening.
They identify with you in some way that means you look human to the person you have human and identifiable and and and have human issues, meaning humans are, aren't perfect. I'm certainly not perfect. I could sit here and talk to you about the things that I'm unhappy about that I've done wrong forever, for a long time.
And that, but people that are like that are human make us, like each other more like other people more when we see them, they want to make sure you're human and want to make sure that that that just generally that you're a good [00:42:00] cultural. And other type of fit, so cultural and and fit for the firm.
And that does not, I want to be clear about this. That doesn't mean that law firms that are all men do not want to hire women. It doesn't mean that law firms that are women don't want to hire men. It doesn't mean that law firms that are, one way or another don't want to hire a certain type of person means, but they want to like you.
And and in many times people have problems when they're interviewing with people because they see them sometimes as a threat. And if you come in with an attitude, like you're a really big deal and stuff, then the, the ideas that they're going to try to push you down and not like you, if you come in and you're unable to connect with people, or they can't identify with you then they're not going to like you.
So just some stories. I've got a lot of these kinds of stories throughout my career, but I had one from one time there was during a major recession and it was literally like one big law firm in the country that had an opening. It was in Denver I think it was Morrison and Forrester and which is a great law firm and and a good firm and a lot of tons of different reasons, [00:43:00] but there was a one opening and they had their choice of people that could hire pretty much anyone they wanted from, they've been laid off at every big firm and it was just a horrible recession.
And this one guy went in and and he saw a picture of the partner snowboard and a corporate partner that was doing all the hiring. And this guy was very interested snowboarding too. And so they started talking about snowboarding and they identified, and that was a hire based on that. And he was not the best candidate for the job, but he was the only person that was able to identify, connect.
So that connection matters. Anytime you can connect with people on a personal level it makes it's a big deal. And and especially when it's genuine and that's how you make friends, that's how you you do all this stuff and the better off you are at that the better off you're going to be.
I've noticed a lot of times when people are unable to get jobs they believe that they should be given respect and light because they got good grades or because they went to a good law school or because I don't know because they're good looking or, I don't know. Whatever the reason is people [00:44:00] have all these preconceptions about why people should like them or because they're this way or that, and none of that stuff matters about connection and connection is the most important thing.
So you need to be able to connect with people. When you go into interviews, I had this fascinating thing happened. It was I was, I got this resume of this woman that it was a very good resume. And and she was very smart. She'd gone to a, a really good engineering school, think, I dunno if it was like MIT or something like that.
And then, like on a top five or 10 law school, and she would say patent attorney and and I was interviewing her to, to be a candidate. And I S I was asking her these questions and she said, it does, none of this stuff matters. Like the only thing that matters is, that I've got this pedigree and and either I can do the work or I can't.
And I was like, wow, this is why this person is unemployed. And and then I, and then I was like, this is incredible. And then I looked her up. Then I found, found out, other stuff about him that I didn't like. But I guess the point is that this connection [00:45:00] is the most important thing.
There are people that are able to go into almost any interview and get almost any job because they're very likable and and they also are able to stick, stay with jobs for a long period of time because they're very likable. And so people have to, like you being like likable is a hugely important thing.
And and it requires you to many times to be a certain type of person and and to be able to connect with people. I, it was funny. I was at a meeting the the other day, or I was, it, was it a Monday night, I was at a meeting for this organization I belong to.
And the And one of the guys there was telling me how he was in ZBT, which I guess is a Jewish fraternity or something at UCLA. And I was talking about that. And then I started telling him, these people and he said, yeah, all of these people Beverly in my fraternity became very successful.
And, but when there was in my pledge class and there was a guy that I knew that I was talking about. And it was interesting to me cause I, when you think, and it's not that this is a great fraternity to become a very successful in, but a lot of times people are in certain groups and [00:46:00] organizations where they learn skills to be likable.
Then certain types of people become likable and other stone. So being likable is very important. And I just, the only reason I bring all this up is because. The law firm is not interviewing you, just, they don't care about, they care about your grades. That's going to get you in the door. But being able to be look likable and stuff is really among the most important things.
And then the final thing that law firms are asking and appliers is and and I hate to say this, but it's true. Can we do better? A lot of times, what happens is the you're not just, you, everyone is wrapped up in their own head and thinking about themselves and that sort of thing.
But and that's fine. I That's how it's always been for most people, but if a law firm feels like it can do better than you after interviewing you someone would better experience
hungrier and hungrier, more likely to stick around.
Some of them are likely around, around [00:47:00] someone who looks like they have better skills.
Someone who all these sorts of things, then they're going to hire them instead. So these are all things that are really important for you to be able to get a position. And and these are the questions that law firms are asking. They don't, th anybody that's smart and anybody that has a lot of experience will ask these questions and employers, I'll ask these questions when they're hiring.
And so you need to look at yourself through this lens and be highly critical of yourself and ask, do I look like the kind of person that can do the job? And if you don't, then why then you should be applying to firms where people are going to reach a conclusion that you can do the job again, if you go to if you don't have very good experience or your resume is not that strong, or your grades are poor, you need to start somewhere.
And then, and that's it. And you may need to start at a lower level firm, and then you need to look like you want the job and can be managed. And so these are all the major mistakes that I see people make when they're searching for jobs. And I don't want to, go a [00:48:00] lot more into it now for you guys, but I do want everyone to understand that.
And and then I want you all to understand that. When you're searching for a job, you don't want to limit yourself geographically and you don't want to limit the number of places you can apply to that. That is the biggest mistake that people make on. I'll tell you a quick. About limiting the number of places you applied to.
And it's actually it's actually a funny story. And and and I'm to tell it and it's not a thankfully the business that it's about is I don't even think the business it's not in business anymore, but I used to have this company called. First of all, and I worked in the Los Angeles area.
So in LA people used to call our company every day saying I want to be an entertainment law. I want to be to entertain a lot. And the problem is there's really no entertainment law positions because when there are people inside the firms that where the entertainment positions are always want to do them, if it's a general practice firm, because everyone wants to meet, stars and stuff and work on these big matters.
But if there by chance is an entertainment law position for just, the kind of [00:49:00] positions where you deal with stars and stuff. And then then those positions don't require the law firm getting a recruiter involved because there's so many people that are just sending their resume in, the law firms can't even respond to them.
So they are they typically, don't need really to even advertise them because there's so many entertainment people wanting to do the job. So there's, it's very rare that recruiters, I've certainly placed, I placed some probably, several times a year with some New York and LA or, Tennessee and so forth.
I place entertainment people all the time. But my point is that there's very few of these positions. And because there's very few of these physicians, they're very hard to get and the people that get them typically have really good qualifications. It's not always like that. Anyway, so I had this company called.
Legal authority. And and what this company did was you would call up legal authority and we would, we had all the, it was actually the second company I started after BCG because I was like, I wanted to make sure everyone that came to our company was able to get positions. And what the company would do is that with mail out people would basically say the kind of work they wanted to [00:50:00] do.
They would talk to them about it. We put together a list of firms and, if you were in a market like Los Angeles and wanted to entertain a lot, there might literally be, I don't know, 500 or more law firms that do entertainment law. You wouldn't know that most people wouldn't know that, but there's probably 500 or maybe even more than that, that do entertainment law.
And so then the company would put together a list of all these entertainment firms and and would do re rewrite the person's resume and then we'd send them, we print all these letters from them to mail out. So one one it was like one June or something, or maybe it was August or whatever.
I don't know. Or I was sitting in my office and and I didn't pay a lot of attention to this company when it started. I worked on it all the time, obviously, but I didn't I knew people were getting good results. I didn't know what was going on. And these the dad came into my office and he was like, I just really want to thank you.
My, my son and his best friend who would have thought they would be getting these great entertainment positions in Los Angeles? And I said, oh tell me all about it. And he [00:51:00] literally, the dad stopped by and he said the son went to was in the, I dunno, the bottom half of his class at Thomas Cooley law school, which, is a good law school.
There's there's nothing wrong with and but it's in Michigan and there's no and his friend did too. So they both got entertainment positions through this company by mass mailing their resumes. And, but what's funny about that is that these are, and again, I'm not promoting this company, it's not even business anymore.
So I just want you to understand the power of this idea though that, by sending their resume to 600 firms, they both got, him and his friend, both got jobs in entertainment, law firms, and and this sort of thing, was happening all the time. And then there were, there was a couple.
There was a I dunno, an LLM program in Florida one day. And and so periodically I would talk to people and I think it was an LLM in educational law. 50 people would graduate from it each year and then all those people were using the service to, or not all of them, but a lot of them had all gotten jobs through, this mass mailing of finding all the firms in the country that did education law and they would get jobs.
And so the point I'm making and the reason I [00:52:00] want to just make sure you understand this is that when you apply to all these places, it doesn't matter if you apply to places that you know are much better than you'll ever work in. Then of course, you're not going to get an interview but if you are applied to a lot of these places to do the work you're going to get hired, it's just how it works.
And and it was just when I saw that I've seen how many lives have been changed by understanding the psychology. It can really change your life too, just by applying to a ton of places. Don't allow others to hold you back and tell you what's not possible for you because there's always going to be a good fit out that party for you.
And there's, again, if you get one interview, maybe those people don't like you, not everybody likes everyone. One third of the people like the people, they meet one third of the people. One third of the people you meet are going to like you a one third of the people aren't going to care about you one way or another.
And one third of the people won't like you, one third of people on this call may not like it. There's nothing you can do about it. If you're a very liberal and you turn on Fox news you're going to think everyone on [00:53:00] there is insane. And if you are very conservative and you turn on CNN, you're gonna think everyone on there is insane.
That's just how it works. And there are people that are think that are so conservative. They think everyone on Fox news is insane and they only watch I don't know, even more conservative things and they're people that are so liberal. I think everyone on, so everyone likes different things.
And so you have to expose yourself to a lot of employers in order to find a place where they like you and where maybe they can't do better because they don't know how to market themselves. The firm doesn't know how to market themselves or find people and and where you look like the best person for them because different firms have different cultures and all this stuff is very important.
And then, and then, and not limiting yourself, the number of places and the geographies and this, and that's really my lesson to you. It can change your life if you understand it. And and I and just remember that. Really buy into whatever the, whatever people are telling you about how to do your job search.
I'm just telling you, you don't have to take any man advice. I'm not asking you to, but what I [00:54:00] am telling you is anybody that's limiting you or limiting how you think about yourself or how you think about the number of places you can apply to, or the geographies you can work in or or, whatever you're trying to do to improve yourself and watching this.
If you're watching me right now, you're probably going to have a very good career and you are, if you're practicing priority too, because you're learning this stuff, you can, change everything. It's going to, by not limiting yourself. So don't let anybody, whatever you do limit you and tell you don't apply to these places.
Don't do that. I highly discouraged mass mailings or I highly discouraged, no, this is for people I'm telling you as someone that has placed thousands of attorneys and gotten probably, a significant percentage of the attorneys in the country. I've gotten jobs using my companies.
I'm telling you that's that's my firm belief. Cause I've seen it work repeatedly. But I've also seen, people. W not work and it doesn't work when you don't do research. It doesn't work when you limit yourself. And it doesn't work when you don't think [00:55:00] about yourself as your own client.
And, just, at the risk of rambling, I'm going to stop in a minute, but I am very enthusiastic about this. I just don't want to see anyone ever limit themselves and what they can do for themselves, because, you have to be your own attorney and the legal profession will eat you up alive and eats everyone up alive.
If you don't stick up for yourself. And if you don't realize that that that if you don't do this stuff, it's not going to end well. Remember you're your own attorney. You need to get better and getting the job. That's really the most fundamental aspect of what you're doing.
And you can't forget that ever. And then if you do anything just don't forget that you have to be your best defender. And ultimately, you may be able to count, on your friends, but you're not always gonna be able to tell one of your friends, maybe be able to count on your law school career services office, but you're not always gonna be able to count on that maybe a to count on your family, but you're maybe not always gonna be able to count on them, either.
The only person you're learning as an attorney, how to do research, how to be, or how to be an [00:56:00] advocate and everything you need to be your own advocate. And being your own advocate means leaving no stone unturned and then fixing everything that's wrong, which is, with a resume and so forth.
So the only other thing I would say to you is if you do use BCG or if you've looked at our webinars, you should look at every webinar you possibly can about this that related to your job search, you should study this stuff. You should ask questions on these webinars and do whatever you can to, put them, get yourself ahead.
So that's about it. That's all I have for now. And then I will and I will take questions and I'll be back in just a couple of minutes.
Good. We got through the silliest webinar issues that I've ever had colors and the bad PowerPoint, but I'm glad this I'm able to do these questions. Okay. So the first one is and again, you guys can ask any question. You have, I always stay as long as people have questioned, there are certainly all anonymous.
If you do use your name to, and I won't copy your
