23 Types of Attorneys Prestigious Law Firms Avoid Hiring

Description

22.03.16 - 23 Types of Attorneys Prestigious Law Firms Avoid Hiring
[00:00:00] So we're going to get started with us. This is a a pretty fun webinar. It's a pretty fun topic. It's actually got in trouble because of this topic before, and you're not really in trouble, but people have written various attack pieces and stuff about this one because it does expose a lot of aspects about law firms that people sometimes don't want to hear.
But at the outset, I just want to make a few points about this particular webinar. Cause I do think this is a very important topic. Anytime you're applying to work somewhere you're applying to work for a business and businesses only function when certain types of people out there.
An example would be if you had a McDonald's and people just didn't come to work well, you wouldn't be able to get your food in a McDonald's. So they have certain types of things they're looking for when they're hired at McDonald's and law firms have the same sorts of things, the batter, the law firm the more they can be exacting about the types of people that they hire, meaning the better law firms will frequently have higher standards for the sorts of people that they're looking for.
And we'll look for a lot of ways to exclude people. [00:01:00] So understanding these rules. It's very important. And it's one of the most important things that you can know in these rules apply some times to the, they can apply to the smallest law firms, but large law firms, typically the most prestigious law firms have a lot of people to choose from.
And because of that, they can afford to have all sorts of rules and things about the types of people that they hire. So this webinar's going to talk about them. And just to, give you who am I to talk about this? I've had I've been doing what I do here for decades and had experienced, placing people in pretty much every large law firm there is, and and prestigious law firm.
And not only that, but these are people that, I I, obviously, you know, as a, because of what I do, I have an incentive to get people into these types of firms. I wanna, I want people to be able to get jobs with them and it doesn't matter how you get them. These kinds of rules are going to apply to you regardless of how you may be searching for a job in one of these firms.[00:02:00]
So the first thing I'll do today is how go through this webinar. It doesn't take it, won't take this is a little bit longer topic, so it will take a little bit of time. But then after that I'll open everything up for questions. And you can ask questions about anything I like related to this.
If you take notes and have questions during the webinar, just I'll take them after and go from there. This quote is a principle, which is a bar against all information which is proof against all arguments, which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting in your answer, principals contempt prior to investigation.
And the idea here is just that at the best law firms are very demanding. And their goal really is to hire attorneys at the lateral and at the at the entry level the tape themselves and their work seriously. That's the product is the people and that's what they're selling and the higher billing rates they're getting because of the people and the reputations and so forth based on their hearts, the hiring that their law firm does is honestly it's the most, one of the most important aspects of their brand.
And and then the way they train people and so forth. And and they're looking for a certain type of [00:03:00] person, people that are motivated by the work and the client's affirmed represents. And if you're a young attorney, you're a law student a lot of people get into the profession when they're young and they think I'm just going to make a lot of money for a few years and so forth and where they don't understand the seriousness of what they're doing and they're fairly quickly unless they get with the program.
They don't spend a lot of time in law firms and that's just kinda how it works or in the best law firms. And the rules I'm going to talk about today are not rules that I made up. They're just rules that I've observed and pretty much all law firms follow now the most prestigious ones.
And and a lot of what I'm going to hear and say today is probably not what you want to hear. If a law firm is hiring laterally they almost never now they do I have seen it happen before and certainly but almost never will hire you a good law firm unless you have a law firm experience.
They may hire you if you have a judicial clerkship like a good one a prestigious law firm but meaning probably a federal district court ship minimum, or, maybe a state Supreme court in a big state, but [00:04:00] usually just, federal district courts or federal appellate courts.
And and probably not more than a few years of clerking and, and that's really their, how they hire laterally. If you don't have any law firm experience, your odds of getting hired at a law firm are very slim as a lateral attorney I've seen it happen and I've placed people laterally.
They didn't come out of law firms, but they typically add very very rare kind of experience. If there might be like some sort of, risks and benefits for one or two years, or, something along those lines where it's very difficult to find people. But other than that it's very rare.
And the odds are just, the problem is if you're not working in a law firm and I don't want to get too much into it and you go to work in a government office or something that the sense of urgency that gendered by working for paying client and the type of thinking you have to do, and the level you're expected to work and so forth, there's just different in a law firm than it is and mostly other legal environments practice settings.
So even if you don't have any law firm experience in your, on your resume, that you're going to have an extremely difficult time getting hired laterally by a law firm right [00:05:00] now. That's not to say you can, you can't, change practice settings for a year or two and go back or even longer in many cases.
But for the most part law firms are hiring people laterally that have law firm experience are coming from law firms in almost all cases. Not, that's not the case for everyone. Of course, there's lots of exceptions to that, but if you want to get hired laterally, you don't have any law firm experience.
You're just not going to have a good shot with that. And there's a lot of reasons for that, but. The training and expectations of a law firm are just different. And then than they are other places and and law firms know what it means. If you're working in one law firm you spent three years there then they don't know what it means if you're working, in-house where, or some other legal environment where they don't know the the quality of the work you're doing.
One of the reasons I think it is as if you're motivated to work in the government or public interest or some other practice environment. And then you decide you want to work in a law firm you're probably not going to do well. Your initial motivation was not to, to work in that type of environment.
And just because you've made felt later, cause you want to make money or [00:06:00] something it doesn't really cut it. And one of the ways that we evaluate and place in our company is we always say just the person, they can, they do the job, but they want the job, meaning do they really want it?
Do they want the responsibility or they want this, is that important to them? And for you, if you chose out of to go in through another practice setting and one, a lateral into a prestigious firm, it's very difficult. And I've worked with lots of people from, I would say, pretty much every great law school, Harvard law school, Yale law school, and so forth, who never decided to be never debated, never wanted to be summer associates.
And and then they may have spent the first few years after law school of this, just of government, of public interest they make these decisions because many cases, people have different personality types, and one of them is idealism. They may believe that's, where their talents Shammai and they can always go back to a law firm later.
And I worked with these kinds of people all the time, because obviously. Like anybody would be an impressed with people that have very good academics, but at the same time I knew I would have[00:07:00] a lot of resistance with the person I was working with recently.
And I got my position with a large national firm, but then the issue was, is, when you, anytime you're trying to move laterally into a a law firm and if you don't have experience like there, there's a rule, like if you're the perfect applicant for a job, you can get a job maybe sometimes above, where you should be.
And if there's a lot of stuff wrong with your background, or you have problems in your you're going to cut, you're going to have to go down a few levels. And so this particular turn, I got him a job with a good firm. He started questioning whether or not he was good enough to work there. And he said there were no Harvard law school graduates there.
And I was very concerned about that. And then he asked if he could expect a lot from the, from more prestigious from after a year or two. And I told them it was a miracle that he received the job in the first place, if I was a law firm, by the way. And just think about it from the standpoint of what you would do if you were a law firm, if you had somebody that was very high in themselves and you were running a law firm.
And but it was say was a good law firm, but not a great law firm. So there were, maybe, just average [00:08:00] schools for, not anything wrong with that, but just average schools and so forth, and so much shows up from, Harvard law school and thinks they're going to show you how everything's done, but they've spent the first two or three years of their career doing something else.
That would be a really bad choice for you if you're a law firm for the most part, because you're hiring someone that's shown no interest in working in a law firm to work in your law firm that thinks you're better than everyone you did, and that's probably going to leave. So those are bad decisions from law firms.
Now there, this particular person I think it was a labor employment firm that you got a job in that risk reasons that he come out of a labor and employment background and in the the government and other things, but this particular guy had no private sector law firm experience. And then he added started asking questions about the hours the type of companies they represented, whether they were ethical companies.
That should be good. Let her put it on his resume. And clearly the sky was not a fit for a law firm environment. And I knew the firm would be better without him. And ultimately and what he did is he sat around thinking about this job [00:09:00] and because he wasn't sure that he was from, it was good enough for him and so forth and didn't get hired.
And it was unfortunate because he received an offer from a really good firm. And he'll probably never get an offer from a prestigious firm like that ever again, at least not before working in a smaller firm and they need to go to better firm in a better firm. So he wasn't interested in working in a law firm.
And and also when he was in law school, he didn't receive any hours from law firms, which is why he probably didn't get a job to begin with. And then there was something wrong with his interest in that. Now I want to be very clear if you're not getting not, if you're like interviewing with the law firms and your summer in Europe like a law student or and you didn't get any jobs.
That many times has nothing to do with you. It could have to do with your your, maybe you didn't do well, the first semester or something, but that, for the most part, there's different personality types and different people are fits for different environments and different people are either are right for certain things.
And so the idea if you were I always, I'd like to give examples of rockstars for something going to law school, we can, do you think they would get an certain [00:10:00] people, we did interviews with firms where we hired and the odds are probably pretty slim, so everyone has different personalities and but the idea is if you're looking for position inside of a law firm and you don't have any experience, you often don't have the law firm experience because you either didn't get the position side of law firm when you were in law school or you just weren't motivated for it.
It wasn't something that motivated you and and law firms should take note of that. If you didn't get offers, when you're in school, there's probably a reason you didn't, it's either, that you weren't motivated to do it. And you're probably not going to be motivated to stand inside of a law firm.
It's not going to be important to you. The person may be experimenting thinking. I, don't like working in the government anymore. I want to work in a law firm. Who knows, but if you if you start your career and you're not in a law firm, or you going to have a very difficult time getting into a law firm later, or how law firms are just hiring people that want the job that have a history doing the job and all of that sort of thing.
So you can't reasonably expect to someone to hire you, if you're probably not a fit for that place, or if you weren't motivated in the past, you can certainly change your mind and go back to a law [00:11:00] firm, but you're probably not going to get into the most prestigious law firm right away.
Now, another thing that's important if you want to work in a law firm is to be motivated by things like money and prestige and so forth to work in a prestigious law firm. I, I'm not saying that's a good thing. I don't approve of it. Not saying that people should run their lives based on money and those sorts of rewards, but if you're not motivated by money and bonuses and all that sort of thing, then you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense to put up with the type of eternal competition.
That's common inside of law firms. You need to be interested in money and and or, because otherwise, that's how that's the feedback. The law firm gives you. The law firm uses that as a carrot to motivate long hours and high-performance, they use it as a carrot to spur you, to try to make partner and and and you have to want money when you bring in clients and the you're expected to bring a client.
So as an older attorney, if it's a partner and so the, all this stuff, people have to like money, they have to want whatever the, the That is a reward, whether it means security to them [00:12:00] or to buy things who knows, but that you have to want it. You have to want the, to, the things that attorneys do with money.
I They buy homes, a car, I don't know, but, save everything who knows, but whatever. The law firm, you're only going to be the law firm needs, you depend on them for money. One of the things that when I started in a law firm, this partner said, the law firms are always going to encourage you.
Every he's a friend of mine. And he said, the law firms are always going to encourage you to buy homes and cars and get married and things because they want you dependent. And cause then you're dependent on them. And so you have to want then. So people typically, that are smart, a lot of times will not buy homes not buy cars, even, stay single and stuff so that they feel like they have more control over their lives, but it's just it's not something I recommend, but it's it's part of a kind of equation that goes with it.
The law is a business and it functions on your ability to generate money. So everybody, if you're in a law firm sitting around there is there because people are trying to bring in business they're billing hours or they're creating work or figuring out ways to make money. And the clients are getting into trouble when they're [00:13:00] trying to make money and you're billing them money and who knows.
But the law firm wants control and you have to have some sort of motivation for money in order for the law firm to feel that sense of control. And if they don't have it then they're going to hire someone that they feel the sense of control over it. So money does give a law firm that sense of control.
It gives them the sense of it also makes more people, good people want to work there. So the highest pain firms get the most applicants and and and the partners are bringing the most business, break it the most money. And so it's just, that's how it works. It's not getting, I don't make up these rules, this capitalism.
And I'm not saying I approve of it one way or another. But the best attorneys there, there has to be some sort of motivation for money. One thing I noticed, and I'm not, again, not a. Judging any of this and I don't, I'm just a reporter here, but a lot of, the majority of attorneys typically come out of, environments where a lot of the most successful ones where they're trying to prove someone to some, somebody, and a lot of times that has to do with money.
A lot of times the most successful attorneys didn't have money when they were growing up or wanted money who [00:14:00] knows, or prestige and the things that money can buy and don't believe that that, that will give them that in some sort of happiness or something. So it's a subtle distinction.
But you need attorneys and you can't reasonably expect people to sit in an office 80 hours a week. And unless there's some sort of for years on end and unless there's some sort of motivation that that they believe that it's going to, or something that they believe it's going to do for them where they're, they believe that it's gonna make them happy or fulfilled, or I don't know, but they want to prove something to their parents or a relative or, teacher, I don't know, but it's just how it is.
And the laws of business and and it operates in the concept of higher profits and more money being a good thing. And that's just what it is. And law firms the best law firms are typically motivated by making money, man, that's a business. And so that's what business is about.
And there's exceptions and I've known lots of very good attorneys that weren't motivated by money or even prestige for that matter and had [00:15:00] exceptional backgrounds. But but it's it's just something that motivates a lot of attorneys. And and I think the control that a law firm gets from that the ability to keep you working long hours and expose yourself to stress and all that sort of stuff has to do with money.
And and I, and unfortunately, that's just how it is. And in order to lateral. Into the best firms. I think that most people, I tend to be pretty motivated by it. Let's say I've seen issues where a couple will have children and the attorney may make, $300,000 a year and the non-attorneys making a few million dollars a year and the attorneys rarely stays practicing.
And almost always drops out especially with the children equations. So I think these are people working in big firms and so forth. And and I see that all the time. I see, people if they're a spouse become very successful whether it's a man or a woman that they'll leave the practice of law and, or do something else at a much slower key that it won't be in a big firm.
I think if there's the, motivation's not there, I think a lot of people stopped now. [00:16:00] I know lots of partners that are worth, Tens of millions, if not more money and keep practicing. So people and they don't need money anymore, but they still like it. And but the typically they don't stick around very long.
A lot of them, especially when they're in a very demanding large law firm environment, but I used to know an attorney that had his own law firm, and then another turned down in Los Angeles. This isn't a too long, the story you want a large verdict can receive tens of millions of dollars in net recovery.
And we received the fees and the check had cleared. The first thing he did was quit the firm. And he told me doing it for money. I had another case where I was hiring a guy to help me with I dunno, some employment contracts. He was in my building and he wanted some kind of longshoreman's union verdict or something where he sued them for, I dunno, you sued I dunno, over time or something and just quit the practice a lot, obviously it all the time.
This is the example and and he it was just quit. And dealing with all this is bullshit. And so he wasn't even a large law firm, which I thought was funny. So the ideas is if P money's not motivating [00:17:00] you there's lots of things you can do. You can teach law, you can work in the government, you can go and house you can start your own practice.
Many times. It's not stressful. You can do all sorts of things. But the large law firm and all the pressures that go along with it and the people and the social intellectual pressures and stuff can be quite a bit for a lot of people. And. And that's one of the ways that a lot of large law firms keep people around.
And again, it's a business and it's, it's, the money also helps them create a good product, so the offering a lot of money to people helps them create a good product for the client. So it's not that the law firms are doing anything wrong and I have some anger against large law firms for doing this.
I don't, it's just the way business works, but if you're not interested in this stuff you're probably not going to be a good fit for it, but you may be, I but most people are a better fit for that, in that case. Okay. So the next one is if you're not motivated by prestige and what others think of you you're probably not going to be a good fit for a lot of large law firms.
Most large law firms and the attorneys there are motivated somewhat by [00:18:00] prestige the prestige motivates them And the procedure level with their current firm motivates them that receives each level of their clients and procedural over their peers.
And even in many cases, the procedure level of the city that they're living in. So either you buy into this idea or you don't, but I attorney being an attorney's a very professional people are very aware of the prestige of the people that they're working with and who they are, and so forth.
And and it's something that really motivates a lot of people, especially that wants to spend their careers and large law firms, they get there a lot of times their identity from their job. And and an attorneys are very aware of qualifications. I see it all the time. With stay there where they went to college, how they did in college, where they went to law school, how they did law school, their honors, where they work and what titles they've had.
I I, when I meet attorneys that have these things they talk about it a lot. And and they, it's really something that and these things are important to them and because, you, and as they should be, if you sacrificed a lot of your life to work very hard and to get these honors and to, and that's part of your [00:19:00] identity, that's fine.
Most law firm, attorneys believe they're a brand and they need to protect your prestige. A lot of times we're only interviewing with certain firms and now working with certain types of fraternities and being around certain types of attorneys. And that's just kinda what it is.
And I speak to people oftentimes in their, their eighties, then, they'll take some five minutes to tell me, they went to a really good law school, where they went to law school or where that, what firm, what firms they worked at and they drop it into every conversation.
It's kinda No, it's part of their identity. And and it's part of the, just the kind of whole idea of the, w what this when people pick up and people like compliments proceeded, they're just motivated. And and I think this is one of the things that law firms again, use to get people to work hard.
If you're not interested in the procedure, your job and your accomplishments then you're probably and the hours you work and the clients you bring in, and the things you did when you were younger to get there you're probably not the best fit. And and this is what law firms rely on.
They rely on people constantly working at that. This is how law firms can get people [00:20:00] working hard at how they continually attract good talent by the law firms, prestige by the people that you're working with and all that sort of thing.
Let me see here. The funny thing I think about my job and and and one of the things that I've always noticed is if, with very few exceptions, if I call someone in the. And I say, this firm is interested in you and it's a very prestigious firm.
And you have been that the odds are pretty good. They're better than 50%. It's not it's not with limited exceptions, it's, it depends on the firm. And if the firm has a good reputation and stuff, but if it's a much better firm than the person's working at it, and they really do believe that the firms interest in them, the PR person's always going to agree to speak with the firm at the firms, not as prestigious, then they'll come up with reasons not to do it.
And I've seen, it's, the attorneys are so prestige aware that, I've literally had situations where I've talked to an attorney and talk and brought up like, the names of a hundred firms in a city and they're like, oh, this one's not good enough. This one's good, but there's this wrong with it.
And, people are very aware of it. And and it's just what it is. I don't know. Let us [00:21:00] keep peanut, so give me a second. Here
is a little bit of a problem. One second here.
Okay. And just one thing I wanted to sorry. Okay. Yeah. And so it into her also, let me, sorry, I'm just looking at one more thing here. She should appears. Okay. The appreciation of peers. I'm sorry to say. Okay. Yeah. So turns, so some of the things that attorneys are motivated by I thought things were repeating itself.
So just give me one second here. Sorry about that. Okay. The procedure level of their current firms. So they're motivated by that. And yeah, so that's I think I spoke about that. And attorneys are very aware of how far she just occurred from is and let's give me one second and it's helped houseful firms attract and retain attorneys.
The law firm attorneys are also very motivated by the prestige of their clients. That they're often very impressed and our law firm represent large clients represent celebrities and so forth. And and it carries over into the prestige level of the clients that their firm is working on.
So [00:22:00] one of the things that's funny is, there's certain firms that represent certain celebrities around Los Angeles. The firm could have 300 attorneys in it, but if they're representing I don't know Brad Pitt or something, I hear from, if I talked to, 50 attorneys in the firm, 25 will tell me that they're representing Brad Pitt, which is very funny, people get a sense of importance from the clients that their firm is representing.
The attorneys just as the attorneys get their identity from the procedure level of their firm, they also get the identity from the clients. And and people are tribal, you can study anthropology and stuff and and realize how that works, but people are definitely, attorneys are definitely motivated by the produce of their clients.
They're also motivated by the prestige about matters. They're working on. If they're they're working on different types of things, they they they'll talk about that and you can really tell a lot of times about how good an attorney has to, by how how much enthusiasm they have.
And for the work that they're doing, so sometimes if you talk to attorneys, I was talking to talk to people, this an example, Tom, somebody gives him Don about a recruiting position [00:23:00] and he had so much enthusiasm for what he was doing and matters and so forth. It was definitely not a good fit attorneys are.
Also for my what I do because he liked what he was doing too much. And and the attorneys are all somebody that very bad procedure, their peers. That, they know where their peers went to law school. They know where they've worked in the past and this is very strong.
And one of the funny things almost all attorneys do is when they interview with a firm, they're typically gonna look up the attorneys that you're working with and really get a good understanding their qualifications. And if they see really good people there they'll believe that being around them also makes them prestigious.
And and then and then again, Turners are also motivated by the procedure of the city they're working in. People are working in New York. I They always you'll hear about that. And they same goes fraternities and other cities like Los Angeles and so forth.
And people typically work harder there. And so they get a sense of prestige out of that as well. One of the things I just wanted to bring up that was that I think is funny, as I remember. When I was working in this one firm, there was it used to be that you'd have to look people up in Martindale [00:24:00] Hubbell, and some people would not do searches online.
And and so I was at this law firm and and the carpet, there was like a little path that, you could see it as well, Warren, because attorneys would go all day long and look up other attorneys in the area where the Martindale Hubbell's were kept. And because they were so interested in and understand that information, that was, I thought that was very funny.
And it's just a sign of how seriously people are about that. So the type of attorneys at law firms and procedures, law firm, don't like are the attorneys to distrust the business facing aspects of the law firm. And so again, a lot of people are idealistic and and they may have these, very liberal values or anti-corporate values and they received them in college and law school.
And it can give them an idea that, business is bad and and anything that where people are seeking to make money, it's also bad. And and this ideology can hurt law firms. They bring people in like that. And then then the attorneys will just start doing things like, questioning the ethics of certain assignments.
Whether the law firms telling him to do something wrong or,[00:25:00] whether people are where the law firm, whether it's unethical and all this stuff, and people, get blown out of the water pretty quickly. And. And they they often will do their law firms great harm because they're looking for trouble.
And again, law firms, represent criminals that are accused of murder and law firms represent, criminals that are accused of all sorts of bad things. And then they also represent people that have not done anything wrong and are just defending themselves, but you can't always expect to be on the side of the good, if you're gonna work in a law firm.
And I encounter every year, cause I look at resumes all day long and I and I talk to people all day long and I see people that have lost jobs inside of large law firms for questioning the wisdom of different assignments and cues attorneys in their firm of over billing said certain things are necessary and so forth.
And and I remember one of the Saturday things I saw not too long ago was that an attorney that I graduated from a top five law school in losses and the very top at the top five law school. And he lost his position because he told the partner in the union pick assignment was [00:26:00] necessarily to come up with a quicker solution.
And and of course the partner didn't like that. And they literally just very quick, they showed this guy the door and blackballed him. If you're assessed, if you access back and you don't follow the orders and you you question the business judgment of the, your superiors when you're young that can really hurt you even partners that undermine other partners that are trying to bring in business can be hurtful.
I've seen, I saw one partner that was the head of a major firm, like one of the top 20 largest firms in the country came to me because he'd been fired for going into a. Meeting with a potential client or maybe it was a, it was, I think it was a potential client, was, it was a client of the firm, but it was, they were trying to upsell them on some work and he went in and basically told them that, he didn't think that, that their firm would do a good job.
And and on the, on this particular thing, because they didn't have enough expertise for something then and he was being obnoxious. I He, wasn't doing this as a. Just like a way where he [00:27:00] was being honest, he was actually trying to undermine someone who was competitive with and they fired him for that.
And so this kind of thing, and then this is someone that was the head of I think he might've been actually head of an office like he was in, the head of I dunno, it might've been, I don't know what office it was, but it was a good size office.
It was like he was the head of the office of AmLaw, 25 firm or whatever it was. And, I don't know Chicago, and he was going out to talk to someone Lammy or something like that. This that's a big deal. If you act like you just trust the business aspects of the firm and you undermine people or you hurt the money coming in and stuff they, the law firm will expel you like a virus.
So again, law firms or businesses and whether or not you like the fact that they represent polluters or they represent whoever they represent. That's the job of an attorney is to take sides of someone and to be their advocate. And and how that's done is up to the judgment of the partner.
And and the partners are and the people that are on the management committee and so forth, the firm partners are motivated by increasing their profits and holding on to clients [00:28:00] and making more money. And and if they see you as a threat to that they're not going to hire you. And this actually goes into to, the kind of stuff you put on your resume.
So if you and I talk about this all the time, and and I don't like saying it again, I get, but if you have all this stuff on your resume, that makes it look like you're going to make trouble. Then then law firms are not going to be too enthusiastic about hiring you. No trouble would be I don't know if it looks like you can't be an advocate and take the side of clients and we'll play by the business rules then. No law firm is gonna, they're not going to like that. Okay. The other thing is that law firms won't hire attorneys that do not feel the work the law firm is doing is important.
They need to hire attorneys that they believe what they're doing is important. If someone has other long-term objectives for their career and would rather be doing something else they shouldn't be hired. You have to really believe that what you're doing is important.
And when, what the law firms doing is important. And if you see it in the opposite lens and you want to do something else, then it's not good for you. I'm thinking of I've hired a [00:29:00] lot of attorneys to work for me in the past. And I had one attorney not too long ago. It was, I don't know, it doesn't really matter.
But this attorney didn't believe that any of the legal matters they were working out were important. And and consequently, and because they actually had plans when they started originally to start some other sort of business, I don't know what it was some something to do with it doesn't really matter.
But the point was there they didn't believe they, they, their heart was in another place. And so if someone's heart's in another place and they want to do something different, then they're probably not going to be a good fit. They have to actually really believe that what they're doing is important.
And in law firms want people that are very excited about the work that they're doing. And and they need people that are excited about the clients and the issues brought up. And and that's a very important, you have to be interested in this stuff. You can't be expect to be like an Olympic swimmer.
If you don't have any interest in, practicing. I dunno how many hours a week you need to swim, all, anything, you can't be good at it. Unless you have a [00:30:00] lot of interest in it. If you want, if you're if a law firm is interviewing you to be a corporate attorney, you better be very interested in being a corporate attorney and whatever that is, because if you're not, they're going to find someone that is, and it's very easy for them because there's lots of people.
The next one is a poor law school performance. That's, those issues are more important, I think, at the entry level. And and, for the most part but when they're, when you're a young attorney, but there's lots of attorneys out there that are deported in law school.
And if you did poorly in law school I know plenty of people that were, at the bottom of their class had in law school and ended up getting jobs from the largest and best firms in the country. And they didn't do it right out of law school because that's a kind of a screening mechanism.
But you can certainly get in there later. But typically, if you're young and you're trying to get a job and you're a couple of years out it's going to be very difficult for you to get a job in a very prestigious law firm as an entry level attorney you're because law school performance is really the only way the law firm has to to, to measure you.
So imagine that you're a. [00:31:00] A big firm and I'm a big city and you get you, you have your, you get 20 applicants or I dunno, maybe it was 150 people in your law school and I class and you, and then you get, you have, 50 people to choose from. And one of them is the top of the class and they are there the bottom and out of those 50 and somewhere in the middle.
So obviously they're going to gravitate towards the people that are at the top, because that's the only measure that they have of how motivated you are and your aptitude. Law schools say they have blind grading. I don't think it's actually accurate a lot of them, but even the ones that say they do.
But I do think that that your grades are often for the most part in most schools earned without the professor, knowing who you are. So the grades do matter to some extent and and law firms to use your credits. Now, I think that one of the things to understand is after you've been out for a couple of years, it's more about your experience and then your great, because there's, the grades are not, are no longer the most important criteria for hiring you, your experiences.
So [00:32:00] if you come out of law school and you get experience I don't know you're very good at leasing or doing transactions involving leasing of Cargo ships to I don't know to, to companies in the, and I don't know, very good at leasing cargo ship contracts or something.
There's not going to be a lot of people in the country that have that experience. And so if a law firm, even a big law firm has an opening for someone that has, experience and transactions leasing cargo ships then you're not going to have a lot of competition. So they're going to be more concerned about how do you stack up against maybe the other two or three people in the country that applied for the job then your law school.
So that's why your grades don't really matter the most part, but when you're coming out and you don't have when they're, when they don't have a lot of other things to compete, or you might be in a major practice area litigation and your grades and stuff become more important. But they're not as important if you're in a very rare practice area.
Now, the next one is law firms have very little interest in first year associates looking for jobs before they're pushed into first-year practice attorneys that are looking for jobs during their first year of practice. Typically have issues that have nothing to do [00:33:00] with a law firm especially, if you're at one major law firm and try to get a job in another and before then your first year there's probably something you may be doing wrong or did wrong.
It's not to say that you're, you were wrong being raw and doing something wrong, or you made a mistake or that the law firm didn't make a mistake, but you may not be the best fit because the law firm knows that if you're walking out after less than a year then there's probably going to have you're probably going to have the same experience at the next firm.
And that's almost always the case. People that leave very early unless they're, unless you're, you started at a small firm and you're trying to move to a major firm very quickly. That's actually probably good many times, but for the most part, if you're at one big firm and you're trying to.
Move to another big firm after your first year, for whatever reason, it's probably not good. You really need to give it a go. It's as much as you can when you start the practice of law. I never recommend leaving that early and law firms typically will be more on the side of people that are committed and and so you want to be committed and really try to [00:34:00] stick with it.
And it's funny when people are before they're under their first year, that the complaints that they have when they, Bob has been the same, they've been the same for decades. But they're funny because, many times they're complaining about firms that have been around, for decades or even a century or longer but are probably going to be around a century longer after the attorney's gone.
And so it's just something the, it shows the law firms, if you're looking very early, that you're probably unlikely to have a long-term commitment and and you're probably likely to leave if the going gets tough. And the other thing is that if you're looking, it takes, and this is something I.
Make sure people understand. It really takes about five years to know what you're doing as an attorney. Now you can find your way around after two years maybe of being of training, but you really need about five actually, probably I would say more like three to four years, but you really need about five years.
And so if you start looking for a job before the end of your first year, you're not, you don't really have any marketable skills. You don't know what you're doing. You're not, you're trained. And and so you're better off, at least having a few years of practice generally, before you start looking law firm certainly will [00:35:00] hire first years and, when they have big needs and stuff and corporate and all our other departments, but you need to show that, you're capable of being managed, that you can get along with people that you can improve and response to criticism.
And that's not freak you out, that you understand kind of some of the rules I spoke about earlier, which are the business rules and and the law firm wants to know that you'll step in there and be able to do all this well. And and most law firms avoid people that are looking for a job that early, because sometimes, there's one of the things I just would point out because, I'm sure that, you who, you're the people on this webinar may not have this issue right now, but some of the future well, and and watch the system, if you're most people, anytime, when you're, if a horse is getting broken in, and they're being shown how to.
Being written stuff in there, they don't, they're going to resist it. And so there's all sorts of resisting and imagining the horse who you know, is used to running free suddenly has a human on his back and he's expected to follow these instructions. That horse is not going to be happy.
And and they're going to resist and they're going to buck and all this [00:36:00] stuff. And it's very, it's no different than an attorney. I You have to learn how to take orders and you have to learn how to do work without making typos and do things and thinking through things. And you have to be able to respond to different people in different needs.
And so there's all sorts of things that happen that cause a lot of stress for people many times they're in, when they're very young and all that stuff goes away. After you'd been trained, and you learn how to do things, but you have to put yourself in a legal environment and learn all that stuff, which I'm sure is obvious to most people, but for a lot of people it's not.
And that's one of the problems that a lot of people have earlier in their careers, just they they don't take criticism. They don't they don't follow directions. They, their mind plays games with them. They may not, who knows, but you just have to be good at that stuff.
And Oh, when I was just thinking of my first summer I was working and people started criticizing my work and I took it seriously as if it was, something wrong with me and I had to defend myself. But I learned later on that's like the criticism that your [00:37:00] work gets when you're young, it's it's a gift because if you can incorporate that and you learn from that, you just become that much better.
And then you have all these tools, if you get criticized as a first year and then those the, what you learned from that you carry with you for the rest of your career. And that's one of the dangers of not getting exposed to a large law firm or that sort of criticism or working with other attorneys when you're young, is you never correct those habits and that's that's.
So a lot of times, so the getting in a, an environment where those habits are crafted and stuff will make you much better in the long run. The other thing is if you're if you're in a, if you're first-year attorney or even a, not even a first-year attorney, if you're at any level, and you're suddenly interested in drastically smaller firms or less prestigious firms you're currently working at and that's to say, you could be at, at one of the top five, most prestigious firms and suddenly looking at a firm at the bottom of the am law 200 this is not always a good sign.
It means many times you're just trying to get the first job you can get, or you think that you need to do something drastically different to make a change. And and so you're just going way, [00:38:00] way down and and because there's something wrong for you. And and many times people take the first job they can get that's not a good situation.
I've hired people before. One of the worst hires I ever made was of a graphic designer that was at Disney. And I think I'd gotten fired for fighting with his boss or something. And but I didn't know it at the time. And he wanted a job right away. And so he came in and and I hired him and he would, all the negative things that he had gotten fired for.
He carried over into our company and then was also critical of the compensation. Even though we were paying him what he was paid at Disney and stuff. So the point is you need to be very careful and law firms too, because if they hire someone that's desperate from a major firm and a smaller firm that they're probably making a mistake.
It's, you would think and I'll just bring this up, but, if you have great qualifications and you're let's say you're at a. I don't know an extremely prestigious firm in New York city or, and you went to top 10 or top 15 law school, or even top 20 law school and suddenly you want to move home and you're from I don't know Denver, let's say [00:39:00] I know that's not safe, but let's say somewhere smaller than that.
It doesn't matter. But anyway, you want to move to back to Las Vegas where you're from and you start applying to firms there. The firms are not just going to jump all over you because you have these correct qualifications. They're going to be careful because they're protecting themselves.
They don't want to bring in someone that thinks they're better than everyone there, and it's going to undermine them. And and and leave. They don't want to bring in someone that isn't going to take them seriously. And they think that they're going to need to give them special treatment. They need to be very careful, and they also are bringing in someone that's just going to show up.
And then, as soon as they get something else, that's leave. So I've had instances before I can think of some even recently where, someone can comes out of, major firms and New York or Chicago and wants to move to Utah because, someone got a job at Adobe or something, or, which has a big office there, or, and then they get a job in a firm and then they very quickly leave when they find an in-house job or something.
So law firms have to be careful and and they are if you're trying to work in a smaller firm, law firms are and especially if you [00:40:00] seem eager for a job, they're not necessarily going to bring you in. And a lot of times what they'll do is say they will there'll be worried that you're getting fired for doing something wrong.
There may be problems with performance. A lot of times we'll delay to actually delay making a hiring decision. In order to see it, if suddenly you're unemployed or something. And then of course law firms are also very nervous. If you a few join them, then you'll leave and go to a more prestigious firm.
The second, the opportunity presents itself. So I've seen examples where people are with, I hate to use firm names, maybe someone is I don't want to use printer cause they don't upset people, but the point is they're at a huge firm and all of a sudden they, they take a job at a smaller firm and then they go to a smaller firm and the smaller firm suddenly micromanaging them.
Whereas in the larger fund they weren't. And they're like, why am I getting micromanaged? And this firm, that's not as good. And if your partner is it, and then they been, they very quick, they leave. The problem with hiring people from prestigious firms is those people think that they're better than the people that they're working with.
And and they're not good at taking instructions and so large. So the, and the, and they can make more [00:41:00] money elsewhere. And so people are just very nervous about hiring them. And and most of the time, if you're, if a smaller firm that doesn't pay as much or doesn't have as much prestige and so forth, hires an attorney from a larger, more procedures from that attorney will often very quickly leave.
And when they do. All sorts of issues with morale, not they'll tell people there that they could make more money, that the work's not important. The clients aren't good that all this stuff and it's just, it's not cool. Just think about, if how you would react if you were if you're working at a big firm right now, and all of a sudden you were sent to a from where you were doing I dunno, something very unimportant to you like maybe immigration petitions for $300 for people or something you probably would not take it that seriously or be that happy and you'd be looking to get out of there.
And and so a lot of times law firm, large law firm attorneys think are going to try something different and the move to a smaller firm. And and. They believe that they don't have to build a lot of hours and so forth. And it just isn't a good thing for the smaller law firm.
I don't want to go too much into it. And it certainly can [00:42:00] work. I'm not saying that large law firm attorneys, but if you're making a drastic move to a much smaller law firm you're probably not going to be as happy in smaller law firms, by the way. It's not always the case, but you know that their clients aren't willing to spend as much money.
They can't pay as much money that it's just different. It's it's playing professional something and then going to something that's amateur, and expecting to be happy and bought firms do not want to have people there that are weakening the morale that are that are wasting time, that aren't happy with the compensation that make other attorneys feel poorly about the compensation and so forth, and that are likely to leave.
And then, that won't work hard, we'll be committed to the clients and so forth. And it's just, it's not good for everyone. So law firms need to protect themselves and that's what they do is they just, if you're at a much better firm, you're going to have a hard time getting hired.
You're not doing them any favors coming to work there with an attitude which still they can pick up very quickly. So now I'm attorneys from third and fourth care law [00:43:00] schools with academic performance that's average or below average have a very hard time getting hired at procedures, law firms when they're young, if they don't have special.
Experience after the first couple of years, but the problem and this is something that that I think, obsessed people, but I'm just gonna kinda say it and I'm not it's not anything to hurt people or anything, but the problem is if you go to a, if you go to a law school that emits people with very low LSVT scores and and.
You don't do that? There you're probably going to have problems in the most competitive firms. That's the same thing that would happen to me. If I suddenly with, without a lot of experience playing hockey decided I wanted to go to, play for a professional hockey team. I would get blown out of the water.
The people would be faster than me. They would have more skills than me, and they would have an innate talent that compared to me the same thing would happen to me. If I decided to enroll in the PhD program in physics at Caltech, I would get blown out of the water because I'm not I wouldn't have no idea or my [00:44:00] intelligence would not be able to keep up with those people.
So if you didn't do that great in the L stat you don't have great grades and so forth. And then you suddenly put yourself in a position to where you're competitive with. A lot of people that have frankly more aptitude for it. And again if I tried out for a professional football team as a quarterback, it's not, I'm obviously don't, that's not my aptitude and that would not be a good idea to put me in that sort of role.
Again, if you don't have a, very, if you didn't do well on the LSATs, it's probably okay, you can still, but you may have done well in school. And you may have more motivation, but the problem is what law firms are selling. And this is and I'm not, and different people have different speeds that they come up to stuff with, but what a law firm is selling is, or selling the quality of your mind.
And and that, that requires solving issues. It requires being motivated and and hungry to learn information, that the difference between. And I, you've probably had this experience if you've been practicing for more than a [00:45:00] few years, the difference between the way I'm a very intelligent and attorney with a great mind and a lot of background in a practice area of solves a problem.
And the way someone that doesn't have that intellectual skill is amazing. The best attorneys can really reason through problems and and come up with brilliant solutions that most people miss and that the average attorney would miss. And the, if you and you can develop that skill over time, and maybe, sometimes people, when they were in law school may have been, I don't know, drinking a lot and not paying attention and, or who knows or but, but your mind is really what you're selling and and and your motivation is also what you're selling.
But if you're a litigator, for example, like I, and that's my practice area. If you go up against someone that's much smarter than you they're gonna, they're gonna, out-think you, they're gonna, it's, they're gonna come up with solutions are gonna figure out they're gonna see things you miss, and it's just, it's not a good, it's not a good thing.
And so I'm not and I'm not saying the L set tests that I'm not saying that your grades even test that, but and if you have those skills or not, but if you're [00:46:00] going to compete in a business where you're selling your mind the largest law firms can, what they're hiring really is they're hiring your mind and your motivation, but and that's what the clients are selling or buying too.
And anybody that knows what they're doing in the long run is going to hire the best. So that's just something to think about. And there are certain firms that can afford to hire the best people. And so these are things that they screen for. And I, and again, I'm not talking about eugenics or anything here, I'm just talking about having the aptitude for it.
And but I will say if you got a perfect score on the LSATs and you or did very well on them and you got great grades in law school and and then you probably in your motivated then that's great. You're probably a fit for it. I've seen instances.
I had a instance. I just, I hate to bring this up, but it's just it is relevant to all this. I had an instance where I hired there was a, the guy that had graduated from Berkeley Lawsky he gotten into Harvard, but he gone to Berkeley at the age of, at 16, I think. It was absolute, incredible, and [00:47:00] and graduated when he was 19.
And and I think he was a youngest graduate in history. It might've been the youngest graduate, admitted the bar the past 20 years or something like that. But so he couldn't get a job because he was so young. This friend of Anyway, one of his best friends was a rabbi that was a son.
Anyway, I knew him and someone asked me if I'd hire him. I hired him. And he literally was so fricking smart that, I gave him these various matters to handle and he would come up with solutions very quickly and see things that, you know, that our attorneys that were, partners at major law firms were missing.
And so he was, and come up with very quick solutions and stuff. And so the mind and matters it's it was frankly amazing because he would take this very complex case and, study it for an hour or something, and then come up with the solutions that, partners in major law firms for missing then tell to the court and the corporate world.
I It's just crazy. Attorneys who did poorly in college are often a bad bet to th this is not actually doesn't apply to [00:48:00] science majors many times. This is for large law firms science majors, there's often lots of curves and stuff. And but they're often very poor risks for lateral hiring.
I, I don't know why college grades are so important, but I think it does show a kind of a motivation that you need. So if you're very motivated as a college student to get good grades, you're probably going to be motivated for your clients and so forth. It's it's a desire to achieve.
I think it's the first time people are on their own. And it's you, I think college grades a lot of times, or you have to be motivated as well as have some talent for what you're doing, but I think. One thing I've often seen this, regardless of the law school, they often went to the people with the best grades are often the people that had the best grades in college are often the best people inside of law firms.
I don't know why that is. I think it's the ability to get passionate about something so many times to get, the very best grades, regardless of what you're studying. I You could be studying geology. If you're very passionate about it and you graduated the top of your class, then the odds are, you can get passionate about whatever you're doing for your subject matter in a law firm, too.[00:49:00]
The other thing I don't like, but it's another one is if you're trying to get a job as an entry level attorney you're gonna have a very difficult time. Even if you went to a great law school getting a position in a prestigious law firm, if you didn't summer someplace the summer associate job really is just to see if you can fit in and then get a sense of, you can take feedback and fit into a large law firm.
But it also shows how motivated the person is to work in a law firm. Your motivation to work as a summer associate is important. So a lot of times people will say, oh, I didn't get anything on-campus interviews. Then you put all your, then you put all your marbles in one basket, you should have applied all over the country or wherever you felt they could get a job or you didn't, close your interviews.
You didn't do that. You can't blame other people. And that's the same thing when you're an attorney and you're losing a case, you can't blame other people. You have to take responsibility. If you don't work in a law firm during your second year of loss and instead you decided, I it's really not your first, as much as your second, your first doesn't really matter.
But if you take a decision with non-profit public interest and so forth the odds are very good that you're probably not understand working in a law firm. I see [00:50:00] people all the time that come out of, I dunno it could be like, Michigan, Harvard, Virginia, like all these big schools that didn't work as summer associates.
And then they can't get a job, and then they do things like, take a clerkship and, and try to do things that way. But you have to you, that interest in a law firm is something that a law firm wants to see early on. And and the law firm feels that if you didn't get a position then you either weren't interested in doing it and you didn't have the motivation to do it.
And most people that didn't do that typically would not stay long in law firms because either the law firm is self-selecting for them, that the person doesn't seem motivated, doesn't have the personality or the law firms or the person just wasn't motivated enough to get the job done to get a job there.
And most things, if you want them, you get them done. So you figure