Description
How Does Vulnerability Effect Likeability and Other Recommendations for Building a Network
[00:00:00] As a law student, rising 3L, what should I bring to network to get the first-year job, given that there are no in-person events? Should I be cold emailing partners in firms that look interesting?
Yes. You should be cold emailing partners. I printed letters, I think, even though a lot of people send emails to stuff now. I like printed letters. I'd like voicemail messages, sometimes. Those can backfire to some extent. I think that it's always a good idea to speak with the recruiting coordinators inside of law firms. Ask them questions. A lot of them are very nice and can help you, even if they can't help you at their firm, you can ask them a question about what they're looking for and so forth.
If they can't help you, they can make recommendations of places to take them to be good fits. That's one of the ways to do things. I think sometimes when you get rejected from a firm after an interview, or even you just get an email from them. You can ask them, do you have any ideas of other places I should apply?
One reason why this is a very [00:01:00] powerful thing is that you may have a certain type of personality or a certain look. I don't know if 'look' is the right word, but you may be a certain type of person.
Some firms are very liberal. Firms that have a lot of authority are run like military ships. And ones that aren't and so different. People are comfortable in different types of firms.
When a firm's interviewing you are saying, you're not a good cultural fit. Sorry, we're not going to hire you, but they may know of five or six firms that are good cultural fences. So, I would always recommend when you get rejected, asking people for places that look good.
Do you network by getting involved in groups? Get involved in as many groups as you can. You get involved in groups with your, whatever, a religion or sports with other attorneys, wherever you possibly can. And then, you learn information from them.
So, all that information you learned from groups is very important. In the role that I'm in, as a CEO, there are all sorts of CEO groups. There are tons of them. And, every time I get involved in one of these groups, it blows my mind because, there are things that people do, that I'm just not aware of.
There is information [00:02:00] that other people have about the way things are. Your success and the success of most CEOs are proportional to their network. One of the things I find very interesting is when you talk to very successful corporate attorneys like when they become partners and stuff, they typically have huge Rolodexes.
So, they can put you in touch with all sorts of things. Like, when I say Rolodexes, huge contacts. They know people that can get anything done, so whatever you need they can get done as long as it's related to the law business. Even if it's finance, whatever, so they have all these contacts and that's really what these corporate attorneys are doing. Taking care of their networks.
I do think that, when you're trying to get a job in a new city, you should be contacting people. You should be asking alumni from your school for information interviews. Just get as much information as you possibly can.
People like to help other people and make recommendations. Everyone is just taught to know, it's important to help other people, and [00:03:00] people feel good when they help other people. So it's just something that I would recommend.
And again, the problem that a lot of law students and attorneys have, is the lack of vulnerability. When you're vulnerable, that can create problems in terms of, you don't want people to know about your weaknesses and so forth, but vulnerability is the key to strength.
There's a whole series of books by Renee Brown about vulnerability and why that's a good idea. I would recommend reviewing stuff by her. There are just all sorts of exercises, that can help you.
There are online groups you can join. I'd love to start networking groups online for attorneys. I wish I could. I have another site, Top Law Schools. I would recommend reviewing that. The reason is that there's just a lot of sharing of information about employers and all sorts of things. People can even comment anonymously and ask questions. That could be very helpful.
