The Top 15 Reasons Attorneys Should Leave Their Law Firm Jobs and Look for a New Job

Description

In this enlightening and informative webinar, Harrison adeptly highlights the compelling reasons prompting attorneys to contemplate departing from their current law firm roles in pursuit of new opportunities. While Harrison's previous webinars have often radiated positivity, the urgency of this discussion cannot be overstated, given the prevailing dynamics of the legal job market.

Harrison is your trusted guide, ready to navigate the intricate labyrinth of career choices that wield considerable influence over your professional trajectory. His expertise, irrespective of whether you're a novice associate or a seasoned partner, holds immeasurable value.

The legal landscape is evolving, with certain practice areas, such as corporate securities and technology-focused sectors, undergoing profound shifts. Job stability and prospects for advancement have assumed unprecedented significance. Harrison will meticulously dissect the telltale signs that may indicate it's time to bid farewell to your current position. Recognizing and responding to these indicators could prove pivotal in safeguarding your career amidst these tumultuous times.

As Harrison emphatically emphasizes, each decision you make in your legal journey can either propel you closer to your ambitions or hinder your progress. This webinar is your golden opportunity to acquire the insights necessary for making well-informed choices, ensuring that your career aligns harmoniously with your loftiest aspirations.

Transcript:

So, this webinar today is about why you should leave your job, and most of my webinars are positive. In nature, what's happening in the current economy is attorneys in specific practice areas like corporate securities and practice areas where technology companies tend to spend a lot of money, except for patents, are losing their jobs.
 
And what I'm talking about today is why you should leave your position if you believe you're having issues with it. This is one of my favorite webinars and topics because I think it's very relevant to many people, and understanding this can help you just as a kind of introduction; many of the webinars I do are more favorable.
 
So, I'm trying to tell you how to improve your career, what to do with your resume, and how law firms work. But this particular webinar, I think, is essential because. It is at a time when people are losing jobs, and I typically only do this kind of webinar if I like them to be more educational and not be something that would theoretically get you to apply to BCG Research or something like that.
 
But many times, people remain in jobs when there are signs that they could be losing their jobs. When there are signs that they're not going to advance and a million different other things. And in most cases, it only takes a webinar like this for people to understand that. In most cases, people understand these things independently, but at the same time, they don't understand how to look for the signs.
 
And if you need help understanding the signs, you can be in trouble and potentially lose your position. Sometimes, people will also leave firms when they shouldn't leave. And I've seen this happen on numerous occasions. You could be at a firm where you fit in, where people like you, where you can advance, and all those things.
 
And then if you end up at a firm that doesn't have those things, then. It can have very negative consequences. And just as a prelude, I'll tell you the first firm I worked at was Quinn Emanuel. And I loved the firm, and I had lots of friends there. And I was doing good work, and people liked it.
 
I was getting work from many different and essential partners, so I was in perfect shape. But at the time, Quinn and Manning was a much smaller firm. It was 45 attorneys, if you can believe it when I joined it, and it was a bunch of guys from Cravath, Swain Moore mainly, and just outstanding attorneys.
 
And I joined that firm and did very well. But then there was another firm, a New York firm; there was a branch office that I joined called Dewey Ballantine, which is no longer in existence, but that firm and Skadden and Milbank paid these ridiculous salaries from the going rate. So the going rate at the time, which will give you an idea of how old I am, was 85, 000 a year.
 
And then firms like Dewey, Milbank, and Skadden were paying about 135,000 to 50,000 a year. So it was almost a no-brainer, but when I did that, it gave me such a bad taste in my mouth that I ended up leaving the practice of law because it was a branch office. The partners there didn't have any work.
 
They thought they would bring in a case for me to work on. They didn't. And then people that left Quinn at the time weren't welcome back. And so I didn't even make an effort to do that. But that should give you a sense of. What can happen? If you leave a firm when you shouldn't, coin Emanuel grew. People I know stayed there and a partner, even without business, making 3 million plus a year five or 10 12 years later.
 
It would have been an excellent opportunity. I would probably still be a lawyer. So there are some reasons That you should leave a firm. You can leave a smaller firm to a smaller to a more prominent, more prestigious firm. And if you believe you have an opportunity there, it can dramatically increase your salary and career prospects.
 
I'll talk more about that today. But the main reason for that is that larger firms typically have more prominent clients, larger clients pay more money, larger clients allow you to work on more sophisticated matters, and larger clients set you up to go in-house if you want to later or to move to even more prestigious firms. They're like a great thing on your resume that people don't necessarily have otherwise.
 
So it's just a, it can dramatically change. You can go from one big firm to another big firm, have a good run of a high salary, learn how to partner at more prestigious firms and get clients you might not otherwise get. But the other side of the equation is a lot of people will leave large procedure firms to join smaller firms and go home, and sometimes those career moves will make it very difficult for you to ever get into a significant firm again.
 
That only applies to people in corporate and different transactional practice areas, such as real estate and patents. Erisa, things like that. But it applies to litigation and many others that I'll talk about today. And whenever you decide to leave a law firm, you're making a decision that will take you closer.
 
Or farther away from whatever you're trying to do. And it will be very significant because it can change your life. It changed my life by moving to a firm that wasn't good. And it can also change your life if you make the wrong decision. This is just a statement I used to work with Tony Robbins.
 
And this is a type of statement he might make. But the quality of your life and your career is going to be. Proportional to the quality of your decisions. And every person's success is essentially a product of that person's decisions, good and bad. I'll tell you an exciting story. What I have learned is that I was.
 
I'm going to go to Stanford Business School at one point, and I enrolled, and then I was like, this is ridiculous, like crunching all these numbers and spreadsheets. I don't want to have anything to do with this. It could be more fun. And so I ended up withdrawing and, literally, something that I hardly ever saw.
 
But after that, everything started, and I didn't. And then, I have been reading articles over the past several years. I read one last night about someone I met early in the class. It's a billionaire. That was maybe not the best decision.
 
People make bad decisions. I probably would have done something similar to that. Maybe I'm probably, maybe not, but I've always been an and more so than. Many of the people I met tended to be very numbers-oriented. Looking at the most successful people, it doesn't matter what the profession is; it could be law.
 
It could be sales. It could be anything in their life and the decisions they make. So you're. You're in charge of your decisions. You may only have fun if you stay in a legal market with little opportunity. You may make worse decisions. For example, I am from Detroit.
 
I clerked for a federal district judge in Detroit. Had I stayed there where there's only at the time, there were only Five big law firms, like Miller Canfield, Akon and McMiller, Dyke McGossett and then Uncukuni and Butts O Long. This is what happened at the time. That would probably have been a wrong decision because I would have had different clients.
 
I would have made less money. I would be in Detroit. I would never have learned about the profession I'm in now, legal placement. I probably wouldn't have gotten into Stanford Business School because I wouldn't have had the entrepreneur. The life you have is a product of the decisions you make.
 
It's a product of the markets you're in. Whether you use a recruiter or not, it's the product of the types of jobs you apply to. It's a product of what the opportunities are. So, all these decisions are critical. And there's no way to get ahead many times if you're in a position that you don't see benefiting you in the long term than to move firms or markets even.
 
So people move markets all the time. I was talking to an attorney yesterday. In Columbus, that miraculously has gotten a position at an excellent firm and a perfect practice area and didn't go to a top, even top, maybe went to a top 50 or maybe it's top 75 law school and is now set up and did.
 
I was average in law school, meaning I had average grades, and somehow got this position by contacting a recruiter, not myself, and got it. And now, because of the practice areas, he can move to the biggest firms in New York, not Davis, Paul, and. He's always in those things but can move to some outstanding firms or Los Angeles.
 
Probably not a Los Angeles bar, but all around the country, Chicago, Houston, and your decisions are essential. It would help if you thought through the decisions you make. Sometimes, people quit their jobs because. They're mad at their firm, or they think it's just an unpleasant place to work, and that decision is another huge one that can prevent you from getting another job because people think you're fired or can't get along in a different atmosphere.
 
You spend most of your life at work, so you commute to work or work remotely, but you interact with people at work. People are mean to you, friendly to you, and you can get ahead and advance your family, your self-esteem, and your career based on your job.
 
There are a lot of outstanding arguments that could be made for staying at your firm, but there are also many reasons that I'm going to go over right now that I hope everyone absorbs and understands. And by the way, this webinar is live. As you listen to things, you might want to write them down in a Word document or on paper and see how they apply to you.
 
In addition, I recommend trying to find questions about what I'm saying if it doesn't make sense or if you think there are reasons you may need more clarification. Or you can just ask questions about anything. People ask questions about why they shouldn't firm or what something means when someone says something to them.
 
So they ask questions about that. Please take notes and answer questions because this should guide your thinking regarding the types of things you look at. So, the first one is the people we work with; I believe there are two types of attorneys.
 
There are ones that are motivated by trying to trade up. And some are trying to trade down. And what does that mean? That means that all they want to do is trade up, and there are people that all they want to do is trade down. People want to trade up because they believe they can challenge themselves at a higher level, and they want to compete with better attorneys and feel that they're up to it.
 
And then some are trying to trade down and may be beyond their ability. To succeed at the firm they're at. I'd like to tell a quick story about this trading up and trading down when I imagine that. You were, and there's an excellent Malcolm Gladwell book about this, and I'm not going to say with the way he describes it, but I will describe the general reality because I don't want to offend anybody.
 
But he says that some people are admitted to different schools and that. Are not believed to perform. They don't firmly expect them to perform well. So if somebody is admitted to Harvard, for example, and they're an athlete, they may be admitted with the expectation that they will not be at the top of their class or even at the bottom.
 
Now, some of them aren't, of course, but they're looking more at the person's athletic ability, Then they're looking at the person's skill and academics. Indeed, you have to have good academics, and there's minimum LSAT, GPAs, and things. That's how they look at people.
 
So, athletes are admitted with the expectation that they won't get the best grades. And I see people that went to Harvard and Stanford and Princeton and all these people all the time. They ended up at third or fourth-year law schools just because they were in an environment beyond what they were suited for.
 
Some people are admitted to undergraduate schools where they may be batting below their average. So they may go to a local law school and be first in their class, or they may have gone to Princeton. And Okay, but they go to a local law school and are at the top of the class.
 
So, certain people are in jobs that are potentially someone from a fourth-tier or third-tier law school. The greatest motivation or skills goes to a firm that's way above them. They probably will have a hard time trading up because they need to perform at the level of their peers.
 
And if you go to and if you, so you may not, you may want to trade down. So people are in different firms based on their skill level. I think you may feel that it may be called the Peter principle. You may have been advanced beyond, or you may be at a firm beyond your capabilities where you're getting maxed out and not performing at that level, in which case you'll have a lot better luck trading down.
 
Malcolm Gladwell's analogy: I'm sorry to spend so much time on this; it's essential. The analogy that Malcolm Gladwell gives is that People who are admitted to colleges that are beyond that, where people are much more intelligent than them as a general rule, with higher scores and grades and more potential, may want to go in and major in something like pre-med, but because of their experience.
 
They are not able to pass those classes. So they end up maybe doing English or something. Different from if they'd gone to a much better school, they wouldn't necessarily be in that type of practice area. That type, they would have been doctors instead of succeeding. So sometimes.
 
You may want to go into a firm that's less, and if you're maxing out and you can do better as you did first in your class or high to the fourth level, third, fourth, or second tier, or even first-tier bottom law school, you could probably trade out.
 
Law firms love people trying to trade up, by the way, because there's this whole principle that people respect people more when they're trying to trade up. They believe they will make better attorneys because they try hard. Many people don't get into the best firms out of law school but concentrate on the practice area.
 
And law firms like people trying to trade up because they assume they will be hungrier. And many of the new associates, if you're in a top firm, you're 1, 2, or 3 firms. You start one, two, or three years, and you may get exhausted by the firm you're in and start talking negatively, taking things for granted, or complaining about things.
 
And so they love attorneys that are trying to trade up. But if a law firm thinks you're trying to trade down, they will start believing that your skill could have been better at a top firm.
 
Therefore, you are willing to accept less because you want to make sure you succeed, or maybe you're having problems getting a job with another top firm, or you're just unsatisfied with the practice of law, and you want to go somewhere with better hours.
 
Something else. And so the law firms often believe if you're trading down that, there may be a problem with you, and you may want to leave the law firm environment entirely. Now, some people will say with good reason that they want to get a position with a firm that you know where they can get business and or they want to get a position closer to their home or family somewhere.
 
But in general, people do look at you suspiciously sometimes when you're trying to trade down. And so you just have to be careful with that. Most of the time, when people trade down, not all the time, but from a decent perspective of the time, they often come to me and want to trade back up.
 
Firms fear that because people will always try to trade down during recessions, which is very effective. I always recommend it if you're losing your job at a big firm in a recession. Trading down means looking in a major city's suburbs or even smaller markets, but you need to be careful.
 
However, the people who get the most jobs work with me as a recruiter, and I say this Because this is just how it works. This is mainly for jobs in your current market, but it can also apply to firms in other markets. But the people that get the most jobs, if I look at their resume, see what they're trying to do, and write about them to the firms. I talk about this to the firms; those who want to be in a more prestigious firm and challenge themselves typically do, move up, and do very well.
 
And this desire, Okay. Something that the law firms love. How much do they love it? I saw one candidate A few years ago. You know what? He wasn't a candidate. He was someone that I was coaching. I have a coaching business, but I don't. And again, I'm not going to promote it here.
 
But the point is that he was where he had started. I think he failed the bar 2 times in California or something, and he didn't get a job as a summer associate. He went to a top student. Law school, and then he got a position at a small firm, and when he failed the bar the first time, they said, you can stay; then he failed the bar the second time, they said, you can stay once he passed the bar from the second.
 
He didn't pass the bar. The 2nd he got to this firm. It could have been a better firm. It was a firm that, frankly, he thought was embarrassing based on law school quality. He went too. He moved to a new firm, like a little bit better firm, and he moved to a little bit better firm, and he started getting business.
 
Then he moved to a better firm, and so five firms; after eight or nine years, he was at one of the top, probably 10 or 15 most prestigious law firms in the United States because he kept improving, kept moving, kept and Law firms love that when you're trying to get in a more prestigious firm.
 
And they're going to take a chance because they know you're going to work hard, and they know you're motivated, and they can channel that into a new firm and do very well. So that means a lot of things. It means You may be doing insurance defense and want to do commercial litigation. So you have a genuine desire for that.
 
And you can say that you want to work on more prominent cases. These are the best hires for firms. And the lateral market really at, the highest level, like people moving between, Amlaw 100 law firms functions like that, but not entirely, but it the lateral market functions like this in significant part for attorneys at not your Amlaw necessarily 100 law firms, but attorneys trying to move to better and better firms love it and and and you can get indoctrinated the firm pecking order because you're going to get most attorneys. I'm just telling you how it is.
 
Apply to 100 firms in law school, and they might get one or two interviews and apply to 500 firms. So you get adopted. You get rejected. You feel like you need to be better. You feel like your law school needs to be better. But once you get into law firms, your grades stop mattering for the most part, and they're looking at your practice here and your motivation to work in a better firm.
 
And this is a great way to get ahead. These are people. That always gets ahead. But I want to be very clear with you. To get ahead this way, you need to have a resume that's focused typically on one practice here. You can't say you do five different things if a law firm has to believe you're an expert.
 
The idea of the more prestigious firm is that the market will respect you more. You will get better jobs next time. And you can move into work, and we're doing better clients and, more importantly, work and make more money. What does it mean to work on more critical clients? More importantly, clients have much more money to spend so you can go further in depth.
 
You can investigate the law. You can spend days writing memos and ensuring you've done the best work, whereas, in smaller firms, the clients aren't willing to pay that. And I think the ability to work in a more prestigious firm is among the most essential reasons anyone should work.
 
And this ability is something that carries a ton of weight. It gives you an excellent reason to move, and you should; every week, we place people from smaller markets and smaller firms from firms you would only know once large, prestigious firms.
 
And these firms are life-changing for people. You know, break down and cry, they scream, you know, on calls, and they're just amazed, and Because they know you know how important it can be, they can change your salary. They can change your You know your future.
 
Also, they change the type of attorney you are because you learn About your practice area in more depth, and you learn from people who can do much better work. And it can be a real significant advantage for you. If you're able to do that, it can change everything.
 
If a second-year associate from a small firm moves to a larger market, they can suddenly, or a more prominent firm, they can suddenly be making more money. They can get a better experience. They can get world-class training and the opportunity to work on significant matters.
It's the same thing with larger cities. People constantly move from small markets to small cities to large cities. And that's also an excellent idea that can change your career. What's incredible about lateral in between law firms as an associate is that you will just be evaluated as a.
 
It is a much different way than when you were evaluated as a law student. So, law students are evaluated just on their grades and whether some are associated with the quality of their law school. But when you're being interviewed as a lateral, the law firm doesn't have those things to go off of.
 
They just have your practice area and the firm you're at. So that specialty is what they're hiring. They're hiring less based on your law school than they are your specialty. And you may have also strengthened your commitment to work hard to do good work and to become an expert. And that's very important.
 
So you can always get into a better law firm as a practicing attorney based on the person you become by specializing in learning a new craft instead of your law school grades. So, anybody who wants to move to a more prestigious law firm as an associate needs to do whatever they can to be in a specialty because the better the law firm, the more they expect you to have a specialty, meaning you do only trademark law or trademark and trademark litigation.
 
Maybe you do only. Residential real estate law and not ten different types of real estate because big law firms have clients paying a lot of money, and they want to hire experts in a given practice area. And that's very important. They want experts and partners laterally between law firms and are often concerned about a book of business.
 
That's very important. So, any partner can also transition. One of the reasons it's hard for senior attorneys to work in major law firms if they're in-house is that they always need a book of business or clients. But when you have clients as solo practitioners or are anything like a partner-level attorney, you'll always have a reasonable opportunity of getting hired, and you can always move to a more prestigious firm as a partner.
 
To spend if you have a look at business and clients willing to pay the rates that a significant law firm charges. So this is an excellent reason to move firms to a more prestigious one. I can't emphasize it enough. That is an excellent reason. The following reason to move firms is if you need to be compensated better.
 
So, some law firms will pay as little as possible to attorneys or as much as they can afford. That could be small law firms. I was talking to a personal injury firm in Los Angeles the other day, and they want to pay their attorneys 50 to 60 000 a year because they have all these methods, and they only need a little skill because sometimes.
 
Auto accidents are basically about whether there was a crash, whether it did, and then what the injuries were, and there are tables that people follow for the injury. So I don't want to hire expensive people. I've also seen other firms pay people as little as 45, 000 a year. And so these sorts of firms, if you're making significantly undermarket wherever you are, you may want to move.
 
It's essential also to understand why the firm's not compensating you well. So if a law firm's not compensating you well, you probably want to try to go someplace that compensates you. When I say not compensating you well, I'm not talking about a few thousand dollars. I'm not talking about 10,000.
 
I'm talking about more significant numbers. That is relevant to your search. Sometimes, the law firm may need more money to pay you well. And if they can't afford to pay you well, they still have a lot of work. They need to bring more business.
 
Something needs to be fixed with their business models, or they need to do something differently in the market. So some businesses. They are offering what people want, so they need to be marketing themselves correctly, or they need to respect the partners in the firm. So that means the law firm needs to do what it's supposed to.
 
And if a law firm is not doing what it's supposed to attract business, and that's a problem, it could be in a small market with no clients. It could be in a practice area where there are no clients. It could be trying to sell something that law firms that companies in that market don't want.
 
Imagine having a tax law firm in a town of 10,000 people where the closest town is an hour away with 25,000 people. That's not smart. Law firms should be feeding a hungry market. They should have plenty of people lining up for their work. The firm may also need a better reputation; they may have a bad reputation or are likely just serving the wrong client.
 
The client can't pay high rates, or the law firm does whatever work, that's it. And if you can, you should be; you're just, regardless of why they're not paying you enough. You're working for a group without the market power and strength to pay well.
 
Also, the law firm may need to work better in the market, and you're penalized for that. So that just means that the law firm needs help with market fit. So the people may be friendly. The environment may be collegial. But the absence of money is typically something that will stay the same.
 
The absence of money indicates that you may eventually lose your job. And you have to look at what happens to people there. So I talk to people all the time. And they're like people who come to our firm to learn a trade. And then, because they can make more money at another firm, they leave.
 
And I was talking to someone the other day. They were at a firm in Washington, D. C. that was paying. I don't know, 80,000 a year. What was trade training people in international trade, which is a good niche practice area? And everybody was leaving after two years. And he said somebody just went to, I don't know, a big firm. A firm that pays would pay someone 200,000 plus a year.
 
Sometimes, lower-paid jobs mean you need to move. And that firm was doing a form of international trade. Clients that could have paid less or were a niche thing. Regardless of how friendly the people may be or all that stuff, it just doesn't make sense to stay there.
 
And if a law firm has the money to pay you well, like they are doing well, then that just means you're doing something else with it. Sometimes, law firms are operated by one person. The one person operating the firm may not be able to do this, so they may want to keep all the money.
 
That's just what happens. Sometimes, I talked to one woman not too long ago where the firm had this costly office in Los Angeles but was doing low-budget patent prosecution. So all the money went to pay for this office. Sometimes, the partner, a partner or two in charge, is just taking all the money that comes in and will only pay you a little.
 
That's what they believe. Sometimes, they're paying retired partners a lot of money that may have started the firm or just the partner that started the firm a lot of money that needs to be fixed. So again, firms that only pay you a little money when other firms doing the same work in your market or other markets do you should move firms if it's a lot, long, or too low.
 
That's just how it is. It would help if you got out of there. Partners will often have this issue because the law firm will often take the income of the most productive partners and redistribute it to non-productive partners. And open new offices and all sorts of things.
 
So sometimes your law firm may have opened a new office and that office everybody leaves and they have the office expense or who knows, or they can't hire people in the market. So, in these sorts of situations, It makes sense to move. Many partners will move several times over their careers because they go to firms where, you know, whether they aren't getting paid enough or people are taking too much of the income that they could generate at other firms, and that's helping them.
 
And in these situations, it makes sense for partners to move, and many partners will move several times. And their careers because of this. Other times, law firms are having financial problems. You don't know why that is, but you should work in firms on the way up rather than the way down. The most significant way to get ahead is to hitch your train, hitch yourself to the ladder going up and not a ladder going down.
 
Law firms that are going down are often ancient law firms sometimes, or they may be firms where partners are leaving. They may be firms where they're losing business. But that's scary. What's the point of that? You want to be in law firms that are moving up. The best law firms to work in, by the way, I'll just tell you right off the bat, are new law firms with partners that are experienced in running law firms or working in various investigative law firms that come out of Outstanding law firms with a lot of business or good law firms, a lot of business, and they keep growing.
 
They're like ten attorneys one year, 15 the next. Just imagine when I grew and joined Point of a Manual at 45 attorneys, and now it's over a thousand; that's an excellent opportunity. Alternatively, you may be compensated, or the law firm doesn't value you. They won't give you raises because they're not excited about you.
 
Or they may just believe they can always hire. Other attorneys in the market can find someone else they can hire recruiters. This is what big law just someone leaves. No problem. They hire a recruiter. Someone is in whatever. They will if you're fungible, and they believe that they can put an ad out and get someone like you who will build more hours and are more.
 
It's just as enthusiastic. They can get rid of you and hire someone else. So, if you set a census, you should go to a firm that values you. I've worked with countless law firms that didn't value countless attorneys that didn't, where they were at law firms that didn't value them. So they moved firms and had massive success at their new firms.
 
And so money, when a law firm's paying you a lot of money, it means they have a lot of work. They need you, and they're paying you that money to hold on to you. This is what the most prominent law firms do. And small law firms do this as well. You just never know. So that's a great reason just to make more money.
 
Suppose you feel that there are reasons that you need to be paid more money. This is one of the most important reasons that people should move firms. The other one is to be close to your significant other. It could be your long-term goal. Boyfriend or girlfriend. It could be someone you're going to marry or you're married to.
 
And if you believe that relationship is likely to last, then you should try to move there or have them move to you. But if that's not in the cards, then you want to try to. Move there with that person because law firms like that. One of the things that law firms like is they like anything that shows any form of permanence for people, whether they're moving to a larger market or a smaller market.
 
They like it when you settle down. Law firms love it when people buy homes in the market they're in because that shows they will stay. They can give you more work. You're likely to be someone that's stable with their clients. You're likely, in many cases, if you get married to have a family, the family will make you much more cautious about recklessly moving firms,
 
It will make you work harder because you have people to support, it will make you more permanent, it will make it more likely that you're not going to leave the practice of law, or take an in house job, or go into the government, or something along those lines, because your family is going to depend on you for homes, for car payments for spending money for.
 
For all those things. So the law firm depends on you. And if the law firm depends on you, that's hugely important. So you always want the law firms to depend on you. You want a law firm to believe you're dependent on them because if they believe you're dependent on them, they're more likely to make you a partner.
 
They're more likely to do all those things. So, being close to a significant other means you're likely to stay in that market. You're likely to stay in that job. You're likely not to move around. And if people do this, that's one of the most important and best reasons for moving firms.
 
When you do that, the law firm will know that you're likely to stay, and you'll be more likely to get jobs when you move for those reasons. Again, a fundamental reason is if you're significant other is there. But the other thing that you need to ask, and this is.
 
Very important to ask whose career is more important. So I've seen people move markets when they're significant; another might have a sales job for a company or something that doesn't pay it, so you need to understand who's more important.
 
And I hate to say it, but if you have mentors, if you're doing well, advancing, and your compensation is reasonable, then You have political or law firm capital, meaning if you move, you'll lose that. Again, this is a reason for not moving to have this political capital.
 
So, law firms prefer that the careers of their attorneys are prioritized in romantic relationships, not the other way around. So you have to be very careful with that. And even though it's a good reason, you must ensure you have a good reason. So what would a good reason be?
 
Thank you. My husband's and my wife's family. Living in this market, we're planning on having kids, and we need someone to help out my wife's entire life. I don't have as much of a fan of these things. So it would help if you marketed them that way. Again, these are hugely important.
 
If you can do this, you will get more jobs than others. But you have to say. Who would you want to, who would you want to, who would you prioritize? But you want someone whose career took second place in a relationship or who took first place. So, I've seen a lot of examples of reasonable attorneys that didn't get hired.
 
So, I was working with a woman not too long ago. We moved to San Diego and had been married for I don't know, 15 years or something or a long time, ten years. Then, she moved to San Diego as a first or second-year associate, but she moved six times.
 
With her husband over these ten years, they had been together because he just kept getting transferred to other naval bases. So she'd been all over the world but Maryland and San Diego and all these San Francisco and all these different places. That's a risky hire, and I helped her not talk about that to her resume and so forth, that's risky.
 
So law firms, because the law firm is going to believe you're just going to move, you may be working there. But again, law firms want you to have obligations hanging over your head. The more obligations, the better, because you'll need to stay there.
 
And I'm saying buying a costly car or moving into an expensive house is an obligation. If you talk about if you have student loans, that's an obligation. Law firms want you to have obligations because it means you'll stick around. They can introduce you to clients.
 
You're welcome to work harder when people are moving harder. Are closer to being a significant other. This will suggest that they will likely settle down in that market and be stable. And if they're moving to be closer to a significant other, that's something they should do; all things considered, it will benefit their career.
 
If they make it, they want to settle down, buy a house, and so forth. It's important. Yeah. It's also mentioned that sometimes this doesn't work out. I recently spoke to an attorney working in a small law firm in South Carolina.
 
She'd been there for a few years and wanted to relocate to a more prominent firm in Chicago to join a significant other. She was having a tough time because people in different parts of South Carolina stay in specific smaller markets, which becomes very insular. There's kind of the South versus the North mentality running spoken of.
 
But sometimes it's there. And there were cliques in this firm that went since high school. She moved there, but what happened is she had moved there for her ex-fiancé. That she had been engaged to, and because it was a smaller firm, she'd spent all her time doing exceptionally generalist skills.
 
And because she wanted to move to a large firm, large firms have people who want people to do exceptionally niche skills. So, what is the niche type skill? It means you do corporate law, or you don't do corporate law and litigation, or you do patent prosecution. You don't do trademark law and IP litigation, and I don't know, licensing.
 
You, you have something that's that's, and this is what big firms want. And if you move someplace to be close to a significant other, you need to be confident. You'll stay there in the long term. I wandered around this website the other day, and it was filled with.
 
Hundreds of wedding rings from Tiffany's and all these great places, and each one of them said more than two weeks, one, or three months, meaning they were saying how long they were worn because people had broken up their engagement. So that's just something to think about.
 
I had a lot of engagements, and I was engaged once it ended. And so you need to be aware of that. The other reason to move is to be closer to a family member or go home to where you grew up. This, among all the reasons, is the one that will make you, in my opinion, the most likely to get hired.
 
This is better than moving to a spouse. This is better than moving up. It's just a superb reason. Because if you move to one of those firms, you can locate it's prevalent sense. Law firms believe you will stay if you relocate to that market. And I've seen attorneys get tons of interviews when they do that.
 
It could be someone that's relocating to Detroit. For example, I had a conversation with a law firm not too long ago. And this is when the market was a little bit better. And they said, we're looking for a Securities attorney, but we want the person to be from Detroit. So they said, we're looking all over the country, but we want whoever we hire to be from Detroit.
 
They wanted the person to be from Detroit because if they were from Detroit, the firm would have, and then they'd be like the state people. Many people go to Detroit and leave the second they get a chance, but they're likely to stay if they're from Detroit. Now, I like Detroit. I'm just saying if you moved there from Miami, you'll probably only want to stay if you're from there.
 
Same thing from Los Angeles. People do relocate, but only sometimes. Law firms like it when you're closer to a family member. This is the best way to get a job when you're relocating. The reason this is such a good reason is because. You don't need to apply, and this is something everyone needs to remember.
 
This is very important if you're from another America. You do not need to apply to openings in that market. You go on LawCrossing, you go on other websites, Indeed, or LinkedIn, or whatever, and you look at jobs you don't need to just apply to jobs. You should apply to... Every firm in your practice area that you can see yourself working at.
 
That's just, it's common sense because when you're relocating, you're saying you get one bite at the apple; you get to interview me right now. And I get most of my interviews a lot of times that I get are with firms. A significant portion, like 80%, 90 percent are with firms that do not have openings.
 
And where the attorney is just applying to all the firms that match them. Now, that rule, by the way, doesn't apply to major markets. It doesn't apply to Los Angeles. It doesn't apply to New York. It doesn't apply to Miami. It doesn't apply. But it applies to most markets that are nonsignificant cities.
 
So, it would apply to Columbus. It would apply to Cincinnati. It would apply to Wisconsin. It would apply to. Maybe even Minneapolis, but markets that people generally don't go to, Syracuse, New York markets of people who work. There needs to be more where there are just tons of lateral candidates.
 
So that works. Another point I want to make to everyone is that it's essential. So, applying to jobs is essential if you're a BCG candidate or applying to jobs on your own. Okay. Right when they come out because what happens is after they, the job has been active for a week or so, people, all the people, the law firm will get overwhelmed with applications, and typically, they'll start scheduling applications because they need someone from the first, the resumes that come in the first couple of days.
 
It would help if you did what you can to apply to positions. Just right away when they come in. You can't delay it because this is one of the things that happens with A lot of our candidates at BCG. So they come in, sign up, and we immediately send them all the matching jobs, and they apply.
 
Still, those matching jobs may have been open. They may get a couple that are a few days old, but most of them will be jobs where the firm may have started interviewing, they're down the track interviewing, and so they're even if an excellent candidate comes along.
 
They may not even look at or consider them because they have many resumes. So it usually takes a while when you're looking at job boards, and you're looking at old jobs, or you're looking at old jobs that a recruiter has that still need to be filled. But the firm may be down. So the firm will say, close our job once they've hired someone and the person shows up to work.
 
But that process could take a couple of months. So, if you're discouraged early in your job search, the only reason is that the firm may have started interviewing. They're not looking at extra candidates. They may be, they may not be, but they're more likely not to be. And so you'll have a better chance if you apply to get jobs immediately.
 
It would help if you were looking at jobs you get from us or a lesson. On any website, you should be applying immediately. I hope you write this and understand it because it's essential. Firms can partner with portable businesses that can move back to their home market at any time if they can bring their clients.
 
But if attorneys relocate home to their family, they know that's the last move. And there's not a lot of suspicion, by the way, with attorneys relocating. So if you're relocating in your market, the law firm's thinking of themselves, first of all, they're thinking we work for this firm.
 
We may want to stay in this practice area. Maybe we want to avoid hiring people from this firm, which happens sometimes. They may also think this attorney needs help with their existing firm. They may want to move for that reason. So they will, they will think that there's, there'll be very suspicious.
 
They'll think, is this person leaving? Why aren't they getting along? What's the problem? Do they need to get work? Is the firm pushing them out? These are the questions firms are asking when they're hiring you locally. And those questions are even more pronounced when there are many applicants they're getting.
 
So this is something to remember. You will get more interviews with firms when you're relocating home. If you're not in a significant market, you will also have the option to apply to every firm there. So these are good reasons to do that. And if you're relocating home, you can get more interviews and convert the higher percentage of these interviews into offers.
 
I was working with a girl recently who was an Olympic athlete. Relocating to Seattle from, I don't know, Cleveland or something. I don't know how she got to Cleveland, but she was relocating home and just a litigator. And she must have gotten 15 interviews at firms that didn't have openings.
 
Some of them that we're firms, that we, you know, that we only got a few interviews at. So when you're relocating home, and the Olympic athlete made it enjoyable, the firms liked it because of that, but when you're located home, you're going to make many more placements.
 
Relocating home shows a commitment, and you're going to stay. And it also raises very few questions because why would you be suspicious of someone wanting to move to be closer to their mother or family? So it's widespread, if you're an attorney in a primary market, like New York City, the Bay Area, Boston, or other markets, to work there for several years.
 
It happens all the time before you relocate to your home market. Typically, all the training you receive in the big city, your work ethic, and the other skills you get in a large market will also be valued in the attorney's home market. It would help if you stayed on top of that.
 
And that's very important. You just want to make sure that you're on top of that. And you're getting and working with firms that you know you can apply to because what happens is typically, so say you're in a huge market and you want to relocate to, I don't know, Traverse City, Michigan.
 
I'm just giving Michigan because I'm from there. Traverse City is a small market, but some excellent firms exist. But the firms you would do in New York or work in New York or San Francisco, or typically if it's a big city, will be far more sophisticated. And these firms will be fired up to interview you if you apply to them because they're going to get someone with more skills that will stay.
 
Whereas if you relocated, like I told you earlier in one of the first slides. If you're trying to relocate to a firm and say that you're from in, if you're in San Francisco and you want to relocate to another firm, or if you're in Traverse City and want to work in another firm, those firms are going to be suspicious of you.
 
They're going to. They're going to think, what's happening, and why? What's wrong with this person? But we'll have to ask questions. They'll figure out, are you working enough? Are you doing good work? And so this is how that works. So you need to concentrate on the stuff and do what you can to ensure you're applying to the right firms.
 
The other thing is firms will; if you're moving to a smaller market, you're going to be often doing less sophisticated work, whereas you're not going to look like you're moving down as you would in a larger market. They're just interested in you. So it's vital. As I told you earlier, the other reason to move to a more prominent firm is to get exposed to more sophisticated work.
 
And I already talked about this in detail. So, I'm not going to give a lot of information, and I'm going to Try to move through these slides a little bit faster. But the idea is that if you've done work at a very sophisticated firm, especially in markets, things like corporate and transactional practice areas, there's going to be profound differences in terms of the sophistication of your work.
 
If you're doing a merger in a small firm, it may be a 10 to 20 million merger. Whereas if you're doing a merger in a more prominent firm, that could be billions of dollars at issue. And when billions of dollars are at issue, you will be trained in a much different matter than you would be at a small corporate firm.
 
Small litigation matters between people fighting about little things will differ significantly from class actions. Large real estate deals involve different skills than small real estate deals. And there are a lot of advantages to working and getting exposed to more sophisticated work.
 
You will learn you will become a better attorney because you'll look at things from a different perspective. That you usually wouldn't. So what does that mean? So imagine you were in high school and you took chemistry, right? You know something about chemistry, you know how to do high school chemistry, or maybe you took AP chemistry, but then imagine you go to Caltech or any school and you major in chemistry.
 
The depth you're going to go in will be far different than the depth of the way you're going to see things. If you major in them, if you didn't go to college, I'll tell you another interesting story that I thought was fascinating. When I got it, when I went to the University of Chicago, they took these placement tests to get into different calculus classes.
 
So there was, easy calculus. I am curious whether there was an intermediate class, calc, or honors calculus. And then there was like super honors calculus. So people were placed into these groups, depending. On how well they did on those tests. So, I don't know what happened to me because I certainly didn't get an 800 on my math visit keys.
 
But I somehow was placed in the super honors calculus. I got there and realized very quickly that I did not belong because the textbook was 100 pages long, and you were just expected to follow along without many examples because you were so bright.
 
So I just realized I didn't belong there. Then I got into this. Intermediate complex clap calculus, which I started taking. And that was like for people that took maybe like 5 percent of the class for maybe the top 15, and I got them there, and everything was good for a week or two, but then I realized it was impossible for me.
 
And if I continued taking this course, I would not do well. And so I needed to do whatever I could. To move down. So, I moved to intermediate calculus, and I did great. I think I got good grades in that school.
 
But what happened? I just want everyone to understand what happened to the people who took the intermediate calculus; they ended up getting these incredible scores on standardized tests when they were applying to graduate school and law school and just got almost incredible grades like the school, for the top people and I was able to get incredible grades. Still, I took classes that I knew I was doing well.
 
And these people took challenging classes. So what I'm saying is that. Yeah. I think that taking that class made people more intelligent. I just made them look at things in much more depth because these calculus problems were, I thought, impossible. Some of them and so, and I needed help understanding the basics.
 
So I think people look at a lot depending on the sophistication of what you're exposed to. You're going to think better. You're going to be better. A chemist who takes All It's a Ph.D. in chemistry from a big school will be much better and look at things in much more depth than someone who only works on or takes high school calculus.
 
So, this is high school chemistry. So this is the issue. When you work with sophisticated clients, you can see problems more deeply. You're able to take your whole legal career and take it to the moon because you're seeing matters and things in a way that other attorneys aren't, and in litigation, it's widespread for A small law firm to go against maybe filing plaintiff's work, a plaintiff's breach of contract or something to go against a large firm.
 
And they almost always get crushed because they can see all these things. They see the rules of a procedure and arguments they can make with that. They see case law that doesn't look like it's, and they see things that don't look like it's relevant but are. So they just see things, and you learn much better, and you are exposed to much more sophisticated work.
 
You are more educated in law practice when you're entering better firms that do more sophisticated work because you become a different attorney. Personal injury law for auto accidents. It is a much different type of attorney than someone suing, say, an automaker for a product viability case where billions of dollars are at issue.
 
So you can approach problems in a much more sophisticated way the better the firm you're at because they have larger clients willing to pay more money and do better, so just going to a good law school. Puts you on the 95th-yard line and the best law school because you can immediately step out and do that sophisticated work.
 
But more than learning to be an exceptional attorney, learning all this stuff is required for one year. If I were you, I would stay there for five years because it doesn't take about five years to learn any practice here and become good at it. You know the arguments to make or the things to watch out for in a transaction.
 
Therefore, going to a more prominent firm that you're at can make you much better than those trained to do less sophisticated work. Those skills have a higher value in the market. You will do better as a solo practitioner. You will do better in a small firm.
 
You will do better wherever you are when you understand that. The other thing I keep stressing about is that it's all essential information for your career. Just this webinar alone can undoubtedly change your career's direction. If you understand what I'm saying and you listen, you have to have a specialty when you have a specialty.
 
That means you're majoring in something like you would in college. That means you're getting a graduate degree like you would in college. So having a specialty or not having a specialty is like going to college and taking a math class, you take some history classes, maybe a couple of history, you take English, maybe take a chemistry class, and maybe you also take physics or something.
 
You're just a generalist. You don't have any experience, but when you major in one thing, study it, and concentrate on it, you can see things in more depth and improve. So clients, Just as graduate schools and everyone, will typically charge more money or pay more for specialists, just as you would pay more for someone who can do a rare type of brain surgery than you would pay for just a regular surgeon to operate on you.
 
So the rarer your skill set. The more you can charge for your legal work, the more law firms will pay you, and the more likely you will get hired. So this is important. The only people I generally represent as a legal recruiter, and if I look at a hundred resumes, typically, Very few, like lower than 20%, maybe even lower than that, have resumes focused on one practice area.
 
They just do a bunch of different things. No one's going to pay for that. Would you? Would you pay for a doctor that does 15 different things? Would you want your criminal defense lawyer? That is where you're accused of murder and where you just didn't do it to be a generalist attorney who does corporate law and trademarks.
 
And no, you wouldn't want that. So, law firms and the market value people who are specialized in the work. It is often more challenging and exciting because specialized work prevents you from glossing over problems. You're not just thinking I got to get this thing out the door at the lowest level.
 
This is a funny story. I had; I was working when I was practicing law with this attorney named John Vandekamp. That was the former attorney general of California. He was retired, and he was at Dewey Valentine just for some kind of optics. But he had a couple of clients, and one of them was an insurance company in Massachusetts.
 
And whenever someone drove out from Massachusetts's local insurance company to California and got in an accident, he would defend them. So I went up against this insurance defense firm that I couldn't believe. They were; they would do A, make a motion, and nothing would be formatted correctly.
 
You have one sentence here, a sense of break off and start, the gap later. It was unbelievable. And then they forgot to file this paper when we went to an arbitration. You have to; if you don't like the result of the arbitration in California, if it's a mandatory arbitration, you must file a motion to dismiss the result within ten days. There were three insurance defense companies and firms there.
 
They didn't file it. So, I just filed a motion to confirm the arbitration because it was dismissed. And I was going to go to court on it. And one of them filed something that said I was in charge of filing the motion to vacate it. I asked my secretary to write. To write it for me and file it, and she didn't, and then they attached a verification, or what is it called? I need to remember what it's called, but I wonder why. But they attached a document, and I'm attributing this.
 
They attached a document from the secretary saying I was directed to do this and I always do this, which, of course, is an unauthorized practice of law, which is astonishing. And they filed that, meaning she was told to forge a signature. She was told to prepare a motion, basically practice law.
 
And she didn't. And this is what they filed. So, many times, law firms will need to be better. They will only give you a little training. They won't go over issues with them. What they expect is different different levels of the firm. Suppose you were to do something like that in a large firm. You would be fired instantly.
 
And it just wouldn't work, but you, the best attorneys, dive deeply into problems, and they only do a little rote work. Now, you can do rote work when you're a junior associate in the firm doing document review or responding to discovery, but the more in-depth you go in matters, the better.
The other one is training, which is very important. When I was young, I knew an attorney who was offered a position at an AMLA. 50 law firm after the summer associates after not getting after the middle of a recession, it was tough. The firm sent him a letter saying, Hey, you can start in one year, but we won't pay you anything.
 
And, you can do what you want during that year because we're in a recession, or you can take this check, which is probably the equivalent of 75,000 now. And when you take this check, we won't agree to hire you. But, you're our obligation to your guns. He took the check.
 
The only job he could get was at an insurance defense firm, and on his first day, he was handed 100,000 or 100 cases and told to do whatever he needed and not trained. So that's not good. You need to be trained, and you need that when you're at a good firm; yeah, it trains you. The partners you work for and the associates you work for, you learn how to be a better attorney and do not develop habits that will hurt you in the long run.
 
So, the critiques you receive in the best firms are often painful. I remember in my firm when I went to Dewey Valentine, there was a partner from a big firm. I think it was Dewey Valentine or not Dewe Valentine. It was from a partner at Latham. And he would with the junior associates, he would go in, and he would just take apart their work in an hour and say, if you don't fix this, this is not good.
 
And he would make people operate much higher than they otherwise would if they were not working at a major law firm. So, it's a massive benefit if you have someone hanging over your head critiquing your work. It can help you grow. If you need more training guidance, you're often best looking for a new position.
 
So, what do I mean by someone hanging over your head and giving you a hard time? What that means is a copy packet. What that means is that means that your work is being ripped up when you're new. You're being told that you're whatever is not correct. You're missing things.
 
This is how you should look at it on a deeper level. This is not acceptable. This case doesn't stand for this, or you missed this thing in the transaction. You're being made to feel complete. Absolute idiot with the work. Now, this happens to the best attorneys. It doesn't matter where you went to law school.
 
This was the process. And if you're not getting it, when you're early in your career, and people aren't destroying marking up your work, there's something wrong. So I'm just telling you, this happens to all attorneys at all law firms. Suppose the firm is good enough. So, typically, your reviews and law firms will be very harsh.
 
Your first year will be less harsh than your second year and less harsh than your third year. And by your third year, if you've learned from all that, the front and you're still there, the law firm will tell you how awesome you are because they want to keep you around because you're going to be profitable between your third and sixth to eighth year.
 
Then, the law firm will start evaluating you based on. Business and partnership material and other things. But in your first or third year, you should be having your work destroyed. And this is when a lot of attorneys leave. Like they can't handle it, certain firms will give more brutal critiques than others.
 
And the best. Attorneys will tell you everything you're doing wrong. And if you're not getting that as a six-month or one-year attorney, you're not being forced to grow. So, I just want everyone to understand that harsh reviews beyond telling you you have to look for a job are not something you should worry too much about.
 
They may say you're still green, or they may say. This is not saying anything written in stone, but they will tell you many times to look for a position if they think that. But if you're just getting bad reviews, that's not necessarily something to worry too much about. If you're a reasonable attorney and there's a recession, they may say, we understand that it works slow, but we like you and hope to stick around.
 
And in addition to the harsh review. The other thing that happens is your physical health may make you leave. So I only bring this up because I've accounted for many attorneys, and for some reason, many of them in New York with these hours and things start having health issues.
I've encountered attorneys at big firms in Los Angeles who have health issues.
 
Sometimes, they have immune disorders. I've seen that a lot. I don't know why it is, but these incredible hours. It can affect you. I don't know what it is with immune disorders, but maybe that's psychosomatic for some people.
 
I don't know. But I can think of several women that, when I wrote this over the past year, were five that left firms due to immune disorders. And I don't know what it is, but maybe it's office buildings recycling there and needing to get out more. I don't know. But it's something that I'd like to look into.
 
Other attorneys get heart problems. They're sitting at a desk all day. They're stressed. They're not exercising. They're eating sandwiches and not, they're not taking care of themselves. They have heart problems or heart attacks. I knew people who died from heart attacks in their 30s, 30s to 40s.
 
From practicing law. Think about this like you're under stress all the time. You're working all these hours. You're not exercising. You're not taking care of yourself. You're eating healthy food, and you and you die, or you have a heart attack. I've seen instances. I know of two of them.
 
It's interesting. But of attorneys, one of them flew home. He had a heart attack when he got home and another that took a trip, and when he got to where he was going on the airplane on a Thursday or something, he didn't have to work until Monday; he had a heart attack and died.
 
So why is that? I think it's because maybe you're on high adrenaline levels or something. When are you working, and then when is your body? Has a chance to relax and just conks out. So many attorneys are so motivated to fight and try so hard that being a law firm may not be the best place for your health.
 
I've heard stories about attorneys going to firms where they're having a hard time, and they start doing cocaine and crystal meth or drinking too much and taking pills and seeing a psychiatrist. And because they're just trying to fight as hard as they can, but it's not for them, and they don't like it, and it's just, they're not motivated and have to use outside substances too.
 
Reduce your stress level or keep going and the thing about a law firm, and I hate to say this, the law firm has no incentive. Suppose you're building a lot of hours to tell you to take it easy for your health. They can; some people will say it associates, but they don't. They, if you're billing hours, then you're making the money, then They're the partners like that.
 
So it's not to say that they're evil, but it's saying the economic forces inside a law firm will keep you doing that as long as possible. The other one is mental health. So, everyone, everyone has different types of mental health. So you may have had it prevalent for attorneys in, or for law students to be taking antidepressants or get subscriptions for Xanax or and again, there's nothing wrong with that.
 
There's nothing wrong with being depressed or taking pills or things. But if you have mental health, and a lot of it starts in law school, because that's when the stress of competing is just put at a much higher level where you're not the best student anymore, you're you don't know what's going on you're sad or depressed or freaked out.
 
And I know of a lot of people that have experienced mental health issues. I hear all the time; I hear people telling me that they want to kill themselves. This is the kind of conversation. I've had attorneys in law firms that are stressed out. They can't leave because they don't want to look bad to their family.
 
They don't want to look bad to people they went to law school with. And they're unable to take it. And frankly, the working conditions inside of law firms are just not natural. They're too much for many attorneys. And the problem with the law firm is it won't end. The politics change.
 
You could be on the right side of politics, and then you could be on the wrong side of politics, and that ends up affecting you negatively. So I always recommend that law firms that candidates do whatever they can to be on the right side of issues, say it's not on the right side, but don't participate in politics because if you do.
 
You get it, and everybody gets burned eventually. If you, someone in power that wasn't in power will come into power, they'll get rid. You just know, and then they'll get rid of them; you just won't get work from people on one side of an issue. These politics can create all sorts of issues.
 
People in law firms will rely on alcohol, antidepressants, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth, and Adderall. I don't know what statin or other substance to help them push through. And if this is happening to you and your substance abuse problems aren't pre-existing, meaning you didn't have them when you were in college, law school, or at college, and they've developed, then that's probably a problem.
 
And there's something maybe off about that. Maybe you have attention deficit disorder and need Adderall or something, but if you have. All these mental issues are starting, and you're not, and you're in crisis then or finding yourself drinking every night, smoking pot every night, finding yourself.
 
Needing to rely on the stuff, then that's a sign from your mind that this is a problem, and you won't have time to go to AA or any meetings anyway because you're working out the time. So you're just going down this dangerous path. You don't want to go crazy. I've seen so many attorneys completely lose it, and you don't have to be fit for this sort of stuff.
 
So, if someone tries to go and be a Navy SEAL, you may start with a class of 100 people, and 20 people won't make it. That's fine. They need to be built for it. They can't take it. They don't have to, and that doesn't mean you have to be a bad thing. You just are competing at a level that's unhealthy.
 
Let those people compete at that level. I've seen some people, and I'm not going to say what firms, but I know that they worked in big firms when they started law practice, stayed in massive firms, and have been working 2,500 hours per year for 15 years.
 
And they look like sailors. Their skin's terrible. They're. Sometimes their teeth are crooked because they're I shouldn't buy teeth, but their hair is a mess. They look pale. They gained a lot of weight. They just look like entirely different people, maybe their counsel or something.
 
But some people compete at that level. Partners can; partners at these big firms can deal with it most of the time. But these mental issues you're developing don't have anything with you. The law firm causes these, and you just need to realize that you may have seen law firms where every single partner is divorced.
 
Why? Because they're never home. And how does that make you feel when you're alone? You don't have anyone to support you, and you're going out on these dates, and you're there, not, you're not connecting because I don't know, but. Or you're connecting with people that are willing to tolerate.
 
All these things mean you need to get into a different environment. And this is very important. Just listening to this could save your life and save your sanity. Because of the environment, we have everything to do with our state of mind, our confidence, how well we do in the world, and how happy we are.
 
My daughter just got out of middle school. She was at a private middle school. And all the popular girls had eating disorders. They were competitive in how much they ate. They were skinny. They were hostile and had problems. And it was the type of market thing that drives people down and not up.
 
And she was feeling alone. And she went to a new school where she had gone to elementary school with kids from there. And suddenly she's got 20 friends. There was a fair the other day, and she went with all these kids. So people are happier depending on the environment.
 
Some environments lift everyone, where people are happier, more productive, and have better lives, and their environments tear people down. There are people. That lifts us and people that tear us down. So, it would be best to be in an environment where you feel built up.
 
The environment, by the way, of a law firm where you're not connecting with partners. Like they're not nice to you. They're just distant, where other associates are all fighting with each other. And where your work's under a microscope, you're constantly terrified and feel like you're not billing enough hours.
 
And this is not good for you, please. This is unhealthy if you're in an environment where everyone is criticizing you, where you feel like you're on the outs and not part of the. Like you're excluded from things. You're excluded from activities outside of work. You're not giving good work, and you're upset.
 
You need to think very seriously about these things if this benefits you because you can go in an environment that lifts you up. So here's a quick story, and I keep telling this week, year after year, webinar after webinar: I clerked for a federal judge in a city called Bay City, Michigan.
 
And when I got there, there were a lot of new attorneys or young attorneys that were, like, one to four or five years old. From local law firms in Bay City and Midland, Flint, an area, maybe 45 minutes around that vicinity, and those attorneys were all at the same firms when I was clerking, they came into the court, or I went out to new attorney societies for those areas and stuff. I looked up those people not too long ago, like a few years ago, and the case was okay.
 
Almost everyone was at the same firm they were at when we were talking 20-plus years ago. Imagine that like the same firm. Now, if I were to do the same thing with everyone who was an associate at the two significant firms I joined, I'd be lucky to find. One or two. Think about that. So, the environment you're in now, I think these people were happier.
 
They didn't have to work long hours. They were at good firms that were doing commercial litigation. And think about that. So, the environment you're in. It is vital. It can make or break you. So you should try to the best of your ability to surround yourself with happy, healthy people because if you are like that, you're going to be the same.
 
If you walk into a firm and you get a sense that it's not positive, that it's negative, and you sense that vibe, which you will regardless of the salary, that's not going to change, and if you get that sense. This other reason is an excellent reason, but to leave not having enough work and not having enough work is also significant.
 
What does that mean? It means that if you have a little work and it's consistent, it's not consistent, it's consistent, and it's continuing to go on. If other associates don't have work, then you're a problem, then you're a problem. I was having a meeting yesterday with my assistant who works for me.
 
And he was saying, oh, it's excellent, you're always creating all these projects and work. And because a lot of people don't. And that's true. The best attorneys and the best firms can create work. They look at a matter and say, we can do this, we can do this, they can do this, and they upsell the clients or find new clients that need work.
 
So, the ability of the law firm and you to create work will determine if you get clients. It's going to determine the amount of work hours you build. It's going to determine all those things. Work. It is the lifeblood of any law firm. Law firms need to be creating work constantly.
 
If they're not creating work, they have the wrong people in power and partners, and there's a problem. Again, there need to be certain practice areas like corporate securities and a recession or other things that are not positive. But even those attorneys can go to help create work for the firm.
 
They're different practice areas. If they're not creating work, there's a problem with the firm, and it's pretty, pretty good odds you'll have trouble in the future. And it would help if you did not stick around too long in a firm where there's not a lot of work now.
 
There's nothing wrong with a couple of weeks going by or a month or two, but if it looks like it's going to be there for a while and you can sense it, you need to start looking for a job because law firms have no reason to keep you around.
 
You're a fixed cost if you're not billing enough hours. They're going to get rid of you. Sometimes you need more work. If they're not giving you work and other people have, they're going to get rid of you. You just need to face those facts. There needs to be more you can do. If you've made a few mistakes or they don't like you, you can try to fix it. But law firms need to be serious about profits per partner; substantial law firms and large law firm partners, by the way, compare firms.
 
Based on the profits per partner. That's how they move. They move to firms where they believe that they can make more money. So a law firm, substantial law firms are comparing their firms about that. And the big thing is if there needs to be more work at a firm for that law firm to make more money for its partners, it needs to cut costs.
 
It needs to keep the attorneys around who are billing the most hours and eliminate the ones that need to be added. Sometimes, partners hoard work. And they don't give it to other partners or associates. This means they only have a little work. Sometimes, what happens is you become a senior associate. When you become a senior associate, your billing rate is very similar to the client and the partners.
 
So, the partners often will only want to give you work if the client wants them to do the work, not an associate. Not only that, but the client and partner typically make more money when they do the wrong work. So, if they work on their clients, they might get 40 percent of what they bill and collect.
 
If they give it to others, they might get 10 or 15. So it's if they need to give you work. Then, there needs to be more work as a senior associate. It's time for you to look for a job. And this is what happens. By the way, this is very important for you to understand when you become a senior associate, and the law firm needs to be incentivized to give you work.
 
So unless you're an expert, meaning your work is so good that partners want to give you work and not do it themselves or your work, You can find work so effectively that you don't have to worry about it. This is how, by the way, when they make someone a partner in a big law firm with no business, they're just like, wow, this person was able to get 2 800 hours of work compared to the next person who was able to get 2, 400 hours of work.
 
I had a law firm I was working at when I told them I was worried because my friend didn't make a partner. When I quit, they came in and said that they said so and only worked 2 400 hours that didn't make me a partner. And the person that did work 2, 800. So this is how they evaluate you.
 
They evaluate you on your ability to get work. If you're getting work and billing a lot of hours, that means you're satisfying the clients who are the partners. That's it. And if you need to get work from the clients, you have to work for the client. So, if work is slow, you can't get work, you need to start looking for a new job.
 
That's it. It would be best if you were where there's work to do. If there's no work to do, what is your opportunity? Do you have opportunities to make partners? Do you have opportunities to improve your skills? Do you have opportunities for raises? Are you secure in your job? None of that. So again, law firms giving others work rather than you in your practice area is very serious.
 
And it would help if you fixed that. When I was an associate at the Stewie Valentine firm, they had a way where you could enter someone's name into a search and, so you would log into this thing, and then you would search for your name, and you would see the number of hours there, the number of hours you built.
 
You could do that with anybody's name. Not partners, but other associates. So an associate in my firm went crazy, by the way, or he seemed crazy. They hadn't had any work in a year because he'd been iced out. He always had his door closed in his office. But partners didn't like him, and they excluded him.
 
What was not funny, but what happened was that I ran into him in the hall one day. I knew he hadn't had any work, and he was a brilliant guy who'd gone to Columbia Law School, and it was like first in his class at a big college. I think it was BYU or something, and he was brilliant.
 
And I ran into him in the hall, and he said, I said, what are you up to? And he said, Oh, I'm working like crazy. I'm working on this motion, and it's due today. I got to go and, I've been up all night, all week for the past week, he hadn't been. He may have gone to BYU, but that's basically what happened; he went negative. If you're not getting work, other people are.
 
The message is clear: you need to start looking around. This is just another one I want to be clear with many people who take jobs. At law firms with titles like managing associate, and they're not, or they may be contract attorneys or staff attorneys, people move from.
 
Firms that aren't a procedure, just big, better, big firms as staff attorneys most law firms, a lot of law firms are doing this, they're doing it even with people from good schools, and people are taking these jobs if you're a staff attorney, in most cases, you're never going to be a regular associate at those firms.
 
If you do become a regular associate, In most cases, you will be at a disadvantage because you start as tired as the staff attorney. Now, is that always true? Of course not, but that's one of the things that happens, and a lot of attorneys will apply for associate positions, and then at the end of the process, we'll get a staff attorney.
 
What kind of attorneys does it happen with? Sometimes, it happens with Attorneys who quit their jobs very early in their careers and might have gone in-house. I've seen that a couple of times recently. And then the law firm is nervous about them staying, so they make them staff attorneys. I've seen this with people in practice areas where there's inconsistent work, which could be like trademark prosecution, where the work may not be as tricky, where the person might just be filing a civil trademark.
 
So it happens Often, but if you're offered a staff attorney, it's only sometimes a good thing. And, I'm not a lot of times, I'm not even going to say this, but they're often extended to people that may not, that that.
 
So I'm just saying a lot of the people that are extended these jobs. Maybe it's because they're unemployed, maybe because they didn't have any associate jobs, maybe because they're stay-at-home moms, I don't know, or they want some time off. Still, there is, it does seem at a lot of firms, not every firm, of course, but a lot of people offering these positions, we're often of people that were different groups and not necessarily that.
 
There are reasons people may have switched jobs too much. They may have gone. I don't know, but there are names for which you need to be given the most critical work: the law firm, your staff attorney.
 
Typically, you're given that role. You may be paid okay, but you're expected to work only a few hours. So they make that trade-off. But they don't think highly enough of you. They let you go if there's a slowdown; you're always the one to go first. And they put their associates in that role.
 
They need to give you the best work. They probably need to be invited to law firm retreats. Those are only partners and associates; they don't advance you based on your class each year and your compensation, and they typically do not think as highly of you as an associate. Why would you want that?
 
I don't know because you should be at a firm that's compensating and treating you like a group member and where you have advancement potential. Suppose you stay at one of these jobs. And don't go to a firm where you have advanced potential. This is all you'll ever be.
 
And is that worth it? It is worth it, by the way. If you are so gung ho and serious about having a stable job or a job where you don't have to work many hours, that's fine. But this may be honest. By the way, I'm hiring someone and then making the person work all like crazy for 12 years and then letting him go.
 
But if you're motivated by any stretch of the imagination to get ahead and be treated given the most critical work, you shouldn't do that. Why is that? It's like me. It would be like going to college and not getting, I don't know, being an auditing class.
 
I don't know what the word for it is, but you're never going to be in a position where you can get ahead. And that's scary. I had a candidate not too long ago. He went to the University of Virginia Law School. He went in-house after one year, to a big firm from Covington and Burling or something in Washington, D.C. an excellent firm.
 
It wasn't Covington. I am trying to remember what it was, but after one year, he quit to go into some public policy group advocating for something. I am still determining what it was. He was there for one year and six months, realizing what I was doing. No one was hiring him because he left and went into a completely different practice setting.
 
So they figured he'd do it away. They were right. And the only job he was able to get. He was a staff attorney in a mid-sized firm in Ohio, and he wasn't from Ohio. He was from Northern Virginia, where he grew up, and that's all he could get. And then, when he tried to get jobs, no one was interviewing him, and he thought there was something wrong with me because he was only trying to go to big firms.
 
You have to be very careful. And then he just stayed a staff attorney. And not only was he paid less, but this firm paid staff attorneys half of what they did. And so you just need to be very careful. And then sometimes you may want to join a firm with a practice area.
 
That gives you where you can develop an interest in a particular subject matter, which you can only do at a firm because it's unavailable. So sometimes. You may have an interest in that, and you may have a solid interest in that, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing work that you don't enjoy.
 
And by the way, your practice area, the more you like it, the more committed you are to it, and the more it interests you, the more you're likely to do well. If you love something or don't like tennis, You're probably not going to be a professional tennis player, right? If you don't like your practice area, you won't be doing what you like most.
 
So, attorneys will move firms. All the time to get more specialized work. Now, you frame your resume like you look like more of a specialist, but you may need to get the work you want. So people move jobs where you're getting more work in your specialty. So that's very important. Now, I'm not saying to switch practice areas.
 
If you switch practice areas and you're at an AMLA 100 law firm, you will not get a job in another AMLA 100 law firm if it's a big switch. So, say litigation to corporate or real estate to patent law, you'll need to move significantly down to a firm that doesn't pay as much.
 
That is taking a risk on you, and you probably need to move into another market to like a mid-size or smaller because that's the firm that will take a risk on you. But you may want to switch practice areas. Who should switch practice areas? Imagine if you were an attorney and you worked as a nurse for five years before going to law school.
 
And then maybe you worked in an administrative role in the hospital for one or two years after that. And then you go to law school, and then you come out, and you get a job doing something completely different. People like that may want to be a. Try to switch firms and get into health care.
 
And then just better opportunities for advancement. I covered that already. So, I want to take advantage of this opportunity, but you may know you don't have any advancement potential. There are certain firms. Kravath and in places like that where they just don't make partners.
 
Is it worth it for you to stay there? It may be. But they do make partners, but very few. If it's so remote that it won't happen, maybe you want to go somewhere where that can happen.
 
Because that may make you happier. There are certain firms, like big New York firms, that are so difficult to make partnerships in that the only possible option is to become a counsel, and counsel rarely become partners, and then your salary's kind of tapped. You're surprised to get business. You may be a second-class citizen. You have the firm's name behind you, but sometimes, the compensation system at your firm could be better.
 
So we talked about salaries, but I'm constantly representing partners whose compensation is such that they would make much more money at different firms. So if you can make more money at a different firm, then it's essential. You may go to another firm. So this is just for partners, but sometimes partners will be hired, and the law firm will say we will guarantee 600 000 a year for the next two years.
 
And then, if you bring in this much business. We'll pay you this percentage, and based on your current book, you'll make an extra 300,000 or something. And then at the end of two years, they'll say, we can't afford to pay you 600 000 anymore. And we'll keep giving you a lower percentage of your business, but because things are slow when they improve, we'll give you a higher percentage.
 
They rarely change that. So partners get screwed over, is the word to say all the time. And that's possible. And then sometimes they just say there's no opportunities. So, if there are no opportunities, you cannot create them. It would be best if you looked at new firms.
 
And if there are opportunities for advancement, there's a sense of enthusiasm. People are working harder. People are doing better work for clients. The firm may, but they sometimes do better work for clients. But the sense of the ability to advance means the firm's likely bringing new people.
 
Again, newer, good firms that are bringing in people often have more opportunities for advancement than large institutional firms that don't make anybody a partner because they won't need any more partners. They want to convey opportunity to people who are taking a risk and leaving big firms to join them if they're new and have big clients, so you need to move if there's no opportunity.
 
Now, there's a BCG article that you should write down. There's one, and all you do is search Google, and you'll find there's one: find your tribe or something that I think is my best article on it. We talk about working with people that are like you. There's another one called firm culture matters most, which I wrote probably 20-plus years ago, but that's a good one.
 
That, but if you're a fit for the firm's culture, you should also search harrisonbarnes.com and then articles about a firm called employer culture because this is important. But if you're a fit for the firm culture. And those people will understand you; they will identify with you.
 
And if you're in the wrong culture, you may be excluded. You may or may not like you. Some law firms are surrounded by, I hate to say it, but they're made up of certain ethnic groups. I had one candidate in a religious group even. So if you're not part of that group, and everybody is, that doesn't mean the people are prejudiced, but they may all go to church together.
 
They all. Are, whatever, and they all are athletes or former, all these things, so you need to surround yourself with people that are like you, and the most significant benefit of that is your happiness like you're going to be happier when you're with people that are like you.
 
This is just an example of when I was in middle school. And as I gave an example earlier, I was in a private school that was very disciplined and had all these rules. And it was not even that good. They did send a lot of kids in my class to I League schools, which is not valid, but they had all these rules, and a lot of people that went to the school, their parents had gone to the school, they were high up in the automotive industry, they were.
 
I was in a city called Gross Points. They were from old money, so their families could have given a lot of money. And I went in there, not that they were like this with everyone, but I was given all C's. Physical education, English I just, the school didn't like me. I think parents talked about the school, and people talked about it because it was small.
 
So, everything I did wrong was seen negatively. I even studied for my exams and thought we got perfect grades, but they still gave me C's. So they just didn't like me. Again, I could have done better, but I went to an exceptional school the following year. I think it was ranked one of the top 10 high school schools in terms of test scores and college admissions, and in the United States, an incredible school, meaning the school that I first attended might have been ranked 200 or 500 or something.
 
The school was ranked number seven. So, I went to this school and was suddenly doing the same thing but getting incredibly positive feedback and excellent grades. And it was just a different culture. It was a different type of person. In the original school, people were wearing suits every day.
 
They were graded based on whether you wore a Hermes or Brooks Brothers tie. It was wild. It was just a different culture, and I excelled. You have to be in the right law firm culture. Sometimes, it can be geographic. You might be a better fit for a Chicago firm than a New York firm.
 
You might be a better fit for a Los Angeles firm than a Chicago or Miami firm. Different firms have different cultures. Different firms in different cities have different cultures. You have to understand that many times what happens to attorneys is they go to firms in New York or big cities, not just New York.
 
They work so hard, and they're so beaten down. They never want to work in a law firm again when they leave. But in contrast, attorneys who start their careers in smaller markets, like I said earlier, often don't leave because maybe they're from that smaller market, and they understand everybody there.
 
And there are people they know, and they know the clients, and there's a connection, which just doesn't matter. It would be best to work with people you like and feel comfortable with. And sometimes attorneys that are having problems. It's just culture. I remember I don't know, but sometimes people say you might be too nerdy or you might not be nerdy.
 
There are just different things that are rewarded in different cultures. It's just that's how it is. Sometimes, everybody will have gone to the same law school, and you didn't. I need to find out the bond on that. So I've written a lot about it. Search for this. That's extremely important. I just recommend reading it.
 
And then sometimes people just make mistakes. They make social mistakes. They get drunk at a Christmas party, and everyone thinks negatively of them. Sometimes, they may have had a sexual relationship or made a pass at the wrong person. Sometimes it's political. Sometimes, you make a colossal mistake doing something wrong.
 
So here's some things. People get drunk, and they see dumb things at parties, or they just get drunk. I saw someone I told an example recently, a partner at a major law firm, an equity partner that didn't even think he had too much to drink, but he was standing in front of a bunch of other partners and got into a taxi or a car and fell and hit his head or something.
 
And everyone thought it was because he was drunk. And then all these other partners he was working with talking about and having rumors. And so he felt like he needed to leave. So, attorneys get in trouble for this all the time. Every firm that I've been at. Whether as a summer associate or when they had summer associates in their class, they always had summer associates who did something stupid and got drunk or made something else.
 
So people, again, you're in a law firm, and everything is serious, and you're not related to people. You go to a function, you have a few drinks, and all of a sudden, you open up, and you say things that you think that you usually wouldn't say, and you screw things up. These sorts of errors can hurt you.
 
They expect you to be in control, and you're also supposed to do that for your clients. So again, I see this all the time, and you just need to be careful. Political disputes are another one. It would be best if you were careful about that.
 
So, in law firms, the partners always get in fights and sometimes there's a losing side of me because being on the wrong side of people in power can also hurt you. They'll give you poor reviews, keep your compensation from increasing, and make you endure all sorts of other unpleasantries, so you must be very careful about that.
 
Just, you may be just a person in power may not like you sometimes the people in power, by the way, I had one candidate that had graduated from an unaccredited Law school in California, and then over the next several years had gotten an l M at Harvard. And so somehow he got into a giant, very prestigious New York because of the L M from Harvard.
 
Office of a Los Angeles office of the New York law firm. He got there, and no one would give him work. People were like, we're not going to. People in the New York office hired him, and people in LA said, we won't hire this person. Or give us personal work. You don't want to stay, and that's not a mistake.
 
So I probably shouldn't have given that example, but it's helpful. Many of the partners and associates I work with are looking for positions to be on the wrong side of people in power. Sometimes, you need to correct legal matters. You may have done something wrong.
 
You may have made a mistake when you said something untrue. And if you say, and you just did something that could have exposed a firm to malpractice, or maybe you did. And if you do that, you're just damaged goods. Some law firms will forgive it, but most will never forget it.
 
And it's something other than what you want to have. Then those law firms will stop giving you work, and you just, or people may just not give you this vital work if they need you; these are often so large that it will hit you like a perpetuity if you live at the, stay at the firm, so I was working with one woman that was a senior associate at a a major U.S. law firm.
 
And she had made a mistake as a fourth year student. She was in her ninth year and was wondering if she was a partner or if they were an advancer. And they said, probably not because you tainted your brand when you did something five years ago. That's what they told her. So this stuff she wasted her time.
 
I've seen people miss court and sleep in, which can be a prologue. I've seen people making mistakes that are fired and not fired, but things happen. So if you've done that and you don't have political capital and no one has your back, and you feel like you've made too serious of a mistake, that's a problem.
 
Sometimes, you take too much time off work or have a deficient bill of hours. I saw an attorney at a major U.S. law firm. They took four weeks of paternity leave when no partner or anyone had ever done that. He thought that was okay. He came back to the firm, and he was iced out.
 
No one gave him any work. I'm not saying that happens at every firm. If everyone's doing that, it's probably okay. But you must be careful if you're the first person to do something like that. If you take too much time at work, people aren't going to like it. If you're taking constant vacations, people will prefer something else.
 
The big associates in law firms, especially if you're in a large class, they're always calling the herd. They want people to advance and do things their way. So, our commitment to doing things the law firm doesn't like is difficult to change. And you may sometimes make a flippant remark as well.
 
I've seen one flippant remark made to the wrong person hurt someone for their career. Some firms are very uptight, and others need to be more. I saw one partner candidate not too long ago, very early in his career, go to a partner like six months in, and he was given an assignment.
 
And he said, this isn't necessary because this firm is this or whatever, because this law doesn't support our case. You don't need it or this. I am still determining what it was. He was let go because he is a six-month attorney. And a young partner was very excited to have the work and billing the client money.
 
And this stopped it. And he was distraught, and it would have stopped it. So they and he acted like he would make problems and tell other people that so they And not only that but they because he was I got him two jobs an excellent job. One of them, I think, was Quinn Emanuel and the other was a good one.
 
It was like Boy Schiller or something, but the firm he was at was so big that they had conflicts with clients. And so he didn't get a job at those firms. None of them had an opening. And then, he ended up stopping the search and setting up a solo practice.
 
So you just need to be very careful. And now he's doing very well, but if you upset the wrong person, you can get blackballed. So it would help if you were careful about that. That's why you need to watch yourself. Don't put yourself in situations. Where bad things will happen, and if you can just avoid being very, don't drink in social situations.
 
Only spend a little time with people and let them know your intimate details because they may disapprove. I saw an attorney get blackballed because he was at an event, and he, the wife of a partner, flirted with him. The partner was distraught because nothing like this had ever happened.
 
He thought his relationship was this person was out to get them and successfully got other partners and things like that to work. These affairs are dangerous. Everyone always finds out about affairs because people don't keep their mouths shut and tell other people; they tell friends and at the firm or others, and then everyone finds out about it.
 
Some law firms don't like it very much at all. I've seen one law firm where the women are, and this is how. Some things are archaic, but sometimes a woman is penalized more than the man or the man is penalized horribly, as if he did something wrong. I saw one major partner at one of the 10 law, top 10 law schools, or 10 law firms in the country that had a 30 million book of business, which is incredible.
 
He had an affair with her. He wasn't married. And the person he had an affair with wasn't married, but they were a paralegal. And because he was considered an attorney in a much controlling role in the firm, he was fired, and because he was fired, he couldn't get a job in another law firm and ended up working with a private equity firm or something.
 
This is how things happen. So it would be best if you were very careful about relationships. They always say for men, don't dip your ink in corporate, don't dip your pen in corporate ink. And then there's probably a similar thing for women, but often, people will have affairs with their mentors.
 
Other times, it'll just be relationships. It's very uncomfortable for other people in the firm because sometimes they know you'll be mad at them if they harshly critique you or your maid. And hold that against someone. And this just creates problems. It's not worth it, man.
 
People do it; some are married in firms, but you must be incredible. Part of being careful is that many times you'll be with a mentor. So you'll be with someone that's giving you a lot of work, and they're mentoring you, and it's a man, or it's a woman, and you travel together and cases, and you go out to drinks and hotels or have dinner, and things lead to one thing and another.
 
And all of a sudden, you hurt your relationship with the support. Person in the firm. Then everyone knows about it because you may tell one friend, and that friend will spread rumors and tell one person, and that person will tell another. So, eventually, things will go wrong in that affair.
 
Sometimes, the attorney will be at the fair. Will the partner end it? A junior associate will end it. But even when things are going well, if you get a good recommendation from that. Mentor. And then people will be suspicious of it because they will know that.
 
So regardless of junior careers, attorneys are damaged when they're in a position where they have a relationship with senior attorneys, even if you don't think anybody knows the same thing, with attorneys often having issues with their mentor.
 
One person can end the relationship with them, even their peers. The other can accuse them of sexual harassment, which I've seen many times. You just need to be careful, especially partners having relationships with secretaries, paralegals, and junior attorneys. That often ends in accusations of all sorts of things. Avoid it.
 
You will get penalized for psychiatric issues, substance abuse issues, etc. You do not tell people that you have these problems. You do not tell anyone in the firm that you have these problems. You do not. You keep this quiet. You say I have a medical condition. If you need to take time off, you do not talk about this.
 
And I'm sorry to bring this up because people think they can't. You do not talk about these things because that's how you will be labeled. You will be labeled as an alcoholic. You will be labeled as someone who's crazy. You will be labeled for all these things. I read a book recently, and it was a book by a woman who had worked in a law firm and had bipolar disorder.
 
And was taking lithium or something for it. There was a story about her time in a law firm. It wasn't specifically about her mental illness, but she said she was at a meeting with this expert they were hiring, and they were, and he was the best expert in the country. For what they needed someone for, he said a couple of hours into the meeting. I guess they were at dinner or something.
 
Hey, I need to take my lithium and shoot. And at that point, all of the partners started laughing. He went to the car, whatever. And we're saying bad things about him and being like, we'd never use this guy. I can't believe you made this mistake. And she realized that if she ever said anything about her lithium, it would be like the same thing with alcoholism and other problems you just can't tell anyone. I'm sorry, but this is how you will be defined now.
 
Are there firms where they're cool about that? Sure. But you must be careful if you have problems and people know they're dealing with you differently and think that will hurt you. It would be best to be careful about who you tell about things. You must be careful about joining groups for people like that, and Facebook and other places people may see you. You just need to be quiet about this stuff.
 
You must talk about this differently than you might be able to in the entertainment industry or other types of industries. You just need to be careful because attorneys are expected to be in control. The other one is lying. If you're caught in line again, it completely undermines your trust.
 
An example that I've told before is I had an attorney, I was that I knew. And they were at a firm, not any place I'd ever worked at. And they were asked if they sent a letter. They told the partner that they'd sent the letter, and they hadn't sent the letter. They had it almost complete, but it wasn't. The attorney looked it up on the system and saw that the person was two weeks away from making a partner.
 
And the firm was so mad they fired the person. So you just have to be honest. And if you get caught, it's going to hurt you. And I don't think firing was appropriate, but that's what happened. Sometimes you get. Doing something illegal, and you'll get fired. So I saw someone get fired for doing that, that's, we would probably just make that for soliciting someone for online sex and and that happened, but anyway, so yeah, doing something illegal that the firm finds out about can get you into trouble.
 
That means DUIs and things can hurt you, right? Getting sued can hurt you. The firm getting sued for something you've done can hurt you. That's why you want to avoid putting yourself in those situations. And just all sorts of minefields that you need to be aware of. And if the firm finds out about it, you do need to leave because it's going to the tent, tent your reputation, all the political capital you built up, unless partners have done that stuff, and they're still okay.
 
You'll need help. You don't want to harm your reputation. And then this is a final one that I want to bring up, and then I'm done, and we'll go to questions. But I'm sorry, this was a bit long of a presentation, but this is just all essential stuff. So you need mentors and any firm to advance.
 
If someone else will be your mentor, they don't have something to offer you or can't help you advance. So, in most law firms, you will need a mentor who sticks up for you to make you a partner. You need a mentor to protect you from information about people and things you don't know to steer you in the right direction.
 
Like anybody, people need good advisors; people know people, and that's what a mentor is. And you just need people giving you work, helping you, moving you along. It would be best if you had that to make partners. But it would be best if you also had that to get work, and you need that to feel secure.
 
It would be best if you had that to do all these different things. When I was applying to college, I went to this, number seven in the country-ranked grade school. I wondered if it was ranked or high school, and they had pulled some colleges, so I told them I had this brilliant advisor.
 
He went to Yale and all these other things. And he said, Okay. Junior year, I was last semester, like two or three weeks after school, he said, where do you want to go to school for college? And I said I really would like to go to Harvard or some other Ivy League school. And he said I don't think that's going to happen.
 
But I said, Oh, Chicago. I said I want to attend your Chicago or these two Ivy League schools. And he said okay, then you'll go to Chicago. You won't go to the other school if that's the one you want. And he said, and so what does that mean? It means that sometimes the school would get behind certain people, and they would push the admissions office to admit certain people and not others.
 
There were better people than me. I don't know. But that's what a good mentor can do. I saw another girl. This is a story I told the other day. She had applied for a Rhodes scholarship and did it with me. She moved pretty far along the process, but she had an advisor who was a very, very high-ranking person at the University of Chicago Law School, and he did the same thing.
 
He's like, where do you want to go to law school? And she said I would love to go to Stanford. It's my first choice, and I'm applying to these other schools, and he said, okay, we'll try to make Stanford happen. She got her LSAT results, basically, on a Thursday or something, and did well.
 
And then and then sent her application off to Stanford. He said, just be sure to apply early. Send it off like on a Thursday. And this is when everyone used mail. Things weren't electronic. Then, the following Friday, admissions decisions were coming out in March. And we're talking about her getting these results maybe in February.
 
I am still determining the results, but she sent her application on a Thursday, and then the following Friday, she got an acceptance letter from Stanford Law School. Mentors can do this for you, meaning they haven't even been admitted. Their class and Senate acceptance letters still needed to be received, but she entered the school.
 
She got her application turned around in eight days. Think about that. Or no, not even that, because it takes three. It took three days to send something from Chicago to Palo Alto and then three days back. So, she was just marked to be admitted, and she wasn't like a 1 84. 0. She was maybe high in her sixties, and our else had something like that.
 
This is what it can do. So it would be best if you had a champion. This is what happens in law firms. You need someone to get behind you and ensure that you have access to work, that you get advanced, and someone to defend you when work gets slow, there are layoffs, and when it comes time to make partners. So you get laid off, and you don't have people that believe in you that aren't defending you.
 
And when and when those partners typically need to be people with work. You also need people who will stick up for you if people are partners with work. If someone else is criticizing and mistreating you, that person will step in and say, Hey, this is my person.
 
If you give them or mess with them, I will give you work. So, almost all successful attorneys have people who have their backs. I'll tell you one final story, and then we'll go to conclusions and take a quick break. And then come back. But I had one kind of story: I was talking to this partner, this guy who left a vast firm and started his practice. And he told me why he left, and he was a great attorney, another top law school, and lots of hours in his firm.
 
He said I could have found someone to stick up for me and help me make a partner. I needed to work harder to get a good mentor, so I felt it was time to leave. Because he didn't have a mentor and someone who would stick up for them because that's what you need first. Many people need to leave law firms and look for new jobs. Again, if you're asked to leave, you have to leave, and then you just evaluate that and move as quickly as possible.
 
But once a law firm has asked you to leave, you must leave now. And the law firm doesn't want you. It's terrible for your mental health to stay there. You need to find a job as quickly as you can and look for a new position.
 
You may feel that you don't belong there. You may be unhappy. You need to leave. LODs are common. But again, if you're unhappy For the people, the environment, you need to leave. So, I'm going to take a quick break, and when I come back, I will again apologize for the webinar, but it was essential, and I'll be back shortly.
 
Thank you.
 
So this is Q and A. It's my favorite part of the week, and I love answering questions. And
I'll answer pretty much, and I usually say this was a long presentation. I can't believe it was over two hours. It's like a movie. But I always, especially people who stay, would say brilliant because every point we covered today could make a massive difference in your career and success.
 
It's excellent work showing up for this webinar because it's beneficial for people looking for jobs and then not looking for jobs but just in the job market and staying on this webinar because it's very long. Still, it's excellent information that each of these points could dramatically improve your career.
 
Also, if you, Thank you. Feel that you didn't understand everything. You want to go back. I will post this webinar on the BCG website within the next week. And when that goes up, I don't do that with all the webinars, but when that goes up, I will ensure that I cover that.
 
So, I will take these questions, not necessarily in the order they were received. I will go back to some of them later, and it says this particular question: I've always been sorry; I've always been passionate about environmental law, but my current. The firm primarily does corporate litigation, but switching to a firm specializing in environmental law differs from my interests.
 
Yes. So that's very smart. So if you switch to a firm that does environmental law, you pretty quickly want us; you'd have two types of firms. The first is in corporate law. Corporate litigation is called commercial litigation, but I think that's good. You call it corporate litigation.
 
Because that will help me in what we call jobs, but that means commercial litigation. So, commercial litigation can be a lot of different things. Sometimes, it involves environmental law, but if you have a job with an environmental litigation firm, you will often be better off switching to that firm.
 
One of the things, and that's really what you want to do. But the problem with switching to those firms is you only sometimes know if that's if you're doing environmental litigation or if they're going to give it to you. You're being hired as a commercial litigation attorney.
 
Usually, when you move to a firm that's doing work differently, you're not going to be working at a prestigious firm, but sometimes you are. What does that mean? That means you may need to move down to another type of firm. The other issue is, are you going to be doing... A plaintiff or defense.
 
So what happens to a lot of attorneys? They move to firms to do environmental work because they've done all this environmental advocacy. They may be more suited to doing plaintiff's work where they're sticking up for polluting people.
 
Whereas if you do defense, you're representing where I'm sorry. You're advocating for people against polluters and things and enforcing environmental laws. Whereas if you would defend, you're doing the opposite. So this is a big question to ask. The other question to ask, which is important, is whether environmental law is a big practice area.
 
In the late seventies to the mid-nineties, and then all of a sudden, it started falling off the face of the earth, and the environmental law is also often controlled by the state of the, who's in, who's the president and who's not. So, democratic presidents will be all for environmental regulation.
They will create work, and Democrats and Republican legislatures will be against it. So, the environment is a risky practice area because some may need to work depending on the administration or laws getting overturned. And so if that's the case, you want to be very careful about what you do.
 
Do you know what you are? It's a practice area you're getting at. The practice area to choose. So, the environment is a risky one. Because there are some excellent firms, by the way, some excellent firms, but you have to worry about that. For environmental attorneys who are minority attorneys who have experienced microaggressions or subtle forms of discrimination in law firms, what steps should they take to address these issues before considering a career movement?
 
When is it appropriate to move on if these issues persist? Okay, so that's fine. This is a good question. It's also a landline, so I want to avoid getting in trouble by saying things that might be true but are offensive. But I've, if you're interested, I'm the first, the only person in the United States to write a book about diversity and American law firms.
 
So search about that. And it's on communications. It's on BCG, under Harrison Barnes. Just search, I just search on Google. You'll find it so that this is an important thing to look at. And the only reason would be there's so much to talk about regarding issues inside law firms.
 
You need to review this to approach it differently. So, there are a couple of things to understand. So, the first thing is law firms do need minority attorneys. They need them because the clients demand them. So, there are certain law firms. That is, but without the clients saying, if you don't have any diversity work, we're not going to hire all white labor and employment attorneys to fight discrimination suits, or we're not going to, we're not going to hire you if you have this, and so they lose work.
 
So there's an actual demand for minority attorneys more so than, and a lot of other practice areas. There is a demand for much more than you would think, but the problem is. Some people are older and think negatively of people from specific backgrounds, or people believe that the person may have gotten into a specific law school because of their law firm. Law schools are trying to get diversity, and it doesn't have to be black or could be the school seeking people from super rural areas.
 
I don't know, but it's just you don't know. So, I don't know, but that's the department's diversity. But the point is that you need to understand that. Now, something interesting that I've and don't particularly appreciate saying this, but I'm going to say it, and I don't want to be.
 
I was told I'm racist or something for this, but many times when people come from environments where there's no racism against them, meaning you may have grown up in an American city where there's no racism or market. You may, but a lot of times. You may come from another country like you might be from.
 
You might be directly black. You might be from Africa. If you're Indian, you might be from India. Any group you can think of. There's discrimination against them sometimes if they come from another environment, and I'm not American, but another environment. They don't see racism.
 
They approach things differently because there's no historical racism in the country. So you have sometimes to ask, is this microaggression real or is it not? And is it something that you can overcome? So I know people that sometimes if you've experienced something in the past, you may be looking for that.
 
I've experienced that this is just a psychological issue, but it's codependent. It's like where I get dependent on my meat or something. And because I have this thing that was probably caused by my relationship with my father and mother growing up, I look at my relationship in a codependent way because of all these things.
 
The way I was treated. So sometimes, if you come out of an environment where there is a lot of racism, you may see things that are racism that are not. So you don't know if it's microaggressions, you don't know what it is, but you need to be very careful about sometimes seeing things. In a certain way, people that come out of this is another example.
 
And again, I'm not trying to say that what you're experiencing isn't real, but it's essential to understand. So people come out of public interest and environments where they're. Helping people experiencing poverty and where they're very into those things, and they don't trust large corporations.
 
These people get jobs in major American law firms, but then they look at all these corporate clients as evil, and they do a terrible job, even though they're not committed to the work because they think they're representing the wrong people. That's a way of seeing things hurting those people and the same with far-right people. So my objective, like what I would try to do with all these microaggressions, is to see if they're really holding you back and if they are holding you back and you believe you won't have them in another law firm. Or then you need to go and leave.
 
So that's true if you believe they will hold you back and prevent you from advancing. And law firms, by the way, have a challenging time holding on to people that are just different things. It could be people who are gay. It could be people who are disabled.
 
It could be people that are a specific race. It could be people, all these different things. And you may feel that's holding you back. And if it is, then maybe it's time to leave. One of the most common things is I'm in this business group where we can't get women to join.
 
And we also can't get the people of different ethnic groups, we can't hold on to them. The group is in Los Angeles, and because there are many of these people, many are Persian-Iranian. Because they have successful businesses and a certain, there's just different things.
 
I think this is an excellent question. My advice would be to make sure the microaggressions are real. Understand if you're seeing things that someone in your situation might not see because if you're a hammer, all is a nail. So you just need to understand that, and then you should read this book about diversity in law firms because it shows you what microaggressions are, and then it shows you the law firms trying to struggle to hire people.
 
And a lot of other stuff. And again, I apologize to everyone that doesn't experience this and that I spent so much time on it, but it's a fundamental question because people will choose to make life choices based on this. If you move too many firms, it doesn't matter what your diversity level is.
 
If you move firms too much, law firms won't trust you, and they think you may need to do better work. And that's why you're moving. So this goes for all attorneys. I've recently taken on mentorship within my role, and I'm sure if it isn't sufficient to achieve meaningful advancement, I should consider it.
 
So mentors in law firms are often, and I'm not trying to be mean here, in law firms are often people, often attorneys without business, that this is mentors when it's like group mentors. So Business. And I would just say group mentor, meaning all junior attorneys or all summer associates.
 
So these people often need more business and a lot of work. That's just how it is. Because they, this is, they think is a better use of their time than I think it's a better use of their time giving these people work, giving these people that to do, as opposed to working with clients.
 
They say, you can babysit children, and we'll go out and do this stuff. So I'm not saying that's always the case, but if it is. You may be painted, being painted into that role. So this is an excellent question. This is an excellent question because this is how things work.
 
So if you're in that role, then you do want to be careful and make sure that you're the reason you're in that role is that you can advance out of that role. I would just say, prove. You are more of a mentor than a group mentor. I'm sorry to be harsh about that.
 
But that's just how it works. So just think about that. But yeah, I can if you want to move to another firm that is more conducive to growth. I remember one of the first; it was like my first year of recruiting. I would see someone who was a partner at a big firm, and I would say, wow, you're terrific.
 
I want to talk to you, and they might need some business because I still need to understand the business. And I remember a couple of these partners came in, and they said I'm a great mentor and a friend should, doing the social program and doing this, and even then, I knew that I needed more to advance someone.
 
I knew that they needed to be more than that. I'm just bringing that up to you because being a mentor is sometimes. A dead end and something that they give to people that aren't necessarily the people they think are going to make.
 
Okay. So, by the way, this next question I'm answering is with someone who's logged into Zoom and who's logged in with their name. And so if your name appears when answering questions, I won't display your name. I will type it out like this instead of just responding to questions.
 
So, for anyone worried about their name being displayed, I never display it because I know people want to be private. How come attorneys have a bad taste for those attorneys or law students who fight for people and their constitutional rights regardless? This is a good question, regardless of them being guilty.
 
I've seen attorneys and DAs know the law and that the law has been broken but continue prosecuting a convicted person wrongly. Why doesn't an attorney spend more time in school? Does the attorney not fight for a client?
 
Yes, I would say, how come a law firm? That's a good question. So law firm attorneys are law firm attorneys, more often than not, and not paid by people who are fighting. I'm unaware of this; who has violated others' constitutional rights?
 
As an attorney, You want to have money and have money. So if you're fighting for someone's constitutional rights now, this is not saying white collar criminal, but if you are fighting for someone's constitutional rights, then you're working for someone more often than not who doesn't have
 
criminal records. So that's how that works. So, law firms work for people who have money. So most of them. And so if you want to make a good salary, sorry.
 
So, if you're fighting for someone who doesn't have money, then all you're doing you're representing the wrong side. And if you're representing the wrong side, everything will be from the side of the attorney that doesn't have the person who doesn't have money.
 
And you may be what you do now D. A. S. And so forth are hired constitutional D. A. S. And so forth are hired as white cover criminal defenses, and they can switch sides. And become a prosecutor to a white-collar defendant, but the point is, most of the time, that's what you're interested in fighting for.
 
People that may have been wrong, I don't know, but then many times you're going to be working for people without money, and therefore you'll see the world that, and so law firms want to hire a particular type of people that are that way.
 
Okay, so this is just, this is just a procedural question, DAs. So if a DA believes that there's a plausible case, someone that robbed a store or did someone, and a lot, then the person has to take the side of the state, the county, or the country. They have to prosecute and won't prosecute if they think they will lose because they're evaluated based on their evaluation.
 
On their success rate, but they have to prosecute if they think they'll win. And if there's more of a chance I don't know what's wrong, and if there's more of a chance that they will win rather than lose.
 
Next question, and thank you to everyone who's asking this question. These are very helpful to everyone who's called. What advice do you have for attorneys who fear that their past mistakes, whether public or private, might resurface, negatively affecting their reputation in the legal community if they stay at their current firm?
 
Okay, so there are different types of mistakes. There's... Mistakes that may be reported in newspapers. Some mistakes may be private. It may be part of your criminal record or something or arrest. There are mistakes that you missed. There are mistakes you made with psychotic people with wrong people, and I'll talk about each of these: bad, angry people; there are mistakes that you made at a previous firm, the firm that you were fired for, and then there are mistakes that you made at your current firm, just work mistakes, which would You know bad law, sexual, political, sexual wrong statements.
 
Okay, so these are all the mistakes that you may have made. These are the mistakes that you may have made. If you made a mistake and it was recorded in the newspaper or some sort of publication, and it's showing up when people search for your name, then you have to get it off the first page of Google.
 
There are ways to do that. Essentially, you'd make a lot of social media accounts and media accounts, and then with those social media accounts. You ensure you build links to them from other sources, and they will start showing up. Maybe you do a blog, but you build links to those, and eventually, you post links in your Other social media accounts; you can do that.
 
And then, eventually, those news stories will go on the second page, and people probably won't find them. So you do that. You can do that, and that's why, or you can hire a reputation management firm to do that for you. So that's one way. And then the following way, criminal records, and arrests. In most criminal records, if it's a misdemeanor or something, you can just file a Request, file something, go to the judge, to a judge, and ask to have it deleted.
 
In most cases, most misdemeanors and not felonies, but most misdemeanors will be expunged, and you can explain you're an attorney and you made this mistake and whatever. And most times, the judge will delete it. So that could be a DUI, it could be an assault, I don't know, but it could be going way over the speed limit, so it's just, there are all sorts of things, so those would be erased.
 
Still, most of that stuff is never. Most law firms do not check your criminal record, and so forth; maybe the major ones do. Still, most of them are made sometimes. I've had this with me before; someone that's psychotic, maybe it's an ex, girlfriend, maybe it's someone's boyfriend, maybe it's an angry relative will call up the firm and say negative things about you and that you're all these awful things and most of the time that's happening with people.
 
I've had people where I had a guy in a foreign country who had an issue with one of my candidates and, or one of my recruiters. It was calling and threatening to blow up our building and all this stuff, but I didn't care. I didn't listen to whatever they were saying.
 
So most firms will not take it seriously, but sometimes they will. And so you have to be careful about that. You just have to be careful of who you associate with and people you if you were fired from a previous firm. You have to be careful about that. You have to, and if you were fired, meaning you did something wrong, and the firm did something terrible, the firm finds out about it.
 
I had a case where I placed someone who had been fired for doing something wrong that was bad. I am still determining exactly what it was from a firm in Wisconsin. They were patent prosecutors with outstanding qualifications. And they had not been working for a year after being fired.
 
And they started applying to other firms in that Wisconsin city. And they got a job, and they started the job. And one week later, someone from the previous firm called and talked to a partner or something. And so with the person done so because they saw that they had been fired as part of a press release or something.
 
If you do something terrible, depending on the firm, I think big firms will only say something in large markets. It's just the way people act in big firms. They don't talk negatively about people even when they leave. I've seen people fired from giant firms for doing incredible stuff, and the firms won't say anything because that's how it works.
 
But in smaller firms, they often don't have that ethic or way of thinking, and they will call up and talk to people and feel like they're getting back. For some reason, that happens a lot with patent attorneys. I don't know why. The patent attorneys tend to be unbelievably harsh with each other, which tends to be a small bar, whereas, in other practice areas, it doesn't happen.
 
I've had friends who were partners, and I would not be a candidate, but we would talk about other attorneys we knew and bad things that happened to them at that firm. These are people that I may have worked with. They never would say anything negative about someone who left.
 
They just don't do it. They. But the biggest firms don't do that. The most prestigious firms never do that because they don't want to talk. They don't want to have bad things happen. So they're very protective. It's a smaller firm that isn't part of the actual establishment.
 
New times will do that. So that's a good point. And it's something to think about. So if you're in a firm where you think that could happen, then sometimes you're most firms will not take this, most firms will not, and sometimes you have to be careful with that,
with smaller firms and smaller markets.
 
And then, if you do something at your current firm, make a work mistake, do something terrible with the law, do something sexual, or make a lousy statement, the most prominent firms often will not fire you because they don't want to get sued. So, large firms will often not fire you, and they have the money to keep you around.
 
So it's just easier for them. Do not fire you because if they do, they'll have to waste their attorney's time with depositions and all this crap so they won't fire you. Some of them will if it's awful, but if it's not that bad, like it's terrible, but not that bad, they won't fire you, but they'll stop giving you work. Then you'll sit around because they believe it's better to spend 250 000 on your salary for a year with you not working than it is for them to defend a lawsuit, so they're making a calculation so if that starts happening because of a mistake, then you know, Then, you need to start looking.
 
And so many times to figure that out, the law firms will ask you what you have your, how have your bill hours been when they're interviewing stuff. So it would be best to be careful about how you answer that. Okay. Okay, so this is another question.
 
The person says, How do I determine if there's generally insufficient work for me at my current firm and what steps? Do I need to take an address to find me if I find myself in that situation? If you're not, if there's not enough work for you at the firm, sometimes the slowdown could be temporary. Or it could be something that will last a long time.
 
What is a slowdown that will last a long time? Right now, there have been no IPOs in a long time. If you're a corporate securities attorney specializing in IPOs, you probably want to find someplace with work. Sometimes... The slowdown is because you're too seeming.
 
Sometimes, the slowdown is because it's a giant firm, and big clients must give them work. So one of the things I'll just tell you a quick story and then about this and how to address it, but during the last slowdown, which was like in. 2008, 2009, or something like that.
 
But there's been a slowdown since then, but that was the last significant slowdown. We had offices around the country. Most people working in the big markets, new big markets, big firms, sent everyone to big firms in the big markets, not just big firms, but smaller firms.
 
But I said, send everyone to the firms in the suburbs. Those firms will get more work because their billing rates are as high. So the more prominent clients are going to send them work. Another example would be law firms in California. So there's a big split between LA and the Bay Area. There are other areas.
There's Fresno, there's San Clemente, and so often the work will go; the firms in the smaller to midsize markets will be as busy as they ever are because the clients are sending them work into the more expensive firms. So many times, you can keep yourself employed by applying to those firms.
 
This is a piece of advice: if you're on this call and in that situation, it could save your career, and you'll be making money when others aren't. So this is what I would do. But if there needs to be more work. At your firm. It could be temporary, or it could be permanent. Meaning what happens is permanent, you will be like, you will be shown the door.
 
It doesn't make sense for law firms to keep you around if there's no work for you; it just needs to be more intelligent. So they'll let you go. So often, some prominent firms in the Bay area sometimes take their people who are in a specific practice area with no work, which is generally corporate.
 
And they will move them to separate floors or buildings and office parks and things where they're just everyone sitting there without any work, which is almost like being, I don't want to use the word in jail. So that's dangerous. So if you're in that way, you must look for firms.
 
But the most significant thing anybody can do is when there's a slowdown at your firm. You need to start looking for a position and do what other people aren't doing if you need to move to larger firms. There's, to a smaller firm, so there's something that large firms do during slowdowns, which is pretty brilliant, but it doesn't benefit you.
 
So I'll tell you this, and it's almost like off the record. It's not something I should be saying, but I won't mention firm names. So what they will do with corporate and all these other practice areas, whether they don't have any work, is they will start advertising that they have jobs in these areas.
 
So they'll say we're seeking corporate securities associates. When you know damn well, the firm doesn't have any corporate securities or worse, and when interest rates go up. There's typically a significant slide on real estate work. We're searching for real estate associates. So all they're doing essentially is they're building a database.
 
Of candidates that they can contact because they contacted them when the market speeds up. Brilliant. So you may be applying to big firms, and you know no one has any work, and those are not real jobs, and you're not going to get hired because no one has any work.
 
The only people that may have worked are firms in smaller markets that need to make more applications. The people are sending work because their billing rates are lower, and those attorneys are also maybe less specialized and can give you work, and there's a corporate generalist as opposed to just corporate M&A or something. M&A is doing fine right now, but it's essential to understand that.
 
You want to work on that. This is a good question. So that answers that question. This next question. Could you advise how attorneys can effectively communicate their desire for more? Better training during the job interview process without appearing overly critical to their current or potential employers.
 
Okay. So you'll often get the feeling that the firms will often tell you in the interview that they will give you better training. Sometimes, they'll even tell you, Hey, our associates. Typically, we'll get our associates who are getting work or are trained to generate business.
 
We show them how to do it where other firms wouldn't. Sometimes, they'll tell you those things. They'll usually talk about training; we'll talk about things. But if you're interviewing at a firm that laterally you probably don't wanna talk about training because then they're gonna talk about, or act like you don't have the training because then they're gonna be concerned that you don't have training.
 
In training, you talk about something other than training specifically. The more work you have, the more training you're going to get. So incredibly busy law firms often won't even give reviews because they feel there's no need to. They don't want to piss anyone off.
 
So training is just essential to talk about. But you, you want to ask only a few questions. Suppose you look at the roster of attorneys. And there are junior associates, mid-level associates, senior associates, and counsel. That means there will be people for you to go to to ask questions.
 
Where you're not going to get training, or where you can talk about not getting training sometimes, is if you're the only associate in the practice group, and there's only one other partner, or the partner is in a different office.
 
Then you can say, hey, I'd like to work more closely with different associates in my practice area because I'm the only associate there, or I'm the only associate in my office, or I'd like to work in an office that's not all remote because I'd like to interact with people personally, or I'd like to, work in an I'd to work with different people at different levels because I know that senior associates are going to see things differently.
 
So you can say those things, and that's helpful. But that's not criticizing your current firm. That's just going to help you with this other stuff. Okay, let's see. Here's this next one: how it changes the work arrangements. I'm supposed to train students to take law firm jobs, especially when they want to be closer.
 
Too significant. So generally, when you go into firms, if they say, are you remote, and you can ask them, you know how remote they are, and if they say we're not remote, and you say, that's great because I want to work in an office where everybody's there. I want more training. I want this. I want that.
 
There's an article about remote work arrangements on BCG, but that's important to talk about if you can do that. And then these. Thank you. I think remote jobs are challenging to advance in because you're not having, you're not forming personal relationships, people can't see your eyes when you talk, just all sorts of different things that are just.
 
In a related way, things that aren't necessarily going to help you. So it would be best to work in a firm where you can work directly with people. Sometimes, some firms will. Make people partners and things that only work 60 percent or 80 percent because they're raising kids, but that's rare.
 
Some excellent firms will do that, but those are often not equity partnership jobs. Those are other times. Okay. In the context of compensation, what role is unique. Physician play and how attorneys leverage their experience to write a compensation. So typically, the more specialized the attorney, the more money they make.
 
That's just how it works. So the attorney is the more money they make. That's just all there is to it. But one of the things I would say that's important is that that applies. This particular issue applies primarily to attorneys doing work on behalf of companies as opposed to individuals.
 
Now, only sometimes does that apply, so you might be like a traumatic brain injury personal injury attorney who would pay more for certain specialties within. Personal law attorneys can pay more, but generally, the more specialized you are, the more money you will make.
 
A couple more questions. Then, we'll wrap this up. Had a career before entire career, before law school. I've been a law clerk for two years, and we started my career as a lawyer. No, people do not care if you start at 40. 40 is young because you're only considered older once you get in your sixties in the law firms or maybe your late fifties.
 
So you don't have you don't have to bring it up. There are some law firms, like big law firms, where the retirement age is 59 and a half. And they're just serious about that, but people are living longer. Gosh, Trump is 78 years old. There's not a lot of discrimination against older people now because people know they can do the work.
 
Okay, so I think that's about it for the questions. I certainly apologize for this webinar going so late. I didn't. I was surprised to find out it went so late, but it was a lot of information to cover. These questions are all excellent. I hope this was helpful. And I do appreciate everyone spending this time with us.
 
What you learned today could be of tremendous help in your career, especially if you took notes. And sometimes, even if you don't when you're on these webinars, and you may lose tension now and then and come back, you're still absorbing the information. This is very smart to me on these.
 
I think Thank you. The more of these you attend and the more questions you ask, the better career you'll have. I am just not tooting my own horn, but there are not many people to talk about this stuff. I've been doing this for a long time, and I always hear back from people actively engaged with this type of content for me years later.
 
LinkedIn messages from them, emails, and things every few weeks. This stuff can help you regardless of the stage of your career; whether you're a law student, older attorney, or younger attorney, I can help. So I appreciate it being here. And I. Nope, I have one more question.
 
Okay. This other person asked what the job market was like for a new attorney. I'm a professional engineer who graduated when I was 55. So that's a good question. It takes a lot of work to get a job. But the people likely to hire you will be solo attorneys in your market or tiny law firms in your market because they can; it's harder for people to come to attract people.
 
And if you start there, you can do very well. So I would recommend that. I would also recommend it if you're a professional engineer and will do IP law. I would recommend taking the patent bar. That's what you're interested in. And then doing the same thing, trying to work for smaller firms.
 
This is how older people get jobs. You're not going to get them at large established firms because, frankly, they want people who are younger with more energy and the ability to stick around longer and make partners. All right. Thanks everyone for being on this webinar. I will, and I'll be back next week.
 
Hopefully, this will be shorter for you, but this is excellent information, and I appreciate everyone taking the time today. Thank you