Remote "Virtual" Attorney Work Creates Opportunities in the Market

According to a recent study, 57% of the AMLAW 200 law firms that were studied are now hiring fully-remote “virtual” attorneys from other geographic markets. Nearly 20% more firms were considering hiring virtual, remote attorneys in other markets.

While the sample size of the study is small (they only surveys 30 of the firms in the AMLAW 200,) the message is very powerful. Remote work is here, and geographic boundaries are far less important than they once were.

While compensation for these virtual, remote workers is far from consistent, there are some firms who are offering full salaries based on the firm’s location – not the candidate’s location. In Minneapolis, we are seeing attorneys work for New York firms and being paid New York rates (and getting New York-sized signing bonuses) while working here in Minnesota.

How this affects the market long-term remains to be seen. With a possible economic downturn on the horizon, we will see if this remote work is a house of cards or if it can withstand a little uncertainty.

At the very least, this recruiting from outside of the market has created a situation where opportunities are very fluid – both for attorney positions with firms in the area and for firms looking for “virtual” attorneys. If you want to be ready to capitalize on this fluidity, having a resume ready and talking to a recruiter makes a lot of sense!

JUNIOR ATTORNEYS: SET A GOAL AND CREATE A PATH FOR SUCCESS

Starting a career as a lawyer is complicated. First, having no real practical experience, it is difficult to know what area of law will appeal to you. This also does not take into account your long-term career opportunities, and if there are even positions available in that area at the present time.

A good starting point is to think about what you want to do long-term and the necessary steps to achieve that goal. Some junior attorneys are fortunate and are able to slide into a job (whether a law firm or in-house) and it just happens naturally through hard work with that one employer. For most, it requires multiple steps to get there. For example, if your desire is to work at a top law firm, but the opportunity did not exist for you upon graduation, it is important to plan what steps you should take to get there. In particular, start working at smaller firm and try to develop the experience that will be coveted for career advancement. The work itself is important, but also focus on business generation (start small but make the effort). It’s also important to understand that it may take several moves to ultimately get to where you want to be (i.e. small firm to medium firm to your desired large firm). The same is true of making the move in-house. Most need to build a base (typically doing transactional work) at a law firm before making the move to a company. Of course, this may also require moving up the chain with law firms in order to maximize in-house opportunities.

Career planning can seem a bit overwhelming when you’re just starting out as a lawyer, but it can really make the difference in achieving your goals. Unfortunately, in the practice of law it can be very difficult to make a detour if you are going down the wrong path, so it’s best to plan ahead and think strategically about your career progression.

Make Sure Your Resume Provides Enough Detail

We see a lot of resumes. The vast majority look like your typical resume: job history, education, bar admissions and maybe a section on interests and activities. Oftentimes, this is all condensed to fit on one page – the way we were taught in college. While the format is generally okay, the biggest problem with most resumes is a lack of detail. Some people intentionally hold back, thinking they will provide more detail in the interview. The problem with this strategy is you may never get to the interview without demonstrating enough pertinent experience in the resume.

The key when drafting your resume is to view this as means to “market” yourself – not just a reverse chronological list of job history. It is rare that we tell someone that they have too much information so long as it conveyed correctly (meaning clearly and concisely). There are two ways to accomplish this: with a detailed resume or with a general resume supplemented with a detailed practice addendum. The addendum is often broken down by skills (securities, M&A, commercial agreement, etc.) with short/bullet point examples listed underneath.

The benefit of using an addendum is that you can shift the order of skills dependent upon the job to highlight the pertinent areas and just use the same general resume. Otherwise, you want different versions of your resume if providing all the detail in just that document. Whatever method you use, just make sure you are providing enough detail to fully demonstrate why you are the right candidate for the position.

Legal Market Update

It seems like we have the worst of COVID behind us (fingers crossed), but there is still an air of uncertainty in the market. Some of it stems from return-to-work decisions faced by law firms and companies, but this is also true of non-legal businesses. It seems like the larger firms and companies are going to a hybrid model where people can work from home or the office, although some require at least a few days in the office. Feedback that we have received from attorneys has varied as well. Most would prefer the option to work from home, but also like to know they have an office when desired.

The market for attorneys has remained robust but has shifted to new practices areas. Last year was all about the M&A associate. Firms from this market and others were targeting M&A associates like never before. The demand led to significant pay raises and often increased billable hours requirements. Although interest remains for M&A, it’s at a slightly more senior level. The real push has been for commercial real estate and finance attorneys. While demand is up in these two practice areas, the supply is really limited in this market, which has made it extremely competitive.

Because increased compensation in the law firm market, companies are struggling to compete for attorneys who might consider a move in-house. Historically, private practice attorneys do not expect big financial gains when making the move in-house but would prefer not to take a step back either. Companies now must bridge the gap, which might add another $25-50K to what they were paying a few years ago. Needless the say, it’s been a bitter pill to swallow for companies, but they really have no choice if they want to continue to attract top talent.

Is It Time To End The Stigma Of “Resume Gaps” In The Legal Profession?

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a pandemic and a lot of turbulence in the legal market. Some sectors (I’m looking at you, M&A attorneys) saw a boom. Other sectors (most litigation practices) slowed down. Sadly, many attorneys lost their jobs or chose to stay home for personal reasons.

A question we often get is how to deal with gaps on the resume. It’s been a difficult thing to discuss. Perhaps it’s about to get a bit easier.

LinkedIn, the business social network, just released a feature that will allow people to add a “career break” to their LinkedIn profiles. It will give users a chance to write a blurb about what the circumstances were around the break. You can state that you were focusing on your family, travelling, etc.

While this clearly won’t break the stigma around having gaps in your resume, it will allow for your online resume (because that’s truly what LinkedIn is) to provide some context for gaps. Additionally, just the name “career break” is subtle signaling that it should be more tolerated to take a break. It’s not a gap, but a break…. a pause….a chance to catch your breath.

LinkedIn conducted a survey and found that women have more career breaks than men. This isn’t surprising as many women are forced to take breaks to start a family. According to LinkedIn, 64% of women have taken a career break and 70% of those women who took breaks say that the break helped them gain perspective on their career and figure out how they wanted to move forward in their career.

That number is staggering. A full 70% of those who took breaks said it was positive for them and their career. Maybe it’s time that we dropped the stigma of taking a break?

We are under no delusion that the larger firms will be anything but very slow adopters to change on those that take a career break. But maybe this small change will usher in an age where lawyers can actually take a breather from their career and not have it be frowned upon.

One can hope.

Until then, you should still tread lightly on having gaps in your resume.

HOW TO: To add a career break to your LinkedIn profile, click on the “add section” option located under your profile picture followed by “add career break.” From there, you can add the type of career break that makes sense for you and draft a description like you would add any other jobs.

Utilizing Your Network

You may not realize it, but you have a network. This could be colleagues, friends, former law school classmates, etc. Whether you choose to utilize that network is up to you.

As recruiters, we engage our network in sharing information about the changing legal market, job opportunities and other information that is pertinent to the legal profession. Much information and insight can also be gained through members of your network, so it might be a good time to consider who is in your network and how to get the most of out it.

For example, finding the right job opportunity can be greatly enhanced through your network. Recruiters often mention jobs to people within their network to generate interest not only from those individuals, but also people within their own networks. Considering many job opportunities never make the want ads or are essentially filled when they do, it is important to stay on top of what is happening in the market. Likewise, people in your network may be your best resource in promoting you as a candidate for a particular job or opportunities in general.

Now is a perfect time to take stock of your network and determine if you are truly taking advantage of its potential. It does not take much time or effort to cultivate your network – especially considering how much you could gain from it.

2022

So here we are at the beginning of 2022 and it looks a lot like 2021. The legal job market is still, how can I put this nicely, intense. Here are a few thoughts on the current legal job market:

• Compensation moves in 2021 seem to have had little effect on bonuses, which seem to have been strong at many firms.

• COVID’s latest wave is playing havoc with many firms’ return-to-office plans. Attorneys who are doing the best have found a way to make working from home productive.

• Attorneys with books of business, even modest books, are getting more interest from firms. From what we’ve seen, clients are not pushing back on attorneys when they make a move. It seems that both attorneys and clients are open to change in this tumultuous time.

• The need for transactional attorneys (especially M&A and commercial real estate lawyers) is still incredibly strong, but we are bullish on the market for litigation this year as the courts work to get back to some sense of normalcy and backlogged files start to work through the system.

All of this is adding up to a big year for attorneys to change employers. If you have ever thought about a change, now is a good time to explore the market. Sand Search offers confidential consultations on the legal job market. Feel free to give us a call without any pressure to make a move!

Take Advantage of an Incredibly Hot Job Market

This time of year often calls for personal and professional reflection. It is a good time to show thanks and acknowledge your achievements over the past year. It is also good time to re-evaluate your employment situation – especially since the legal job market could not be hotter!

Loyalty is certainly an admirable trait, but if you are not willing to at least consider other jobs, you might be missing a real chance for career or financial advancement. COVID has clearly brought considerable change, most not so good, so it’s even more important to focus on the positives - including a robust market for job seekers. Not only is there current demand, but there is always an increase in job opportunities because people are on the move in the first quarter of the year.

Of course, the grass is not always greener elsewhere, but you will never know unless you are willing explore other options from time to time. Do yourself a favor and at least explore your options because there has not been better time to test the waters.

Is There Too Much Credibility Placed on Reference Checks?

References are a lot like your mother – they aren’t going to say anything bad about you. As a result, it’s my contention that there is far too much weight that is put on reference checks. In my twenty-plus years as a recruiter, I’ve only heard a few references actually say something questionable about a candidate and only twice heard something downright awful.

THE GOOD REFERENCE

Nearly every time I’ve checked references for a candidate, they come back glowing. And why shouldn’t they? There is simply no excuse for a candidate not to call the reference ahead of time to let them know that I’m calling and find out EXACTLY what they are going to say to me. I assume that an attorney has already done this, and if I was going to hear anything negative, then they would have given me another reference to call instead.

Even when someone wants to give a sub-par reference, they don’t do it out of fear of not knowing what to say and what repercussions it may have. Also, people generally want to help others get a job, so if the person is not well-liked, they may get a good reference from a former coworker (“hey, they’re gone, maybe they weren’t so bad”) or a current coworker (“hey, this will get him/her out of here”). This leads to a false positive – a satisfactory reference that isn’t warranted. As a recruiter, we try to read between the lines and glean the reference’s true feelings on the candidate, but this is sometimes hard to do.

THE BAD REFERENCE

As I said, if you are sending the name of the reference and you don’t know what they are going to say, you deserve a bad reference. You owe the reference the courtesy of a call before your references are checked and you should know with certainty what they are going to say about you. In the few times I’ve checked references and they have been mediocre, I assume the worst. There have been only two times in 21+ years of checking references that I’ve received an outright awful reference. To be fair, I suspected that it was coming, too. The poor reference confirmed what I suspected.

THE NON REFERENCE

The non-reference is the worst kind of reference. It’s the “I’m only allowed to confirm employment dates” reference. It’s hard to ascertain if that’s truly the case with companies/firms that purport to only confirm dates of employment. If you suspect that your firm/company will only confirm the dates of your employment, you need to find a partner/co-worker who will speak about you on the record. You can assume that an employer will take “no comment” exactly the same way as newspaper reporters take it – that there is a story behind the statement.

In short, it’s assumed that references will come back glowing. If employers really wanted to know about a candidate, they would ask to speak to someone of THEIR choosing, not someone that the attorney candidate proffers. Until this practice changes, however, it behooves you to make sure that your potential references know that they may be called and know exactly what they will say if their called!

Don’t Burn Bridges While Resigning

Resigning from a job is awkward at best and can get downright ugly in some instances. Whether you are leaving for money, career advancement or personality differences - offering a polite, professional resignation is always the best course of action.

You have gone through the long process of applying for jobs, interviewing, perhaps facing rejection multiple times along the way, and finally have landed that coveted job. Now you are faced with the inevitable task of telling your current employer that you are leaving. There is no “right” way to give notice because it will often depend on the circumstances. If you have a close, personal relationship with your boss, then an in-person meeting is probably the best way to break the news. In such a situation, it is also advisable to provide a written resignation letter for your employment file. If you have a poor relationship with your boss and cannot stomach the idea of confronting that person directly, then simply providing a letter of resignation (whether in person or via an email attachment) is probably the best route to avoid any heated personal encounters.

Even in situations where animosity is almost unavoidable (taking business from your firm to a competitor), you should act with civility and professionalism. If your employer accuses you of being a cheat, traitor, etc. – just do what you came to do and make a quick exit. Not only will it help down the road if you encounter that person (most legal markets are surprisingly small), but it also can work to your advantage if you still need something from your former employer, including client files or personal items.

Just remember, you may get some brief satisfaction by unloading on your boss as you resign, but in the long run burning those bridges may come back to haunt you.

The Risk of Modifiers

Legal resumes aren’t long documents, so you have to use adjectives and other modifiers to signal to the reader the depth of your experience. You can’t list all of your litigation experience on the document (that would be a curriculum vitae). Instead, you summarize, qualify and categorize your experience so the reader can digest it.

You might say that you have “extensive litigation experience including pretrial and motion experience.” That’s a great way to summarize your experience, but it also is an easy trap where you can overplay your experience. “Extensive” is subjective. You want to use adjectives that lead the reader to the proper conclusion. If you have done some pretrial work, say your experience is that you attended a few hearings and reviewed some files, clearly you shouldn’t call that extensive experience.

The line where something goes from exposure to an area, to having experience to having extensive experience is fuzzy. It’s subjective. But think about the reader. Your credibility will be shot if they start probing your experience and realize that your extensive experience is really cursory experience. You’re sunk. Don’t fall into that trap.

The corollary is also true. If you have strong experience in an area and you just say that you have “experience with the full-spectrum litigation process” without elaborating, you are truly selling yourself short.

Spend the time and pay special attention to the words in your legal resume and how they might be interpreted by the reader. Go through your resume and analyze each of the entries to make sure you are appropriately characterizing your experience.

Recognizing When to Be Opportunistic in Your Career

Timing is one of the key elements of a job search. Generally speaking, an economic downturn is not a great time to look for a new job. However, there are some practice areas that may be in greater demand due to the situation. For example, during the height of the COVID pandemic, while many attorneys could not find enough billable hours, trust & estate and bankruptcy attorneys had a seemingly endless supply of work. Law firms were actively seeking attorneys in those practice areas and there were simply not enough to go around. Likewise, in this “post-COVID” environment, corporate attorneys are in huge demand. Law firms are bumping compensation, paying signing bonuses and offering the ability to work remotely to entice corporate attorneys to join their firm. It is important to understand that these periods of heightened demand are temporary and may not return for a long time.

The first step is to recognize when the opportunity exists. A sustained increase in work demands/hours is likely a sign, or it might be something more obvious like an uptick in recruiter calls. After recognizing that the timing is right, the next step is to seize the opportunity. Even if you are generally content in your current position, it’s a perfect time to explore opportunities in the market. You may discover that you are underpaid based on current market rates or that avenues exist to advance your career that were not previously open – and may not be around for much longer.

When Can Non-Job Items Fall Off The Resume?

Resumes are not repositories for ALL of your honors and activities. They are curated collections that tell a story. I think of them a lot like my kids’ art. In the beginning, I saved it all. It was cute. My fridge was covered in paint smears and popsicle stick creations. But as time goes on, there literally isn’t enough space in our house for all the art that my kids produce. I need to curate it somehow and just save the ones that mean the most to me.

Some resume information is similar to the art. While we are of the opinion that old jobs should probably be represented on the resume in some way, we have a looser policy on non-job items.

What are non-job items on the resume? Glad you asked. Honors that you had while in school, scholarship information, peripheral honors earned in practice (or outside of the law), activities, publications and other material that HELPS tell your story, but might need to be dropped in the interest of brevity and then resurrected as anecdotes or stories in an interview (if needed).

Let’s say for example that you graduated with high honors from law school with a magna cum laude designation (remember, Latin honors are always written in italics). Further, you graduated from law school over 20 years ago. In that case, you might be able to drop some of the activities you did in law school, the scholarships you received, maybe even the journal you worked on (although Law Reviews are the last thing I would choose to drop – they are still powerful indicators of someone who excelled in school). The magna cum laude note shows that you are really smart.

If you are really crunched for space, the first place I might look to cut is in your activities section. Remember that those are there to show that you are well-rounded and involved in your community. They are also there as a crutch for an interviewer who may need a place to start to get the conversation going (“oh, I see you’ve run 15 marathons, which one is your favorite?”).

Also, you can remove a fair amount of bullet points from old positions when it is duplicative with your current or subsequent positions. Just keep 2 or 3 bullet points that shows what you did and explain the general level in which you did it. For example, if you worked at a top firm for 3 years doing complex litigation, stating that you were a litigation associate at an AMLAW 50 firm focusing on complex IP litigation is probably sufficient. If you had more space, you could talk more about the specific work you did (did you handle discovery, argue motions, take depositions, first- or second-chair trials, etc.).

Just make sure that anything you remove from your resume that tells a story about you has a similar item somewhere else on your resume that tells that story. If you remove the scholarship you received, make sure that somewhere else on your resume is an entry that demonstrates that you are smart (obviously it’s there). If you remove that you are involved in your community, make sure you have something that demonstrates that you generate business, for example (because that’s why many firms want you to be involved in activities outside of the firm).

In the end, a little curating should leave your resume reading a little tighter and make it easier on the reader to distill your experience and determine whether you are a good fit. And unlike my kids' art, no one will question what happened to the entry when they look at the fridge and can no longer see their masterpiece!

Interviewing is a Two-Way Street

A common flaw in the interview process is focusing primarily on what you want, which applies to both the interviewer and the interviewee. Intuitively, you would expect the person interviewing for a job approach to “sell” the potential employer on why they should be hired, but the conversation can often center more on ‘what can they do for me.’ Likewise, it is more common for an employer to focus almost entirely on whether this candidate is the right person for the position. Either way, you may miss an opportunity because you don’t address what’s important to the other side.

A critical component to a successful interview is to do your homework on the what the other party desires before-hand, if possible. This is undoubtedly easier for the interviewee if there is a job description, but both sides can and should explore what the other side desires in the interview and try to address those areas. For an interviewer, this may be simply asking why the person is interested in the opportunity and then specifically address the components of the job that would appeal to the interviewee. For the interviewee, there may be a template for the job in the form of a position description, but undoubtedly there are some areas that may matter more, and it often does not cover more subjective topics like working relationships, management style, etc.

Although a tight labor or job market may make it more critical to understand the needs and desires of the other side of an interview, it really shouldn’t matter when both sides want to find the best possible fit. Spending adequate time addressing what is important to the other side can land the desired candidate or the perfect job.

The Changing Dynamics of the Workplace

For the past year, a significant portion of the legal field has been working from home. The vast majority of people we’ve heard from have adapted fairly well to the home office. Sure, there are distractions and a lack of comradery that typically comes with in-person interactions, but there are some positives including decreased costs and eliminating time spent commuting to the office.

Now that vaccines are more readily available, most businesses and law firms expect to welcome employees back to the office within the next few months. What remains to be seen is whether employers will allow their workers to continue to work from home in either full- or part-time capacities and if employees will be required to be vaccinated. I suspect most firms and companies are waiting to see what others do before determining if they can/should require people to be vaccinated, knowing the potential for litigation on such a surprisingly controversial subject.

We are also starting to see some law firms with no physical presence in the Twin Cities offering attorneys the ability to work remotely now that they know it’s possible. Thus far, it’s been mostly in practice areas that are challenging to find candidates such as corporate and commercial real estate, but it will be interested to see if this lasts or even potentially expands to be more commonplace. Either way, the lasting effects of COVID has the potential of really changing the way people practice law.

What’s In A Name?

Pivoting to cover letter language for today, in the past couple of weeks I received cover letters addressed to “sir or madam” and another addressed to “to whom it may concern.” We’ll get to the use of those phrases in a moment, but keep in mind that my emails (where I received the letters) are CRAIG@sandsearch.com and CRAIG@legalresumereview.com (emphasis added).

Presumably if they typed my email address into the correspondence, they could have deduced my first name. If they wanted to be particularly formal, they could have gone to either website and found my last name to use “Mr. Sandok.”

Instead of impressing me with what was in the letters, I was left with the impression that they were either trying to be overly formal or they were just plain sloppy. Neither is ideal for the author.

Going back to the language at hand, I understand that these are relics of an older age when you couldn’t deduce the right person to send a resume to at a company. Those days are gone. “Sir/madam,” “to whom it may concern” and “Dear hiring manager” are all outdated.

Find a real human being on LinkedIn and use their name. Scour the job posting for clues about who might be the correct recipient. If it’s a law firm, find the Managing Partner or Director of Attorney Recruiting on their website. If it is a company, search to see who works in the human resources department. Even if you are wrong about them being the correct point of contact, you still have personalized the submission and made an attempt.

In my book, an attempt to personalize the correspondence is better than using outdated, generic terms. I think others note the effort, too. It’s like the baseball analogy – it’s better to go down swinging than being called out on strikes.

Don’t Sacrifice Practice Building for Immediate Compensation

A high starting salary or immediate pay raise is often one of, if not the, determining factor for associates in choosing a law firm job. While it clearly should be a factor, focusing solely on short-term gain can be a detriment to long-term gain, career advancement, and job security.

If you are focusing solely on a large paycheck, you should also anticipate increased billable hour expectations. There is nothing wrong with working hard and being paid well for such work but failing to recognize the need to spend time marketing and otherwise cultivating “your practice” can have consequences. Also keep in mind that while working for a top-dollar, large firm can open some doors and otherwise looks good your resume, it can also inhibit your ability to attract clients due to higher bill rates and client conflicts.

There has never been a greater premium on generating business, and you can be sure the first people out the door in trying times are those who can’t keep themselves busy. Not only will an attorney with their own portable business have immediate job security, but they will also be considerably more marketable for other opportunities. Also keep in mind that as a general rule, those who generate the most – earn the most.

Ready….FIRE!….Aim.

Wow – that looks like a good opportunity….I’ll send my resume there. And there. And there. Oooh, and there, too.

What is happening above is potentially a bad strategy. Sending resumes out without giving thought about the opportunity can be a roadmap for failure. Too often we hear of attorneys who will blindly send their resume out to a list of firms without think about the potential fit and the possible consequences. It’s best to not only be aware of WHERE you send your resume, but WHY you are sending it.

What that means is that before you send out a resume – and I mean each and every time – take some time to think about the firm you are contacting. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Who are their clients? What is their reputation? How would you fit in? What can I contribute to their firm that they couldn’t get from another candidate? Now take this information and make the case as to why you are a good fit for the firm. If you can’t convince yourself (or your spouse…or your mom) then you aren’t going to convince the firm. And let’s face it – not everyone is right for every job.

How can you tell if you might fit in with a firm? Do your homework. Read the local legal blogs and trade publications, work with a legal recruiter, talk to your friends, read the firm’s NALP form, look at the firm’s website or see how they present themselves on social media. These are great resources that can help you decide whether you would be a fit.

If you graduated at the bottom of your class and your experience isn’t on point, don’t waste your time sending in a resume to an AmLaw 100 firm that requires a top-of-the-class academic pedigree and spot-on experience. They aren’t going to change their standards just for you. On the other hand, if you are on the cusp with your experience and you can make a strong case about how you would slot into their firm culture/clients/etc. and that your experience or contacts would add to their practice then you should pursue that opportunity.

Choose your battles wisely, though. Another reason that blanketing a market with your resume could be a bad strategy is that you might be shooting yourself in the foot for future positions. Every rejection letter ever written by a law firm has the obligatory phrase “we will keep your resume on file for future opportunities….” While I think that might be true at some firms, it’s baloney at a great majority of the firms. If you are rejected for a position that you weren’t qualified for, you are now in their system as a candidate who was reviewed and rejected. You just made it very easy to overlook your resume if you send in your resume again in 6 months for a position that you are PREFECT for.

So remember to aim before you shoot. I’m sure you will hit your target with greater frequency.

There is Land in Sight

It’s been over nine months that we have lived in sea of COVID craziness that has not only affected our health and safety, but our day-to-day work lives as well. In particular, most of us have worked from home and many have suffered financial consequences from austerity measures by their employer or even layoffs. From a recruiting perspective, the job market has largely been stagnant as could be expected with a worldwide pandemic, except for a few exceptions such as corporate and estate planning. With the promise of a new vaccine(s) getting FDA approval, we can now finally see land on the horizon, but it’s still going to be a while for most of us before we make it. That being said, the hope is that the pending distribution of the vaccine boosts confidence in the market while we wait for mass vaccination. Continuing with this analogy, it seems that the most challenging part is still ahead of us though with an increase in COVID cases and deaths akin to crossing the breaking waves before touching land. Let’s stay positive and take the necessary precautions so we can hit the ground running when we do touch land.