ABA Career Counsel

ABA Journal Articles
Archives

FIRED....

It Hurts to Lose Your Job, but Developing a Clear Job Search Strategy Will Help Ease the Pain

BY MARTHA NEIL

The phone rings. your review will be conducted in five minutes by the head of the associate evaluation committee and the chair of your practice group-in your office.

Uh-oh, you think. I don't remember my evaluation last year being done this way.

That's exactly how it happened to one associate who was let go by a major East Coast law firm. And he admits that the experience left him shaken. The attorney says he feels "sideswiped" by the whole experience, and nearly a year later he's still not sure he'll ever want to practice in a big firm again. Instead, he is attending a graduate program in the arts, hoping it will lead to a legal career that makes use of his intellectual property experience.

"I've thought off and on of returning to work at a law firm," he says. But he hesitates to do so "for fear that I would spend the first six months looking over my shoulder," worried about getting fired again.

He's not alone in his distress. In the midst of the worst recession experienced by the legal profession in at least a decade, more and more attorneys are out looking for work after losing their jobs or while worrying about the possibility.

"It's definitely a market where we see people losing their jobs, and we see firms disappearing without fanfare," says Kathy M. Morris, director of the ABA's Career Resource Center in Chicago. "And, of course, that sets people to thinking they could be next."

A POSITIVE SPIN

While finding a new position isn't easy these days, career experts say lawyers looking for work should try to view the search as an opportunity. With the right approach, they say, it's possible to land a more satisfying-and sometimes even more lucrative-position.

Carol M. Kanarek, an attorney who works full-time as a career counselor and coach in New York City, urges legal job seekers to be optimistic, at least about their long-term prospects, even though she says the job market is worse now than it was during the recession of the early 1990s. "This is, by and large, just an economic blip," says Kanarek. "It is not an indictment of their abilities or their potential."

That may be so, but it's hardly reassuring to the lawyer who can't wait for an economic upturn to look for work.

"I wouldn't wish it on anybody," says Michael P. Maslanka, who practiced employment law for 20 years at a Dallas law firm until it folded in 2001. Feeling the pressure to find another job as the firm was dissolving was very tough, says Maslanka, even though his search ended fairly quickly. After three or four months he joined Godwin, Gruber, where he now chairs the labor and employment section.

Most crucial to his own job search, says Maslanka, was an extensive network of contacts and friends who provided emotional as well as professional support.

"I was able to get interviews; people returned my calls," says Maslanka. "It really did help me get through a very tough time in my life. I really can't emphasize that enough. The people in my network were very supportive of me when my firm went under.

"It would've been much more difficult for me without the support of a lot of people."

Other lawyers looking for work, however, paint a bleaker picture of the current job market.

A lawyer from the West Coast, where legal business was hit hard by the collapse of many dot-com companies, sees a similarly challenging job market.

"The reality is, there just aren't that many transactional openings out there right now, and there are a lot of people who look just like me out on the street," says the lawyer. He says the economic slowdown was a factor when he was let go as an associate at one firm, and he lost a job at another firm when the partners split up.

At this point, "I'd really take anything, just about, to make ends meet for a little while," says the lawyer, who is considering moving elsewhere with his wife and family to find legal employment.

This lawyer says he has come to appreciate the job security of having one's own clients, even as an associate. "I know that I'll be more focused on client development now than I was before," he says, "because I don't want to be in this position again."

He says he also plans to be more careful to learn about the political environment at prospective new firms. "When I'm interviewing, I'm paying a lot of attention to, and I'm asking questions about, the firm personality, how people get along," he says. "I'm especially interested in how the associates perceive the partners' relationships with one another."

In the ultimate job move, some attorneys are contemplating new careers outside the law.

"The way I see it now," says another young transactional lawyer who lost his job, "the chances of me practicing law again without moving-which I'm not going to do because my wife has a good job-are very slim. I'm taking the CPA exam. I've had more success talking to accounting firms than I've had talking to law firms."

One of the most important factors in how a job search ends is how it begins, career experts say. The best thing to do is think first, then act.

Morris urges job seekers to "get their attitude right and get some information. And don't assume the best or the only thing for them is exactly what they've been doing-especially if they have not liked it. What they need to do is see the problem as the opportunity to make a good next choice" in line with long-term career goals.

While developing a plan for your job search is critical, so is being flexible, says Bonnie Feinberg, acting director of legal career services at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.

"It's good to have a general plan, to have an outlook, to strategize and map out where you want to go and how you want to get there," says Feinberg. But at the same time, "Let there be some give in the plan. If you're so dogmatic that you only see the one path, you're going to be in trouble."

Sometimes, that flexibility has to be over the short term, says Feinberg. "People obviously have to be flexible, to the extent that they can, to make ends meet," she says. "It may not be the dream job, but you have to secure something and do what you can to ride this out."

Feinberg says it is important to identify abilities, such as legal research and writing skills, that can be transferred from one legal area to another. Otherwise, she says, focusing a job search too narrowly in a practice area for which law firms aren't hiring may doom a job seeker to defeat.

Kanarek also emphasizes flexibility. For instance, she says, "Being geographically flexible can be a career saver during difficult times."

Linda Vernon Goldberg was an associate at Chicago's venerable Keck, Mahin & Cate when she began planning her departure as the firm slipped toward its eventual dissolution in 1997.

First, recalls Goldberg, "I pulled out What Color Is Your Parachute? and a couple of other books on 'What do you want to do when you grow up?' " She made lists of the best and worst things about the work she was doing at the time, "and then just thought about a financial profile-'What do I really need to get by?'-and a lifestyle profile -'Do I want to work as many hours?' "

For Goldberg, the strategy worked splendidly. She left Keck, Mahin in its waning days and went directly into a new job.

"I often tell people I'm one of the biggest beneficiaries of Keck's downfall," says Goldberg, who took an in-house position at Shorebank Corp. in Chicago and has worked there since. "Five years I've been here, and I've been really, really happy," she says.

THE TEMPTATION TO SUE

Lawyers aren't immune from the temptation to respond to a job loss by contemplating a lawsuit alleging some form of wrongful or discriminatory discharge against their former employers.

But career experts and employment practitioners caution newly discharged lawyers to consider legal action carefully because it can have ramifications for job searches, even if the legal grounds for claims are well-founded.

Don't burn bridges, says employment lawyer Maslanka. "There's a tendency," he says, "to want to say, 'Oh, you're going to lay me off? Fine. Now let me tell you all the reasons why I hate you.' That's not productive."

Deciding whether the benefits of suing outweigh the drawbacks is a very individual, fact-specific decision, says Richard N. Grey, an employment lawyer in Encino, Calif. And even employment practitioners tend to be too emotional about their own cases to evaluate them objectively and assess potential damages accurately, he says. So it's a good idea to consult outside counsel as early as possible to get objective advice about the case.

In the meantime, says Grey, "You want to be just very cool and maintain your professionalism" with the firm you're leaving.

Unfortunately, word of a lawsuit gets out among other firms the attorney may soon be contacting on a job search, says Helen Norton, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore who co-chairs the Committee on Equal Opportunity and the Profession in the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law. And even though it's illegal for a prospective employer to refuse to consider an applicant because he or she filed a discrimination suit against a prior employer, "It does happen," she says.

Moreover, committing energy, time and resources to pursuing a legal action can detract from job search efforts, say experts.

Perhaps a more productive course, they say, would be to seek a favorable severance arrangement with the former employer. This might help to buy time and provide some support for the new job search. Unless a law firm is dissolving, it may allow a departing attorney to maintain a presence at his or her office for a period of up to several months while seeking new employment.

The lawyer may also be able to negotiate for the right to use the office for a much longer period, as well as for such things as favorable references and extended health insurance coverage.

Maslanka says this "effective severance" can be even more important during the job search than money, since it's generally easier to find work while still employed.

Sometimes, however, an aggressive bargaining approach pays off financially, as well. One former associate at a major firm says he parlayed the possibility of a racial discrimination suit into a severance payment of more than $50,000. He even insisted on having signed copies of his reference letters in hand before executing a release to the firm. The severance payment is helping him pay for graduate school.

STAY TUNED TO A NETWORK

Whether they are just out of school, changing firms or seeking totally new directions in other fields, lawyers embarking on job searches must be prepared to use all the tools at their disposal, experts say.

Experience is, of course, precious, say lawyers who have been in the job market recently. Rainmaking ability, at least for lawyers seeking to join new law firms, also helps candidates stand out amid the competition.

"If you lose your job in a tough market, you really have to rethink what you're going to do," says an attorney who relocated away from the East Coast and joined a small firm after losing jobs at two different large firms. "Because if you don't have any clients, and you're in private practice, having clients is the name of the game. Then the question becomes: Can you get clients and keep clients? Not everybody has the ability to develop clients, but fortunately, I do."

But it is networking more than anything else that may hold the key to a successful job hunt. Career experts say lawyers looking for a new job should network as much as possible, even with contacts who might initially seem to be unlikely sources of help.

"Speak to everyone you know, including your hairstylist and the woman who cuts your nails, the guy who mows your lawn," advises Golden Gate University's Feinberg, since you never know who they may know. "You don't have to ask anyone directly for a job, but it's really imperative that you ... spread the word that you're looking for a job."

The ABA's Morris says job seekers shouldn't hesitate to contact people they haven't kept in touch with. "We're all guilty of falling away from those good intentions of keeping up," she says, "and yet there's a professional willingness to help." A good question to ask yourself in such cases, says Morris, is whether you would want the other person to call you if the shoe was on the other foot. If so, pick up the phone.

Jeanne M. Gills of Chicago, a partner on the hiring committee of Foley & Lardner, says she was amazed when a friend and law school classmate didn't tell her for six months that he had lost his job in California. Meanwhile, a position was open at her firm that would have been suitable for him, she recounts.

"But by the time he talked to me the timing was off," says Gills. "Had he promptly contacted me, he could have had a job with our firm, and I think he would have been happy with that job."

Friends and colleagues also can be an important source of that precious commodity called perspective.

Gills cites another friend who was hesitating over an offer to move from one in-house counsel position to another out of concern that his new salary, while more than he was making in the old job, would be low in comparison to some corporate in-house lawyers with his experience. " 'This is still, for you, at this level, a move up,' " she recalls telling the colleague. " 'It's not to say that it's the pinnacle. You will always move up. But sometimes it takes a job to get an even better job.' "

Yet another friend "had become so depressed with the prospect of the job search that it was coming through as he was looking," says Gills. So she decided to conduct a private mock job interview with him, asking the same kinds of questions that she would normally ask an actual applicant at her own firm. Then they discussed what he would do differently in the future when he went on job interviews. Shortly afterward, she says, he found work.

For those who lack experience and an established network of professional contacts, there are ways to compensate for a thin resumé and an empty phone list. Volunteer work and temporary positions, for instance, can offer a young attorney the chance to gain experience and develop skills in a particular practice area while making contact with other practitioners.

CLASSMATE CONNECTION

Another avenue for job seekers is contacting fellow alums from their law schools and colleges, as well as joining local bar associations and participating in committees and other activities in areas of interest to them.

"Many of the law schools now have people who are oriented to helping junior-level alums who have been laid off," says Kanarek. "And even if they don't provide counseling, get an up-to-date alumni directory and use that to begin a networking process."

Kanarek says it is useful to send out letters or e-mails of introduction to fellow alums. In addition to initiating contacts, she says, these letters can provide an informal market assessment of which skills are in demand while "just seeking advice as to how they may have made a tran- sition" themselves.

Morris suggests that lawyers looking for work check legal publications for news of lawyers who have moved to new firms (the old firms may now have vacancies to fill) and talk to other lawyers who have been looking recently (they may be aware of job openings that just weren't right for them).

But effective networking involves more than just making calls and showing up at bar or alumni meetings, says Feinberg. Making the most of conversational opportunities to network "is an art form," she says. She advises job hunters to study techniques in job-search manuals and Internet sites listed under "informational interviewing."

While networking is vital, however, it shouldn't be the only thing a job seeker relies on, Gills emphasizes.

"My advice is to do multiple strategies in parallel," she says. For example, "Work for a temp agency, send out multiple letters, and get a headhunter," she advises, referring to the employer-paid placement consultants who sometimes are willing to work with laid-off lawyers who have excellent credentials. "I think the only time you try one strategy in isolation is when you think it has a high likelihood of success."

Kanarek offers a side benefit to developing job-hunting skills: They're a lot of the same skills that are used to obtain clients.

Regardless of the directions that job searches take, says Kanarek, lawyers should retain their ties to the legal profession. She offers the example of an attorney who worked for a year and a half at a bookstore after losing his law firm job in the recession of the early 1990s. "And now he's a partner at a well-known midsize firm in New York," she notes.

Kanarek urges young lawyers especially to persist: "You went to law school, you got your degree. You need to get yourself licensed, continue your professional education, even if you're doing something else in the meantime.

"There is light at the end of the tunnel."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JOB SEARCH HELP FROM THE ABA

A wide range of information on finding new jobs and other career changes is available through the ABA Career Resource Center. Among those services is the Career Counsel Web site, at www.abanet.org/careercounsel, which includes information on ABA books and other publications that address job hunting and career change for lawyers, a Q&A Web Board on which questions may be posted for career experts, links to career resources at the state and local levels, and a Business Development Toolkit that helps lawyers hone their rainmaking skills. ABA members may use the ABA Web site to link to EmplawyerNet at www.abanet.org/advantage/career.html, which provides online access to more than 6,000 law job listings from around the United States. Among the other career services offered by the ABA are two books, titled Direct Examination: A Workbook for Lawyer Career Satisfaction, and Objection Overruled: Overcoming Obstacles in the Lawyer Job Search. Both books may be ordered through the Career Counsel Web site or by calling the ABA Service Center at 800-285-2221.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martha Neil, a lawyer, is a legal affairs writer for the ABA Journal. Her e-mail address is neilm@staff.abanet.org.