Five Ways to Find Opportunity in a Faltering Economy
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Copyright © 2009 Ari Kaplan Advisors LLC
Executive Summary
I taught English in various summer camps, as a college student. Fast-forward 17 years and to my surprise, one of the campers saw my profile on the social networking website Facebook (after no contact for almost two decades) and sent me a note. Welcome to the era of opportunity, circa. 2009. My former student’s effort highlights that making contact with others is no longer the problem. If you want to reach hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people in a short amount of time in 2009, you can do so. Comment on a popular blog post, upload a catchy YouTube video or create a group, perhaps one for long lost English teachers, on the professional online network LinkedIn. Turning your initial contacts into long-term relationships is a worthy goal. And those that stand out by helping others build relationships benefit by earning a powerful form of acknowledgment, reflecting more on their character than their ambition. Here are five ways to find success.
1. Profile Your Peers and Clients
Find individuals at your office or in your community who are doing something noteworthy, even if it is something small. You can write an article or record the conversation as a podcast (with permission, of course) recognizing his or her achievements. It demonstrates your interest (and technological aptitude in the case of the podcast), yet also allows you the chance to get to know individuals on a more personal level. Show your social media know-how by posting the profiles on the social messaging website Twitter (feel free to visit me at Twitter.com/arikaplan).
2. Use ‘Google Alerts’ For Others
Add those people you just met at a meeting or industry event to a Google alert (Google.com/ alerts), which will advise you each time a person on your list is mentioned online. This may provide you with thoughtful opportunities to connect in a meaningful fashion. Consider adding terms that have absolutely no value for you, but could give you the chance to help others, which would be particularly welcome in today’s softening market.
3. Share Press Leads
With the immense popularity of the US-based online source provider HelpAReporter.com (HARO) and the allowance for sharing (though not posting) press leads, look for ways that your colleagues and other contacts can earn well-deserved press in print or other forms of broadcast media. The 70,000-plus subscribers to the free HARO service receive three e-mails per day with a variety of queries from reporters looking for experts to comment on stories they are preparing, ranging from the shopping habits of European tourists to the proposed economic policies of the new US administration. While you may not be the right expert for some (or any) of these requests, consider sharing them with those individuals who could provide the insight for which the journalist is searching.
4. Guest Blog
I do not have a blog, but I do participate in the digital conversation as a regular guest on Law.com’s Legal Technology blog (legaltechnology.typepad.com). Those interested in getting started, but not ready to make a permanent commitment, may want to consider contributing to other popular blogs or collaborating with colleagues. Doing so will build a level of comfort with the medium and help the writer find his or her voice. While blogging can be used to demonstrate one’s interest in a specific area, it can also be used to highlight the writer’s familiarity with the key thought leaders in the industry. In that way, it is a powerful networking tool and those who provide thoughtful, well researched content can quickly establish themselves as trusted authorities offering valuable information.
5. Jump on the Social Networking Train
Facebook is no longer for a younger generation trying to find their summer camp English teachers. A growing cross-section of the legal community is also using the platform to enhance the depth and consistency of their connections. It offers opportunities to reach out to clients and prospects on a more personal and multi-dimensional level, which helps to build friendships rather than simply contacts. There is even an increasingly popular invitation-only service targeted specifically to this group called Legal OnRamp. Twitter is also becoming a great supplement, and even alternative, to blogging because it allows for the same type of commentary and a similar audience. For many, it is more approachable because of the 140-character limitation. There seems to be less pressure to contribute as frequently as a blog, but more incentive to produce thoughtful content since there are identifiable followers.
Conclusion
Marketing means different things to different people. For those that use their toolkit to demonstrate their character as well as their value, 2009 will be another successful year.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Veering Off Law Firm Career Path May Be the Way to Go for Some
Gina Passarella
The Legal Intelligencer
June 24, 2009
When Raymond Bayley, CEO of legal services firm Novus Law, was describing the state of the legal profession to a group of Georgetown University law students recently, he spoke of non-lawyer ownership of law firms coming to Britain, an opinion by the American Bar Association allowing non-lawyers to handle certain legal work, changes to compensation models, the ACC Value Challenge, a dissatisfied client base and a disaggregation of legal services. Put more succinctly, the industry is changing. And that means lawyers' views of their career paths need to change as well.
"The industry and the profession has an obligation to help those in the profession, but this is a situation where we are in an environment that is so radically different than the past, lawyers have to take ground-level responsibility for where they are going," Bayley said in an interview with The Legal Intelligencer . "The whole industry is in turmoil, so each lawyer, before they look to the profession, has to look inside and say: 'Who am I and what do I want to do when I grow up?'" And that might mean a career alternative or a career transition, David E. Behrend of Career Planning Services for Lawyers said. He is helping lawyers find alternative uses for their law degrees and transitioning them into new industries.
"The skill setting knowledge that lawyers get in law school is very valuable in other industries," Behrend said. The best manager in Major League Baseball, he argued, is law grad Tony La Russa. Lawyers have opened business franchises, led nonprofits and joined the Peace Corps, he said.
The toughest obstacle is shedding the tunnel vision that often plagues lawyers, he said, particularly when they are specialists and view their skill sets as limited to one area. There are job openings out there, but with several applicants vying for each spot. Behrend said it's the job opportunity lawyers need to look for -- or create for themselves. That might mean, especially for freshly minted lawyers, taking advantage of their bachelor's degrees. It could also be a willingness to take on two part-time jobs or a position with an emerging company that might bring with it more risk. These decisions often depend on the age of the lawyer and family circumstances, but there are opportunities for all experience levels, he said. "I firmly believe that almost all lawyers with their education have employment security, but not necessarily job security," he said, "meaning that they should be able with some assistance to find capable work of a professional nature."
But Behrend is blunt with the attorneys he counsels about the realities they will face in the market. "The public does not feel sorry for the lawyer one bit," he tells them. "No one is going to feel sorry for you."
While they might not be taking pity on lawyers, there are organizations out there that are interested in bringing lawyers on board in varying capacities. And it's both unemployed and employed attorneys looking at these alternatives.
Glenn Manko, director of executive search at The Dubin Group, handles searches for attorneys and non-attorneys alike. He said companies are now seeing opportunities to bring in lawyers in a number of different positions who, a few years ago, wouldn't have considered leaving the partner track. Some enter as a head of business affairs or corporate development and others are just looking to serve as more of a consultant on the business end, Manko said. Corporate America is starting to come back in terms of hiring and attorneys are looking to create more functional resumes that speak to their specific skill sets, he said. Manko spends a lot of time working with clients on breaking down their experience and identifying how certain skills could apply on the business side.
Art Bousel's company, Lawyer 2 Lawyer Coaching, began 10 years ago after he received a number of inquiries asking how he had transitioned out of the law firm world and into another business. Right now he is seeing a lot of attorneys looking to small businesses by taking experience from a prior career or their legal specialty and trying to market themselves to businesses in those fields. Often those relationships start on a part-time basis, he said, because there isn't a need for a full-time commitment. But that can often grow into something more substantial. Finding a job is definitely possible in this market, Bousel said, but it takes ingenuity, determination and the guts to work the streets and know what's out there. That, and the four Ps. The "determinative" factor in finding an alternative career, he said, is personality. The other "Ps" are patience, pride and proof.
Job seekers have to have patience, let go of pride that might be stopping them from taking a step back and looking at other options, and have the ability to prove to their target employer they can handle the job. That might mean working on a volunteer basis or for a nominal fee to start, Bousel said. Finding a job in this market also means sending your resumes to places you normally wouldn't, Bayley, an adviser to Georgetown's Corporate Counsel Institute, said.
Maybe a recent law school graduate could find a job at a law firm, but it would be in China, Singapore or the United Arab Emirates, he said. They might look to consulting firms like Navigant Consulting or Huron Consulting Group, content creators like Thompson or Lexis Nexis, or technology companies involved in e-discovery matters, Bayley said. The federal government is also "hiring lawyers like it's going out of style" and nonprofits are a possibility, he said.
Bayley said his company views the legal world as being separated into legal work and lawyer work, with about 70 percent involving legal work that can be done outside of a typical law firm model or by a non-lawyer.
When asked whether lawyers looking to make these transitions would be facing pay cuts, Bayley said: "There's going to be a rationalization of the pay structure and I think that, in time, law firms might find themselves competing in more of a free market, free economy labor market."
Turning a legal background into a multi-pronged role at an emerging company, for example, could end up far more economically beneficial because of stock options and other incentives, Bousel said.
Regardless of the specifics, some industry consultants are optimistic about the options available to lawyers looking to break free of the traditional career path. The advice they dispense is straightforward. What will carry attorneys through these transitions is largely an entrepreneurial spirit. That might mean volunteering, working more than one job, creating a new business or creating a position for yourself by proving your value to a company. In any case, it means thinking outside the law firm box.
The Legal Intelligencer
June 24, 2009
When Raymond Bayley, CEO of legal services firm Novus Law, was describing the state of the legal profession to a group of Georgetown University law students recently, he spoke of non-lawyer ownership of law firms coming to Britain, an opinion by the American Bar Association allowing non-lawyers to handle certain legal work, changes to compensation models, the ACC Value Challenge, a dissatisfied client base and a disaggregation of legal services. Put more succinctly, the industry is changing. And that means lawyers' views of their career paths need to change as well.
"The industry and the profession has an obligation to help those in the profession, but this is a situation where we are in an environment that is so radically different than the past, lawyers have to take ground-level responsibility for where they are going," Bayley said in an interview with The Legal Intelligencer . "The whole industry is in turmoil, so each lawyer, before they look to the profession, has to look inside and say: 'Who am I and what do I want to do when I grow up?'" And that might mean a career alternative or a career transition, David E. Behrend of Career Planning Services for Lawyers said. He is helping lawyers find alternative uses for their law degrees and transitioning them into new industries.
"The skill setting knowledge that lawyers get in law school is very valuable in other industries," Behrend said. The best manager in Major League Baseball, he argued, is law grad Tony La Russa. Lawyers have opened business franchises, led nonprofits and joined the Peace Corps, he said.
The toughest obstacle is shedding the tunnel vision that often plagues lawyers, he said, particularly when they are specialists and view their skill sets as limited to one area. There are job openings out there, but with several applicants vying for each spot. Behrend said it's the job opportunity lawyers need to look for -- or create for themselves. That might mean, especially for freshly minted lawyers, taking advantage of their bachelor's degrees. It could also be a willingness to take on two part-time jobs or a position with an emerging company that might bring with it more risk. These decisions often depend on the age of the lawyer and family circumstances, but there are opportunities for all experience levels, he said. "I firmly believe that almost all lawyers with their education have employment security, but not necessarily job security," he said, "meaning that they should be able with some assistance to find capable work of a professional nature."
But Behrend is blunt with the attorneys he counsels about the realities they will face in the market. "The public does not feel sorry for the lawyer one bit," he tells them. "No one is going to feel sorry for you."
While they might not be taking pity on lawyers, there are organizations out there that are interested in bringing lawyers on board in varying capacities. And it's both unemployed and employed attorneys looking at these alternatives.
Glenn Manko, director of executive search at The Dubin Group, handles searches for attorneys and non-attorneys alike. He said companies are now seeing opportunities to bring in lawyers in a number of different positions who, a few years ago, wouldn't have considered leaving the partner track. Some enter as a head of business affairs or corporate development and others are just looking to serve as more of a consultant on the business end, Manko said. Corporate America is starting to come back in terms of hiring and attorneys are looking to create more functional resumes that speak to their specific skill sets, he said. Manko spends a lot of time working with clients on breaking down their experience and identifying how certain skills could apply on the business side.
Art Bousel's company, Lawyer 2 Lawyer Coaching, began 10 years ago after he received a number of inquiries asking how he had transitioned out of the law firm world and into another business. Right now he is seeing a lot of attorneys looking to small businesses by taking experience from a prior career or their legal specialty and trying to market themselves to businesses in those fields. Often those relationships start on a part-time basis, he said, because there isn't a need for a full-time commitment. But that can often grow into something more substantial. Finding a job is definitely possible in this market, Bousel said, but it takes ingenuity, determination and the guts to work the streets and know what's out there. That, and the four Ps. The "determinative" factor in finding an alternative career, he said, is personality. The other "Ps" are patience, pride and proof.
Job seekers have to have patience, let go of pride that might be stopping them from taking a step back and looking at other options, and have the ability to prove to their target employer they can handle the job. That might mean working on a volunteer basis or for a nominal fee to start, Bousel said. Finding a job in this market also means sending your resumes to places you normally wouldn't, Bayley, an adviser to Georgetown's Corporate Counsel Institute, said.
Maybe a recent law school graduate could find a job at a law firm, but it would be in China, Singapore or the United Arab Emirates, he said. They might look to consulting firms like Navigant Consulting or Huron Consulting Group, content creators like Thompson or Lexis Nexis, or technology companies involved in e-discovery matters, Bayley said. The federal government is also "hiring lawyers like it's going out of style" and nonprofits are a possibility, he said.
Bayley said his company views the legal world as being separated into legal work and lawyer work, with about 70 percent involving legal work that can be done outside of a typical law firm model or by a non-lawyer.
When asked whether lawyers looking to make these transitions would be facing pay cuts, Bayley said: "There's going to be a rationalization of the pay structure and I think that, in time, law firms might find themselves competing in more of a free market, free economy labor market."
Turning a legal background into a multi-pronged role at an emerging company, for example, could end up far more economically beneficial because of stock options and other incentives, Bousel said.
Regardless of the specifics, some industry consultants are optimistic about the options available to lawyers looking to break free of the traditional career path. The advice they dispense is straightforward. What will carry attorneys through these transitions is largely an entrepreneurial spirit. That might mean volunteering, working more than one job, creating a new business or creating a position for yourself by proving your value to a company. In any case, it means thinking outside the law firm box.
Friday, June 19, 2009
New Job Search Features on Martindale.com
Martindale.com has just instituted two major enhancements:
1. A job board, which is free for job seekers. You can access it at www.careers.martindale.com .
2. A new social networking site for attorneys, called Martindale-Hubbell Connected. The site has just been rolled it out to attorneys this summer; further roll outs to faculty and to law students will take place over the next few months. This is a great way for attorneys to connect with each other and could become a valuable networking tool for students in the coming year. You can check it out at www.martindale.com. Look for the link to "join connected,", and be sure to watch the short video when you get to the site
Monday, June 8, 2009
Land Your Dream Job on Twitter
Whether you are already a Twitter guru, or are just beginning to curiously test its waters, here are the best resources for finding your legal dream job on Twitter, with a bit of general Twitter advice as well.
General Twitter Advice
If you’re not yet on Twitter, here are my short and sweet tips:
Sign up at Twitter.com; fill out the 140-character bio, use your real name as your username; include a good photo; design a free and easy professional background design at Twitbacks.com; use bit.ly to shorten links for your tweets; download Seesmic Desktop to manage your Twitter feeds and posts from your desktop; and add yourself to Twellow.com and to JD Scoop’s list of lawyers and legal professionals.
Then add value (news posts, advice, resources, etc) to your followers, and remember that all your tweets are searchable on Google. Learn about the many ways that lawyers and legal professionals can use Twitter in Robert Ambrogi’s post “Tweet 16: 16 Ways Lawyers Can Use Twitter.” For further basic Twitter guidance, read Shane Richmond’s one-page step-by-step guide to getting started on Twitter.
Legal Job Searching on Twitter
- Search for “legal,” “law,” “attorney” or “paralegal” on TwitterJobSearch.com and see recent (down to the second) posted legal jobs.
- Find legal jobs by following the Twitter feeds. Please note that all of the Twitter feeds posted are for FREE job and career boards. However, you may need to sign up for free accounts on Monster.com, LawJobs.com, or Careerbuilder.com in order to access some of the posted jobs. In addition to “following” these feeds on Twitter, you can also subscribe to their RSS feeds, and have the feeds sent to your Google Reader account (set one up to follow news, blogs, and other RSS feeds), so that you will never miss a tweeted job posting.
- by Leora Maccabee on June 4, 2009
Downloaded 6/8/2009 from http://lawyerist.com/2009/06/04/land-your-dream-job-on-twitter/#more-2449
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Equal Justice Works Announces 2009 Ole Miss Summer Corps Members
Equal Justice Works is excited to announce our 2009 Summer Corps members. With a record of 1,184 applications this year, the selection process was extremely competitive.
We would like to extend our congratulations to University of Mississippi School of Law for its student participation in Summer Corps this year!
This year's 420 Summer Corps members represent 147 Equal Justice Works law schools. These first- and second-year law students will each receive a $1,000 AmeriCorps education award voucher upon completion of a minimum of 300 hours of summer service at a nonprofit public interest organization. Summer Corps members will provide critically needed legal assistance to low-income and underserved communities in 44 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, Summer Corps members gain first-hand experience and legal skills in areas such as client intake, individual representation, research and writing.
Summer Corps members are engaged with a broad range of issues, including civil rights, community economic development, death penalty, disability rights, housing, domestic violence, education, public benefits and workers' rights.
University of Mississippi School of Law
- Marisa Christensen, Mississippi Taxpayer Assistance Project (part of North Mississippi Rural Legal Services)
Oxford, MS- Kourtney Ikard, North Mississippi Rural Legal Services
Oxford, MS- Laura Nichols, North Mississippi Rural Legal Services
Oxford, MS- Joseph Tucker, North Mississippi Rural Legal Services
Oxford, MS
From: http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/programs/summercorps/lawschools
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