Alternative Career Paths

Alternative Career Paths for Those With a J.D.

Katherine Frink-Hamlett
New York Law Journal
June 29, 2010

Faced with a tepid legal marketplace, law students and recent graduates (whether deferred, downsized or simply dismayed) need to rethink their career strategies to adapt to this brave new world. With significantly fewer entry-level associate positions available, now is the time to consider alternative opportunities that may not have initially appeared on your radar screen.

Many attorneys, myself included, entered law school with little to no information about the realities of practicing law or even the range of positions that are available to smart folks who hold the almighty juris doctor degree.

We simply figured that the LSAT was far more palatable than the GMAT (no math); we'd take three years to get a law degree since we basically liked school anyway (better than working, right?); and, then with a wave of the magic wand we'd start our prestigious law careers at a big, fat law firm making big, fat law dollars (mission accomplished).

Sure, a few of us had a bit more savvy and were eyeing judicial clerkships from day one. And, of course, there were the well-meaning, altruistic students who planned to change the world through public interest endeavors. But, for the most part, law students have an extremely myopic view of just how far and fast the J.D. can run.

In reality, there are several careers available to lawyers, including recent law school grads, that go beyond the so-called traditional practice of law. Here, three specific areas will be considered: procurement, compliance and legal administrative opportunities.

In addition to describing the substantive functions, suggestions will be provided on how to secure these roles as recent law graduates and whether, as a practical matter, these positions permit a transfer to traditional law practice should there be a desire to switch lanes.

While these careers are frequently referred to as "alternatives," the truth is that they simply represent the range of professional opportunities available to attorneys.

Some, like procurement and compliance, have been around for years. Others, like legal administrative roles, have recently emerged as relatively new careers primarily generated by the 21st century law firm model.

PROCUREMENT

Law students and recent grads may wonder what exactly procurement is. "Procurement is really just a term for how corporations go about the business of purchasing goods and services," explains I. Javette Hines, an attorney who is the senior vice president of supplier diversity and sustainability at Citi. Hines' primary responsibilities are to provide coaching and training to suppliers to make sure that they understand the company's business needs and overall objectives.

In doing so, her role requires that women and diverse businesses have access to corporate opportunities so that the company's suppliers mirror its diverse communities and marketplace footprint. In addition, she acts as a coach and trainer to the company's internal stakeholders to optimize their sourcing strategies.

Like so many attorneys in non-traditional practice areas, Hines stumbled into her procurement career.

After graduating from law school, she completed a short-term temporary assignment with the goal of moving to New York to write a screenplay. However, her plan changed when she landed an entry-level opportunity as a software procurement specialist with a major international corporation.

As a recent law school grad, she entered into the procurement world by drafting and negotiating software contracts. Through a series of promotions, various special projects and external career moves, Hines ultimately obtained her current position.

She emphasizes that understanding "processes and procedures" is critical to success in a procurement function, particularly as those procedures pertain to various components and categories of the company's business needs. Additionally, stellar communication skills are paramount to effectively articulate these concerns to suppliers and business leadership.

Hines encourages law students and recent grads who are interested in further information about procurement to visit the Web sites of the Institute for Supply Management and The Global Sourcing Council to obtain details about this growing and dynamic area.

And, if you're wondering whether a career in procurement prevents a return to the so-called traditional practice of law, rest assured: you can go back.

Why? Because procurement frequently includes drafting, negotiating and reviewing a wide variety of contracts so it is not a U-turn but more like a fork in the road.

In fact, procurement professionals are frequently tapped by legal departments to manage the negotiations for outsourcing transactions or serve as business and/ or government relations managers. By the way, Hines is still waiting to write that screenplay.

COMPLIANCE

Like Hines, Carol Baldwin Moody, senior vice president and chief compliance officer of a major insurance company, found her claim to fame in a so-called nontraditional practice area: financial compliance.

Recognized by Black Enterprise as one of the most powerful African- American women in America, Moody oversees a team of 175+ employees and is charged with the heady task of making sure that the company's vast insurance operations are in compliance with a multitude of ever-changing state and federal regulations applicable to their financial products.

She warns that it may sound easy, but in reality there may be 60 rules that apply to one product, covering activities ranging from regulatory approval to required disclosures. This entails meeting with business people and making sure that they are doing their jobs right.

As Moody emphasizes, "we are a business of trust" and the rules are "supposed to help our customers." As a result, process mapping and design competencies are key skills that any lawyer must have to create and implement compliance programs that make sense for their business.

"Most lawyers do not make good compliance [officers] because we are very conceptual and compliance people have to be process oriented," explains Moody.

She further emphasizes that a good compliance professional is a solution finder because at the end of the day, businesses do not sell compliance, they sell financial products.

Moody recommends that law students and recent graduates who are interested in seeking compliance opportunities take the time to learn what regulators are talking about, especially the "hot topics." And, she suggests visiting the website of the Securities and Exchange Commission to assess the risks of greatest concern to the commissioners.

Once you get your foot in the door, she encourages compliance professionals to seek out process mapping courses to improve their data analysis and processing skills.

Also, if you become associated with a broker-dealer, it is extremely advantageous to obtain extra designations like Series 7 and Series 24 licenses.

Joining a legal department from a compliance role is a no-brainer. From a recruiting perspective, a candidate's compliance experience is highly coveted and frequently a stated requirement or a strong preference.

For example, when asked whether she, as a compliance professional, could transition back to traditional legal practice, Moody responded, "I could easily become general counsel of a company."

LAW FIRM ADMINISTRATION

While law firms may have limited associate opportunities, there may be opportunities in administrative areas such as professional development and diversity.

Maja Hazell is the director of diversity and inclusion at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and her role is broadly focused on diversity as she helps firm management chart a course of business as it relates to the firm's culture.

Hazell explains that "diversity issues show up everywhere:" human resources, recruiting, marketing, etc.

It's her primary responsibility to work in a collaborative fashion to synthesize these various firm functions around diversity and inclusion. In some cases this may entail working with the firm's diversity committee or interfacing with professional development.

Before considering a move to the administrative side, Hazell suggests developing skills to obtain an understanding of what it means to run a successful firm.

If you have practice experience, consider working with administrative, partner and recruiting committees to become involved in firm strategies and problem solving.

As a law student or recent graduate, entry-level positions like recruiting assistant or coordinator are realistic stepping stones that will allow you to transition into a manager's or director's role.

Hazell warns, however, that you may face an uphill battle in convincing a potential employer that you are genuinely committed to an administrative career.

Also, unless you have prior practice experience, returning to traditional law practice may prove difficult so you'll probably want to keep your bar licenses up to date as well as taking on pro bono opportunities.

And, as with all career moves, Hazell emphasizes that it is "all about who you know."

In addition to procurement, compliance and legal administrative opportunities, there are a host of careers that recent graduates can consider, ranging from contract administration to legal publishing.

Even in this challenging market, a law degree can provide meaningful career opportunities for law students and recent grads.

Stay flexible in your approach, be willing to look beyond the obvious, and just hang in there. There's a place for you; it's just a matter of time.

Katherine Frink-Hamlett, a graduate of New York University School of Law, is president of Frink-Hamlett Legal Solutions Inc. and can be reached at katherine@frinkhamlett.com.

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.