Articles under Job Success

While working with legal professionals looking for a new job, compensation is of course one of the primary things we discuss. Unless you’re a lawyer working for a big AmLaw firm with stair-step salaries, it’s important to do your homework and have all the facts before you accept an offer, or a counteroffer is made. Maybe they did “hit you with their best shot”, putting significant thought and consideration into your offer. If you’re working with a recruiter, they should be able to offer insight into their client about “wiggle room” in the budget, additional equity or that available corner office. But, before you accept or a potential insult is delivered and a counteroffer ill received, know the facts.

With unemployment at a record low, it’s more challenging than ever for law firms to find and hire lateral attorneys. In this red-hot Texas market, job seekers need to be enticed to leave their current jobs. We’ve found most of the on-point candidates are ones we’ve “headhunted”. Sometimes they are passively in the job market, keeping an eye on job boards or checking-in with us periodically to “test the waters”. Often, we are starting from scratch.

A huge new crop of students will be entering their first year of law school at schools across Texas in a couple of weeks. While job opportunities and career paths accessible to Texas lawyers are boundless, learning as much as you can early on about the diverse career paths will make a significant difference in your future. You need to dedicate the time, attention and commitment it deserves to educate yourself about the different areas of the law so that you may equip yourself with the knowledge necessary to make an informed choice as to your area of pursuit. Take advantage of mentoring programs offered at your law school, talk to your professors, especially the adjuncts, who have practical experience in the “real world,” and talk to as many recent law graduates and practicing attorneys as you can to learn about the career paths they have chosen, and why.

As a legal recruiter, it goes without saying that my days are spent reaching out to candidates for potential placements at law firms and being met with a fair share of reluctance from those candidates when it comes to chatting about the opportunity being offered. However, I’ve found that the more junior the attorney or associate, the more hesitant they are to engage in conversation. And, I get it. Junior associates, especially those at large firms, have gotten where they are by keeping their heads down throughout their brief careers transitioning from academia to now practicing at a firm—and, hopefully in a field—for which they worked so hard to land. In law school, they got good grades, graduated in the top 5, 10, 15%, etc., made law review, Order of the Coif, and various honors, etc.  As new associates, they follow instructions, meet their billable hours, and dare not think that the firm they’ve landed at might not be the right fit long-term. Further, why would an associate want to move after only a year or two, or maybe three or four, only to land at another firm that, in their mind, is likely very similar to their current firm in most respects. Lest their resume start to project the impression that they’re a “job hopper”.

Last week, Texas Monthly summarized the results of a new report from Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group, that showed that demand at Texas law firms dropped by 7.1 percent the first half of 2016. (See “Texas Firms See Greatest Drop in Demand in First Half of 2016” by Brenda Jeffreys.)

Income Inequality in the Legal Community

Income equality in the united states is a hot topic in political campaigns and in the news and shows no signs of abating. We have noticed a similar trend among the compensation for lawyers. The top group of lawyers are highly paid, typically at large law firms or those in-house legal departments who hire from the large law firm ranks. Starting one’s legal career at a large law firm is thus the ticket into the highly-compensated group.