How law firm partners can work more effectively with recruiters

I recently worked with a terrific partner who was interested in bettering her current situation by moving to another law firm which fit her specific criteria.  What made her a joy to work with was the way she engaged in the process.   It helped ensure a better outcome for all concerned: the firms, candidate and me. Of course, it didn't hurt that she was a strong candidate because of the raw strength of her academic credentials, practice experience and book.   

If you get a call from me it’s because you I have evidence of academic credentials, practice experience, appropriate book and billing size for an opportunity which I believe is suitable, realistic and genuinely could be of interest to you.  When you get a call from someone else about a firm which might be attractive but is also wildly unrealistic, given obvious variables, in some cases it’s because a recruiter hasn’t taken the time to understand the economics and character of your firm, of you, or because your web entry is misleading.  In other cases, it’s “bait and switch,” an attempt to get your ear at any cost.

I identified the candidate through our databases and reached out to her by phone.  The stages and elements of this effective relationship were as follows:

1.Wish List.  The candidate was not interested in the opportunity about which I called her.  However, she shared with me her wish list of the characteristics a firm would have to have if it were to better her current circumstances .  It took some work and research but I did find several opportunities which met her criteria. Elements on someone's list might be particular law firm characteristics or management model (ex, transparent compensation and management vs. corporately run, closed compensation structure; hub and spokes relationship of branch offices to a Mother Ship home office vs. a model of distributed power, and resources across peer offices), geographic footprint, practice mix, compensation, absence of mandatory retirement, lack of client conflicts, potential for a leadership role, or the reputation of the firm with a particular type of client.  

 2.  Basic Channels of  Communication were Quickly Established.  In this day and age, everyone has their preferences—text, home phone, cellular phone, office email, home email.  I am not clairvoyant.

3.  Meeting Face to Face.  There are, unfortunately, times when it doesn’t  happen—if the candidate’s schedule doesn't permit or if  she is not based  in New York.  When a meeting can happen, it helps to establish mutual trust and also gives me the opportunity to get  a feel for the intangibles which contribute to a successful “fit.”   At the partner level, it is safe to assume that a candidate presents herself well in person.   However there are times, not present in this particular case, where there might be an element to the candidate’s presentation which, if discussed up front with the firm, will prepare and is less likely to distract, an interviewer.  I am thinking things such as visible pregnancy or physical disability.  If we don't meet, you do yourself a favor by volunteering this information.

4.  Frank Discussion of Practice Needs. As a former practicing lawyer, I have a pretty good sense of what kinds of ancillary practices are necessary to support a particular practice area.  I really know what a derivative is and what a patent prosecution practice requires.  Still, it’s always good to have this confirmed.   It is also helpful to indicate whether a candidate’s clients require the prospective law firm to be on an “approved” list of legal services providers.  

5.  Realistic, Consistent Estimation of Client Number and Book Size, Accurate Chronology of Work Experience.  Candidates don’t do themselves any favors by inflating their books to recruiters or omitting brief stints with past legal employers from their resumes.  Overly optimistic estimates or omissions will be discovered, sooner or later, and lead to the firm and recruiter to more generally question the candidate’s veracity.  This is especially important as confidentiality concerns means that there is a limited amount of due diligence possible at the early stages in the process—initial conversations are usually initiated on the strength of a resume and website entry

6. Ongoing, Straightforward, Honest Communication.  When it comes to communicating with me,  I don’t enjoy working with candidates that I have to chase in multiple means of communication and who don’t tell me that they are pursuing opportunities through multiple recruiters. Life and work can wreck havoc with an interview schedule . That's to be expected.  Pay me the courtesy of letting me know that you will be unavailable for some period of time-- instead of just falling off the map.   I would prefer and like the opportunity to show why I should be a candidate's only recruiter. But I can deal with competition and I don't expect to know detailed information about a firm opportunity in which I am uninvolved. However, I hate being ambushed with fast approaching deadlines of opportunities, the general potential for which I had no prior knowledge.  When it comes to the candidate’s communications with a prospective law firm, I can’t reinforce a strategy or emphasis that I don’t know about.   Enough said.

     7.   Everyone Needs to Feel Special.  When the candidate is quickly and promptly responsive, I am able to swiftly and timely relay information to and from the prospective law firms, the principals and representatives of those firms feel respected and their opportunity appreciated.  Everyone is in a better mood.   If conversations with a particular firm don’t result in a deal, neither of me or the candidate need to concern ourselves with future bad will.  However, when the candidate makes herself inexplicably unavailable or drawn out, the momentum gets broken, the firm begins to wonder whether the candidate is serious--and no one wants to waste their time if they are not. 

8.  Employing Me as a Resource.  I look to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. I am hapy to offer my own, generally well informed, opinion on most anything, including how to present something in the most favorable light possible, and to ask the kinds of questions of a firm that a candidate might not feel comfortable asking themselves.  I am also happy to be as much or as little involved in any compensation negotiations as the candidate and/or the firm desire. 

9.  Employing me to Help Accommodate Timing Considerations.  I can often help speed up or delay a stage in the process, if need be, to accommodate personal considerations or competing deadlines.   My being a nudge and a pest will not affect whether the prospective firm will extend an offer.

Law Firm Transactional Lawyers Moving to Firms in Other Markets

For law firm partners looking to move, the size and characteristics of their book of portable client business are primary considerations. They need to consider the differences in billing rates in various markets.  A partner moving from Toledo to New York, let’s say, might find his clients unwilling to pay the higher rates often called for in the NY market.  This is an issue especially in practice areas which are more “low margin,” that is where supply of lawyers in a particular practice area has pushed down the hourly rate, and/or the tendency for established corporations to take certain kinds of work in-house.  I am thinking of areas such as patent prosecution and immigration. 

In-house opportunities are governed by different variables which correlate strongly to the kind of business activity in which the company is itself are engaged, the location of the corporate headquarters and whether there is a centralized or distributed management decision making structure.


Most of what I have to say today relates to transactional lawyers lateraling to a law firm, at the junior and mid-levels, in a different city.  It’s true that, for many purposes, you can be physically located almost anywhere with a computer and skype access. For more junior folk, you need to consider relative market characteristics from the stand point of subject matter and local business activity. The kind of legal activity in a market follows from the business activity in that market. There is not, for example, much maritime legal activity in a landlocked city. 

Going back to when a attorney chooses his or her law school, you will find it easier to find work in a market where there are alumni from your law school.  Employers respond more favorably to law schools where they know alumni.   If you don't go to a nationally known, top 20 law school, go to the best law school that you can get into in the region where you want to work.

In choosing your practice area in anticipation of a later move, the associate should consider what kind of business activity is most common in the region where she wishes to relocate.  An associate who is a Eurobond lawyer may need to retool themselves to market himself to firms in, let’s say, Omaha, where there is not much business or legal activity in that practice area.  However, someone who gets experience in New York in, let’s say transactional IP, will find it relatively easy to transition to the Silicon Valley market.

In New York and certain other major markets, like Chicago, LA, DC, large firm transactional lawyers are typically encouraged to become highly specialized.  The reasons for these are twofold. On the one hand, clients are often unwilling to pay for an associate’s learning curve in new kinds of matters. However also in these major markets there exists a volume of work in these respective specialties and subspecialties which makes specialization possible.

In smaller and secondary markets, like New Orleans or Denver, large firm transactional lawyers tend to be generalists because lawyers there do not typically have the same shear volume of specialized work.  

Moving from a highly specialized practice to one more generalized and visa versa is most easily done when you are more junior—let’s say in the first three years of post law school practice.

The reason for this is a very practical one.  A NYC transactional lawyer who moves to Minneapolis will find himself with skills and experience which are different to that of his Minneapolis peer.  He will be stronger in some areas and weaker in others.  The more senior a lateral is, the more difficult it is for this prototypical Minneapolis law firm to plug him into their hierarchy.

On the other hand, the more senior generalist large firm lawyer from, let’s say New Orleans, will have a more difficult time finding  a position with a peer firm New York because those firms have a much more segmented corporate practice.  This lateral candidate will lacks, for his class level, the sheer volume of experience in any one  practice specialty.  Once again, the large firm will have trouble slotting him or her into their hierarchy.

The generalist attorney will probably find herself more in demand at smaller, middle market law firms since these firms, like the firms in their former jurisdiction, will lack the kind of volume in a any practice specialty to justify segmenting of their corporate practice.


It goes without saying that a change in geography may very well call for the candidate to become admitted, by exam or on motion, in her new state. 

Staffing, Client Development and the Glob of Work

In this day and age, the economics of law firms requires that their constituent members/employees be fully deployed. Partners can only project their hiring needs to the extent that their clients themselves can predict their own business activities. Given today’s economic uncertainties, law firms are generally pretty cautious in hiring.  They hire permanent employees for client business which is in hand or immediately on the horizon and  at levels which they have every reason to believe will be sustained in, at least, the medium term.

Any one client matter  contains tasks calling for different levels of lawyering skill and experience.

 There are different constituents, internal and external, vying  at every experience level  where candidates are being hired to service, as opposed to originate,  some element of the client business, which I will call the “glob of work.”   

 At the top of the pyramid are the originating partners who bring in the client and its glob.  These folks usually have the most say in who, within a law firm, does the work.  For institutional clients, there might be a single or group of key partners charged with staffing a matter. 

The element of the glob which calls for the most junior level of skill and experience has the fewest kinds of lawyers competing for that work.  They are internal associates and prospective lateral associate hires.

For that element of the glob of work which calls for senior level experience and which is not being done by the originating partner, the landscape changes and becomes more competitive. You have internal senior associates, counsel, service partners and originating partners whose clients are having bad years, all competing internally for that work.

On the outside, as with more junior work,  at a senior level you have folks looking to be hired based upon the strength of their academics, skills and experience.  However, there is also another competitor.  There is the usually junior prospective lateral partner whose client base does not make her quite self supporting but who has the prospect of becoming so in the near future.

Take it as a given that the successful external candidates has to, first and foremost, be equipped to do their share of the glob, to have the appropriate academics, skills and experience.  However, bringing in of client business is seen as strong evidence of excellence, of partnership material. It demonstrates that the candidate understands the business of law firm practice in the present day. 

In most circumstances, the solid senior lawyer looking to be hired without evidence of client development interest or skill is in worst position of the outside contenders.  Most of the time, they will lose to the prospect who has demonstrated client development skills.

The better a case you can make for yourself that you are that entrepreneurial candidate who will become fully self supporting in the near to medium future, the easier time you  will have to be hired at a senior level.

It’s never the season for inside baseball

To Company/Government/Big Organization Lifers Looking to Move On


I’ve seen a great many long time employees of large employers—government, UN-type organizations, corporations.  Often resumes contain mindnumbing detail about work environments which do nothing to  advance their case with new prospective employers.

If you have been with a single large employer for a bunch of years, you have probably had shifting responsibilities, different titles and reporting lines.

In describing a long career with a single employer, candidates often get bogged down in the minutiae of internal politics.  That is, in looking at the resume, the relationships between various committees and departments  is meaningful only if you intended to look for a job elsewhere in the same organization. 

 To the rest of us, it’s inside baseball and not terribly informative.

In addition, for the more senior candidate, getting bogged down can be deadly.  It raises the question of whether the candidate is flexible enough to adapt to a different organization or operational structure.  It’s the question whether you are steeped in nostalgia for the halcyon days of your professional youth or whether you have absorbed lessons and are flexible and nimble enough to move forward.

Step back and extract from these relationships the significance and state that, for example, if you found yourself at different points working with different kinds of players within an organizations, pull out from it that you had the flexibility to deal with different kinds of corporate constituents and parties.  Or that moving from x to y within the organization meant that you were only one hop away from the C-suite instead of three.   Or that the change in committee role meant you got to control more $, people, decisions, etc.

Also, look to last week's entry about helping people to understand what your title(s) within the organization mean.

Another argument against minutiae is that a resume is not meant to be exhaustive.  It is meant to convey enough about your experience to show the interviewer that you can do the job for which you have submitted your resume and that you will do it cheerfully and reliably. It's meant to get you the interview. So, list your most impressive achievements and summarize, as tightly as you can, the less impressive recurring day-to-day responsibilities.  Edit and focus what you write about your past. 

Your Place in the In-House Hierarchy

There are certain key differences in the structure of in house environments versus that of law firms.

In a law firm hierarchy, junior associates report to senior associates and/ or counsel or partners. 

Each in house corporate structure has its own organizational chart. In one, there may only be three lawyers, in others there may be layers of lawyers with different kinds of titles—senior, assistant, deputy, associate, vice president, senior vice president. 

How do you expect the prospective employer to know what your title means?

Help the reader to understand where you are in your own company’s particular universe. How many people do you supervise? What kinds of people-- lawyers, investigators, patent prosecutors, assistant counsel, etc.Who do you report to? Do you have dual reporting responsibilities—ex., an attorney supporting sales might be embedded in an operations division and report to both the head of the operations and someone in legal. If you are one of only a handful of people with your status, say so—i.e., “ Sole Deputy GC.  Direct Report to the General Counsel.”

In-house Job Entries

Context and "I Love Me" are Key


You need to give context for the business, what you do in the business and underscore that you understand that you hook into business realities as opposed to living in the land of abstract legal principles which is where many in the business community generally think law firm lawyers reside. We know how important lawyers are and you, in particular, are to the prosperity of your company.  You need to let the reader, your prospective employer, know how your actions contribute to the fiscal well being of the company.

Below the name of the employer, title and dates of employment, you should help give the reader some context .  If the enterprise is not a household name, a phrase which states its size, business niche and the size of the legal department to help accomplish that goal. 

       Ex:  Karate Chop Cooking, Inc., New York, NY  Assistant General Counsel , / /  to present

        Member of a six lawyer legal department of a publicly traded manufacturer of cooking implements

You should state the kinds of legal and business related subject matter with which you work and the activities in which you engage.  


It goes without saying that you describe the substance of what you do-- negotiate, supervise, draft, oversee, devise, review, implement, etc. Cite legal regimes with which you work-- FMLA, HIPPA, Investment Advisor Act, etc.

Businesses exist to make profit from the goods or services they manufacture/distribute/broker/provide. In a law firm resume, you have the luxury to just talk about the law that you practice because your business is the practice of law.

As in-house lawyers, you more closely further the business.  Attorneys enhance and facilitate the activities of the business and protect the business against legal liability. One of the unfortunate aspects of in-house practice, however, is that your actions rarely inure directly to the bottom line.  This can make you vulnerable to downturns in lean times when the bean counters want to cut expenses.

Another danger an in house lawyer faces is to be seen as the “no” person rather than the facilitator who moves the deal or activity along with the long and short term interests of the business in mind.

Accordingly, attorneys need to justify their keep and show that they are attuned to the business they support.  You should identify, in business terms, how your actions tie into to the business of the company, its goods and services and help it prosper. Yes, you are taking some credit for what the business side accomplishes.

If you supported a sales force, mention the number of salespeople you supported and the dollar value of widgets sold.

If you directed litigation, describe big matters and the prayers for relief.

If you negotiated a big lease, mention the square feet.

If there is a quantitative measurement to an outcome for anything you do, mention it.  So, the $ saved from instituting some cost cutting measure you documented, is important.  If you managed to save $ by eliminating employee redundancies, indicate numbers and $.

If you negotiated an acquisition, financing, or IPO, state the $ value.

If your role is in more of a compliance function, state the size of the operation you support in dollar terms, if possible, or in number of employees, offices, or by reference to a business regime that  flags same. Ex., “such and such for a NYSE Euronext listed manufacturer of widgets.” 

Thoughts on an Experienced Corporate Lawyer's Resume

These are my thoughts on how a corporate lawyer, with law firm experience, should describe and categorize that experience.

The objective here is to put the space on the first page to the best possible use, to edit out what doesn’t add to the reader’s understanding of your current abilities.

At the mid-level, it’s fine to have the traditional resume which has narrative beneath each job entry, listed in reverse chronological order. 

What you want to list in the narrative are the subject matter of your practice—ex., M&A, Bank Finance, etc.—the elements that you have negotiated, researched and/or drafted; what place you were on the totem pole,  (ex, member of a team or only associate on 250M stock purchase?); and the industries/business sectors from which the parties to these deals have originated.   Reference to kinds of legal regimes is a good idea.  Ex, the word compliance is more forceful if you refer to the statute or kinds of rules which are relevant.  You should list the types of deals or documents that you have drafted and negotiated. 

Recurring activities belong in the narrative. Single transactions belong on the Representative Transactions List. Ex, drafting periodic reports under the 1934 Securities Exchange Act is in the narrative. A singular transaction which might have entailed 1934 Act elements, goes in the Representative Transactions List.

In terms of that list, if the person reading the resume knows your practice, be judicious in the amount of detail you use in describing the kinds of documents you have negotiated or drafted.  If you drafted and negotiated a particular kind of deal, which, by definition, includes a long list of major and minor documents, list the major documents only.

Ex: Negotiated and drafted asset purchase agreement and all ancillary documents including x, y and z significant documents.

Put your earlier experience into context.  If today you negotiated and drafted the principal documents for a particular kind of deal, at some earlier juncture you likely put together exhibits or did other lower level stuff on a the same kind of deal.  You don’t add to the reader’s information about your skills in including that earlier detail. Accordingly, you might, let’s say as a fifth year transactional lawyer, find yourself not providing a great deal of detail on the narrative from a transactional job in the same practice area which you might have held for only two years immediately following law school.  In that case, the narrative for the earlier position should indicate the kinds of clients for which you did work, by business sector and size, and the kinds of deals but might not talk about your actions/activities.

You can add something about the size of teams you might have managed and whether you mentored or trained junior associates.  If clients are comfortable contacting you directly, that is worth mentioning.

On a separate Sheet, entitled Representative Transactions, list the representative deals themselves should be in the deal sheet which follows.    

If you are more senior, it is fine to adopt a functional resume, where there is a summary narrative for all of your transactional experience, followed by a list of dates, titles and places of employment.  Your detail on your representative transactions would follow on a subsequent page.  The idea here is that the reader should not have to look in too many places to determine your core competencies.

An experienced litigator's resume

How should a litigator’s job entries evolve as he/she get more experienced? This week, I will discuss my thoughts on what the experienced law-firm focused litigator’s resume should look like.

I am going to assume, for the sake of this entry, that the candidate is seven years out of law school, in the New York market, at the senior associate/counsel level. As you get more experienced and get more job entries, a prospective employer has to look in more than one place to determine core competencies. Does someone really care, at, let’s say eight years out of law school, that you conducted depositions two jobs back? No, they care that you have conducted them at all.

 And why should a prospective employer have to comb through three job entries to determine whether or not an applicant has this experience?

Assuming that each job is with a similar enterprise and the subject matter is the same, I advocate using a functional resume format—where there is a summary up front detailing substantive subject matter experience (ex, antitrust, white collar, product liability) and technical skills, and in brief terms, significant actions which indicate level of experience.

What are significant actions? First or second chairing a case, selecting a jury, conducting depositions/examining/cross examining witness(es), selecting experts, negotiating settlements, arguing an appeal are all examples.

You should list the actions which indicate your highest level of experience with that piece of a trial or action. In other words, if you have conducted depositions, the prospective employer will figure that you previously engaged in preparation for depositions.

Also indicate your level of management experience. What kinds of actions have you supervised? How many and what kinds of people (i.e., paralegals, attorneys, etc)? Regularly or in case-specific situations? Have you mentored or trained junior associates?

Have you participated in client development efforts? Were you part of marketing efforts which successfully landed a client or new matter?

Following this summary, you list your jobs in descending chronological order, identifying the name of the firm, location, your title, and the applicable dates for each job.  If the firm is no longer in business or is not a widely known name, a phrase which helps the reader is a good thing.  Ex. Firm currently known as______, real estate litigation boutique dissolved______, etc.

If you moved from one firm to another with a partner, note that.

Refrain from putting other detail under job entries for this format.  Remember that the idea is that the employer have to look in as few places as possible to figure out what you have done and can do.

If you are or more years out and/or a partner, your education should follow your experience.

Law school entries should always indicate academic honors and journal membership. You must always indicate year of law school graduation because it has direct bearing on the context for your experience. Unless you have reason to want to signal a particular affiliation which you think would be looked upon favorably by the interviewer, drop reference to membership in student organizations.

Undergrad entries shouldn’t list more than educational institution, degree, major, year of graduation, and any academic honors. No one cares that you were dorm counselor, or were member of a student group of one kind or another.  An exception is for membership in long standing fraternities, sororities or similar organizations. It is not a bad thing for an interviewer to see that you share an affiliation of this sort.

After a section for professional affiliations and activities (more on that in subsequent blog entries), you should have a significant matter list. (see last week’s entry). At this level of experience, you can just identify the parties (as much as you can to preserve client confidentiality) without detailing what you did on each case.  .

Deal Sheets and Representative Matter Lists--What,Why, When do You Use Them?

For transactional lawyers, what is a Deal Sheet, how and when do you use it? For litigators, what is a Representative/Significant Matter List, how and when do you use it?

If you read last week’s blog, I advocate that each job entry have three parts—broad competency, description of skills you learned and examples of significant matters in which you learned those foregoing skills.  Deal Lists and Representative Matter lists are that last item broken out on its own, usually beginning on a second page.

Why do it?

There is something that I was always taught was the New York Times way of writing—You put a summary up front and then as the article (and resume) goes on, you move to greater levels of detail permitting the reader (prospective employer) to drill down as they want on subsequent pages.  For transactional lawyers, employers generally expressly require deal lists after a year or two of transactional practice experience.

When should you start breaking out your significant matters/deals?

For transactional lawyers, really, the earlier in your career you start put together a deal sheet, the better.

The easiest answer to that question is, for litigators, when your resume threatens to go on to a second page, as part of a broader reorganization of your resume, and/or when you have had more than one job.  

I would also add that, the more jobs you have had, the more places a prospective employer has to look to see what, in fact, you have done.  Why make a prospective employer have to work that hard to answer that question? Instead, a deal list gives the bottom line on the first page, under the job entry and employers who want detail can drill down to subsequent pages. 

Litigation Representative Matters

You can structure this lists in different ways.  When you’ve had more than one litigation job, you can break your representative matters down by law firm.  You can also just list them by subject matter either in general or within each law firm heading.

Identifying matters: In all non-public matters, be mindful of client confidentiality.  Detail shows that you are engaged more deeply in your practice and are, by naming names, making yourself more accountable. The more flavor and detail you can give for a matter, the better.  

 “Defended, in the SDNY, bulge bracket financial institution in $5M shareholders derivative class action alleging insider trading.

Senior litigators can stop here.  The list should look like what you might see on a partner’s law firm website entry.  N.B. If you first chaired a trial, you might want to pull that away from a Representative Matter List entry and put it under the entry for the particular job because it is that important.

Mid-level and junior lawyers should indicate what they actually did for each matter they list.  Ex:

"Drafted prevailing motion to dismiss, interviewed expert witness, supervised and directed 5 person document review team”

Without that level of detail, I know what your firm did and what your practice group did but I don’t know what you did.   

If your work has been filed as a matter of public record, there is no reason not to name the parties. If the case was reported case, give the cite.

Deal Sheets

Deal sheets list the major, singular transactions on which you have worked.  Don’t list matters of a day-to-day recurring nature.  Things like securities compliance, general corporate governance, drafting of employment agreements.  Those should be listed in the particular job entry on that first page.

You can organize your deals based upon where you worked when you engaged in them and/or subject matter—ex M&A, Finance, Real Estate Finance.

In the case of transactional practice, size does matter. Give an indication of size by virtue of dollar size or, in the case of leases, square feet of premises.  The general idea is that the bigger the numbers, the more complex the deal.  In a deal sheet, you should err on the side of providing as much information as possible concerning the parties, industries, kind of transaction,

Senior transactional lawyers can stop here. There is no need to indicate agreements you have drafted or negotiated.  That level of experience is presumed.  As a model, think of the kind of bare bones list that you might see in a partner’s law firm web bio.  That is your goal.

Mid level and junior lawyers need to state what you did on that matter. Detail promotes accountability and demonstrates that you are more deeply engaged in your practice. You give as much detail as possible about individual deals without compromising client confidentiality with respect to matters which are non-public..  Ex:

Represented X Corp S.A. in the $200B acquisition of Eureka Freight Management Group, the freight forwarding division of Eureka (a world leader in freight forwarding).  Coordinated due diligence and drafted diligence report for the U.S. division; revised stock purchase agreement.

If the deal is non-public, give as much detail as you can, ex,

Represented multi-national household cleaning products manufacturer in the $8M asset purchase of  an EU wallpaper manufacturer.  Conducted due diligence. Drafted asset purchase agreement, directed local counsel.

Job Entries for Junior and Mid-Level Candidates

Candidates need to be accountable for their post-law school years, where they have practiced, what they have done and demonstrate that they are engaged in their practice 

List your legal employment in descending chronological order.

For each entry, identify the name of the firm, the location where you worked, your title and dates of employment. 

Name of the firm.  You should use the legal name of the firm.  There has been a fair amount of musical chairs over the past bunch of years, with firms changing name/structure/going out of business.  If the firm has changed structure during your period of employment or thereafter, help the reader along with clarifying phrases, i.e.

John Doe LLP (currently Harry Doe Partners) or (dissolved, 2008) , etc.

 If you changed employer on account of a firm merger or practice group move, indicate it like this

John Doe LLP, New York, NY, Associate (2009-current)

Lion Cougar & Sons LLP, New York, NY (2008-2009)(firm merged with John Doe) or (moved with practice group to John Doe)

Avoid unnecessary duplication.  Real estate on that first resume page is precious.  If your practice remained the same, there is no reason not to combine the narratives for two successive firms:

                JOHN DOE LLP, New York, NY, Associate (2009-current)

                LION COUGAR & SONS LLP, New York, NY, Associate (2008-2009)(firm merged with John Doe)

                [shared  description]

Description of the firm: If you are looking in a different legal market or the entry is for a firm which is not well known, help the reader with a phrase which gives your experience context, i.e.

                JOHN DOE LLP, New York, NY, Associate (2009-current)

Regional ten attorney boutique specializing in employment litigation.

Parts of a Strong Job Entry

1.       Description of what subject matter areas/ practice specialties characterizing YOUR experience

Ex:

                “subject matter experience in antitrust, white collar crime and

Employment law.”

                “Experience in M&A, structured finance and general corporate governance.”

2.       Description of what skills you learned.  Litigators describe skills (I have a litigation checklist which helps refresh recollections as to the parts of a matter on which a candidate may have worked) Litigators might say what kinds of motions they drafted/argued; what they did in discovery, trial prep, etc.  Transactional lawyers describe the kinds of deals/documents they have helped structure, negotiate, and document. 

3.       Examples of significant matters in which you learned the skills stated above.

Transactions should be described in terms of $ size and also with a notation of what YOU did on the deal.

Litigators should identify whether they represented defendant or plaintiff, and the rough  subject matter of the suit—ex,  Defended bulge bracket financial institution against allegations of tortuous interference by registered representative (drafted answer, helped prepare expert witness for trial)

If it is a public deal or a case where the pleadings and filings are a matter of public record, there is no reason not to give the names of the parties.  Otherwise, describing the parties with as much detail as you can without compromising client confidentiality is key.


Next week what to do when your resume goes over onto two pages.

Entries for Judicial Clerkships and Internships

This week's post is about how to identify and what to write about your clerkship or judicial internship.


Partners and/or Supreme Court Clerks-- If you are at the partner level, all you need is the name of the judge, his or her title, the location and date of clerkship .  Likewise---at any level of experience—if your clerkship was for one of the Supremes.

For more junior lawyers, when a prospective employer looks at your resume, they look for several things:  firstly, is there name brand name that signals the quality and character of the candidate’s experience? Secondly, what has the candidate done in that environment? 

The Brand: It is extremely important that your first step is to identify by name those judges for whom you worked and then to identify the venue (court, location, etc).  If your clerkship was for a pool of judges, name them.  Names make the candidate more accountable and signals the quality and nature of her experience.  If the jurist is a prominent name, it enhances the reputation of the candidate as well as makes it easier for the prospective employer to check the candidate’s bona fides.  Also, it may benefit you in the “do you know” game—as in, hiring parties may have appeared before, gone to school with or otherwise know your judge. This makes you less of an unknown quantity as well as giving you potential topics for conversation during an interview.

Your Experience:  Your primary goal in all job or internship related entries is to demonstrate that you were actively engaged intellectually in the meat of the position—as opposed to just checking in every day. My philosophy is that parties who care about a clerkship or internship know what people generally do in those positions.  Ok, you drafted opinions, conducted research, sat in on trials. If you can’t think of any distinguishing content, just identify the judge and venue and stop there. Why waste precious real estate on the page by stating the obvious?

However, what you should do is help the reader understand what you got from this experience. You want to demonstrate why it has bearing upon your abilities and why it distinguishes you from all the other candidates with comparable backgrounds. Accordingly, list a phrase indicating subject matter with which you gained familiarity and a description of significant matters/cases in which you contributed.  If you worked on a draft of a significant reported case, identify it by name and cite. Otherwise maybe cite with specificity an issue that you researched or on which you wrote.  

Where do you list your academics and what should the entries contain? Is the answer different as you gain more experience?

1) Where on your resume do you list your academic experience?

In most other lines of work, once you have your first job or two under your belt, your education retreats to the end of your resume.   That is not the case in law. 

If you are looking for a position at the associate level in law firms, the law school class year provides the context against which your experience is evaluated.  The same experience you list will be evaluated differently if you are one year out versus three years out, for example.  In New York, with its typically longer partnership track, your academics remain at the top of your resume until you’re at least  six years out. 

If you are looking for a junior level inhouse job with a legal department of at least a couple of people, the likelihood is that it will be in a subject matter specialist role.  The head in-house lawyer who reads your resume likely comes out of a law firm tradition.  If there is no attorney currently  on staff, typically, a company will ask their outside lawyers to screen and vet resumes. Accordingly, the initial legal review will be accustomed to seeing education go on top and evaluate your experience in a way similar to that of a law firm.

If you are moving laterally as a partner, your education goes after your job entries.

The prospective employer has the right to ask for your date of law school graduation.  It has direct bearing on your level of experience.  If you don’t provide it, your resume may very well get bounced from consideration. 

You may omit graduation years from pre-law school educational institutions.   The assumption drawn from omission is that there is a substantial gap (more than four years, let’s say), between law  and a predecessor school—where law is a second career, for example.   If there is no gap and you omit the year, you are make yourself appear older than you actually are.


An exception to this is if your flavor of practice is IP. If you have technical pre-law school degrees, I think you have to put the graduation years because it has direct relevance to your practice experience. Likewise, pre-law technical employment is an asset for any IP resume and should not be dropped, even as you become more experienced.

2)  What should the entries contain?

The more experienced you are, the more material (experience, affiliations, etc) you have to work with. However, fact is that, statistically, preliminary hiring decisions are made based upon what is on the first page.  Accordingly, as you get more senior, you need to edit what is on that first page--to take advantage of this precious real estate.  At a later blog post I will discuss my views on content of your work experience entries as you get more senior and how to accommodate appropriate detail most effectively.  Here I speak only of academic entries.

 

The rule of thumb is the closer that you are to graduation from law school and college, the more detail is appropriate.  Someone applying for their first job after law school would likely put down college and law school extra-curricular activities and affiliations. 

Once you have had a couple of years of legal experience, it is time to edit down your education detail. To be edited out are non leadership roles in student groups and clinical experience unrelated to subsequent full-time experience and undergraduate jobs unless they are truly exceptional or were gotten based upon academic merit.  In the case of these jobs, as you become more experienced, the descriptions should become shorter. By three or four years out, you should just list them by name and date as part of the undergraduate entry.  Fraternities and sororities are exceptions—you never know when you might come upon an alumnus in a position you who might be more disposed to hire or at least interview a fellow member of such fraterntity/sorority/society.   But once you have had a couple of years of post law school practice experience, no one cares that you were a freshman dorm counselor.

By the time you are eight years out, only the big ticket education items matter on a resume—editor of a law school publication, cum laude , Order of the Coif, etc—really, all that you would put in the website entry of a partner level attorney.

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Resume Tips for a Digital Age (First in a Series): the Header

1.     Always put private email address and a single phone number on your resume.  Putting work contact info down is only negative and suggests the following:  a) your employer knows or you don’t care that they know that you are on the market since employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy in office email; b) you are cavalier about using your employer’s resources for your personal use; c) you only use email and the internet for work-related business and are, therefore, not comfortable with current technology (especially deadly for older candidates).  In addition, anyone who has your resume will be unable to reach you with any potential job leads once you have left your current position.

No husband and wife email addresses pls:

i.e. jackandjill@email.com  It only raises the inference that your comfort level and use of current technology is limited.

Physical address is optional unless you are looking to change geography.  If you are looking to move an address connected to that new place is a positive

One phone number, your best number, is sufficient. In this age of phone number portability and cel phone penetration, putting more than one number, usually a cel phone, smacks of desperation.

If you have a strong Linked In© (www.linkedin.com) presence (and you should), which includes recommendations, why not put the link to your Linked-In© profile?  It gives an easy option to dig deeper if the prospective employer cares to do so.  N.B.,  in all cases, your profile should be consistent with the job for which you are applying since even if you don’t put a link in your resume, your Linked In© profile will likely be the first one to pop up in any Google© or other search engine search.