The Brutal Truth About Legal Careers: Here’s Why Only the Extraordinary Make It

 

1. Most Law Students Overestimate Their Future Success

Several years ago I was giving a speech at a law school that I think is ranked about number 25 or so in the United States. I was the only speaker and at least 100 law students had turned up to hear me speak to them about the job market.

At the time, the legal job market in the United States was doing very well. Law school applications were up and lots of people coming out of law school were doing very well.

However, as I looked at the kids in this audience, I could see a high level of arrogance. People were leaning back in their seats and appeared very confident for the most part. They seemed to feel as if they had already made it and would do very well no matter what occurred.

Because I was a full-time legal recruiter at the time, I knew the opposite was likely true. Despite the fact these kids were going to a good school, I knew that only 20% of them would ever get jobs with large prestigious law firms. I also knew that of those, only a small percentage would stay more than a few years. Regardless of the state of the legal market, my assessment of the prospects for most of them was not pretty.

2. The Legal Profession Only Rewards the Extraordinary

In your life, unless you are truly extraordinary you are not going to get the big rewards. The highest levels of success are only reserved for those who are the absolute best at what they do. You can be average, or above average and get along just fine, but you will never do that well. The highest rewards go to those who are extraordinary.

Being extraordinary is more than being just gifted. Once you are gifted in something, you need to keep pushing yourself to do better and better. You only become extraordinary when you push and develop every muscle you need to in order to be successful.

Instead of my planned speech that night, I decided that I would be better off giving the students a serious pep talk. I knew that despite this law school’s pedigree that most of these kids would never make it at the high level they all seemed to think they would. All of these kids expected they would get good jobs at a large law firm.

• Most would never get jobs at large law firms.
• Out of the few that did get jobs at large law firms, only a few of them would end up succeeding.

To make it in the legal profession you need to be extraordinary. You cannot be average, or even good. None of that is enough.

My speech that night was about how all of these kids needed to be extraordinary if they were going to succeed. I told them that most of them might think they would succeed but very few would.

If you are average, you will probably not get a job. If you are good, you will not get a job at a large prestigious law firm. You will get a job at a smaller law firm. If you are extraordinary, you might get a job at a large law firm. However, once you are there you will need to continue being extraordinary to keep your job. You will need to be extraordinary compared to those you are working with who are extraordinary as well. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% of you who are able to get jobs with large prestigious firms will probably ever be a partner in one of these firms. You will need to work harder and be smarter. If you do not think you can be extraordinary, you should stop doing what you are doing right now and do something you feel you can be extraordinary doing.
 

3. Align Your Career with Your Greatest Natural Strengths

When I was in college, I knew a few math geniuses. These were the sorts of kids who finished all the calculus classes in their high school when they were in ninth grade then spent the next couple of years taking advanced classes at local colleges before they finished high school and formally enrolled in a college. Since I was in a dorm room with these guys and remembered them, I looked a few of them up.

One is a math professor at a good sized college and this is sort of what I would expect. He could probably have been a lot of things and he chose something that I am assuming was up his alley. After college he kept going to school and finished a PhD program at a prestigious school somewhere.

The other guy has been a journalist with a small town paper for several years. I looked up some of his articles and they do not appear that in depth or good. I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a journalist. What strikes me about this is that he is in a job that probably is not making the most of his skills. While I hate to say it, just about anyone with a high school education can put together a short article about the local gas station closing. Very few people have the ability to understand complex math and do it at such a high level.

If you’ve been doing math problems at a higher and higher level for a decade or more and spent thousands of hours doing this, it is probably not a good idea to do an 180-degree turn and do something completely different altogether. This is not going to make the best use of your skills. If you want to be incredible at something, you should continue down the path of your greatest skills.

I wonder what would have happened to this math genius if he kept pushing himself in the direction of his natural gifts.  My thought is that he would probably have continued to get better and better. Instead, he has chosen something where he probably does not have the same level of innate ability.

In everything you do, you are going to get the best results if you choose something based on your strengths. The rewards in life generally go to the people who are not good, or even excellent, but rather to those who are extraordinary. If you are going to be truly successful at something, you need to be extraordinary.

I’ve been a legal recruiter for the past 25 years and I am paid to recognize the extraordinary. The legal profession is a very difficult one to rise in if you want to practice at a high level with the largest firms with the most prestige. I’ve been reviewing at least 100 resumes a day for most of the 25 years I’ve been in the industry. Because getting jobs with the very best firms is so competitive, very few attorneys can ever do it. As I told the law students from the top 25 law school, if you want to work at the very best law firms in the United States, you need to be extraordinary.

There are roughly 250+ accredited law schools in the United States. Out of these, 25 are very good. If you do not go to one of these 25 law schools, you are generally going to need to do incredibly well wherever you go to get a top job with a major law firm coming out of law school.

• You will probably need to be one of the top five or 10 students in your class to get the best jobs available with the largest firms in your city (the best firms in a city generally always hire out of local law schools)
• If you want to go to a major city not near your law school (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles), you are going to need to be the number one or number two student in your law school class.

In order to get into a top 25 law school, you generally need to do very well just to get in there. You will need to have excellent grades at whatever college you go to and do upwards of the 90% percentile on your admissions test to law school. You need to do very well just to get into these law schools.

If you go to a law school that is not in the top 10, you are going to need to be in the top 50% of your class in most cases to get a job with a large law firm. There are numerous exceptions to this. However, this is the general rule and had been for some time. Some people who are not in the top 50% may be very good at interviews, good looking, have connections, and so forth that enable them to get into the best firms. These are things that ultimately set them apart and make them extraordinary.

If you are coming from a top 10 law school, there is a whole pecking order of law firms as well. For example, there are very few attorneys who will get jobs at the top 5 most prestigious law firms. Certain jobs will require that students from these top law schools be at the very top of their classes. Other jobs will require that students be near the top of their classes. If a student from a top 10 law school is at the bottom of their class, they will likely not get a job with a large prestigious law firm and may not get a job at all.
 

---

See Related Articles:

• Things You Should Know About Law School: Success Tips
• How Much Does the Law School You Went to Matter When You Lateral Firms?
• Why Law School Grades Do Not Matter Forever: Law School Grades and Your Legal Career

---

4. The Rewards of Excellence Are Disproportionate

In life, the largest rewards go to the people who are extraordinary. You need to be truly extraordinary if you are going to get the rewards.

In the Olympics, there are gold, silver, and bronze medals. Everyone remembers who got the gold medal. Notwithstanding, very few people remember who got the silver and bronze medal. If you are not in the top three, you get NOTHING–no rewards whatsoever. You do not get a reward despite the fact you have to be the best in the world to even be competing in the Olympics.

One of the saddest things out there is that many people are doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Because they are not doing what they should be doing, they tend to get the worst results possible. You should only do something where you have the chance to be extraordinary. If you cannot be extraordinary, then you are likely wasting your time.

Why pursue a career doing something where you are never going to be the best? The odds are you have some sort of skill that is truly extraordinary that the world recognizes. Why aren’t you doing that?

Life will pay any price you ask of it, if you ask intelligently. Asking of life is more about choosing what to ask than simply asking. If you are a poor writer and ask to be a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, life probably will not give you this. If you are a gifted mathematician and ask to be a noble prize winning scientist you probably stand a better chance.

Life is about focusing your efforts where you are likely to be extraordinary.

If you do a poor job you will get pain. You will lose. The world will not recognize you and you will have a hard time.

When you do a good job you get poor rewards. A bronze medal in the Olympics is not something that people thrust above their head with a great deal of joy. This is a poor reward.

When you are really excellent you get good results. You may get a silver medal.

The most rewards come when you are at the level of outstanding. When you are outstanding you get all the rewards. The rewards for being outstanding are completely disproportionate.

The difference between excellent and outstanding is not that great.

The people who are outstanding are constantly demanding of themselves just a little bit more. They are able to do this because they push themselves and do things they do not want to do. The athlete practices harder. When they are competing, they reach within themselves to get even more out of themselves.

Outstanding is when you raise the standard for everyone. For example, Thomas Edison raised the standard for everyone. Because he kept pushing and pushing, he was able to discover how to successfully light a room with electricity using a light bulb. Due to what he achieved, everyone now has electric light. A new standard was born.

Many people in Edison’s position probably would not have continued despite all the failure he experienced. The story is that it took him 10,000 attempts before he was able to perfect the light bulb. Instead of accepting that he failed 9,999 times, Edison is quoted as saying: “I have not failed. I just found 9,999 ways that do not work.”

You build muscle when you do things you do not want to do. To build muscle, you need to push and do things that are uncomfortable to get growth.

The reason it is so important to be working in areas where you are truly gifted is because you will always be competing with people who are also very good. It is not enough be gifted. You need to be gifted AND work harder than the next guy.

I saw a 60 Minutes segment about the swimmer Michael Phelps. The story was incredibly interesting and talked about how at one point Phelps did not miss a daily 6:30 am swim practice for several years. Here is someone who is a naturally gifted swimmer already and yet he never missed a practice. He just kept trying to get better and better at this skill.

Could someone who was good at ice hockey suddenly switch gears and compete with a guy like Phelps at swimming?  No. It would be impossible.

You need to do what you are really excellent at and then work like hell to be extraordinary. There is no other way. All the rewards go to the person who is extraordinary.
 

Conclusion

The legal profession does not reward effort alone—it rewards excellence, focus, and the relentless pursuit of becoming extraordinary. Whether you're a law student planning your future or an attorney navigating your career, your long-term success depends on your willingness to push beyond being merely good. True achievement in law comes when you align your natural strengths with unyielding discipline and an unshakable commitment to growth. If you’re not striving to be the best at what you do, you're likely setting yourself up for disappointment in a field that only recognizes the top performers. In a profession where the margin between success and failure is razor thin, being extraordinary isn’t optional—it’s essential.
 

---

About Harrison Barnes

No legal recruiter in the United States has placed more attorneys at top law firms across every practice area than Harrison Barnes. His unmatched expertise, industry connections, and proven placement strategies have made him the most influential legal career advisor for attorneys seeking success in Big Law, elite boutiques, mid-sized firms, small firms, firms in the largest and smallest markets, and in over 350 separate practice areas.

A Reach Unlike Any Other Legal Recruiter

Most legal recruiters focus only on placing attorneys in large markets or specific practice areas, but Harrison places attorneys at all levels, in all practice areas, and in all locations-from the most prestigious firms in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., to small and mid-sized firms in rural markets. Every week, he successfully places attorneys not only in high-demand practice areas like corporate and litigation but also in niche and less commonly recruited areas such as:

• Immigration Law
• Workers Compensation
• Insurance
• Family Law
• Trust and Estate
• Municipal law
• And many more...

This breadth of placements is unheard of in the legal recruiting industry and is a testament to his extraordinary ability to connect attorneys with the right firms, regardless of market size or practice area.

Proven Success at All Levels

With over 25 years of experience, Harrison has successfully placed attorneys at over 1,000 law firms, including:

• Top Am Law 100 firms such including Sullivan and Cromwell, and almost every AmLaw 100 and AmLaw 200 law firm.
• Elite boutique firms with specialized practices
• Mid-sized firms looking to expand their practice areas
• Growing firms in small and rural markets

He has also placed hundreds of law firm partners and has worked on firm and practice area mergers, helping law firms strategically grow their teams.

Unmatched Commitment to Attorney Success - The Story of BCG Attorney Search

Harrison Barnes is not just the most effective legal recruiter in the country, he is also the founder of BCG Attorney Search, a recruiting powerhouse that has helped thousands of attorneys transform their careers. His vision for BCG goes beyond just job placement; it is built on a mission to provide attorneys with opportunities they would never have access to otherwise. Unlike traditional recruiting firms, BCG Attorney Search operates as a career partner, not just a placement service. The firm's unparalleled resources, including a team of over 150 employees, enable it to offer customized job searches, direct outreach to firms, and market intelligence that no other legal recruiting service provides. Attorneys working with Harrison and BCG gain access to hidden opportunities, real-time insights on firm hiring trends, and guidance from a team that truly understands the legal market. You can read more about how BCG Attorney Search revolutionizes legal recruiting here: The Story of BCG Attorney Search and What We Do for You.

The Most Trusted Career Advisor for Attorneys

Harrison's legal career insights are the most widely followed in the profession.

• His articles on BCG Search alone are read by over 150,000 attorneys per month, making his guidance the most sought-after in the legal field. Read his latest insights here.
• He has conducted hundreds of hours of career development webinars, available here: Harrison Barnes Webinar Replays.
• His placement success is unmatched-see examples here: Harrison Barnes' Attorney Placements.
• He has created numerous comprehensive career development courses, including BigLaw Breakthrough, designed to help attorneys land positions at elite law firms.

Submit Your Resume to Work with Harrison Barnes

If you are serious about advancing your legal career and want access to the most sought-after law firm opportunities, Harrison Barnes is the most powerful recruiter to have on your side.

Submit your resume today to start working with him: Submit Resume Here

With an unmatched track record of success, a vast team of over 150 dedicated employees, and a reach into every market and practice area, Harrison Barnes is the recruiter who makes career transformations happen and has the talent and resources behind him to make this happen.

A Relentless Commitment to Attorney Success

Unlike most recruiters who work with only a narrow subset of attorneys, Harrison Barnes works with lawyers at all stages of their careers, from junior associates to senior partners, in every practice area imaginable. His placements are not limited to only those with "elite" credentials-he has helped thousands of attorneys, including those who thought it was impossible to move firms, find their next great opportunity.

Harrison's work is backed by a team of over 150 professionals who work around the clock to uncover hidden job opportunities at law firms across the country. His team:

• Finds and creates job openings that aren't publicly listed, giving attorneys access to exclusive opportunities.
• Works closely with candidates to ensure their resumes and applications stand out.
• Provides ongoing guidance and career coaching to help attorneys navigate interviews, negotiations, and transitions successfully.

This level of dedicated support is unmatched in the legal recruiting industry.

A Legal Recruiter Who Changes Lives

Harrison believes that every attorney-no matter their background, law school, or previous experience-has the potential to find success in the right law firm environment. Many attorneys come to him feeling stuck in their careers, underpaid, or unsure of their next steps. Through his unique ability to identify the right opportunities, he helps attorneys transform their careers in ways they never thought possible.

He has worked with:

• Attorneys making below-market salaries who went on to double or triple their earnings at new firms.
• Senior attorneys who believed they were "too experienced" to make a move and found better roles with firms eager for their expertise.
• Attorneys in small or remote markets who assumed they had no options-only to be placed at strong firms they never knew existed.
• Partners looking for a better platform or more autonomy who successfully transitioned to firms where they could grow their practice.

For attorneys who think their options are limited, Harrison Barnes has proven time and time again that opportunities exist-often in places they never expected.

Submit Your Resume Today - Start Your Career Transformation

If you want to explore new career opportunities, Harrison Barnes and BCG Attorney Search are your best resources. Whether you are looking for a BigLaw position, a boutique firm, or a move to a better work environment, Harrison's expertise will help you take control of your future.

Submit Your Resume Here to get started with Harrison Barnes today.

Harrison's reach, experience, and proven results make him the best legal recruiter in the industry. Don't settle for an average recruiter-work with the one who has changed the careers of thousands of attorneys and can do the same for you.

About BCG Attorney Search

BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive, while achieving results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.