Case Studies

When this candidate first came to me looking for help with his job search it was in response to an email I had sent him regarding a bankruptcy position in a small market outside of the DC area. I sent him this email because he had indicated that he was a bankruptcy attorney. In fact, he was not a bankruptcy attorney but had peripherally worked on a matter related to bankruptcy and told me he wanted to work on bankruptcy matters. Truth be told, he most likely only said he wanted to do bankruptcy work because he thought that with the pandemic bankruptcy was going to be a hot practice area. READ MORE >

My candidate contacted BCG Attorney Search for assistance after she tried to find a job on her own. She tried unsuccessfully for several months to find an adequate placement. This candidate had ended her federal clerkship and first targeted the city of Atlanta on her own. She said she applied to the major law firms on her own without any success. She then gave up on Atlanta firms and contacted BCG for help. She said she was open to positions at major law firms in Texas. She had conducted some research on the cost of living in Texas, she had friends who lived there and enjoyed living there, and she visited the state and enjoyed what she saw. After our conversation, we decided to target Dallas and Houston. READ MORE >

This litigation candidate reached out to BCG and submitted his resume, and I was eventually assigned to work with him. He had an amazing resume and graduated from a top ten university and a top ten law school. He had decided to go work for an AmLaw 100 firm after law school in Washington, D.C. After working for a few years there, he and his wife decided to move back to the wife's hometown of Minneapolis. They have many family members that live there and wanted to have more of a support network. He then transitioned and worked for the government for a year to get court experience. It was a highly regarded government position. It was at this point in his career that he reached out to BCG to get help to move back to a law firm. He had tried applying for a few months on his own but was not having much luck. I called him and discussed what kind of law he wanted to practice, where he wanted to practice, and what size firm he wanted to target. I went straight to work with his wish list and started sending him firms to approve. After a few weeks of submitting him, he informed me that he was willing to expand his search and move back to Washington, D.C. or New York for the right job. I started sending him jobs in those cities for him to approve and then began submitting him to firms in three cities: Minneapolis, D.C., and New York. He understood that the wider you can cast your net, the more chances you are to get placed. READ MORE >

This first year candidate had only started working at his firm in October of 2019 but by June of 2020 he had already contacted me to see if I could help him find a new job. He was currently working at one of the best international law firms (also an Am Law 100 firm) in their New York City office. He had gone to an average law school on the west coast and one that this particular firm probably has never hired from before. In fact, I was shocked that he had even landed a job at this prestigious firm, coming from this law school, despite having stellar law school grades. This candidate however was a people person, charming, funny and quick-witted. He had landed the position through a personal connection. READ MORE >

This candidate was referred to me through a prior candidate, and I am always so appreciative of referrals, since I know it means people enjoyed working with me and BCG. She is absolutely lovely, and everything I like to see in candidates I work with. She as on the junior side, and she did not graduate from a top of the top law school. The other thing that made her search but difficult and easier - if that is possible - is she wanted a niche market. She had moved back to be near her family in this niche area, and that was where she was looking to remain. READ MORE >

As a Recruiter, I really enjoy helping friends from college, friends from law school and non-traditional candidates. I have worked with and placed several friends that I went to both college and law school with. Interestingly enough, two of these were plaintiff-side Labor & Employment candidates. One was a plaintiff-side Labor & Employment attorney who had worked at two plaintiff-side Labor & Employment firms in New York City, and I was able to place her at a defense-side general complex litigation boutique in Silicon Valley, where she ended up doing both general commercial litigation and labor & employment / employment litigation. She eventually landed at Hunton Andrews Kurth, a national, multi-office Am Law 100 firm. This is particularly impressive, given that she started on the plaintiff-side, and at such small firms. The other is, as mentioned, also a plaintiff-side Labor & Employment, and perhaps less impressively or less uniquely, I placed him at another plaintiff-side Labor & Employment firm in DC. However, his background is quite un-traditional, so in that sense it was still a unique placement. READ MORE >

During the pandemic, we have found that niche practice areas and smaller as well as more regional markets are doing particularly well. In terms of niche practice areas, some that we have seen a surprising amount of activity in are bankruptcy, taxation, trusts & estates (especially estate planning) and family law. In the case of these last two, this is of course because, very sadly, thousands of people in this country are getting sick and dying from COVID-19 every day, and I imagine that a lot of people and especially older people are taking the opportunity to get their estates in order. In terms of family law, I'm sure that a much larger percentage of married couples than usual are having marital problems and are considering divorce, due to the general stress and anxiety caused by the pandemic as well as family members being stuck working from home together. As a result, we have seen a lot of activity in terms of trusts & estates (both estate planning and trusts and estates litigation) and family law this year, in terms of interviews and placements, in all regions - the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest and South. READ MORE >

The pandemic has caused the legal hiring market to change quite substantially. Before March, at least in California, some of the hottest practice areas were general corporate, general finance, tech transactions, real estate transactions and real estate finance and labor & employment. However, come March, general corporate, general finance, real estate transactions and real estate finance essentially died (transactions-based practice areas), and even labor & employment, generally a consistently very strong practice area in California, temporarily died. The only practice area that has been steady throughout the pandemic has been general litigation. The vast majority of my placements in California this year have been in general litigation, and have been in all sorts of sub-specialties within litigation, ranging from lemon law litigation to personal injury to general commercial litigation to product liability and mass torts. The placement that I just made was the latter - a very senior general litigator who specializes in product liability and mass torts. While the most marketable litigators will have around two to five years of experience, and litigators who have more than five years of experience and don't have portable business are generally hard to place, there are always exceptions, and this candidate has 18 years of litigation experience! READ MORE >

This candidate came to me directly, as the recruiter she worked with was extremely important to her. She wanted to work with someone with strong legal credentials like she had, but also someone who understood the market and had made a lot of placements, so she sought me out directly. She also wanted to work with someone who understand and was open-minded about her career path, which is always the case with me. READ MORE >

I was really excited to work with this candidate. He had amazing credentials that I do not see very often, and he had chosen to spend the last 12 years of his legal career working on the prosecution side for the government in a major city. He graduated from a top-14 law school, and certainly had the credentials and background to land the large paying big law job, but he wanted to give back to the community, and he decided to take time to work for the government. He had only intended to stay for a couple of years, but was so successful and enjoyed the work so much, before he knew it many years had passed by. READ MORE >

In this case, I worked with an in-house attorney to get back to a law firm. There are many people who say it is not possible to make the switch back to a law firm after working inhouse. It is not as common, but it is definitely possible. READ MORE >

This candidate is an example of how a strong candidate can fare much better in one market over another and just how strong the Boston lateral hiring market was in 2019. I do not think that as a 5th year, we would have had the same success in New York but in Boston, the candidate was able to do the picking. In 2019, we saw Boston firms willing to entertain more candidates' applications, meet with them, and ultimately hire more laterals and quicker than in other markets, and particularly so with litigators. READ MORE >

This candidate is a returning candidate to me and BCG, who I worked with in his placement two years earlier. It is always a huge compliment when a candidate comes back to work with us, and he was such a pleasure to work with the first time, I looked forward to it this time as well! He really enjoyed the firm we placed him at, but unfortunately the firm was hit hard by the coronavirus, and since he was one of the recent hires, they had to lay him off. READ MORE >

This placement involved a very unique candidate who practiced in the niche area of sports law. Though he was practicing in North Carolina when I started working with him, he was open to relocation to another jurisdiction, and he ended up being placed with a terrific firm in his preferred location of Texas doing sports law. READ MORE >

Due to COVID-19, the market has changed dramatically in the last six months. Whereas before March, practice areas like general corporate, general finance and real estate transactional and real estate finance where very active, these practice area now dead, and firms nationwide are barely hiring in the transactional space. Tech transactions and data privacy were very, very active before March, and while data privacy continues to be active, tech transactions is not as active. Niche practice areas like tax, bankruptcy and trusts & estates are now doing well, and small markets are very active, which markets were not as active before the pandemic. For example, I normally get the most activity in California, in particular LA, in terms of interviews, offers and placements, but recently, I have been seeing a great deal of activity at small litigation firms in Seattle, Las Vegas and Denver. I even have a junior corporate candidate interviewing in Honolulu! READ MORE >