The Seven Untapped Ways for Attorneys and Law Students to Find a Legal Job

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello today, we're going to discuss the  seven untapped ways for attorneys and law students to find legal jobs. And this is a pretty important topic because what happens is when people are doing their search a lot of people will not. Do every single job search method instead we'll do one or two job search methods or both.

[00:00:21]There'll be an expert in one thing and not another. So for example a lot of people will only use online job sites or only use our career services office. And the problem with that thinking is since that most people including even, most recruiters and people in career services, offices, and everybody do not really know how to track down all the positions out there because the market is huge.

[00:00:47] There's a major amount of positions out there and. Most people do not know how to find them. And if you're not exploring the market in the right way, then you're not going to be finding enough jobs. So the [00:01:00] thing that I've seen in my career of over 20 years is, so many people are unhappy in the positions that they're in because they're not really finding or they don't know how to find the right position.

[00:01:13] They may believe that they're stuck. Because of where they went to law school because of their seniority because of the market that they're in. And many times they're not even working because they're not tracking down all the jobs or they're in positions where they believe. That they can not find another job.

[00:01:31] And that makes it very difficult for a lot of people because  they're just not aware of the opportunities out there. And the problem is in addition to being aware of some of the opportunities, you may not know how to apply to them. And we're going to cover that today. And this topic that I'm covering right now is really in my opinion one of the more important talks that you will ever hear about.

[00:01:54]How to find decisions in the market because it's very difficult for most people to know [00:02:00] everything that's out there. And once everything that's out there, you can find positions that are likely to make you happy that are likely to lead to you advancing. And  we'll give you a lot more success in your career.

[00:02:13]So in the military, there's a thing called the force multiplier effect and what that is. Is that means when when someone is going to war  and fighting, they have a lot of different options in terms of how they fight. One way to fight may be to bring in tanks.

[00:02:30] Another way to fight and maybe bring in, ground troops and other way to fight native, bring in airplanes. Another way to fight me to bring in ships and launch, attach that way or, drop Marines in off the helicopters. There's all sorts of ways to fight. And the idea of the force multiplier effect is that the more things you do in your when you're, looking for a job.

[00:02:54] The more effective you're likely to be. And the same thing goes for a war. You're going to win a war [00:03:00] if you bring in a lot of resources into a lot of different things than if you only do one or two things when you're doing it. And the problem with the way that most attorneys look for jobs is most people will only do one or two things.

[00:03:13] And if you do one or two things, you may get some results, but you're not going to get. All the results that you really can get. And one of the things that I've noticed in my career is that. People that really are happy in practicing law and are able to find the right jobs will really do a lot of different things.

[00:03:34] And they'll be aware of your marketability and the things that can happen to them. One example, for example, that I'll talk about a little bit in a few minutes was just like targeted mass mailing. And that's something that almost no one does. And it's extremely effective. I've seen people go from, being unemployed for months to using that service and, getting 10, 15, job offers by, doing their own mass mailings or private legal job [00:04:00] boards or how to apply to jobs on public job boards.

[00:04:02] So we're going to discuss all this today. And in subsequent weeks, we're going to go into a lot more detail about each because there's lots of secrets about how to search for jobs using each of these methods. But each of these methods can be very effective in terms of how you look for a job.

[00:04:20] So the first one is networking. This really is an extremely effective way to find a legal position. And most people these days do not do it. Most people are much more comfortable sitting behind the computer and. Send me an emails or in, in our many times afraid of rejection and do not want to get out there and network the way they should.

[00:04:42]Sometimes people don't want to owe any people, anything. They don't want to show them their resume and maybe, that expose themselves to weakness. They don't. Trust people necessarily to help them because they may be competitive with their peers and that's especially true of attorneys.

[00:04:59]They may [00:05:00] feel that if their network that, people will take advantage of their weaknesses and they may have just had bad experiences with networking earlier in their life. The first time I tried to network to get a position, I. Contacted a the father of a friend of mine.

[00:05:14] And when I called him on the phone, he basically hung up on me and told me to call human resources. And that was, upset. And and then in other cases people that, that I asked for how it may not have been well-regarded by the law firm w that I in the city I was in, and that hurt me.

[00:05:31] And, so I just, for me, like very early on, like I always thought that networking was not something that I necessarily wanted. And and I had a lot of prejudice against that and had I not had those same prejudices, I probably would have done  much better in my job search in terms of having a lot more opportunities.

[00:05:51] And but many people just do not. Effectively network or don't want to network when they're looking for a job and that can really [00:06:00] harm you quite a deal quite a bit, quite a lot, quite a, quite a lot. And and you really need to learn networking skills, which is something that we'll cover next.

[00:06:08] Sweet. But I do want to talk a little bit about today because it's something that you need to start right away in terms of. Getting out there regardless of what kind of job you may be looking for. So the first thing is when you have social connections the people that you're connecting with are often interested in helping you, even though you may not think that because anytime someone asks, someone else for help it actually, the person that's being asked it makes them feel good about themselves.

[00:06:37]A lot of times younger people may be competitive and, and may not help as much, but older people tend to be much more willing to help you. And anybody that you can ask for help in terms of networking can be very helpful. And another thing is like employers really like to hire people that are recommended by others.

[00:06:57] And because when you come through a [00:07:00] recommendation you're not just a stranger off the street and, strangers can surprise you. When you, when someone doesn't have a kind of a social connection and they may be burning bridges and so forth, and there's a potential of it, bad things can happen.

[00:07:13] And I've seen. Attorneys get hired by firms, not necessarily through us, but sometimes that have all sorts of huge skeletons in their closet. There's people that, I've known in the past of that have, done things like, smoke crystal meth and their office, or.

[00:07:28]Sh been relocated across the world to work for a law firm and had, serious drinking problems where they were hung over every day or, people that have been accused of stealing and things. And so when, law firms have been burned in the past most law firms have been burned and most employers have been burned the longer they're in the business.

[00:07:48] And so anytime someone has recommended. That can really help and, all sorts of recommendations. When you know, people that can recommend you, or when you network with people that can help [00:08:00] you in a major way. And, I don't know what the statistics are, but, in different industries, the number of people that get hired through networking is very high.

[00:08:09]It's probably higher than. Out of the seven methods that I'm going to cover today, I would say it's at least in the top three or four, networking is, has always been a, the best way of getting a position. And, if you think back hundreds of years, when, jobs were in different villages and so forth, that was really the only way,  to find jobs sometimes as if you knew someone, otherwise you might.

[00:08:31]Spend your whole career working in a castle or whatever. Unless you knew someone that knew someone, so networking is extremely important and you should assume that, every person that you network with know several people and can get out there and help you. And and the other thing is when someone's recommending you to a position they really want to demonstrate their social status to the person who recommended you.

[00:08:56] So that can also be.  Very helpful. Now [00:09:00] this is a short course right now about how to network to find legal jobs. And I'm going to cover this in a lot more detail in a networking section, but the best way really to network there's a book I believe it's called never send a resume and it's a really good little book.

[00:09:16] And what it talks about is. Essentially it says, you need to write down, just take out a piece of paper and write down a hundred people that, you know, and and I've used this method to get all sorts of people, positions including. People that are not attorneys and all sorts of people, but what you do is you write down a hundred people that, you know, and when you break down these hundred people, all you really need to do is contact them.

[00:09:44] You reach out to them and you just ask them how they're doing. You start a conversation, you can talk to them on the phone, or you can. Messaged him through, Facebook or some sort of social network thing, but generally you want to talk to them on the phone and set up a call and just check in and see how they're [00:10:00] doing.

[00:10:00] And, the objective of these checking calls is never to ask for anything it's not to ask for anything it's to ask the person about themselves and how they're doing and, see what's going on. And generally they may ask you how things are going and if they, if you're employed, you can.

[00:10:18]Talk about all, I'm just

[00:10:19] investigating

[00:10:20] Harrison Barnes: the market or, thinking about maybe looking for a job or if you're not employed, you can tell them that. But that's really the main thing you need to do in those colleges. You don't need to go into a lot of detail about, what, the fact that you're looking for a job, because you don't want to make the call about that.

[00:10:36] And many times a very effective thing you can do is you can ask the person. If there's anything that you can do for them? I years ago a guy that was an older guy that was actually looking for a mentor contact me just to talk. And I thought that was very unusual.

[00:10:55] And so I talked to him and then and then he said he was going to be in the area and what [00:11:00] I like to have lunch. And I said, sure, I'll have lunch. And so I had lunch for him and then he said, he told me that he admired me and all this sort of things, and he was a very successful marketing person and that the soul things and and and that, that flatter me and he asked me if there was anything that he could do for me.

[00:11:19] And and then he sent me a a course or something that he had helped develop on sales techniques or something along those lines. And then the course was, probably cost 10 or $15 to develop. And I think he sold it, it was sold for four or $500, but I really appreciated it,  appreciated the gesture and then,  At some point, he said, I'd really like to know how you did this and this.

[00:11:44] And and I gave him some advice and he said, thank you. And then I impressed with the fact that he'd shown all those interests to me, that. I actually went out and I called him and I set up another call and I asked him what I could do for him and really wanted to help him. So that's an [00:12:00] example of someone who's a very successful networker and how they went about it.

[00:12:04]And the legal placement and industry, the same thing happens with with a lot of very good people that are good at placement, they will contact attorneys. From time to time that they are interested in working with and they will just talk to them and see how things are going.

[00:12:20] And then they really will never talk about jobs and the same thing in the financial industry, they'll contact people. I once watched a very successful networker invite this man over there was house and he was in the financial service industry and this man had just sold a company for $800 million.

[00:12:38]If you're a financial advisor, that's probably the best possible client you can have. And when he invited him over, he didn't talk about anything. And he was very casual and was just nice to him and it was a social thing. And then, he kept running into him and that the man that had all this money just kept expecting this guy to try to sell him something.

[00:12:57] And he never did. And eventually the [00:13:00] man with all the money, he actually tracked him down wanted to give him money to invest. The idea is when you're networking the most important thing you can do is show interest in others and you really need to, break down all the people, and it doesn't really matter who the person is.

[00:13:15] It could be, relative it could be a a former classmate. It could be, all sorts of different types of people. It's just, it really does not matter. I've seen people get incredible jobs from, in one case, I knew someone that got a job from a grocery store cashier.

[00:13:33]I knew some someone else that. Got a job from someone he met when he was in the hospital,  that wasn't even it was a kind of a blue collar worker and he got a very good job inside of a company. It doesn't really matter, when you show interest in people and they will always ask you what you do.

[00:13:50] Yeah. And and you can always get. Positions with, from doing this, especially, if you're unemployed and have a lot of time, [00:14:00] just networking can be. Extremely effective and, some examples our, relatives if your relatives now you're looking for a position or interest in something, they can help you.

[00:14:10]Former coworkers are really considered the best source of people to contact many times because they tend to be in the same intro,  same industry law, school classmates your friends. Friends of friends that you may meet. I know people, lots of people that have gotten jobs through friends of friends and just people that you come across with in day-to-day dealings.

[00:14:30] So showing interest in others is very effective. And then the other thing in terms of, networking that is very important is you want to really make sure that,  you look like someone who's very interested in the sort of work that you do. Having like a passion of, for whatever it is you do or whatever, practicing law.

[00:14:51] You're you are, if you want to work, can accompany a as an attorney or the government, whatever you do, you need to look like you have a lot of interest in [00:15:00] it because that's really the only way to be referrable is when you have a lot of interest and you're showing interest in something.

[00:15:08] And if you show a lot of interest in it, Than other people are likely to refer you. A lot of times, your friends may not sometimes be the best source of referrals. If they've seen you at your worst and because that they can, talk about that,  or, to people.

[00:15:23]But our former coworkers, the same thing, sometimes they may not be the best source of they senior or you worse. People that have seen you at your best are good, but there's nothing wrong with being human. And making mistakes. I'm going to cover this a lot in a subsequent module next week.

[00:15:38] But this is a very important thing for your job search and, writing down a hundred people that, and reaching out and excuse me, in contacting them is something that you should be doing and it should be taking up a lot of your time because remember, Those people will come across people.

[00:15:55] And when they do they will talk about you and I've gotten there, hired [00:16:00] numerous people through networking. And, one example that I can bring up is there was a very brilliant guy that had graduated from Berkeley at the age of 19 and and because he was so young, he couldn't find a position.

[00:16:17] And a rabbi that knew my wife had called her. I knew that she had something to do with legal placement. And even now this rabbi probably knew hundreds of people she had a good relationship with him and I had a good relationship with him. And I was able to get him a job working for me for several years and and get his career started.

[00:16:40] And he made a lot of money and then took time off and spent several years traveling. But that's an example of, because he was on good terms with the rabbi and went over to his house and was friends with his son. The rabbi was able to recommend him and. Numerous other examples of attorneys I've hired.

[00:16:59]I once [00:17:00] hired an in-house counsel from a woman that I know that had a friend that was interested in looking for a job. And he really relocated out here to from Los Angeles or from New York to Los Angeles I've hired  other attorneys, I. One of them was someone classmate from high school that ended up becoming an in-house attorney because he had stayed in contact with me when he moved to Los Angeles.

[00:17:26] So just numerous people that I've hired from networking. It's so much easier for employers to hire people through networking than it is. To hire people off the street because there's never the same level of trust. And there's never the same level of shared interest. And the more you network and the more take advantage of this the better off we're going to be.

[00:17:47]The other thing too, is a lot of people just don't want to be vulnerable. They don't want to feel vulnerable to friends or other people, and networking can be hard for them and they don't want to show weakness and there's nothing [00:18:00] wrong with. Telling people that you need something and there's nothing wrong with  allowing other people.

[00:18:07] To refer people to you and to help you. And

[00:18:10] it's

[00:18:10]Harrison Barnes: Very powerful and it's endearing to people that have the ability to help you when they want to. And a lot of times people will hire people, even if they don't have jobs when they come through a network. And so I just want to stress how important that is and

[00:18:26] and

[00:18:26] Harrison Barnes: that it's something that you need to okay.

[00:18:30] So the next thing I'd like to talk about our public job boards which is a very common way for people to get jobs. Now, I'm not going to spend a ton of time talking about public job boards because everybody knows about them, but there are some very important secrets that you need to understand.

[00:18:48]About how a public job board works. So the first thing is that a public job board is free. So that means that anyone who's interested can use it. And so anybody can log [00:19:00] in and set up an account and start up jobs. Now there's nothing wrong with that in practice. But there are some problems with public job boards that you need to be aware of and things you can do.

[00:19:12] To actually be much more effective when you're using public job boards than you might otherwise pay. So a public job board we'll typically charge employers to post jobs. So that means, they may charge $500 and then the job will show up for 30 days. Other sites like indeed will charge a pay per click.

[00:19:31] So the kind of like Google, where people click on a job they will charge them. Other ones will charge by the applicant that people get. And there's just all sorts of ways for charging, but the idea with the public job site is their job is really to get the job out to as many people as possible and drive as much, many clicks and applicants.

[00:19:51] And also because the employers are charging, getting charged to post jobs on them. You're only seeing the jobs out there that [00:20:00] employers are posting on that site. Most likely. Yeah.  Sites like indeed and other sites I'll charge employers. And so it's not, they're not necessarily researching jobs.

[00:20:11] They're just they're businesses and they're charging for drawing eyeballs into the jobs. And nowadays most of the jobs we'll charge on most employers will charge them sort of a PPC type. Y and, there's a massive number of job sites out there's tons and tons of them.

[00:20:27] And I'm going to talk a lot about job sites today and how they work.  The prejudices that most people have against them are that, the first thing is a lot of times you'll apply to jobs on them and you won't hear anything. The next thing is you may have no success after, sending numerous applications and that can create distrust and many times there's coach jobs which means, that an employer may post a job on a site, but then they just forget that the jobs there and they're still accepting applications.

[00:20:58]And sometimes the [00:21:00] jobs been filled or other times the employer may just not. Close to the job and that can happen at sometimes job sites just to have a lot of jobs will just leave the job open. And the other thing is also is that, anytime a job was on a public job site, the job of the job site is to get as many applicants in.

[00:21:18]The best person is always going to get hired. But if you're an attorney, and you're applying for a certain type of job, you, your odds of being the best applicant attorney or law student are going to be fairly slim. So the best applicants will typically come in. I've had instances where I've posted a job in a public job site and literally, to my astonishment,  have attracted, hundreds of applicants and, gotten even like Supreme court clerks.

[00:21:44] And, obviously, Supreme court clerk applies. I'm going to be interested in hiring that person as opposed to, th the run of the mill people that are applying. That there's all sorts of different types of people that may apply to those jobs.

[00:21:56] And so they can be more difficult. And many times the [00:22:00] jobs may be closed and you may never hear anything. So the first thing is is that. When you use a public job site the largest benefit is that employers are typically posting jobs that they're eager to hire for.

[00:22:14] So what that means is the employer that's posting their we'll have a job and and so most of the in, you can obviously get a position that way and. They're at the point where,  the need is serious enough that they've identified it and they've gone out and spent money.

[00:22:31] And the other thing is that when an employer does post a job on a public job board they typically will hire people very quickly and in response. They will bring people in yeah. Higher because there's a business need. And if they're spending money to post on a public job site, that means.

[00:22:47]That they're typically losing money or have the ability to lose money or there's some sort of our ability to make money by hiring you. So they're interested in bringing you on. And the other thing that's nice about public job sites is if you set up alerts, you'll [00:23:00] typically receive notifications of the jobs.

[00:23:03]As soon as they're done, I posted one thing I did want to go back though and real quickly cover. Is that  the other thing that can happen on a public job site is that a lot of times employers may post a job and that job they may just decide that they don't want to hire for that job anymore sometimes after posting the job.

[00:23:24] And and then the other thing that can happen is,  the job will just be left open. So there, there are, depending on the quality of the job site, There are a lot of times jobs on those jobs site that aren't even real jobs. So you may look at the job and get very excited, but nothing's going to happen.

[00:23:40] And another thing that can happen too, is one of the reasons you may never hear anything when you apply to the job site is, typically when I post jobs in a public job site, what happens is that the first applicants that come in. You're very enthusiastic about interviewing and bringing in.

[00:23:56] And the employer will interview the first people that come in [00:24:00] and, when they interviewed that person  they're typically very excited about hiring that person. And we'll try to, interview and hire from the first pool of applicants.

[00:24:08] So on the first day a job comes out, there's typically a rush of applicants because job alerts go out and people see it at the top of the search results. And so the employers would typically hire. Out of the first batch of applicants to come in, but the job may be open, for 30 days or 60 days, 90 days.

[00:24:25] And so after that period of time, people are still applying, but the people that apply first typically are the ones that will get the job. So the thing that's important is if you do use public job sites and you should use, just as you should be using network and you should be using public job boards for your search.

[00:24:45]But the most important thing is that you be aware of the fact that when you're applying to those jobs, you need to be among the first applicants because employers will almost always hire an [00:25:00] interview from the first applicants. And then they will forget about it.

[00:25:02]It's a lot of work reviewing resumes, scheduling, resumes, passing things around. And so typically. Most employers will just interview from the first people. That come in. So what you should be doing is you should set up alerts on public job sites and you should always try to apply to the jobs within the first few hours of, it being added, they're receiving a job alert.

[00:25:24] You want to be, among the first applicants that come in. If you do that that's going to drastically increase the level of success that you have with public jobs sites, because people are people and they don't have, time to sit in front of a computer and review resumes. Just put yourself in the, in the shoes of a, say it like an insurance defense firm.

[00:25:47] So an insurance dependent firm, an attorney work inside of an insurance defense firm may literally have 150 cases. And it could be like a second year attorney with 150 cases. And every day, different [00:26:00] deadlines are coming up and things are happening in each of those cases that need to be responded to, and

[00:26:04] phone

[00:26:04] Harrison Barnes: calls are coming in.

[00:26:06] And that law firm or whoever, leave. So it was doing all that work is going to need to be replaced quickly. So when an insurance defense firm post a job, they've got all these deadlines and things in this case, there isn't someone else's doing the work for now and they're overwhelmed and they really need to bring someone in.

[00:26:24] So they will put an ad up. And then, maybe, 30, 40 people apply the first couple of days. And they're typically going to interview and try to bring someone in right away to,  to stop this and,  to make sure that they have someone to do the work. And so you may apply, on day seven or eight and your application is not anything to get looked at because someone is already well along on the way to getting an offer or other people are getting interviewed.

[00:26:49] So you just need to remember that when you're applying to public job sites that you know, that's gonna possibly, take some time. The other thing to think about too, when you're planning public job sites [00:27:00] is, the more sophisticated, the type of job, the more likely you are to be one of the few applicants.

[00:27:06]You obviously want to make sure that you are among. The first applicants or, that you're if you do have very sophisticated experience that you'd apply to jobs that may receive fewer applicants. So the other thing I would recommend you do, and this is very important.

[00:27:22] And I want to tell you a quick story. That's fun, but yeah. When I was in college and law school I ran and actually after law school I ran a an asphalt business. And in this asphalt business, we worked with a lot of tar and we would spray sealant on parking lots and driveways.

[00:27:39] And so what would happen is I would get the sea on tar all over me and sit in the trucks and Bruin the insides. And then I would also be spraying it on parking lots and so forth. And,  the miss from the spray would pick up and it would  fly on the truck and get all over me and get in the inside of the truck.

[00:27:56] And,  I'm probably lucky to be alive and that the cancer from doing all this work, [00:28:00] but, the point is that it would destroy the trucks and. And so the trucks really typically only had one season, maybe two seasons if I was lucky, but they just looked horrible and were destroyed inside and out.

[00:28:14] And so my objective usually was to buy a truck that was about, 500 to a thousand dollars and buy a couple of them at the beginning of each season. And and then and then get rid of them at the end of the, send him to a wrecking yard or try to use them maybe the next year, but usually I could, and other things would happen too.

[00:28:30] Like I would be towing these huge tanks. And so it would typically destroy the transmission. The transmission would typically cost more than the truck. So my objective was to buy a truck that costs anywhere between 500 and a thousand dollars. The problem was. Is when I would look in the big newspapers in Detroit, which at the time was like the Detroit news, or there was another publication called the recycler.

[00:28:53]The, there were so many buyers and stuff in those markets that people would ask for a lot of money for their [00:29:00] trucks. So the kind of truck that I wanted was always going to be, 2,500 to $4,000. And so I didn't want to spend that much money cause I was just trying to trucks and I did figure out a way where I can always get a truck.

[00:29:12] Big for between $500,000. And so what I would do is I would drive out to some areas that were around Detroit called St. Clair shores Mount Clemens. And they would have small kind of local newspapers where someone, instead of putting, spending a hundred dollars and put an ad in the Detroit free press or recycler could spend, $3 and put an ad in.

[00:29:35] And and then what would happen is there would be all sorts of trucks and so forth. It would be advertised in there because people wanted to save money. But the problem was because they were saving money.  The trucks were not getting a lot of action and not a lot of people were calling. So the prices kept going down and down.

[00:29:52] And also when I would call people and go out and look at the trucks and I might have been the only person that I would ever call about these trucks. So they [00:30:00] had a false sense of the marketability. Of their trucks, like how much they were worth. And so they would always sell me trucks very cheaply, $250 maybe for a truck that was for $1,500 and so forth.

[00:30:12]It wasn't common. So the idea was, is that what these people selling the trucks were doing is they were marketing dare there their trucks and they weren't marketing them properly. And by doing that they were getting a false sense. Of what something was worth, it was worth to them much less than they believe.

[00:30:29] And this message. And I'm telling you also applies to, first of all, to you in terms of what I'm trying to teach you today about marketing yourself. But it also applies to what you need to do in terms of marketing yourself and using job sites to find a position.

[00:30:48] So there's all sorts of association sites small online legal publications and small local publications and various markets that have legal jobs [00:31:00] in them and employers, for whatever reason may not want to spend hundreds of dollars marketing their jobs and major job boards, and they will post jobs on these association sites.

[00:31:11]These law school, career sites, sometimes these little publications in different cities and incredibly the employers, not receive a lot of applications. So just this piece of knowledge alone, if you understand it  can drastically transform your career because what you can do is you can find all of these association sites.

[00:31:31]You know what, regardless of your practice area, there's probably an association for it. Regardless of the city you live in, you should make a map and understand all the different little cities around where you live. And some of these places will incredibly advertise legal jobs. I've been, astonished and gone into small towns all over the United States and some attorneys, jobs advertised in local newspapers and, local online newspapers, and they're all out there.

[00:31:57]So you need to find all the association sites, [00:32:00] you can, you need to find small legal publications. You need to find really every thing you possibly can and find jobs on the sites because they will typically have job boards. Some of them won't even have searches. They'll just have like kind of HTML list of jobs and those jobs will be under marketing.

[00:32:15] And that's the worst thing about public job site for large ones is the jobs are over marketed. You get what you, what I explained to you where you've got a Supreme court clerk applying. For an in-house litigation job, this, BCG attorney search, for example, it's crazy, but at the same time, when you go to the smaller undermarket job sites, it's like the people sign the truck, the employers get a false sense of the work and how desirable their jobs are.

[00:32:39] So they may think they need to pay more. They may hire you if you're the only applicant. So finding these smaller jobs sites can really help you. There's all sorts of local bar associations and local areas. And you can, you should sign up for alerts and, I will talk more about in other presentations about how to use public job boards to find [00:33:00] positions, but using them can be extremely helpful when you're finding jobs that are, not known to many people they're going to receive your application.

[00:33:10] You're more likely to get hired. And it's just smarter,  it's a better way to get a job. And that comes from the lesson that I certainly learned when I was  young and buying trucks that I learned that the best place to buy trucks was where they were under marketed.

[00:33:25]Okay. So the next source of jobs the third one is private legal job boards and there's not really a lot of private legal job boards of law crossing. Is an example of one there's a few others that you may have heard of that don't necessarily cater to the legal profession. Like the ladders.

[00:33:42] I don't think they have legal jobs. They used to. Private job board basically is a site with a paywall and they'll typically offer a trial or you'll just have to pay to enter them and use them. And and for that reason many people do not like private job boards the idea that they [00:34:00] shouldn't have to pay.

[00:34:01] I have to look for a legal job. And typically there's a monthly rate to use the job board and really what a private job board does is it is just it's typically reselling information that's already available in the market.  They're going to go and they're going to search what law crossing does is they're going to go and look at, like a hundred thousand websites.

[00:34:20] They'll look at small law firms, large law firms and government offices other. Job sites and pretty much everything that's out there and they will find all the jobs that they can on those sites. And then they will take that information that they research and report it.

[00:34:36] And,  it's, it is their most time publicly available. LA crossing does post jobs for free for employers, but. The idea is that you're having someone else do the work to find out those jobs and LA crossing has been doing that for, I don't know, 15 plus years or eight more, a lot more than that 18 plus years, and looks at, tons of people and has, a hundred plus people working for it as a [00:35:00] good sized company, doing other research.

[00:35:02]The idea of a public job, a private job board is also that. What you're doing when you're using a private job board is you're basically subscribing to a research service. And just as you want to do all the networking you possibly can and get all the resources you possibly can from public job boards, which law crossing also monitors for jobs.

[00:35:21]When you use a tool like law crossing, you're doing nothing else than using like a research tool, like you might, would Lexis and Westlaw. And and so that it's just making sure that your searches as comprehensive as possible. And they will also report  jobs to the second they find them.

[00:35:37] Then I'm certainly biased because I'm the founder of the company and the CEO. But I believe it's a very effective way to get positions just because you can really find everything that's out there. And you typically will not be able to find jobs that are not on law crossing anywhere else.

[00:35:52] And what that means is that means, at least in terms of the open jobs in the market, You have access to all of them. Now there's [00:36:00] also something in lock crossing called law crossing con I'm sorry, law crossing archives, which if you're in a niche practice area, let's say you do product liability litigation and or something along those lines, or, aircraft finance, you can see all the firms and employers that have had openings in your practice area in the past.

[00:36:20] And then many times they may have new openings for you.  The best way really to use a private job site is just to, sign up for them and get job alerts from them, search the site make sure that you're finding everything out there. And then the other thing too, that you should be doing with both public and private job sites is.

[00:36:40] Anything that looks like it could possibly be a good job for you. It's important to apply to as many openings as you possibly can. Many times people will prejudge employers. And that's a big mistake. Like you may have heard something bad, for example about a law firm, but. Just because you heard something bad [00:37:00] about a law firm doesn't mean it's a bad place to work.

[00:37:02]It may be a bad place to work if you work in a certain practice area or if you work for a certain attorney there, but that doesn't mean that the law firm is going to be a bad place to work. It could be a good place. You just, you really have no idea. It's important that you apply every possible place.

[00:37:19] You can. Now, if a law firm is going to pay you or a company's going to pay you, one quarter or one chance for what you really are worth, then, maybe that's not a good idea to apply there, but, in the most cases, applying to as many places as you possibly can is a really good thing.

[00:37:35]I had an instance years ago where I was working with an attorney. That had was working for our company and literally making $20 an hour working writing articles about just, it was, it's a business called JD journal and, $20 an hour writing things. And and she had worked at a major law firm in New York several years [00:38:00] previously.

[00:38:00] And I talked to him, I said, I can get you a position. And and she was actually living in the South at the time. And so I, I set her sending her the firms and she interviewed with a firm and she went into the offices and they weren't very nice. And, had she just had I not convinced her to go look at them, sh the firms, she probably never would applied to it and and so she did, and what ended up happening is she got a position.

[00:38:26]With the firm and  and, but before she got the position in the law firm, didn't think she wanted to go work there and she wasn't sure she wanted to go work there because she didn't know what to pay and, to make a long story short. She went from making hardly any money, maybe 30, $40,000 a year to taking this job.

[00:38:44] And the job paid was paid her half of what she build that, and a billing rate was $500 an hour when she got there. And so she ended up making over $500,000 her first year. And so she prejudged the firm based on its size, the type of attorneys that were working there [00:39:00] and all sorts of other things.

[00:39:01]But the firm was in a very sophisticated niche. And had the ability to pay her a lot of money. So you should never discount firms. You should, to the extent you can, you need to get out there and apply. Interestingly enough, we recently placed, for example, a lemon law attorneys, and, you wouldn't think that would be a very highly paid that's people that go after auto manufacturers and someone car's not working out well.

[00:39:25]I've seen people get jobs, paying, $200,000 a year during that. And I never would have believed that, but it's true. So you just can't judge employers and you have to be very careful. The people that here in prejudging, you should apply to as many places as you can.

[00:39:39] And the faster you apply to jobs the more likely the employer's going to be to interview you since they often tend to hire the first people who applied to the job. When you use a private job or do you need to apply quickly. You need to apply to lots and lots of positions.

[00:39:53]The other thing is when you get out there when you're looking around, you're networking and that's another form of networking is just going into firms and [00:40:00] interview and it can show you what you do want or what you don't want. And sometimes you'll get into a place and, you hear about something.

[00:40:07]You do, you, you do want, when you didn't think we're going to hear that. The more people you talk to and so forth the better off they're going to be. And I told you a little bit about LA crossing archives earlier. That's also important and that can show you firms that may hire people like you.

[00:40:23] And the thing is that certain firms are always hiring there's certain litigation firms that are always hiring there's certain patent firms that are always hiring. And anytime someone sees someone come across their desk, if they believe that they can make money by hiring them. And they think they look okay, many times they will bring them in.

[00:40:40] So it's just an important thing to apply to as many places as you possibly can and even apply to place that had openings in the past. One of the biggest mistakes that attorneys make is under marketing themselves. And I'm going to keep coming back to this with you, but. Under marketing yourself can be like huge mistake.

[00:40:58] And it's just something [00:41:00] that, no one should be doing. You need to make sure you're always over-marketing that under marketing yourself is led to more spouses, careers on happy lives and careers and marriages and all sorts of things. When you know, people just don't get themselves out there.

[00:41:13] You need to get yourself out there to everyone. And, LA crossing provides a great resource public job sites provide a great resource networking. Groups that you can join and get involved in providing an amazing resource, the next way to find a job that is believe it or not is probably my favorite is mass targeted mailing.

[00:41:33]I can not tell you how effective this way of finding a job. Is it. To me networking works, it doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes if you don't, if you don't work at public job sites work private job sites work, but mass targeted mailing is one of the coolest things I think out there.

[00:41:51]I actually have gotten, my first job was a clerkship. I got it that way. My next job was working with a firm like [00:42:00] called Quinn Emanuel in Los Angeles. And I got the job that way. And I have seen tens of thousands of lives of attorneys changed by doing mass targeting mailing. I think it is incredibly effective.

[00:42:12] And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about it today, but essentially what you do in targeted mailing is you go into a market. So let's say, you want on a work in Denver, Colorado as a litigation attorney. You wouldn't believe it that, there are probably, over 1500 to 2000 law firms in Denver have more than a couple of attorneys in the surrounding area that do litigation.

[00:42:37] And many of those firms, I would guesstimate 75% of them have never posted a job online. So you're never going to find, those jobs. If you go to law cross and you won't find them on public job sites, you won't even find them. And.  Lacrosse in archives, you just want to find them, but like any business if someone comes across their desk and they believe that they can make money from, they will hire them.

[00:42:59] And I've [00:43:00] fired attorneys, myself that have targeted male in me, or even walked into my office. But the point is that when you target a mailing, you can be extremely effective and. What that means is just means building a list of all the employers in a given city that you could work for. So if you do a practice area let's say you're interested in corporate law, it's the same thing you can apply to all the firms that you corporate law in your city.

[00:43:24] You can also apply to all the companies in your city because they may. Be interested in a corporate attorney. So it's just it's an incredible way to get jobs. And, I had a case once where I someone came into my office, I have many stories like this, but, one case is just, that I, that sticks out is I knew an attorney that was had been a very senior attorney.

[00:43:48]He had Know, very prestigious law firm in Los Angeles and then got a job in house and was very quickly fired from that job after only a few months and and then was [00:44:00] unemployed for several months and just wasn't able to get interviews the market wasn't good for him. He was using recruiters.

[00:44:06] He was. Doing all these things, it just and he wasn't using our recruiting firm because it was someone I knew until he finally contacted me. But he was a friend of mine and needed to get a job very quickly. And so what I did is I put together a list for him of, maybe a thousand companies and maybe, 1500 law firms.

[00:44:27] And within a week of, sending all these letters out. He went from not having anything to, probably at least 25 interviews and then got a very good job at an excellent law firm and made partner there and just had a great career ever since. But, he made a lot of mistakes initially.

[00:44:43] Like he,  he could have networked with me and he didn't because he was a friend of mine and didn't want to look vulnerable. He tried to do things on his own. And when he finally did this mass target Amelia and it worked, and I've seen so many examples like this, I've seen. People graduate from fourth year law schools and, get [00:45:00] multiple interviews, moving across the country to Los Angeles, doing that, wanted to do entertainment law of all things was your extremely hard jobs and cat.

[00:45:07]Some targeted mailing is a very good way to get a job. And it does work because employers are businesses and as a business, they wanna make money. So if they believe that they can make money by apparently they will, if it's easy for them to hire you, they will because.

[00:45:22]It's very difficult to spend time writing a job description posting online, reviewing Todd and tons of resumes. If that, if a resume shows up on someone's desk, especially if it's mailed they're much more likely to get a job than they are. If someone is just applying or, has to, apply in another way, because think about it.

[00:45:40] You're going to be the, typically the only applicant to the employer, it's very easy for the employer to bring you in and it can work. Yeah. A lot of people believe the employers will only hire them if they have an advertised position somewhere. That's just not the case. So I want you to take the case of a law firm, because I want you to understand how this works.

[00:45:59] So if a [00:46:00] law firm, and then I'll take the case of a company and they'll just give you two examples very quickly. So you understand why that's targeted mailing can work. So if you have a law firm and your attorneys are busy and and they're not there's work that could be done. That's not being done.

[00:46:15] You have a need. And if you bring on another attorney, And that attorney, bills out at, $400 an hour. And, you can pay that attorney $150,000 a year for $200,000 a year and they can generate $800,000 a year for you. And you have the work, it's a no brainer to hire them. So that applicant shows up and all of a sudden, this law firm is generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.

[00:46:39] That's what it means. When you apply through a targeted mailing to a law firm, now take the case of a company. Many companies have outside counsel that outside counsel is doing and maybe doing patent work and maybe doing all these different things. And it's expensive. Law firms charge a lot of money.

[00:46:57] So if, instead of having to pay their [00:47:00] law firm, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to do the work, they can bring you in and pay you a fraction of that to do the same work and your resume shows up on their desk, they're going to do it. And the other thing is companies typically do not, especially small to midsize companies do not know how to hire attorneys.

[00:47:16] So if a resume of an attorney shows up, they may hire you targeted and mailing works. And it is an extremely effective way to get a job. And it's upsetting to me that there's so many prejudice against it because it works very well. A lot of people think that companies, that charge fees for the services are scams.

[00:47:35]But they're not, some of them may be, but  don't think they are. The other thing is you can do the work yourself. You don't need to hire someone. You need to. Do the research and once you do the research, it's never going to be too difficult to find all the positions out there.

[00:47:49]The big thing you need to do though, is when you're doing targeted mailing you want to think about the universe of employers you could work for or they could possibly work for that. We'll have a position for you. And put [00:48:00] together a list and in subsequent  meetings, we're going to discuss more detail how to build lists.

[00:48:06]But for the most part, you can use lists that are out there. So BCG, for example, down here we have a list of our top law firms in different cities. You can also research it by practice area, but you don't necessarily just need to apply to the best law firms. You need to apply to every law firm.

[00:48:24] And you can do that by research doing research on Google.  And finding other lists of employers and, there's so many  legal employers out there law firms, companies, and so forth that doing this research and putting together lists is very important.

[00:48:40]One question that a lot of people ask about doing this research and putting together lists is, who do I contact? Typically law firms and companies will have HR departments. If they're not, if they don't have HR departments it's always a good idea. If they're approaching a small to midsize company, even with a HR department [00:49:00] to just approach the bright to the CEO, to say, I can help you in your legal department, if you're approaching law firms and there's no hiring people list on a law firms page you can always go and target the who looks like the most senior attorney or one of the named attorneys.

[00:49:16]On the letterhead, that's a very effective way of getting a job. That's how I found my position. When I went to my first legal job. So you just want to build a list of all the, firms you're interested in working for my recommendation is always to consider multiple markets, but you can also do a target, a male underground market.

[00:49:36]This will work. I always. Recommend nailing my resume and cover letter and and I think that's a very effective way to get a job. You don't necessarily need to mail your resume and cover letter, but, and you can email it, but a mailing carries a lot more weight.

[00:49:52]You can sign everything personally. You can it looks very good. And I think people really appreciate it when you mailed the resume, as opposed [00:50:00] to just email it. And and it's just, it shows the care you can take, you can put it on stationary, you can format it well, you can put a resume and your resume cover letter in there, and it just looks so your signature and just, I think it always

[00:50:13] looks

[00:50:13] Harrison Barnes: better.

[00:50:14]The other thing you do when you can submit a resumes and targeted mailing a lot of times, because you're approaching so many employers. You may just write a generic letter about your experience, but the more focused your  your resume, your, your cover letter is the better off you're going to be.

[00:50:31]You typically want to, personalize it and say why you may be interested in working for that company. You don't need to if you're doing a huge, less, but it's actually very helpful because people will know that it's a maths male, if you're just sending it, a generic cover letter.

[00:50:45] So a lot of times, the short cover letter that talks a little bit about why you may want to work with that legal employer in terms of, what you can do for them, not just how great you are, but. Why you think you can help them would be helpful. Yeah. And legal [00:51:00] authority is a service that does a targeted mailing.

[00:51:03]That's a service that, of course, that I've started over 20 years ago, but it's something that can do it for you, or you certainly can do a targeted mailing yourself. And, actually doing the research yourself is very helpful. You just don't want to miss. Anybody, you, when you do the research, you will often come across employers that you could be a perfect fit for.

[00:51:21] They may have gone to your law school. They may do the exact type of work you want. And you just don't know. Cities that are just massive amounts of firms and opportunities in them and things are. Coming up new firms are coming up all the time. It's starting breaking off. So it's, the more research you do and the more aware you are, the market the better.

[00:51:41]So the next way to get positions is through legal recruiters and Hooters are people that do a lot of different things. They will. Monitor the jobs in the market, like job boards, they will network with employers like networkers, they will  have [00:52:00] experienced contacting a lot of different employers and knowing the kind of people that they're interested in, like you would, if you did a mass mailing.

[00:52:06] And, in my case, I've been a legal recruiter for, few decades now and have a very good understanding of the market now, legal recruiters Typically we'll work with candidates that they believe that they have positions for. They can get jobs and and they tend to be very in tune with different types of people in the market.

[00:52:25]Certain legal critters will only do work with patent attorneys. Others will work with all types of attorneys, certainly legal recruiters only work in different geographic locations. The main thing is that they typically they will have relationships with firms, companies and others, and that will allow them to find positions for legal employers that are advertising those shops.

[00:52:46] And that can be  very helpful. And a lot of times the legal employers may not be advertising the jobs. They may just use the recruiter. So recruiters will know about exclusive openings and things that. Others in the market do not know and a good [00:53:00] legal recruiter. Can, really just, really, knock it out of the park in terms of the results they can get you, they can oftentimes get you results.

[00:53:08] That would be better than you can get on your own. If you work with a right critter. Now some prejudice against recruiters, as people do not like giving up control of their job search. Once you choose a legal recruiter, the legal recruiter is going to be the one interfacing with firms for you and companies and and so that you're in to some extent you're giving up control.

[00:53:27]The other thing is, there's different types of legal recruiters. And some legal recruiters are, part of the companies like BCG attorney search. Others are, part of midsize companies or smaller companies and some work on their own, so the idea is that different recruiters will have access to different types of resources.

[00:53:45] Now, just because a recruiter is very small, doesn't mean that it's bad. A recruiter that, works alone out of their house may have some great relationships with a few companies or a few firms that they could get you into. And it can help, but, for the most part, it's like [00:54:00] anything, the there's different sized businesses and people with more resources can often get you more results instead of fewer.

[00:54:07] So that's going to help you. And the other thing is, there are a lot of prejudice against legal recruiters. Some of them. The quality of them can vary tremendously. What tends to happen. It's in any type of business where there's agents in a good market lots of people will come out of the woodwork and try to be recruiters.

[00:54:24]And other markets,  when it's slow, there'll be very few. I look at Lee recruiting as a profession at our company, most of the. We're attorneys and we have, the kind of people that law firms, any type of law firm would be happy to hire other recruiting firms and people on it may not be attorneys and they may not have, experience in different types of markets.

[00:54:43] So good legal recruiters can be able to understand you. They're going to have very good research skills which is extremely important because they're going to be able to track down jobs. They're going to have networking skills. They'