Angry
[00:00:00] This presentation today is about. Why a lot of attorneys are angry and dislike their jobs in their lives. And and several years ago there was a solo practitioner from Ohio that applied for to work with BCG attorney search and any applied to work with us several times.
[00:00:16] And and each time we told them we couldn't work with him. And honestly, at BCG, like we tried to work with almost everyone. If we can, if we have positions. But in his particular case, he didn't have any experience and he'd been unemployed for a while. There wasn't really much that I could do to help him at the time, unfortunately.
[00:00:32] And unbeknownst to me at the time he was convinced that I didn't really do any recruiting and that the only purpose that I had was to really, to write about the legal market, advertise jobs, and then tell people I couldn't help them, which. Unfortunately it's not exactly you know what one of my point I'm at the point of what I do is and he assumed that there was, maybe that I was sick or something, and there was a some pleasure that I was getting at.
[00:00:57]Not helping him. And and then he [00:01:00] reached a conclusion somehow that I guess maybe that I was responsible for keeping him unemployed. He became very upset and started basically a hate website that talked about Do you know how I was responsible for his lack of success and other people's lack of success in the legal profession because I didn't have jobs for all of them.
[00:01:19] And and then it became a site that dealt with, or, implied that there was a conspiracy to keep him and other people are down and. This went on for a long time. There were attacks tickets me also my wife at the time. And and he believed that the company didn't even exist and maybe I haven't even access and which was unfortunate.
[00:01:40]And I'll have More to say about this in the, in a moment. But this particular incident was pretty incredible. And honestly in many ways, very tragic. But before I tell you more about him and what happened I'd like to ask you a couple of things.
[00:01:54]What do you think is going on here? Like why would somebody be so upset with me? I, I'm [00:02:00] and again don't think I'm the most, port person in the world, but why would, by any stretch of imagination, why would someone think that legal placement person is the cause of their troubles?
[00:02:09]Because he can't help them get a job. That people have been getting jobs without me for the longest period of time. And while I help a lot of people, I'm certainly not the only person that gets people, jobs, if anything. Probably the smallest spec and the more people get jobs without me, then the 99% of the people that want to do it without me.
[00:02:26] So it's not, they're more. So why would someone take me so serious that they believe that I was keeping them out of the job market? And I guess the question like to ask you. Because I've certainly done this sort of thing before. Have you ever blamed others for your own lack of success or for the lack of positive things occurring in your career?
[00:02:45] Have you ever worried that other people might've been responsible for for things not happening the way you want it in your career and and that's that's a fair question. If you, have you ever felt that someone else in that. I [00:03:00] was responsible and really, yeah. Attorneys are very competitive by nature.
[00:03:04]They have to be competitive. They might admire and respect other attorneys who are also competitive. And and of course, if you are hiring an attorney, wouldn't, you want an attorney who's not competitive to defend you and represent you. And I certainly wouldn't want this type of attorney in my corner.
[00:03:19]The more competitive my attorney is, the more capable the attorney is irrespective of kind of their paper qualifications. Society needs attorneys that are competitive. If you're competitive with other attorneys you're likely to do well. And, large law firm attorneys often throw the most hours.
[00:03:34] Not because they have to, but because they need to be the most competitive. The law firm can find it a competitive attorney. Then the firm is probably also serving its clients very well. And so you have to ask, how important is the competitive nature of attorneys to law firms?
[00:03:48] And and honestly, the people that go to the best schools and get the best grades and get access to the most jobs and the highest paying jobs and their attorneys that, are the, are, tend to be the most competitive. The attorneys who build the most hours generally have the most job security [00:04:00] and the attorneys.
[00:04:01]Probably the most gen business generally get the most jobs. And, over the past year it was interesting. I've represented a couple of Olympic athletes who are now attorneys and they had a decent, but not stellar qualifications. And, you might've thought the opposite based on what was happening with them.
[00:04:17] There was literally a major feeding frenzy over both of them. And even though their practice here is we're not very much in demand and one attorney received at least 10 offers and the other at least. And and this occurred when at the same, I was representing much more qualified candidates from better firms, better law schools and a great, so the same firm and if it's the same firms and they weren't getting the interviews or even that level of success.
[00:04:41]I asked myself what was going on and. One of the things that I heard when I was talking to one of the firms was they said we want our attorneys to be competitive. And as I observed all of this the only thing I conclude was that the competitive spirit presumed it would be inherent in the former Olympic Catholic.
[00:04:57] It was really driving a lot of [00:05:00] interests in these candidates. Probably the association of the Olympics was helpful too, but the whole idea. Oh, it's really, I haven't been an Olympic athlete and so forth. Is something that that I think the law firms liked a lot.
[00:05:12] And the major undercurrent of the legal profession involves I think this, the status of when an attorney is, and status is something that all animals, including humans are very concerned with. And, when a dog meets, for example they sniff each other to understand each other's relative status.
[00:05:28] And the Adam animal that is lower status knows that if attempts to challenge the higher status, It will upset the higher status animal could get hurt and attorneys are very good at understanding of their status and legal community status makes them feel good about themselves and be more successful.
[00:05:42] And without the ability to compare themselves to others the status of most attorneys becomes meaningless. So when attorneys meet each other, I it's interesting, they often, start sniffing each other out. Yeah. Each other, where they work, where they went to law school.
[00:05:56] And when attorneys are discussing the relative status of one, another [00:06:00] one attorney shows any form of superiority. Other, the other attorney generally feels threatened and the threatened attorneys can Iraq by either accepting their lower status and choosing not to fight or fighting and choosing not to accept their lower status in a similar phenomenon.
[00:06:15]I've also noticed happens when firms call up against each other and, small firms battling and large firms, for example, believe that the fight is just as much about status is about the issue at hand. And they'll say, oh, we're, we beat this bigger firm or we got this big motion and so forth.
[00:06:28] And status happens within law firms. And, if you're a contract attorney law firms will, people will ask you that if you're a partner or associate or crave an equity partner or an income partner. And, law firms are of the highest status, also tend to attract the best candidates.
[00:06:44] So just to just a lot of status, in the legal profession and it's. And you should watch how status is playing on the games between attorneys, between law firms and the legal profession generally. And status is something that is very important. And when an attorney [00:07:00] is confronted by their own lack of status, legal profession, the attorney has the option to do the following first.
[00:07:05] They can make efforts to improve their status. They can help elevate the status of others so that attorney can get status. They can get others. Elevate the attorney status to help elevate their status, which I guess would be relying on me. They can hurt the status of others. So they feel better about themselves and their lack of status, or they can have others help the attorney pull down and disparage the status of those who threatened the attorney status.
[00:07:27] That attorney feels better about their status or lack of stuff. So if you're an attorney and you're competitive, you're going to be faced with these choices. And I think almost every attorney is quite competitive and and most attorneys I believe are eager to improve their status within the law firms and within the legal profession and the society.
[00:07:44] And most of the things I talk about the importance. Making choices, one through three and avoiding choices, four through five. So one through three are, you can make efforts to improve your status. You can elevate the status of others, which means that people you're working for. Then you can get others to help alleviate elevate your [00:08:00] status by doing a good job and avoid doing hurting others in the process, which is one of the things that a lot of people do.
[00:08:06]I believe that the most important thing you can do for your career is to make our parts to improve your status, but go about it in the correct way. So how do you improve your status? I believe that working hard. Getting an LLM from a prestigious law school. If he didn't attend one originally getting business becoming a better attorney those are some of the ways you can improve your status.
[00:08:24]You can also help elevate the status of others so they can help elevate your status. This means you want to work hard for people, so they want to return you the favor. You can also get others to elevate your status for you often, even if you don't deserve. You can do this to your family connections getting a favor from a powerful person and so forth.
[00:08:42] And very few attorneys make choices. One through three when their status is threatened. Most of them don't make that decision. Those are the good, those are good. The best things, if you work hard, they want to return your favor. If you get others to elevate your style.
[00:08:54]That's also helpful and you can also do it through connections and so forth that can help you as well. [00:09:00] But the majority of attorneys that I come into contact with make choices four and five at some point in their careers and to become, the kind of people that like to blame and attack others.
[00:09:10]And they don't always make that choice initially. But generally at some point in their careers from their status is threatened. They make that choice. And this is one of the major reasons why attorneys are so angry and become negative people who disparage and tear down others. There are two reasons for this first the legal profession by its very nature, makes it very difficult for an attorney to obtain and maintain high status.
[00:09:30]That's the first. And achieving initial status with law firms and big firms is extremely competitive. If you don't achieve the status holding onto this, it's very difficult as well. Even if you do achieve it initially, because when you go to a large firm, most attorneys don't even last, more than five years there in second.
[00:09:46] Yeah. And this is just part of, the way legal training works is attorneys are trained to blame others for most things. And can we respect an attorney's ability to make our clients look better by dressing down the other side and making them look bad and attorneys are [00:10:00] expected to take their client's side and make the other side look less serving regardless of the matter issue.
[00:10:04] And this is just how attorneys tend to view things. If something has gone wrong in a transaction litigation matter and so forth, then someone other than our client is often a thought this person or company's competence, crookedness bias and so forth, diminishes the respect that he or she deserves to the person or company.
[00:10:23] And the person of course may deserve to be called names, talked about poorly. And even physically attacked or killed. That's how some people think and our clients not need to accept any responsibility because if they admit that this would diminish the respect that they have us people and therefore entitled them to the negative treatment.
[00:10:39]Every transaction, a litigation matter than an attorney takes an aside, generally involve some variation. These four steps. First, someone other than our client is fault. You can see this play out in pretty much every trial and notable transaction and OJ Simpson, which a lot of people in my generation, or I can remember the police were portrayed as in competent racist, for example.
[00:10:59] And and [00:11:00] then because his defense team maintained, he was wrongly. The bad people are the police and perhaps even the victims, one was portrayed as promiscuous and other narrative. Who didn't deserve the respect to the public, the jurors were they kids. And they need to by mothers find fault and portray others at fault.
[00:11:13]Marcel pies so many times to how attorneys evaluate their own lives. And it's rare that I speak with an attorney who is willing to accept full responsibility for whatever issues they're experienced in their career. And the worst thing that attorneys can do is blame others. For the lack of success, they're hoping to achieve blaming others and attempting to push down the status of others because of our own lack of status and success is honestly one of the most dangerous things.
[00:11:37]And not only just blaming others lead to our continued lack of success. It also leads to the worst acts that humans can do to one another. The Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, most lawsuits crimes and other negative things are often caused by a propensity to blame others and our interest in blaming others and taking them down for all NACA status is profound and I [00:12:00] unfortunately hear from attorneys on a daily basis.
[00:12:02] And if an attorney gets a poor evaluation, it becomes hostile to the evaluate at the law firm. Can, makes past comments about things that could harm. An attorney often makes a huge mistake on a project and blames from forgiving. Them too much work. If an attorney doesn't bill enough hours and loses a bonus, they blame the firm for not having enough work or allowing the attorney to bring in clients for having a flawed assignment system and, attorneys that don't get made partner blame the firm often for being sexist or racist or homophobic or.
[00:12:30]Things like hating white fans. So as an attorney moves firms gets fired or quit and then blames a firm. That's typically what happens. He'll just move around continually blaming others. And and if an attorney is having a difficult time getting a position, it looks for reasons outside of them to justify what has happened happening they'll to display mothers.
[00:12:48]Yeah. Know, I've seen in my opinion, that most attorneys are very good at tearing others down and blaming them and exposing their weaknesses. And it's just part of an attorney's training and something. That the better they do, the more [00:13:00] likely to be successful and. If an attorney is able to tear down the other side, then they're going to look they'll often look much better.
[00:13:07] So for at least a year the, this guidance was a long time ago. It was over a decade ago. So it's not a very current news, but this guy and several his followers continued to write about how. I was because of the lack of their success in getting their jobs just didn't make sense. Cause I was actually getting people jobs, but and it's, it just doesn't make sense cause I'm not even a legal employer, but that's what happened and and maybe they were upset that they weren't going to get represented.
[00:13:33] But what was most disconcerting is why someone would take all their anger, fears and frustration out on job prospects. And they, in the legal system and put it on one person and it wouldn't have been much of a problem, but he got other people too. Buy into this too.
[00:13:48] And and I was puzzled, that this kind of site in the site's no longer out, which I'll tell you why in a minute, and he didn't have anything to do with me. But it just, he took a show on the road and he started driving to different [00:14:00] offices we have around the country.
[00:14:01] He drove to one and. Cleveland to Chicago where I don't work. I work in Los Angeles area did at the time and Finastra me. And when the receptionist and form that didn't work there he turned around and returned to his home in Ohio and I'm logged on. No, it's the computer and let everyone know that he will, he didn't find me in that office.
[00:14:21] And therefore the company didn't exist even though our name was building. And and then other people were very happy about that and said that we knew we didn't exist, which is. It's, when people are looking for jobs and and this is a good economy right now in a good legal market.
[00:14:34] But sometimes when people are looking for positions they may look for other people to blame if they're having a hard time in the market. And it's not other people's. In terms of Mr. Winston I called him several times and explained to him that I existed and I would help them find a job.
[00:14:48]But he, at that point wanted to be angry and and just riding, it started to become a little bit threatening and and, threatening violence and that sort of thing. So I had to go to court and and before that he [00:15:00] before the court ordered everything, cause there was some violence associated with it.
[00:15:03]He agreed to take the writing's town. But then he would put them up again and and then incredibly got a job as a prosecutor eventually in Cleveland at some point, I don't know how that happened. And and then and then I'm sure that the people in the prosecutor's office eventually found his blog and and that hurt him as well.
[00:15:20] And he became a solo practitioner and and then. And then and then this happened, this is just a headline, a lawyer who represented one of three defendants in a lengthy Franklin county drug trafficking case killed himself on March 3rd out after reporting the fleeing the scene from a shooting in Cleveland crazy.
[00:15:38]He died from a self-inflicted gunshot. And and what had happened again, I'm not going to get read at all. But he had actually gone into some posts and and shot somebody. And at the, in a robbery and then was running away. Th the point here is that that the police never comment on what role he had in the hearing, but the point was he had [00:16:00] broken into a house and killed someone and shot two people and installed and that sort of thing.
[00:16:05]So a lot of people, and this is actually a very tragic story and I'm glad, certainly that I wasn't shot by him, but people have a lot of anger sometimes about things and they don't make sense. And I've certainly had a lot of anger about things in the past and and. And at the time of this murder this particular guy was fighting with the judge and scheduled to give testimony.
[00:16:24] And it's considered a good testimony against her. And and his particular issue was. He blamed others and he was, blaming people, irrationally and he may have done that because it made him feel better about himself. I don't know. But and that's obviously an extreme, but this sort of anger characterizes a lot of people in the right.
[00:16:43]So when I was growing up, one of my relatives used to drive me through neighborhoods. Now have nice homes in our city. And the goal of these drives was really not to admire how other people lived. It was it was really to give I was given other sorts of messages, I was told if you're looking at one of these nice houses, you never get to see your [00:17:00] family need to work all the time.
[00:17:01]I was told that people that live like this need to do bad things to others in order to live life. If you live like this, your color cheating or doing something wrong. And there are all kinds of reasons that I was told that financial success must be the product of being bad. And there was something wrong with people that were successful and basically mean told, instead of feeling bad about ourselves, you're supposed to feel bad about yourself for being, for doing well.
[00:17:23] Not good about it. And so many times children who grew up poor are often told by the parents and kids who have a lot of things are given these things by their parents because their parents who know a lot of them and, from a young age a lot of people are also taught to, we can feel better about ourselves by finding fault and others who are more successful and the entire tabloid industry, which is very huge.
[00:17:41]It's generally about finding fault and people that are in a public life. And feeling better about yourself because more people, more important people than you have problems. So in the legal profession, I think one big thing, the final thing I'll just say is I think a lot of people have a big need for status, and there's a huge desire to tear others down and attack them.
[00:17:58]And this really [00:18:00] doesn't serve any useful purpose. The only solution to this lack of status is not to care at all. And to attempt to elevate one's on status and to have others help elevate one status, my opinion the, the best option I think is really to go ahead and just do the best job you can with everything.
[00:18:17] And don't. Really be that concerned about all this at all. You need to really be someone who contributes and does the best possible work and contributes and helps others in your firm and works hard because ultimately. I've learned. And one of the hardest things that I've had to learn is, the world doesn't really care about the reasons that you're not achieving what you want to achieve.
[00:18:39] They don't, whatever the explanations are. They honestly do not matter to the world. Hey when you w when you're having any sort of issue, and you're in, you're not reaching your goals people don't really care about explanations. They'll act like they do, but. They will, they care about results and, so if you're not doing as well as you want to, my only my biggest suggestion, really supplier sophomore and in [00:19:00] the legal profession, if people aren't getting jobs, how we say you need to apply to more places.
[00:19:04] And if people aren't getting the results they want and anything, you need to really push yourself to do better and better. And and that, that is. Advice that, the better you do and the harder you push that, you know that for yourself and take responsibility is really the only way that you're going to get better.
[00:19:24] I've also noticed a lot of times when I'm in when I've been in when I used to be a litigator and, represent people that were being sued or companies are mean to me but a lot of times things would happen, where someone would not, we're where people would want there not to be certain rules or certain ways of having to do things.
[00:19:40] And and then when things didn't work out they would blame someone else. And that happens a lot. I've certainly done that before, but, if you don't if you're not getting the results. Then the best thing you can do really is to try to pick yourself up and give yourself a much better experience.
[00:19:56] I think by doing, by over, looking for every [00:20:00] possible way to, to succeed and to do well instead of creating roadblocks to that. And that's really how. How I look at things, I don't really look at things in that way. I look at them as you need to fix everything that you're doing and you need to get much better and have really improve yourself and not make other people responsible.
[00:20:19] And it's interesting. I've been reading about the failure of companies like Sears and other companies recently bookstores and other places that haven't done well with kind of new economies. And if you go into malls, he stays and lot of they're just abandoned all over the country because Amazon in place, things like that are taking over.
[00:20:37]Many times when you're not doing as well as you want it to sign that you need to change. And one of the things that happens a lot of times with older attorneys is, they're used to doing things a certain way and and they may need to change and businesses go through cycles and people go through cycles and and with job search, that's also, you need to keep changing the way you do things.
[00:20:54] So I think that the best thing you can always do. Is really look at what you can do differently and really [00:21:00] apply yourself. And when you do that you end up being much more effective in the long run. I think you need to, instead of blaming other people, you need to say, what could I have done differently?
[00:21:07] What could I do differently? How can I fix this? How can I really listened to what's being said or what the market's saying to me and most people can't. If you think about businesses like Sears and other companies that go out of business, A lot of times what they've done wrong is they haven't listened to the market.
[00:21:21] And it's like that with an attorney too. You need to listen if you're not doing as well as you can and you can't, I wouldn't attack other people. And I think that when this man was stalking me and and ended up killing people it's just hard to believe.
[00:21:34]But he obviously, was upset at the legal job market and and I got to see that and his identity and all these things were so important to him were threatened by not getting what he wanted and maybe, the solution would have been. Except my help or to to figure out how to become better at what he was doing or to maybe choose another profession if he wasn't getting the results.
[00:21:53] And he really was applying himself and that's really the big lesson, and this has been a little bit of a. A quick [00:22:00] presentation today, but the big point that I want to make is that, you can always do well, you can do well. Personally you can do well professionally. If you're constantly challenging yourself and doing the absolute best you can and figuring out what could you do differently?
[00:22:16] Where could you, how could you take better care? Okay. Of yourself and do better. And and those are really some of the important things. Thank you. And I will take a quick break for one or two minutes and come back and do questions. And and I encourage you to ask as many questions, not just about what today's presentation was, but about anything that.
[00:22:36]You're, you're is challenging you in your career or you're thinking about, or you'd like to know, and I'm happy to answer any questions and I'm back in one or two minutes.
[00:22:44]Okay. Yeah.
[00:22:46]Okay, so let's get started with questions. Give me one second here, guys. I'm just pulling up a local word documents so I can type the questions out on there. Yeah, and again, sorry to start late
[00:22:58]court hearing. [00:23:00]
[00:23:00]And and again, as many questions as you guys have, these questions are always extremely helpful for a lot of times for other people, because other people always often have the same questions you do. If I have different things or about their careers and it's always helpful. And the questions, of course, they're always not anonymous south.
[00:23:17]Okay, so we'll go to the first question. I'm upload, pull this up here.
[00:23:22] The first question is, do you post the webinar to your site afterwards? And the the the question is I, yes, these are always posted after the. And here's a good question. Someone disagreed with the webinar. Let's see. So I disagree with this presentation. Sometimes you legitimately need to change jobs if you're performing well and not receiving recognition.
[00:23:41] That's a good point. For example, my last firm was very toxic with the partner I worked for. It was constantly abusive and criticize my work. I received me the raises and the only reason I received a decent bonus was because of an outside management committee that independently. Sometimes I did make a few mistakes, but not to the level that this partner was making them out to be.
[00:23:59] And at no [00:24:00] point was a client ever damaged as a result after I switched firms, my work environment, stance that much happened with new farmers, flexible. I would say the work product group, cause I'm working best. And I also agree I think that that the quality of the, or the people you work with there's an article on BCG that I wrote called find your tribe or something along those lines.
[00:24:20] And and essentially what that is and what that article is about. Is it's about trying to work with people that match your ways of thinking things about things. And I apologize if my presentation came across the wrong way. But many times when you switched firms here in you're in a better work environment you can certainly do w and PCG search, and it's not fine to try not it's BCG search, find your tribe and come on that science an article by me.
[00:24:48]Yeah, so many times here, if you're getting bad feedback from the environment that you're in, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. Many times. It means that there's something wrong in the environment. And and so that, that's a very good point. [00:25:00] And and I don't necessarily believe that the firm that you're in is going to that, if you're an unhappy, there are the problems you many times the problem is the environment and different people are happy in different types of environments.
[00:25:10] There's absolutely. And perform well in different types of environments. If you're working around people that have similar work styles and people that are very similar to you and then you will often do much better. Especially if you're in a toxic environment, I do record.
[00:25:23]That you do what you can to get them to a better environment. I just what I would say though, is that the quality of the people you're working with can make a big difference in terms of your happiness. So that's important. And there's not a lot of questions today, so this is I guess it's because we're at the start of the summer.
[00:25:39]But do I help, can I help you find a job as a patent agent? Yes. Let me just see here. I do help people find positions as patent agents. We don't, we do primarily law firm placements, but patent agents for those of you that don't know it queue essentially the job that patent attorney does, but they for the patent bar, but they are always admitted to the patent.
[00:25:57]They're not always admitted patent attorneys. [00:26:00] Okay, but you don't have to, nor to practice patent law before the patent bar, you only need to be admitted with the patent bar, which means you have to have a scientific type of background and so forth. And law firms do hire patent agents. And so we do a lot of work for them.
[00:26:11]Okay. Let's see here. I wasn't expecting an extreme example on how to address this constant concern, just conducting professional life. I agree. There's a high level of narcissistic personality characteristics, and the legal profession. Exactly. I wrote an article too called narcissistic. I dunno, narcissistic personality disorders, legal profession, but that's a good point.
[00:26:33]So where we need to address these things, acknowledge systematic racism issues in group think control to continue to evolve their respective profession. I think you can expand on this topic, I completely agree. And I think that's a really good point. I think that there are there attorneys as a general rule, and I think a lot of it has to do with just the type of.
[00:26:54] Go into the legal profession and maybe a lot of the stuff that it takes to get ahead in the legal profession, [00:27:00] but there's so many, there's so much narcissism and you're absolutely right. And and I think, a lot of the attorneys that I know they become very successful. I think that they do it by, really just personalizing every single thing that happens and believing.
[00:27:14]That they're completely just to, to, almost to an extreme. I absolutely agree with that. Narcissism is a big deal and the attorneys are very narcissistic I think. And and they're difficult to work with. It's, sometimes when I'm talking to very successful attorneys, they almost don't even hear what you're saying, because they're so concerned about themselves. And and it's a big it's a big thing. And I think many times they need to be like that to be successful or the ones that are like that. I don't want to become successful. In terms of systematic racism and group think control.
[00:27:46] I think that's all true. I think there's a lot of group things control and I think there's a lot of systematic issues. The type of expectations that are expected with people. And and I do believe that it's difficult if you don't have that [00:28:00] narcissistic personality or you're F for a lot of people to do well in certain types of firms.
[00:28:04]It's th those are all really good points. And and I think that people it's very difficult by the way, when you. Excluded or you feel attacked. And if you can, in many times, if you don't know why, and someone that's upset because they believe that they're, the environment they're in is racist or someone who's upset because they believe the environment is exclusionary towards them.
[00:28:24]It's very difficult and and No. So I yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. No and I don't know the solution to it. I think the solution is already happening to some extent with a lot of social movements and things that are happening, but that, that would be that's one of the things that I think okay, so this is an interesting question. What is the best time of year to attempt to move to a larger, more prestigious term? The best time of year, in my opinion, to do that. And there's an article, other articles I've written like when is the best time of year to look for a larger job.
[00:28:51]But th the best time of the year in my opinion is often when other people are. So like right now, not a lot of people are looking but at the time I [00:29:00] think one of the best times this actually around November and December, I think that many times law firms note that there's going to be a lot of people leaving in January and so forth after they get their bonuses.
[00:29:09] So if you start looking at it, Then law firms many times will hire you because they would rather do the hiring before. There people start leaving in, January and February. And and I think it's a lot easier to get into firms. So that time of year that's been my experience that you're on.
[00:29:27] Much better off trying to move to a larger firm that time of year. And I've also written an article. I think it's called why November and December are the best times of the year to look for it for new positions. One of the problems with looking for a job right now is human resources departments are, large professional groups and a lot of firms.
[00:29:45] And and they have their summer programs. And so that requires a lot of work for them. Awesome. Thank you very much. And I appreciate everyone being on this call today. And and again, next week, we'll also. A lot of [00:30:00] actually here's a question came in the chat, so I'm going to answer that as well, just so I can get that.
[00:30:04]I'm having to unusual situation as a civil attorney after majority of Curtis prosecutor, many firms that seem, I have tenure civil litigator. When I have three years in the civil side, this leads to performance reputation that are hurting me and lead to shortages. Okay. Any advice on addressing this interview is to set reasonable expectations.
[00:30:21] So it's a very common thing. If you have experience in one branch of the law and you're going into a new one I think this is in terms of the expectations, I think that you just need to really buckle down and work much harder. I hate to say that but you need to.
[00:30:35]Learn how things are done and probably work a little bit harder than other people are at your level. If you have only three years of civil experience I'm sure you can do trials just fine, but it's probably like a lot of other writing and other stuff.
[00:30:47] That's what is going to create problems for you. In terms of the it's very heavy motion practice and so forth, if you're civil litigator and the motions are different than as a prosecutor. So I would recommend if it was me [00:31:00] just, working as hard as you can and really and when you get into a firm, I think you can learn very quickly.
[00:31:05] In most cases, when you get into a law firm, you can get but you want to get mentors and explain that sort of thing. And I understand that the expectations may be a lot different. It depends on the prosecutor's office here. You're with, they have different expectations as well.
[00:31:19] So I think that's a very question. But I would get in the door and and when you do get in the door to places. No, you do the best you can, but really explain, the experience, the level of experience. If it's leading to shorter jobs, then you know that's a perfect example.
[00:31:34] You have to, ask yourself what is it that's causing you to not be able to stick around as long and or if you keep your job. So as long as I don't. I don't know what that is when the mistakes, but, if someone says, sometimes people will, be very clear with you, they'll say, they'll sometimes they'll tell you directly or they won't tell you directly.
[00:31:51] They may yeah. Say you're working your hours are too long and not long enough. need to bill more hours or you need to be more careful meaning you need. [00:32:00] Research the law and make sure your conclusions are better or you can't make so many careless errors or you need to and that, I don't know, but typically the, and this is what my presentation was about today. If they're giving you if they're coming across and saying something to you, law firms will always tell you what's wrong. They won't always say so directly. So they'll never say you're not building enough hours.
[00:32:20] They may say, we'd like you to work harder, or they'll say we'd like you to figure out how to get more work or or they'll say, we'd like you to be careful or they'll say you need to impress clients and get more work. They'll say whatever the issue is. And sometimes it would be very careful on how.
[00:32:34] They've panned that, but the big issue, I think, many times between being a civil attorney and being a prosecutor or that the requirements for the hours and the requirements for bringing in business and I'm thinking what those expectations are many times when you get to be 10 years out, or it is harder to hold onto positions because you're you're on a higher billing rate and expected to have more business and starting to get business or to do work that's at the same level as partners.
[00:32:59]Talk to the [00:33:00] firm and understand what you could have done differently, what they would recommend you do in the future. And if you do that then you should be in great shape. This is a great question. And the answer to this is yes. So I actually do not reject people anymore.
[00:33:14]We don't, I don't reject anyone. The majority of people I work with are people that we couldn't work with initially. So the majority of attorneys I work with or people I couldn't work with the initial people can not work with internationally. So that happens. So if people come back and they reapply then then we'll work with them most of the time, but we'll find them too, but there's all these practice areas that didn't use to be marketable that are marketable now.
[00:33:37]We place insurance, defense what else then used to be marketable. We place Small town. It used to be Marketo. We place people in trucks, in the states, every practice area you can think of personal injury. Need these areas. Didn't used to be marketable and now they are.
[00:33:52]We've worked with people in place them all the time after they submit the resumes. As a matter of fact, it's almost on a daily basis. I would say nine [00:34:00] out of 10. Oh. The people that we work with are people that we do not work with.
[00:34:04]It would not work for the insurance.
[00:34:06]Okay. That is all that I have for today. And thank you everyone for being on the call. And I look forward to talking to you guys next week.
