What Makes An Attorney Marketable
[00:00:00] I'm a fifth-year doing big law patent litigation in California, but I'm planning to move to Pittsburgh for family reasons.
In an ideal world, I continue doing sexy (real non-troll) IP litigation, but that is not likely to be a realistic option. Based on my, internet sleuthing. It seems like most of the litigation work has been done out of other offices and those in Pittsburgh that do patents are also doing some of the amount of tech transactions and prosecutors as well.
I'm happy to pick up some non-patent litigation but would like to avoid prosecution. I know I have to temper my expectations somewhat, but I'm curious what options I'm realistically looking at.
So here's how it works. And this is important for everyone on the call to understand because it's something that a lot of people don't understand, major markets, which are places like Palo Alto, I would say New York and so forth, you get specialists.
That means you could be doing like not general corporate, you might do just capital markets for biotech companies. Just something very specialized companies, not patent litigation trend I dunno, computer [00:01:00] chip related numerically related patent mitigated. So the more major market you're in the more the firms are going to do a lot of different types of work.
What happens is, when big companies have issues, big companies send work to large markets to hire specialists or boutique firms, in those markets and that's for everything. So when you get into a midsize market to smaller markets and firms you're going to get people that are more generalist.
Not patent litigation like this person is saying but patents, trademarks marks, and patent litigation. That's just how it tends to work in mid-size to smaller markets and firms. So one of the benefits like this person asked originally, should I go to this smaller firm?
If you become an expert in something like patent litigation this person sounds like they're doing very good work. And you develop that skill set. That's something that not a lot of people have. And if this person goes to Pittsburgh which would be like, Pittsburgh or [00:02:00] Detroit, they're going to be doing more generalist type work and that's the drawback.
Now, if you want to do specialist-type work, you typically need to do one of two things. The benefits of smaller markets. This is a whole other thing is it can be easier to get clients, but the clients will be smaller, will respond. So those are just, some things. And then the major markets, it can be harder to get clients, but the clients will have, a need for someone that's more specialized and this person is even saying this question that they might even have to do, just general types of litigation.
This is a really good question. This is one of the reasons that people go to major markets and they go to midsize this and go to smaller firms because they liked the variety of work, or they want to specialize. If you specialize in a major market, the benefit of specialization is, you'll become a real expert in whatever your practice area is like this person is. And, these firms can charge higher rates because they're specialized. These charge lower rates because people are doing a bunch of different things. Then the smallest markets, your attorneys will do everything, which means divorce, corporate, personal injury, [00:03:00] criminal.
So, if you're working in a small town, that's what it would be, something along those lines. So those are just things to think about and that's the difference between smaller markets and smaller firms.
One thing I can tell you, that is crucial. Anyone that comes into BCG attorney search, in a law firm, for the most part, is placeable. With one exception, it doesn't matter what practice area they're in. It could be doing workers' compensation. I make workers' compensation placements. They could be doing trust in the states. Insurance complex litigation, whatever. It doesn't matter. Anybody that comes into BCG, is placeable there's only one exception to that. If they're in a law firm, sometimes even not in a law firm quite often. So anybody that's on this call would play anybody that comes in to be seen here that isn't a practicing attorney and has more than one-year offering, anybody. I honestly mean that it's anybody on this call is probably possible by a recruiter or you can get a job on your own too.
The only exception to that, this is very important because this is about [00:04:00] your particular marketability. And so I want everyone to make sure you understand this as well as possible. This may be one of the more important things you'll ever hear. Probably not, but it's one important thing.
The only exception is people doing all sorts of different practice areas, that have no specialty.
If you're doing like family law and criminal family law and corporate, no corporate and litigation, no. If you're doing patent maybe patent and trademark will be okay, but, patent and patent litigation, is not as good. When I start getting confused and like the only time I can't work with someone personally, every attorney is marketable, like pretty much, but if you're doing a bunch of different things or if you have a history of doing different practice areas, meaning, you've done all these practice areas throughout your career, it's not good. So, almost all law firms want a specialist of some sort, and that is what makes you marketable. I was reading the other day that the highest-paid specialty is medical malpractice.
These are not people that went to Harvard law school or top 10 law [00:05:00] schools. It's, I'm not saying that they don't, of course, they do. Every practice area is marketable. But you have to have a practice area.
You have to settle on something and you can't do it, you can't do transactional and litigation, no. You have to do something that, makes sense. An environmental attorney with 20 years of experience is marketable.
Everybody's marketable, but if you're doing multiple things you're not marketable.
I want to emphasize that to you. And the problem when you go into smaller markets, many times is if you're doing something that's not marketable, then you know, it's a problem. Like I had this woman that recently that was in, I think she was in Colorado and she was doing double.
She went, wanted to move to Wisconsin and got like 20 interviews and no book of business or anything, 15 years out of law school, but she is doing, family law, but it's doing that. It doesn't matter what your practice area is. You just need to have one and you could have maritime, you could have railroad law, but if you have a practice area, then you're always going to be in much better shape.
That was a great question by the way. And I hope that this answer helped everyone because that's the one [00:06:00] mistake that people make is they think it's very interesting to have a lot of variety and things, but if you commit to any practice area, even when you don't think is a very prestigious practice area, you're going to be 10 times better off in the long run in your career.
