The Most Common Excuses That Attorneys Give For Failing In Their Careers And Why Each Of Them Is Wrong

Description

22.04.13 The Most Common Excuses That Attorneys Give For Failing In Their Careers And Why Each Of Them Is Wrong
[00:00:00] So this webinar today is about the reasons that attorneys get for failing in their careers. I originally thought this was going to be about being a contract attorney, but I guess I will do that at another date, which is fine. And this is actually a very good topic and it's something I'm glad that we're covering today.
But I will do is I will give this presentation and then afterwards take questions. This is a it's a fairly long presentation, but it's actually a very good presentation from the perspective that the information that you learned is helpful, whether or not you're a law student or an attorney about the things that you need to do to to to make sure that you you don't use kind of different reasons for failing in your career, so I'll just get right to it.
So I, I was saw a story. It was actually an actress, but whoever, someone at our door here, but from the 1990s, who've been spotted in Los Angeles after not being seen for over a decade. And the person looked completely different from a standpoint where they'd once been like a cover, man or woman, it doesn't really matter, just very glamorous and so [00:01:00] forth.
And then to the point where they were completely unrecognizable and and something happened and it was, to me, it was very sad because it would've been, it'd been someone that, that I'd seen movies and so forth and and used to think very highly of from a glamorous standpoint.
And then the person had just really let themselves go in an extreme way. And and there was a lack of enthusiasm and it's not just, the fitness or the, the, whatever that mattered. It was just the lack of enthusiasm and depression and so forth that I saw in the person.
And and so th the point here is that the world's really full of people that have moved backward or who have maybe not reach their full potential. And and it's very common. And and so people you either move forward or you move backward. I had once someone working in a company that had graduated from economic law school and there's a partner in a math major law firm and a former college athlete, very successful.
And then and then at some point he had a back injury and was subscribed to all these opiates and became very slow and incapacitated over the years. And and and to the point where it [00:02:00] got so bad that, he couldn't understand basic ideas and be coherent. And and it obviously this is because of a drug prescription and addiction and so forth.
But that episode to me was very sad. It's a person gone to Harvard law school and so forth had been very successful and partner, I believe it was Kirkland or a firm like that, but a real partner, like an equity partner. In when things like that happen and it's not his fault, I certainly, we're all asked.
We found, I've seen that with other people, but people, a lot of times people are stopped on their road to success and they stopped becoming the person that capable of being. And I think a lot of it has to do with many times when people, you surround yourself with mistakes you may make.
And and if you're willing to be honest with yourself, you know what you're not doing necessarily what you want to do. So most people that you meet will have reasons that, myself included will have why they're not the piece of person they want to be, why they're not as successful as I want to be.
So why you're not a partner in a major firm, why you didn't go to the, having the best experience before your, I don't know, but almost [00:03:00] everyone out here in watching today is also not always most people are not the person they're capable of being. And and you shouldn't be content if you're not necessarily reaching your full potential and your full potential would be, just being a great father, if that's your goal or being a great mother or being very happy in a, it doesn't have to be related to material success or honors or prestige and so forth, but you should live here full potential.
And if you're watching this, your objective obviously is to be the most effective attorney and the most successful attorney you can be and you want to do the best you can. And and so you really want to live the life view quad two. And and you shouldn't be convincing yourself that you're not capable of becoming or being the attorney that, you want to be, or being as successful as you want to be in your career.
So that means doing everything you can to to really. Be successful as you can be. And a lot of attorneys, by the way, believe that that there's some, th they're never going to be as successful as they want to be. They have all sorts of justifications [00:04:00] for not reaching their full potential.
And I'm going to talk about those and and really and that's not good. And so you need to ask yourself what interests you what you do for a living, or what would you like to do who is your age to embetter than you and why maybe, and and what you should do, what you should be doing, and what are your excuses for not doing that?
And and most people have excuses for not reaching their full potential. I certainly have excuses everyone has excuses, but we now live at your full potential and you hide behind the excuses. Whether it's other people, your circumstances where you live being ill or the other thing you're making excuses and that's just how it is.
I'm going to talk about some of the biggest excuses that lawyers have for not being successful and why they're wrong. And and they're all wrong because I literally have worked with, thousands and thousands of attorneys and have heard every excuse there is. And and I'm going to cover some of the most common ones today.
So one of the big ones is if I had gone to a better law school if an attorney didn't go to a top law school they're always happy to tell you why [00:05:00] Many times they could have gone to a better law school if they wanted to, or they'll say they got a scholarship or whatever, and it doesn't matter.
But the point is that most attorneys whatever law school you went to it was the best one you can get into, or you didn't care about where you went to law school, but just also, okay. It doesn't matter. Not everyone I know someone I used to teach at a law school called Whittier which is no longer in existence, but I had students there that were on full scholarship that also got into UCLA and they chose to go there because they didn't have to pay.
So it's their choice. It wasn't anything forced them to do but in most cases, if you didn't go to the best law school, the only reason really is because, you either didn't get into the good one because you didn't work hard enough in college, or you just didn't get a good enough grades.
You didn't manage your time. Enough in college or you didn't do as well as you would've liked to analyse teach. Which isn't that big of a deal. I certainly wish I'd done a lot better in the LSA team. Maybe I would've gone to, I don't know. It was happy to work with law school, but who knows?
Maybe when I got a scholarship at a great law school. So [00:06:00] the point is that or you made a law prong decision, like the Whittier student, I was talking about where to go. So the point is, if you didn't go to the greatest law school and you may be also didn't apply to enough places or you just didn't realize it was important and you just made the decision you did.
And one thing to remember is that this isn't that bad of a point, but you might've had other problems. So it means you've made up take classes that weren't, too hard or not have the intelligence to do well enough in the outset or practice enough, or one of the things I will say is what I, where I went to college or all these really good test takers.
And and I was in this fraternity and. Every one of my fraternity brothers was getting like a 1 75 and all that. I couldn't believe it. And and without even taking practice tests, in many cases, they just had that kind of ability. You either you have that kind of ability or you don't, and it's not really that big of a deal.
And and if you don't go to, if it didn't go to good law school, it may prevent you to some extent of getting the best jobs in the future. And that's definitely true. There's no and to some extent the law school you go to does have something to do with your ability to get into law school, which is based on [00:07:00] smarts and things, but it doesn't it just means you have to compete in a different playing field.
So instead of going into, corporate law at a top five law firm you may have to go into another practice area with people where you're not competing with people that are that are competing for the same jobs as you are. You probably want to enjoy practice shares in firms where you're competing with people that are smarter than you.
There is nothing wrong with that. Okay. So I don't I'm in a this is my job. I'm an illegal placement field. I am not going out there and attempting to be an investment banker that is not my skillset, or I'm not competing with people that are patent attorneys. I don't do that for a living.
So you have to compete with the people that are at your level. And that means in practice areas and things where you're like, they're do well. And that's that's a very simple, and then the firms were likely to do well. So I know people that went to horrible law schools and did horribly meaning.
Like the bottom of their class, but yet they run very large firms and immigration and personal injury and all these different practice areas and trust in the state, some of them. And [00:08:00] sometimes it's just litigation just different types of plaintiff's litigation. You don't have to have gone to the very best law school to be a successful attorney.
But if you want to put yourself into competition with the people that are better in the biggest firms doing the most complex practice areas, that's probably not a good idea. If you don't feel like you'd have the smarts to do it, and that doesn't mean, the people that are in this is just something else to think about.
If you want to work in a big law firm. The people that are working in big law firms, a lot of times don't wouldn't have the skills to run a business in one of these other practice areas like you do, or to start their own firm and to work in a smaller firm, they just wouldn't. So don't put yourself into competition necessarily against people that are that are smarter than you.
And other ways you can have social smarts, you can have business generation smarts, you can have all sorts of smarts that other people don't have. And, with the smartest attorneys they can often see stuff that you can't, and they can process information faster. They can reach better conclusions.
There's all sorts of things that they're able to do that, that you can't do. And I've had that experience before. I remember. [00:09:00] There was one firm that I was in. And there was this guy that had been literally in a mental institution several times he'd gone to Yale law school. He was very smart and brilliant, and you could present a fat pattern to him about a case, and he would take it apart and come up with a winning strategy.
And he was far smarter than me, or pretty much any attorney in the firm, but he certainly couldn't generate business. You can, he couldn't do a lot of the day-to-day work because he had too much going on in his head. But the point is that there's very smart people out there that are going to be smarter than you and other aspects.
And you need to go where you're intelligent, where your skillset is being used. And so if you didn't go to a great law school, it's not that you're, if you chose the reasons for that, weren't, and you didn't do well in law school or whatever, just realize that you have to do things where your strengths matter.
And and again there's different types of competence, certain jobs require personal skill, personality. It, certain jobs require you to generate business. Certain jobs require you to work hard and so forth. And it's not necessarily based on being able to, come up with deep arguments or [00:10:00] having a massive attention to detail other people, other lawyers seller ability to argue intimidate people.
And that doesn't require a ton of smarts either. There's just different types of jobs in the legal field. And and and I remember for example, when I was in college, I always did well in these case classes where People would sit around a table and discuss different issues.
It wasn't case that they were discussing and I did well because I could argue. And and and if I was taking a science class, I wouldn't do well. I wasn't smart enough in science. I wasn't I didn't have the same values and I would not do well. So I avoided those classes where I wouldn't do well a lot of times.
And and I noticed if I could in dominate certain classes, I would get the best grades. So the point is that you can do certain things well and certain things not well. And and this is one of the things that I learned when I was younger is that you if you get, do, can do very well, would be more prepared in certain things and other people aren't, as things are interesting to you, you're going to do better.
And and it's what it is. And and this is just kind of case about the dominating discussions and so forth, which I don't think is that important, but the idea is that [00:11:00] you need to put yourself into situations where you can succeed. And putting yourself in situations where you don't succeed, trying to compete against people where you don't necessarily have the same abilities, isn't always the best thing.
Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with trying to work in a huge firm, but if you're competing against people that are, frankly have better native skills than you, that would be like me trying to go out for a professional football team at my age, and it doesn't make any sense. It's just you have to be careful.
So you just have to realize that, you're going to be judged based on your decisions. So you know, where you went to law schools or decision you're responsible for your choices. We shouldn't be necessarily competing against the most intelligent people directly, if you can avoid it if it's because, you're wherever you are or, but if you make mistakes, you learn from them and and just make better mistakes in the future.
And don't the world doesn't really care about your excuses. And and just realize a lot of things are due. To your decisions. And, but the final thing I just, I really want you to understand. And this is really the most important aspect of what I need to say [00:12:00] about law schools is that it doesn't really matter where you went to law school.
Some of the most successful attorneys out there went to the Mo who went to the worst law schools. What's most important is that you produce and you should do your best to compete in the areas where you're most likely to succeed. And in some circles you're going to be defined by where you went to law school.
But there's a lot of things that matter much more than where you went to law school. Now it does matter to some of the largest, most prestigious firm, but the school you graduate from at the age of 24 or 25 if you figure you're going to be practicing your nineties, I hope you understand what I mean, a lot of attorneys do that.
The law school really is something that no one thinks about. You think about it when you're very close to the law school that you went to, but you certainly don't think about it. Years later the attorneys that are practicing together that are in their forties and fifties and sixties are comparing the law school.
They went to they might do it into the early thirties, but no one really thinks of. So that, that's the thing to understand is that it's not a, you're going to be defined based on everything else you do. If it [00:13:00] was me and I didn't feel like I had the biggest, the best legal abilities, I would just compete in areas where I would do better.
Another thing is if I'd done better in law school, so a lot of times attorneys will say that they didn't do well in law school. They'll say that present better than being the best job opportunities. They'll tell you, they didn't do well because I got sick or someone else got sick, they missed an exam.
Teachers didn't like them or whatever. And the truth is that you probably didn't do as well in law school, as you wanted to, because you didn't work hard enough. And you were competing against better students or just didn't have aptitude, which is fine. And all those things sometimes you may not like learning or you might have add, I don't know.
Some people are really smart and they have add, but you may have caught on too slowly. Certain people learn faster and slower than others. Other people don't manage their time. Other people are just not that good at things. And maybe they learn better. And again think about yourself if you were to go to the school.
And if you're an attorney and you had to go to school to be an actuary, getting Cuban to develop that, or had to be a doctor, think about a subject why you went to law school and if you didn't do [00:14:00] well you may or may not have been committed. You may have had personal demons Things have happened to you, deaths in the family, other things who knows.
But you just means you got off to a poor start. And so generally speaking if you fail to make progress in law school due to a lack of intelligence or your ability to catch on quickly you're you screwed up and it's not really that big of a deal.
And and you may have gone to a law school where where you were matched with people where people were much more intelligent than they would be at a lesser law school. They do studies too, by the way, where, people go to if someone gets into say, I don't know what to talk about a really good law school, maybe like university of Michigan and they, and they contract them based on their El status, typically matched the first year grades.
So there's a direct correlation is very interesting. So your L sat score typically will track your first year grades. I don't, I didn't realize that, but that I've seen that isn't like that. Again, and just getting off to a poor start is not that big of a deal. And all it means is you need to give your best career, future jobs and not let your car in town.
And and and the thing to understand also is [00:15:00] you're just not going to be rewarded early in your career, if you didn't have the best law school grades after you've been out of school for a year. So no, one's really gonna care too much about your grades. And just learn that your actions have consequences.
And if you've gotten better grades, you might've gotten a job at a better firm, and you typically can't be expected to be rewarded in life for, by employers, for subpar performance. Your job is to really do your best. And again, your grades do not matter very much after a few years of law school, Very few people beyond four or five years experience out of law school are talking about their grades.
And and so it's really matters when you're young and you're searching for a job and you're competing against other people, but after you've been out of school for a few years, the most important things typically have to do with your work experience and your practice area.
And and that's really it. So that those that's law school and grades those are not again, I wouldn't I don't think the law school you got or the grades you got really matters too much. It only matters after you've been out for right when you're competing against other people.
So it's not a fair [00:16:00] reason to, to any extent to worry about your success. Again if you get out of law school at 25 and you're going to be practicing at least 50 years that just means you're off to a little bit of a poor start. It has nothing to do with getting clients. It has nothing to do with getting experience.
It has nothing to do with everything that happens later or career. Another big excuse or a thing that I hear. And we actually, I hear about this a lot from these webinars each week is people say if I had gotten a job at a bigger firm during my second summer of law school and the largest to get into the largest, most prestigious firms after graduation most attorneys are expected to get summer associate positions with large and prestigious law firms.
If you don't do that after you're in, if you don't, if you're not in a law firm after second summer, it becomes very difficult to get into a large level. After you graduate and it makes it even more challenging to get into one later because law firms will assume that that you didn't want to work in them or you couldn't get a job or you can learn harder, not for whatever.
And and so a lot of attorneys have, will blame the failure to [00:17:00] succeed based on that. The important thing to understand is if you didn't get a large law firm job after your second summer, which a lot of people don't even from the best law schools, when I, when I was in my school, the same thing happened.
The law firm probably had better applicants. The, your law school was either not good enough. You weren't doing well enough in law school. You weren't interviewing well, and didn't learn about those skills. You may have a personality or appearance or just ways of acting that interfere with you getting a job.
You may not have wanted a job enough, and you also may not have worked hard enough tracking down a position and doing whatever it takes to get one, which in my opinion is the most important of those issues. But we can talk a little about that later, but regardless if you didn't get a job it's pretty much your fault.
If you went to, I know people that go to No bottom of the, the worst law schools and still get jobs, even if they didn't do that. You can get a job and generally, if you didn't, it's your fault, if you didn't get a job at a law, large law firm, it's simply because you probably didn't look like the best they could do.
And and didn't package [00:18:00] yourself well enough. It means you didn't have what the law firm wanted and they were buying what other people had to sell and yours. It's simply that's the fact you didn't package your goods well enough. And therefore the law firm purchased someone else to do the job.
And the people that law firms were hot, buying just looked better than you. And and were something they wanted. When I was in law law, when I was in law school, I remember interviewing with firms for summer jobs after my second year of law school and our first year of law school.
I'm sorry. And and I didn't do well in my first interview, I and the reason was, is because I was talking about myself and how good I was and what I had accomplished. And and I figured that if I talked about the sorts of things that employers would want to hire me, and and even though I was doing well in law school, and I was at a good law school.
The law firms were not interested in somebody, either one are talking about their achievements and when someone smart who cut their head down and worked hard. And I, it took me a while to learn that lesson. And when I learned it, it was very helpful, but I didn't learn it. And I remember there was a guy in the same [00:19:00] section as mine that was a good student.
And he was very soft-spoken quiet. His father was a preacher and there was a firm in Detroit that I wanted to interview with, and it was like there, or get a job with, I did an interview with them. And and I had the impression that And this was the best place to work if you're from Detroit.
And I wanted to work there and I'd met with this firm after my first semester of law school. And they indicated that they hoped I would apply after my first year of law school. And and I applied and went in for a day of interviews and and again, talked about the things that I'd done and so forth and and thought that was good enough.
And I figured I would get a job there. But then I realized that, during my lunch that with them, that one of the older associates was making fun of me, like continually asking me to talk about my accomplishments. And it was at that point, I very quickly realized I wasn't interviewing well and the guy for my section.
Send us from, to this far, because he'd been Wissam Detroit for Bible camp or in Michigan, during his first summer of law school. So he sent his resume there and and ended up getting a job there. And and it was funny cause the [00:20:00] law firm was, it was a primarily and it's, doesn't matter, but it was a primarily Jewish from a very strong personalities and and he wasn't a great student.
It was also, look at conservative Baptist and they're not the kind of person that you would even imagine that, but he got a job there and and then the firm ended up rejecting me after making him an offer first. And then stringing me along. So the point is I eventually only started getting positions when I realized that there were things I was doing wrong and I had to tone down things.
And no one really cared about my accomplishments. I just needed to look like someone who was a good worker, which this guy did much better obviously than I did. And and didn't alienate people and and then he ended up not even working in the law firm, but working for another religious organization, the following summer.
So he didn't even take the job. So it should give you an indication that, sometimes if you're not getting jobs, you may just not be interviewing well. And and this person with lesser qualifications than me he was able to get a position. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is law firms just hire the best people they can get. And, just like you're going to take the best job you can get in [00:21:00] your offer yourself interest. You have to realize that law firms are also hiring the best people they can get. So if you don't get a job, a position with a law firm you just need to realize what you did wrong in my case I realized when you just start asking questions and listen to other people I realized that the purpose of the interview is not to talk about yourself and to succeed.
I had to be a better interviewer and that, connecting with the interview and relationships matter a lot more than grades when it comes to interviewing. And and if you didn't get a good job after your first summer you probably didn't deserve a good one. You probably didn't look like the most valuable app in the market.
You probably needed to work harder. And and in the future, and be looked like a better person to employers. And and you need to make yourself more valuable in the eyes of employers who play their games. You need to research and apply to as many places as possible instead of giving up. And if he didn't get a good job you may also not have sold yourself and they, you to the firm well enough.
So you need to understand, that in most cases not getting the job is something that was was a consequence of things that you did wrong. You can fix[00:22:00] you can learn how to become a better interviewer. You can learn how to look at more places. You can learn how to package yourself better.
You can learn about your resume, all that kind of stuff that I teach here is very important. And you have to learn how to look like someone that wants to work in the firm and all of these different sorts of things. And there's a lot to it. But if you do those things, now, you're much more likely to be successful than if you don't.
And then the big thing though, is that just like the law school, you went to doesn't determine what happens in your career or the law firm. You start your career and even if it's not a law firm, it doesn't determine the course of your career either. It doesn't matter where you were summer associate.
Once you're. A year or two out of law school. All law firms care about is your experience. They're asking if you can do the job, if they can manage you if you will do the job long-term if they like you and if you want the job, that's really what the firms care about.
They don't necessarily care about Your law school or the law firm, you start your career and they're really they're out for themselves. And just like you're out for yourself and they're trying to hire the best person. Wherever you were a summer associate, [00:23:00] doesn't really have anything to do.
With your longterm success, a lot of people that didn't get summer associate jobs during their first year, get them, or after the first year get jobs hired out of the, after the second year of law school. And if you didn't go to summer associate job, you can always get a job with a smaller firm transformer.
There's all sorts of things you can do. And then you can do a federal clerkship or lots of other options. And the point is if you keep trying stuff is always going to be. Other people and other excuse that people give us that if they had a better on-campus interviewing program so they find fault with that.
And the fact that their law schools on campus interviewing program wasn't good enough. And of course, Does impact the quality of the players that will come to your school and so forth that you can get jobs with. And a lot of people will base their entire fate on whether or not a good employers are coming to their school.
And the blame things on that is if you can't apply to places outside of that in Rome, but that's one thing. Sometimes the lot people will blame their law school career services, offices but they are [00:24:00] honestly not responsible for whether or not you succeed.
They're a resource they're not responsible for the choices you made to the law school or the grades you got, or the and no one, including your law school, career services offices, and stopping you from applying to as many places as you possibly can or networking or getting out there and meeting people.
And no one is stopping you for asking for informational interviews or learning how to put together a better resume or from writing a great cover letter or doing lots of research and applying to lots of places and hoping you get hired. I There's volunteering to your time to, to get recommendations.
No one has stopped me from any of this stuff, and these are all things that people can do in order to to get good positions. And your law school career services is typically, it's not your problem. You are going to be many times the problem, and that's something to think about that you need to realize that you really can't blame others for that.
And frankly, if you want a good job you would have pounded the pavement and market yourself extremely well. Your career services office, if they're not, if you don't think they're good, they probably are good, but if you don't think they're good at them you just need to realize that you can take care of [00:25:00] yourself and find the jobs that you want.
And I remember One time. When I was not getting callbacks, when I was in law school, after doing all these interviews, I went to the Dean of career services offices, and and he was very nonchalant and I explained, I wasn't getting callbacks and he opened the folder under his desk and just said you'll do fine.
I was and he was right, but I, hardly, barely got a a job and eventually but I never got into counseling. What all this means is that, you're really responsible for getting a position. You can't explain, you can't expect other people to get you a position.
It's really, you're responsible. And just all your responsibility. It's no one else's responsibility to get you a job. And it wasn't in the responsibility. You honestly can't rely on others and blaming them does no good. And attorneys are really expected. You research network, get out there and get your results.
It's your responsibility. You can't rely on anyone to help you. It's just what it's all you. And it's really the point. And and again, it doesn't matter where you work in the summer after your law school, because your career could [00:26:00] last over 50 years. So a lot of attorneys practice while in our sixties, a lot decades longer, and you simply just can't blame a career service office for anything that goes wrong in your career.
It's just, doesn't make sense in the long run. Your determined, your choice, your success is going to be determined by your choices and not what other people do. A lot of times people graduate during recessions and that's obviously that's not a topic at the moment. But a lot of times people will graduate Jeremy sessions and really their whole legal career will go to hell.
And the same thing happens when attorneys face recession. So if you graduate during a recession or experience a recession during your legal practice, a lot of bad things can happen. Attorneys during recessions, when recession start, they often help offers withdrawal. They lose jobs and a lot of things that people right now, probably aren't thinking about that happened in big cities and markets like New York and Silicon valley, an entire class of attorneys, often booster jobs.
And then we'll spend a long time trying to find new ones. Lots of people who graduate during recessions we'll never find suitable positions and they may be forced to, start working for the government and public interest [00:27:00] organizations or smaller law firms. A lot of times people in large law firms lose their positions, never get jobs with large law firms again.
And and the point is about graduating the recession. And I don't want to spend a lot of time with those cause we're not in a recession at the moment, but I'm sure we will be at some point in the near future or distant future. If you were in a recession experience, a setback, you just weren't well prepared for it.
And you really should have thought about your options and been better prepared. And if you don't manage your feet you shouldn't set yourself out, you should have set yourself up 500 feet later. So anytime there's a recession people are able to figure out how to position themselves and get jobs.
Whether it's choosing a practice here that's active during a recession looking at other locations going to work in firms where there are opportunities and making sure they ask the right questions. And just realize that there's always things that you can do even when you in the, from your end.
One of the things that I also talk a lot about, but I think is very important is if you firms, when they laid people off, they never lay off everyone, or most of them don't. So to avoid that, you have to build more hours, do better work and so forth. And just be the most valuable person.
So [00:28:00] just, you have to take some blame for the situation. All right. And then the big thing is that, everyone, yourself included, all attorneys have bad things happen. Everyone's responsible for the stuff that happens to you. You need to be accountable how you really can't always find the economy.
And and everyone should also realize that the sun never shines forever. And we go through good economies and bad economies. And I've certainly been 5 million in revenue. That's a lot more than that 850 point in five minutes. And it was 25 million, but the company was much larger and and then I had a very large company and then it w stopped and and so I had to let a lot of people go and and again this is everyone goes through different crisises and it's just an example of mistakes that I've learned.
But one of the things that I've learned is that the sun doesn't always shine forever. You need to be more careful with your investments. You really can't be that dependent on the. My generosity of others, I'm here with the government and and and coming through these kinds of issues made me a much better person more and I [00:29:00] went through a re a mad recession.
And and the lesson to learn is that you, as a, when you're working inside of a law firm, or when you're in the legal business, all of the contacts you make, all of the people that you know, and so forth during when you're, when things are going well, you have to really prepare yourself and you have to make as many positive contacts as you can.
And and really be aware of it. The other thing is it doesn't really matter if you graduate during recession. None of this matters in the long run. The only thing that matters is how you respond. People care about your scale and whether or not you get results it's your responsibility to, to protect yourself and develop a personality that employers and clients like will succeed.
And everyone's going to experience ups and downs, but your ability to overcome these is ultimately going to make you a better person. Okay. And then the final one of the other reasons that people Give for failing and failing the bar exam. That's a big one. A lot of times, people, especially in California, most firms, people will always fail it.
The California bar and a lot of other states too, [00:30:00] but they can create a cascading effect. It if you don't have a job and you graduate from law school and obviously it makes finding your first job difficult if you are employed when you fail the bar it may affect at least in some firms, how others view you.
And then if you fell a couple of times you may lose your job, so that will hurt you. And again, it's something that will hurt career aspirations for people and something. You just need to be prepared for that can hurt you in the long run. You're a athlete here for passing it for practicing.
Mom may be. Question and you may get less work and so forth. It doesn't really happen in most firms, but it could certainly, if you failed a couple of times, I've known some very smart people from like even Yale law school and Stanford and stuff that have failed multiple times and lost positions. In most cases, people fail the bar just because they didn't prepare well enough.
It's not unlike the L sat and so forth. It's not necessarily an intelligence test. It's just something that a test, how much time you spent studying and knowing the material really well, and then learning certain rules. It doesn't really matter where you went to law [00:31:00] school. Anyone can pass the bar if you dedicate everything to it.
Really when people don't pass, I'm really not that concerned about it. They just typically need to buckle down and prepare even harder. The point of the bar exam is that, but then I think what it teaches is that as an attorney your job is to be over-prepared. So whatever challenge your client is facing you need to be prepared for that.
And you should when you were preparing for the bar exam, you certainly, if you failed, you didn't defend yourself well enough and prepare and you may have wanted to fail because you didn't believe how you sh you may have wanted to fail for different reasons. But that, that's the main thing.
And you may also be afraid of being an attorney and what it means a lot of times people don't pass because they they don't want to pass. I managed to literally it's sometimes it's the most obvious explanation and or they they, they just had other issues from everything, if they wanted to be an attorney who knows, but if you didn't pass the bar exam I, again, I've known lots of people that have failed that are much smarter than most people and and and that never passed.
And I think in most [00:32:00] cases people that didn't pass just didn't study enough believe were arrogant left and believed that they should pass. Cause they went through a good law school or I've always done well on exams or just subconsciously may not have wanted to pass cause they didn't want to be attorney.
Most people, regardless of your background getting, being held back for that, it's something you certainly can do and pass. You need to decide how badly you want it and how serious You want to be an attorney, but a big thing to learn is that being a good attorney is all about preparation being prepared.
If you're going to be a good attorney, you need to prepare for every battle. You need to be the best person in the room. And if you don't prepare how you're going to hurt your clients and really probably don't have a lot of business being an attorney unless you learn how to prepare, especially for the Park's cam.
And the lessons that kind of come along with a long study and so forth that goes into that. And the consequences of not preparing the bar exam are really for you failing are much smaller than the consequences that your clients will suffer. If you don't prepare on their matters and that's the lesson, and that's one of the things that's nice about that, that it [00:33:00] helps sift that out.
And and when I've been represented by attorneys, I've lost a lot of money in the past because people have not adequately prepare contracts for me, And been involved in litigation because attorneys, miss details and contracts I've lost cases that I should have won because trainees working for me, miss issues.
And so all sorts of things can happen. Bad attorneys I'm prepared, they can really do a lot of damage. And so you need to prepare, and that's really the big lesson of the bar exam because you're the life from off for your clients. That's really at stake. And and any time you work as an attorney, if you're ever prepared you can do a lot of damage in the long run.
I, the past the bar really isn't that important. Whatever happened to you at a bar exam is often going to be long forgotten. Then the quality of illegal work and your mind is what's going to matter in the long run. And most, a lot of times people will just learn lessons and lessons related to the bar, just that just don't make the same mistake again.
Another thing that people will over prepare the next time give for a lack of success is not starting occurred a better employee. To some extent that will impact the [00:34:00] beginning of your career. I know lots of attorneys who got got their first jobs with very small law firms or even became solo practitioners and ended up at major law firms later on.
But getting a job at a major law firm out of law school is a big deal because it does say something about your law school performance, your drive, and and we'll give you a training that will help you in the long run. And and it would have something to do with the quality of attorney you're going to be ultimately many times, not always and the best law firms, the bigger and the better the law firm and the more prestigious you're going to often learn a certain way of thinking and in detail orientation compared to all smaller law firms and looking at issues and more details that you may not get in some different atmospheres.
And so the better from your end many times it can be easier to move to better from later on. Once you get a position with the best law firms, other law firms for are going to assume, and especially if you stayed there for a long time that you have certain work habits and operating that feds that are going to make them that much interested in hiring you later on as a general rule, if you didn't get a job at a better employer, when you [00:35:00] started your legal career you probably just didn't get it because there were better applicants.
That's all there is to it. And we talked about that earlier, but there were better applicants at the firms you didn't go to enough good law school, good enough law school get good enough grades or try hard enough. And and that's it, or didn't have good enough interviewing skills who knows or taking the first position in your offer instead of continuing with your search.
And so the, the, if you don't start your visit, if you hadn't, didn't start your career at the best firm, it just as an obstacle. And it means you need to move up and there's nothing wrong with that. I think law firms like it when people are trying to move up I think that in the future, you're the lesson is you're going to need to look more marketable and and that's gonna make you more attractive.
And everyone needs to understand. And I think this is one of the most important lessons is that, your product and so attorneys are products, no one cares about your feelings or your sense of entitlement or what you believe. You're entitled to the market just buys what's best.
And if you're going to sell your product, which is you to the highest price and to the most discriminating buyer, how the product needs to be better [00:36:00] than the buyers that are options you need to improve yourself constantly so that you can get a position with a better employer next time.
That's really it. And this means doing things like, making sure that, when you start your career that you're in the most marketable practice here. I thinking about the type of practice area you're in billing the hours as many hours as you can to be, to get the experience and also to have employment, stability, networking coming to the attention of attorneys and better firms bringing in business, all the things becoming an expert in your practice area and many times even moving to market where you're going to be more marketable.
And regardless of what you do, you can, you could be more marketed in the future. You're going to discover, and you need to look at, the, you need to really do what you can to make yourself more marketable. Okay. And then the long run again, the quality of employee you start with doesn't matter.
It's just a, it's not an excuse. All it is it's it's something that happened to you early on and that you caused and and again you want to make sure that you remain excited and keep doing what you can. I know lots of attorneys that are at the, [00:37:00] literally the top firms in the country now.
And a lot of them have started at very small firms sometimes even the solo practitioners and and just making the right choices in the future really is what's going to help you and people especially large law firms love to hire people that are that may have started at smaller firms or that don't have the experience.
Didn't get good experience, but are really hungry because what'll happen is people from large law firm, sophomore election title, they won't they'll feel like they deserve something. And then they bring in people from the outside with that kind of energy. And and law firms are gonna. Okay.
And they do get, people get hired by major law firms all the time from small law firms. It's very common, for example, like right now, the economy is very good and there's lots of corporate attorneys out there at smaller law firms. And they're being brought in to major law firms where the attorneys in the major law firms are all complaining about all the work and so forth.
And if you come into a law firm and you're hungry and you're coming from a small law firm, law firms often like that a great deal. So that, that can be quite helpful. Okay. Let's see [00:38:00] what else we got here. All right. And then another excuse that people have is that they started in the market.
They will say they're not successful because they start and they started occurring in a smaller market or or they didn't, they, they blame working this bond market on their lack of success. And and a lot of times people believe that the size market they're in has a lot to do with their success.
And and to some extent if you want to have access to the most important matters and the largest matters the size of the market, you start your career in that does have some bearing on your success. Because the largest and most prestigious companies for the most money will often hire the largest firms in the largest cities to do the deals and work for them.
If you want to work on the highest profile deals as a corporate attorney, you're most often going to want to work for the biggest firms in places like New York or the bay area or Chicago or Houston, but that's really we're just kinda how it works.
Not too long ago, I was reading the bod biography of Michael Dell. It was pretty interesting. And he was talking about how he was trying to take his company public and he was [00:39:00] living and working in Austin. And he talked about how he was working with doubt boy and walked out on that as he was flying from Austin.
So he wasn't working with firms in Houston or no, he was working with those firms in New York trying to take us from public. And it's just, there's lots of very good firms in Austin, I would say, but but he was, when you do work in the largest, most sophisticated matters, people typically will go to the firms and the best firms in the largest market, similar to cities.
The more matter even the more, the larger the market you're in the more matters you're generally going to be exposed to the more sophisticated the work and the more money you can earn. And if you want to be a powerful. He will often be much better served in a significant market than a smaller one.
Another option is you started your career in a smaller market and because you that's where he chose to be. If you're in a small legal market, you just that's it. You chose, you made that choice. No one forced you to do it. And regardless of your status in life, if you want to be in, if you wanted to be in a larger market, you could have been.
And and that was a choice that you made. And so they shouldn't blame or feel badly about the choices. You may have done it because you have family there, you may have [00:40:00] been the only place you'd get a job and or you may be chosen to go to a local law school and it's difficult to get jobs in other areas.
But it doesn't really matter. You where, what, regardless of what happened to you it is what it is. And you're there because you may not have taken the actions you want it to be in to make yourself more attractive to employers in large markets, or to get a job there.
And and again, margin markets are more competitive and to get jobs here, you need to look like a better candidate. So if you start your legal career in a smaller market that it, that it is what it is you can make the most out of it or you can move markets. I move attorneys on a weekly basis from smaller markets to larger markets.
And you can do it. Anybody who wants to really can. Even if you're working in rural Nevada, you can probably get a job in Las Vegas. And if you get a job in Las Vegas, you can probably get a job in Los Angeles and you get a job in Los Angeles. You can probably get a job in Sanford. I People can move to different markets all the time.
And the point is you just need to offer value and need. You're hungry. You need to appear to be the best choice for larger companies. And and [00:41:00] regardless of where you are, you can definitely move to larger markets and and work on larger matters. You're not probably going to be able to work on antitrust matters for, a huge company in the, in New York city from Nebraska, but even out again as possible major law firms use companies all over the country for things.
I've worked with small firms and all over the country that worked for Microsoft and Amazon and things like that. Doing patents sometimes are even, they just have a few attorneys in them. I've there's just lots of things you can do. And if you're unhappy, you can always move and and make yourself attractive to firms.
The point though, is that where you choose to settle down and practice will impact your future choices. If you you can make yourself attractive to local employers and once you do that and you can make yourself attractive to clients that are local and then even clients, major markets.
So I've seen lots of attorneys and markets like Wisconsin, bringing clients all over the country. I It doesn't really matter many times where you're practicing, you just have to be more resourceful. And if you're working in a smaller market, many [00:42:00] times, that can be a benefit and not a limitation.
I, for a long period of time, I've done a lot of business with firms and. Upstate whatever New York or other states in smaller markets, outside of major cities. And many times those firms were very attractive to clients because their billing rates are lower, for example.
The point is though, is that in the long run, this has the illegal market you're in high. It's not going to matter if you limit you, don't worry about it. Regardless of the size of the market, you start your career. You're you can always relocate to a larger market. And if you look like LA, if you look like, if you look attractive to employers, meaning you, you have the right practice here or the right experience, and even some.
Another excuse that people give. And this is not a one that a lot of people are experiencing right now, but if a lot of people, if you get laid off or fired, you can experience all sorts of setbacks. When a recession happens, a lot of times attorneys will get laid off we're right now due for a recession.
If you work in a law firm there's a good chance that you'll probably be laid off at some point. And if you're an associate, not everyone is a partner counsel, but you [00:43:00] can get fired for not getting along with people, for making mistakes, for doing something stupid.
But, if someone for and for law firms need to push people out and making dumb remarks, upsetting clients law firms getting rid of practice here is taking sides and internal squabbles, who knows. But all of this may guarantee that you lose a job at some point getting laid off or.
Losing your job can be a short-term setback, but once you lose a position as everyone, most people feel understand, it can be very difficult for you to find a new position. The reason is because employers always perceive people that are laid off or having, or have lost their jobs, some somewhat damaged goods.
They believe that you might be on committed or someone who's a problem or someone that was, not at the top of the group of attorneys they were working with. I don't know, but the, if a law firm is facing two different choices, hiring one person that's unemployed and person that's unemployed that is employed in most cases, the person that is employed is, can be less of a risk than the person that's unemployed, even if you [00:44:00] have good reasons for being unemployed.
And so if you were laid off or fired, it can be very difficult many times to find a new position. I've seen people get much better positions after being laid off and fired all the time. So it's not as if that's something that you know is gonna permanently damage your career, but it can definitely hurt you and something to keep in mind.
And it can set your career back. Many times by years, I've seen attorneys that were laid off from their first jobs, take five or six years to get back into a major firm, but or some of them do it right away. It just, it depends on the person, but. Most cases, you just need to realize that if you got laid off, you probably didn't have enough allies in your firm.
And other people were perceived as adding more value or maybe you didn't have the best record on allies is one thing in most cases, you want to have allies and whatever from your end. And and if you lost your job then proving your next one, attorney and advocate means going to be able to, you're going to have to sell yourself in order to get a new one and just learn from that experience.
So make sure you don't make the same mistakes again make better decisions in the future. [00:45:00] And and again, in long run, none of this stuff matters everyone, by the way loses their job. Most attorneys lose a job at some point in their careers. It's almost impossible not to, if you've been practicing more than, a few years, most people will lose jobs at some point, not everyone, but a lot of people and many people will lose multiple jobs.
I know people that have lost 10 jobs, it just depends on the person. But this is one of the big excuses and I will just, I'm going to go through these next ones fairly quickly, cause this is there's just a lot of detail here. And I don't know that this is a lot of information, but a lot of times people will their careers will go off the track because they believe that one person hurt their career.
And I've seen lots of people in situations where they butt heads with one individual person and or sometimes a couple of people. And it's such a bad experience of the persons that whole legal career goes to help. And they often will. I've seen people working. I've seen people in certain firms where, the peop some partners are considered so brutal and traumatizing that when people go into alternate careers I saw it was [00:46:00] one firm where there was partners with one partner, I guess it was very difficult to work with.
And people that she worked with seemed to already leave the practice for law. One person that a woman was a Columbia law school graduate. I worked with her or a guy or just a guy who became a waiter and another fifth year attorney graduated from Berkeley and became a carpenter.
Just all these things and were very difficult. If you work with the wrong people that can often hurt you and you have to be careful and and it can hurt your career. But the point is that if you do make enemies, you just have to realize that you want to be on the right side of things and you have to be very careful and you shouldn't allow them that, that stuff to hurt your career really in the long run.
I think that if someone is out to get you you probably, you might've made some mistakes or you could have avoided the situation or not taking sides with things. And and and so you have to realize what it is that obsessed people I, as a, in my company, as well as other companies, people will typically disagree with people when people are in the, to learn from their mistakes don't understand something and pretend they do, or underhanded and subordinate, don't follow instructions do with their [00:47:00] ass, talk behind their back and so forth, or put their interests ahead of those, the company and those for the law firm.
And those are just mistakes that people make. And and you have to learn from them and being political inside of any law firm organization. It's not something. That anyone can really that you can predict, but protect yourself against, but you always need to address a personality and work issues just surviving from.
If you made issue, if you've made mistakes in the past, just learn how to fix them. And yeah. And then and the idea that if you upset people in your firm, you're typically going to lose as another one. And and again, these are all kinds of lessons. People learn them at different speeds.
You should not allow that to hold back your career. And I think my point with this particular issue, as well as a lot of the other ones I've made is I think people will believe that just because I got fired from a job where they got laid off and they made enemies people that hurt them, that their whole career over.
And you have to be resilient, pick yourself up and and so forth. And those are some other issues, and this is the final one. It's if I did not work so many hours, if I was in a different practice here, if I [00:48:00] weren't such firm with high billing rates to not have so many conflicts could bring in smaller matters, I've tend to bring a business.
We'll make partner Ben a partner, make more money as a partner. This is one of the most common ones that I hear. And again about having business, and I'm not going to go into too much detail about this, but the most important thing you can do as an attorney is and you need the sooner you realize this the better, and if you've listened to all this so far today, and there was nothing else that you care it's that you definitely need to understand that all these things business and so forth is going to be very important in your career.
So you can't blame outside circumstances. You have to make sure that happens and you could business you don't. Then you're often going to be in a lot of trouble. The all of your complaints about law firms it's typically on you. Attorneys bringing business all the time they do it when they're billing lots of hours.
They do it when they have high billing rates, they find clients when there are no conflicts, they were able to find solutions and you need to figure it out yourself. And you typically need to be accountable for all of these things. [00:49:00] And and it doesn't matter why you're not doing it. You could be afraid or lazy or not comfortable and willing to learn or or avoiding, but you need to do it.
And and all these things basically you need to understand, you can't allow yourself under any circumstances to be controlled by external factors. You need to do things differently and make changes. And and that's it. You need to learn from all of your complaints about your job and things that are holding you back.
If you're not getting business, you need to carve out time. You can to figure out how to do it. You need to say other people that are doing it. And in the long run, no one cares about your excuses. A lot of people are late bloomers then there's nothing wrong with you being a late bloomer and you just, that's fine too, but you need to get this stuff done.
Now, the other one that I hate talking about, but I'm going to talk about is another thing reason that people will blame for lack of their success is they will blame. Being a white male, the blame being a woman, the plan, their race, or their sexual urbanization, their their English, how well they speak their name and everything.
And and the point is that [00:50:00] everyone has excuses. And and and and I remember a few years ago, I was on a date with this woman and she was I think he was a president of a company, and she made a, she lived in a very nice house. And and she was had some fancy credit cards that basically advertise that she had over $5 million in their bank account or account with them.
And and she was complaining of the role of stacked against her because she was a woman and so forth. And and I actually got an argument with her. And she literally was just turned 40. It was. And and she believed in to me, it seemed the world was stacked in her favor, because she was complaining the world wasn't stacked in her favor.
And I saw the world stacked in her favor because she was very intelligent, extremely intelligent, very motivated, very good socially, but she believed and that the world was stacked against her. And then then a few weeks before that I was talking to attorney a law firm and he believed that he had an Inn partner because he was a white male and not diverse.
And so he believed that the world was stacked against him because he wasn't diverse. And so it seems that the point I'm making, is that that everyone [00:51:00] is complaining about reasons for not being successful. And these cases I'm talking about people that, that aren't diverse, complaining about being successful.
And of course, there's complaints when people that are diverse about successful too. Everyone has complaints about outside forces holding in the back and and I believe that people are held. By outside forces and they have been on the past and I'm not denying it, but you have to, take control of your career.
And and meaning the, what is thinks about diversity and so forth are very important. I've written books about it. I've I study it and I think it's very interesting. And and I think there's truth to the complaints on every side. But people like people that they identify with and you identify people based on personality traits based on your vulnerability, if they want to see that, if that means, hobbies shared interests, things like that.
And I don't know that I do think that there's a lot of discrimination, but I think for the most part, the world works where people identify with people that are like [00:52:00] them and are more than happy to be friends with people from different backgrounds and employ people from different backgrounds. And that's really the big thing.
People want to trust the people that they