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Okay, I'm gonna get started. This is actually one of my favorite topics and I really like this topic because so many people end up not getting the positions that they should because they literally during the, their job searches will give up. And when I say give up, I mean they will believe that if they apply to too many places there's something wrong with them.

They perceive themselves as a certain type of person and that doesn't get rejected. Or they believe that there's something wrong if they get rejected by a firm, something wrong with them. And the truth is that when you're applying to jobs you have to think and it's something that I like to call the moving parade.

And what that means is that when you're applying to whether it's a job or just applying to a firm, when you're applying to places, firms do not. Re regardless of your qualifications. The first thing is they don't always see your application because if they're in the process of filling something or they may take a quick look at it, but regardless of the quality of your application, they won't they won't all, they won't a lot of times they won't be interested in talking to you.

But the other thing is that most [00:01:00] people that succeed in their job searches do apply to a lot of places. And so that's what this is gonna be about today. And and I can tell you that I've literally there's any attorney that I've ever gotten behind and tried my hardest place I've always placed.

And but usually it's at the, you have to get them out to a lot of places, and you have to get a lot of places to look at. And any, anybody that applies to a lot of places will always get a position. The thing that's disturbing to me about people not applying to a lot of places is if you go on to the if you go onto a road like I'm in Los Angeles, you'll see tons of banners, or not banners, but signs for businesses and billboards.

And if you turn on the tv, you'll see. Tons of advertisements. And if you turn on the, if you pick up a newspaper, you'll see tons of advertisements and people are marketing everywhere. And that's what businesses do in order to survive. And as an applicant places, you also need to be able to market yourself as aggressively as you possibly can to survive.

And I just don't understand [00:02:00] the pe the reason that people don't do that. And so marketing yourself is extremely important. When you're doing a search and anyone that markets themselves always has a very good ability to get jobs and gets lots of them. I've I used to have a company and it's still that still has a website, but we don't really do a lot of work through it anymore.

It was called Legal Authority. And it would help people mail out their resume. And this is when everyone applied with by mail, and the majority of people did. It would help people mail out the resume to employers when looking for positions. And everyone would, that used it and really took advantage of the service, would get jobs.

And I'm not selling the service right now, but I'm just telling you that applying to places, regardless of whether or not they have a job and applying to lots of them really makes a huge difference. And because the, and then there's countless reasons for it, and I'll talk about those. But just the big thing is I think a lot of people have been counseled, whether it's bureaucrats inside of law schools, it may be friends, it may be legal recruiters and maybe others often who have [00:03:00] hidden agendas to avoid sending their resumes out to lots of places.

And I think that there's, that, this whole process of people doing this is completely insane. I don't that's like telling people like the, the companies and businesses that advertise, rely on advertising to, to drive their entire business Facebook, Google, all these are giant advertising companies.

Amazon all these are companies that are able to get things out there and target things to people. So if people are telling you that there's something wrong with you applying to lots of places, then I would be very cautious because I'm just, I'm, I don't care if you apply to me or you apply on your own or how you apply to places, but you need to get out there and apply to lots of places.

And this is really one of the biggest messages that I have for people. If a law school's telling you not to apply to a lot of places and that you need to be very selective, then you have to ask yourself, why are they telling you that? Because they don't want all of their people [00:04:00] applying to the same firms.

I don't know. If a friend's telling you that, are they telling you that because they think it's the they're telling you're gonna look bad if you do that, or you're gonna be wasting your time. If a legal recruiter's telling you, they're telling you that because they only have a few contacts, I don't know.

But what I do know is that when you apply to lots of places, it works. And and if you don't you're drastically harming your employment chances. And you're doing lots and lots of damage and it's not about your ego like the idea, like what, And I hate to say this, and I really I don't like saying this, and I'm not even gonna say it, but there's a loser mentality that a lot of people have.

And imagine if every business had a loser mentality and just said, Oh, if people aren't buying our product, we're gonna stop advertising. That's just in if we're not having luck right now, it's just obviously there's something wrong with the product. And so we can't, and we, why would we try to sell our product when we may not?

These this thought process is nuts. I don't get it. And a lot of attorneys that I work with even [00:05:00] and in our company think, Okay, so BCG sent me four or five jobs, or maybe we sent more, I don't know. And some firms and those, all those firms didn't interview me. And therefore there's something wrong with BCG or there's something wrong with me.

Maybe I shouldn't be applying to places. And and this thought process is insane. If you're an employer and you get 500 applications for a job are you gonna look at all 500 if you get 50, are you gonna look at all 50? Are you going to you, you don't know what's going on inside of employers when they see your application.

And there's a lot going on, and I'll talk about that today. So what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna talk about this and then this is a live webinar. What I will do after the presentations, I'll take a quick break and then after we take a break I'll come back and I'll answer questions and the questions can be about this or whatever.

And I have a lot of time today so we can hopefully get to a lot of questions if whatever you have. But I just, at the outset, I want everyone to understand that the, one of the biggest mistakes that people make with their career, and it's a huge mistake, is [00:06:00] not applying to lots of places.

And when they do that, they make just a huge mistake. And they'll, many times they'll interview after not getting interviewed after their initial applications. And and they'll quit and they get discouraged. They're thinking that there's something wrong and that's gonna make them look bad to people.

And I've seen this is one of the major faults or things that people do that really does a profound damage to their career. I've seen a lot of people when I say lots. Thousands of people not have good careers and go not have good things happen to them because they gave up. And at the, at the same time, I've seen countless people that by all accounts should be should have given up and didn't give up and had incredible careers.

And many of those people are partners and and firms all over the country and large firms. And and I watched their careers and they've learned that you don't give up because if you don't give up you're just in much better shape. Then then it than if you do. And and you need to apply to lots of places.

You need to apply to places that [00:07:00] aren't necessarily always in your market. You need to apply to large firms and small firms and places that that you may not know about. And that's really the name of the game. If you learned anything in this webinar today, it's that that most people, meaning most attorneys are un unwilling to completely get market themselves.

They think that if they do this, there's something wrong with them. They think that they shouldn't, and that, that would be like it doesn't make any sense. It would be like any business saying I can't, I shouldn't be marketing to myself. People aren't buying my stuff. Then then there must be something wrong and I'm not gonna waste my money.

It doesn't make sense. So the first thing is, and I've already touched on this, but every business understands the importance of marketing themselves to a lot of prospects. And you. every day I go out and I pick up the mail and there's always tons of junk mail. In my in box. I also receive lots of junk mail at work.

So I would say every day I'm receiving 20, 30, 40 pieces of junk mail. I can very rarely maybe once a year do I ever respond to something. Even bills that I receive [00:08:00] often contain solicitations inside of them. And then many times when I purchase things online and they deliver there's even more solicitations inside the box for other things when that's delivered.

And if you go to the grocery store, or you even go to a drug store, they're gonna print up a receipt that has solicitations on it with coupons and so forth. And so everybody is doing things. And then even I remember while I was working on this this webinar, the, I received a robo call.

And and then in my inbox there's hundreds of things arriving every day and and all day, every day I receive citations. Now, when I receive a solicitation from someone, I don't think poorly of them, I don't think this person's the loser cuz they're contacting me. I don't think I don't think there's anything wrong.

I when I'm driving, I get annoyed by advertisements sometimes and magazines. Sometimes I'll open a magazine and the first 50 pages will be ads. It's crazy. They're everywhere. And this is what happens. This is how it works. Everywhere. I go and everywhere you go, you're gonna [00:09:00] be bombarded with requests for your business.

And you may ask yourself, Why is that? Why are you getting bombarded everywhere? Why are you you're bombarded on everywhere? So the reason is because every business that's in business understands the importance of marketing, and they don't stop marketing. This is how they get people to buy their products and services.

It's how they get business. If they stop marketing, they go out of business. So this is what businesses do, businesses market. And the big thing is you're a product and a business you need to be and you need to get people interested in you. So the only way to do that, you can do it in a lot of ways.

You can you can sit around and hope that the phone rings or you can get out there and advertise and when people see your advertisements and promotions, they're more likely to sell. And and when people see advertisements, they're more likely to buy things. And so this is just how the world works.

And and it's something you need to understand. And every business knows that if they're gonna keep going, there's a. They better get themselves out there. Now [00:10:00] people will tell you, Oh, you need to go out and network and meet a few slot people, or you need to you need to develop a network.

You need to join organizations. And these are all ways, of course, to get jobs, of course. But but really, like the biggest way is when you can apply to lots of places at once and you need to treat your career like a small business is. And some businesses are much better than marketing themselves and others.

But generally when you think about it marketing is extremely important. And the better businesses at marketing, the better business it generally is. When I was in a long time ago in high school I was in in, went to Che Mai which is a, now it's a very developed city, but it wasn't then.

And there were some very remote areas. And I remember I, I took this motorcycle and I drove for all morning and I went to this village. It was very primitive and people were literally walking around. It was funny. It was like a called a hill tribe or something walking around and they were naked and covered in dust and stuff and farming with these kind of rudimentary tools.

And then when I pulled in this little village, I [00:11:00] was a a novelty there I guess. But to my astonishment, after having gone through all these jungle roads and. There was a giant billboard for Coca-Cola and someone was selling cold cokes out of a cooler being powered by a portable generator.

And think about that. So you're in the middle of earth, the middle of a remote village in the middle of nowhere, and and there's a big banner of selling Coke. So the idea is that good brands do everything they can to spread the message far and wide. And and you're a brand.

And so when an attorney goes and gives a speech and goes out to dinner with clients or writes articles or joins a chamber of commerce and so forth, they're doing these things to be seen and they're advertising themselves. And this is something that you need to do as an attorney to, in order to get business, in order to get jobs.

But you need to be able to advertise yourself and you need to constantly be advertising yourself and getting out there. It's extremely important. And the reason so many careers stall and so many people have a difficult time finding a job, is that they don't market themselves. They, it's [00:12:00] actually it's insane because there's so many opportunities out there that people do not approach and they don't they don't get themselves out there and they have.

The, they, their careers stalled. They don't get the results that they want. And the, and everybody that gets business and stays in business is doing everything that they can to to get to, to market themselves. And it's very important. And and that's why you'll always probably receive junk mail in your mailbox because it works.

And people know the reason all these letters are coming to your mailbox. And the reason you're getting all these emails, and the reason you're getting robocalls and texts and everything is because because that works. That's people know, and businesses know that if they knock on enough doors that something will open up and they'll get something.

And and maybe that business can lead to something else. And so you need to understand this logic as well. And you're in the market and as an attorney, you have something to sell. And what that is, is your services. And so the more people [00:13:00] you're you're getting out to the more people are going to choose you.

And and sometimes they'll choose someone else, but the more people are likely to choose you. So the oil change people may have to send a coupon to 500 households. They may have to send it to more. So I used to be in this business a long time ago that not that long ago. This asphalt business asphalt mean that's a bit.

And so there used to be these penny saver type, or not penny saver, but these companies that would send out where you could send out coupons to people. And and and so I would sign up for them and, you'd send your coupons out to 30,000 people. It may good four or five phone calls if that, and, but those four or five phone calls would more than pay for the service.

And my point is that if you're going to keep business, just like the oil change place does, you need to send your stuff out to a lot of people. And and in one of the ideas that if one person comes in, all it takes is one person from the oil change place. If one person comes in, maybe they've got a customer for life.

And it's like that with jobs as well. If you kiss enough frogs you may [00:14:00] meet a prince. And if you find the right job you could also have a job for life or those contacts could really lead to something. I've seen people that did this decades ago and approached a ton of jobs and in their job searches.

And and and and early in my career, because I saw how much this worked and I saw the what was happening to people, I used to fly around and just sit down with my, each of my caners personally and explain it to them when they stopped applying. To lot some places and some of the people that were the didn't wanna do this back then that were nervous but did eventually did follow my advice and have become very successful in the practice of law.

And and this is how it works. You need to market yourself and and some of these people are working in cities they never could imagine and environments they never could imagine and been very successful. And I just, I I don't know how many different ways to say this, but but the more places you, you will look at, the better you'll do.

And and there's a lot of different types of attorneys I work with. And so I wanted to tell a quick story cuz I think it's funny. When I had this legal authority company, this is in I don't know, [00:15:00] early two thousands and maybe it was, I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was a it was, there was a Friday afternoon and the company had gotten pretty big.

 We had maybe 30 or 40 people in our office in downtown Los Angeles. And and the, this guy came in with his dad and another attorney. And they wanted to meet the person that had sold them all these contacts because they had gotten jobs in Los Angeles as entertainment. And we're graduating from what was then called Thomas Cooley, which is a school in Michigan.

And it's and they were getting a job and they had gotten jobs and after they took the bar, and and I was amazed because there were two of them. And the first thing is everyone wants to come to LA and do entertainment related work. So if you go to Harvard, you want to do it if you go to wherever, and none of those people are really ever get those jobs until they get later in their career because they're very competitive.

And yet here we're a couple guys from Michigan that were graduating from I don't know if it was a tier third, fourth to tier, but not a [00:16:00] great law school that was, or not a, the most highly regarded law school that were getting these really good jobs and that everyone wanted. And both of them got entertainment jobs and all they had done was apply to the 200 law firms or whatever in LA that had entertainment practices.

So the point is that wouldn't you do this? You're willing to apply to a lot of places. Your whole life can change. And this is what happened to these guys. They honestly, even getting a job in Detroit back then was difficult, but much less and moving from LA from, the middle.

without anything that special in your background. But one of the things and it's just, that's the power of this, but one of the things I just wanted to say is that a lot of times the most challenging attorneys for me to work with are people that went to the best law schools and worked in the best firms.

And and of course those are people that I work with all day every day. But at the same time a lot of times these people are under this belief that that it only makes sense for them to apply to a few firms. It's very common, by the way. So they'll believe you'll send 'em a list of 20 firms and they'll tell you all the bad things they've [00:17:00] heard about certain, such a firm and why they wouldn't apply there.

And and that even applying to this firm would tarnish their image. And and so it's not and their brand, so it's not a good idea. And and it doesn't make any sense. Like it's actually insane. A Rolls Royce doesn't care who you buy it, who buys it. They don't care if you you're, they don't care.

Louis Vuitton, they don't care who buys them. Anybody that has money will buy them. They're not so exclusive. They'll put their dealerships in stores in war zones to sell their products. And and and it doesn't matter. They'll sell. It's whoever buys them. And that's not to say that you should do it, but it's, but what they're, but what I'm saying is that that brands, even the most prestigious brands will market themselves everywhere.

And it was funny, this was a long time ago, but I was in London and I was giving a speech and and after the speech I went and visited one of the oldest and most prestigious clothing stores in London. And and and the, it's the, I don't know what it was, but I don't know what I was doing there.

I think I was with some people that wanted to see it or something. [00:18:00] But the store had opened over 20 stores in China. And and so it's not, they were chasing money because there's a lot of money in China. That's where they opened them. So they're not concerned about only being in this one location in London where they've been for generations.

They opened them wherever there's money. And and that's what good businesses do. They they, they market themselves and they find the buyers the best buyers wherever they are. And and what do you think happens to attorneys who refuse to apply to a lot of firms?

Most of them spend their time being concerned with how they're perceived by others. They, they're worried about stuff that's not important to them. They base how they feel about themselves on what they perceive that others. And and some sort of group thing says, your happiness can only be determined by what others think, care what the consensus is.

So they're living almost in fear. And and a lot of people, and this is it's very common by the way, or are very prestige conscious. They're only willing to consider firms that they believe are the same prestige level. And and so what this means is they're often going to move [00:19:00] and end up in the same environment again.

So if you're in one big firm, that is a certain way you may spend your whole career in firms like that, and that's okay. But but you have to also consider your happiness and an environment where you can succeed and do well in the long run. And being with a group of people who value you and where and where you can perform and do well.

And and there's nothing wrong with working and with going to good law schools or, it's a great thing if you can go to, your Yales Harvard and Stanfords the odds are that people that go to schools like that are gonna be most interested in working in the largest markets.

And there's reasons for that. And there's actually good reasons that I think makes sense. And but at the same time, many times the person who goes to the larger. Gets burned out, they're frustrated, they're unhappy and and they it may not be what they think it is. And if you go to the biggest and best schools a lot of times there's going to be a lot of people you're competing with.

And [00:20:00] and not necessarily that as, as important as the things. Harvard Law School is a great school and it's very difficult to get into, obviously. But I remember when I lived in Pasadena I was on a block of about 15 houses and there were four people on the block that had gone there.

So there's a lot of people there. And but if you go to if you were to go to a lot of other cities like Detroit or, smaller markets, suddenly going to a law school like that makes you like a rockstar. Or if you I remember the, I was talking to a guy that had gone, that was head of a big law firm in Detroit.

He'd gone to Yale. And and you'll be at coddled and in advanced and highly respected and admired by the local clients and given their most important work. A lot of times you go to the best law schools in the smaller markets and you'll have a lot of access to more opportunities and things may open up to you that normally wouldn't.

Think about Bill and Hillary Clinton. They. They decided to move to Little Rock, Arkansas. Think of what would've happened to them if they'd moved to New York City. That was a after going to Yale Law School. So going to [00:21:00] Little Rock was a strategic move. So instead of just being one of a ton of attorneys practicing in New York City they became and who knows what would've happened there to them.

They went to Little Rock and became rock stars where then governor and then president. All these things you can advance. And you also, when you're in a smaller environments where you're thought of very highly you get a lot more confidence probably than you normally would have if you were in a larger market.

And and cuz you're getting positive input and reinforcement and and so you want to be around people that are giving you positive reinforcement. There's nothing wrong with working in a really difficult environment in a big city. And some people are very happy doing that. But at the same time you think about, what would happen if you went to some place where you were happy and where everyone was giving you positive reinforcement and telling you that you're very special and that we're lucky to have you in all this.

And and obviously you don't want to depend on people saying things like that, but think about the times you've done the best in [00:22:00] your life. It was were those environments encourag. Or or were they not encouraging? And it's important for people to be an encouraging environment. And you want to be in environments that are encouraging you and that are making you feel good about yourself, and it's very important for you to be happy.

And and you need to be around others that that think positively of you. And a large impersonal corporate law firm really doesn't, they pay a lot of money. They typically they don't always they're not always going to be you're not always gonna feel as welcomed there.

And so that's one thing to think about. Now, you may not need that, and obviously that's not the most important thing in the world, but but what I encounter many times is people if they only want to work in the biggest and most prestigious firms. And so if they're not getting those jobs they think they should give up.

And and that's not right. When a business gets started, it often takes 'em years to become profitable. And they, and they keep going because they know it'll eventually be profitable. And that's just how it works. I thought of a funny story just now. I my mentor a guy [00:23:00] named I don't know, it was chat holmes.

And he he wanted to work, I think with I don't know if it was Charlie Munger or something like that, but he co-called him every week. 15 years before the guy finally took his call. And I thought it was very funny. He just didn't give up. And and then it, then he ended up, or actually, no, it was someone else.

He was co calling, but it was, but he started a huge 20 million year business with the guys. As a business, you need to be able to push forward and have an understanding that you need to get yourself out there. And if you're able to get yourself out there, you're gonna be profitable. And and you're gonna find an environment where where you can where you, there's growth potential and and the reason Coke was selling sodas and erecting billboards, and they nowhere was because that was where the opportunity was.

And you have to think, why would you take rejection so hard? You just need to keep going and not stop. And if you stop then you're going to not succeed. And this is there's a famous passage. There's a book called Think and Grow Rich, which is a very interesting book.

And it's it essentially discusses how the mindset, and it was based on a, it was a study that some guy took 20, 30 years, I don't know, [00:24:00] Napoleon Hill doing for Rockefeller. But essentially they, the whole idea is that of the book, there's a lot of ideas, but one of the main ideas is that everyone who.

Is has persistence. And what that persistence is that means they just keep going. They don't stop. They all these obstacles and failures come in their way. And and they keep stopping. And they, they don't stop and they just keep going. And you persist and you persist.

And eventually things open up to you. And this is how when you talk to people that become famous movie stars, or you talk to people that become famous athletes, or they become very good in anything. In most cases, they've they've, they keep knocking on doors and keep pushing and getting better and learning from their mistakes.

And of course the most famous example is Lincoln who was bankrupt and failed on all these businesses and marriages and every race he ever ran, he lost until he ran for president and won. And then became an incredible president. If you're rejected from an interview or from a firm, he learned from it.

And you think about what you could do differently, and then you think about what you could be do better next time, [00:25:00] and and what you, why you were off and why you weren't excited and what have you done that made you most successful previously? So these are all things that you think about. And and often it's just not often.

It's not you that's the problem. It could be you. That's just not the right fit. If a salesperson gets an interview and they don't close something then they keep going and they keep trying. And and each step of your of applying and pushing gets you closer because you're learning lessons and you're trying, and people wanna hire people that wanna work there and that are really trying.

And so these are all things that you need to learn from. Where does this business about telling you not to apply to many firms come from? Because I, I think that probably a lot of people watching this are of the opinion that they shouldn't be applying to lots of places.

And it's just a very common thought pattern that you should you need to be really careful. You can't apply. You're gonna hurt your brand. It's dangerous. I don't know, but but there's really a lot of people out there that are telling you how to apply for a job. And so you may have friends telling you how to [00:26:00] apply for a job.

You may have recruiters you may have law school, career services, offices telling you how to apply for a job. And I think just real briefly, and I and people that you're listening to I, I'll tell you a couple things that I don't like about that necessarily. If friends are telling you that you should not apply to a lot I would ask myself, are these good friends? Because are you, when you find out that something great has happened to your friends and they become extremely successful, much more than you, are you excited for them and happy? Or are you a little sad? And so friends a lot of times aren't always, Now, I'm not saying you have bad friends, but as a general rule there's going to be people, there's gonna be friends that are going to want you to do well and encourage you to do well.

And and there's ones that may subtly be competitive with you. Now, I'm not saying that all your friends are gonna be competitive with you, but some of them will. If you're talking to recruiters and recruiters are saying that you shouldn't apply to lots of places and you're talking to them and they're is that really in your best interest?

Now [00:27:00] I'm, again, I'm a recruiter and I'm here to tell you that when I work with you, I'd want you to get a job. Now, if you don't wanna take my advice, it's up to you. But most recruiters want you, should want you to get a job regardless of whether it's through them. And so they will eur dis, not Eur.

They will encourage you to do things that benefit them and maybe not necessarily you. And that's fine. That's how the world works. It's how it works. If you're buying a house, if you're buying a and you're using a one real estate agent or another, it's how it's been buying a car and you're using about one car brand on another.

It's just how it works everywhere. But you have to be careful. What are the interests that people have? And law school, career services offices are great. They they pretty much help. And their job is to help you. But again they're not always professional marketers. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.

That, they have a job and they do the job very well. But again there's you have to understand how things [00:28:00] work. And again, I have nothing but positive things to say about law school, career services, offices, but at the same time that, that you have to understand that that they, they don't if you're running a, if you're at the head of a law school, career services offices, and there's 300 at 300 law students coming out of your school each year, you want them applying and you're in Kentucky, are you gonna, and I'm, again, I have nothing against any law school in Kentucky, but are you gonna want them all 300 students applying to every law firm in Kentucky each year?

Are you gonna want to. massage. I, it's just, you have to think about that and where people are coming from. And again, none of these people are wrong, but how you should be searching for job recruiters are not, can, if you want them to control the process, that's fine. If you want to if you want to trust your, I mean your future to your friends, that's fine.

But you just need to understand that a lot of people may be giving you advice, may not necessarily benefit you, and they may be biased because they have an interest in your success in one way or fashion or another. And ways you may not [00:29:00] necessarily see, And again, you may think I'm manipulating you.

I'm not telling you to apply through me. I'm applying you that you need to get out there and look at a lot of places and this is what works. Again, I don't, I want to be very clear that I'm not trying to manipulate you in one way or another because I just, again, I'm here to I want people to find where I don't, It makes me sick that people their potential is not realized because they are afraid to get themselves out there and afraid of marketing.

If you are afraid of marketing yourself someone that's not good. And it's like this, it's very funny cuz in the in the large, the most prestigious law firms, I'm just, I'm gonna come out and say this, and the most prestigious law firms, there's people and the biggest and the best ones and all of 'em.

Every big law firm, there's these two classes. Multiple classes, but there's this class of people in the biggest law firms that thinks they're very important cuz they're working in this law firm and they're a big deal and they need to protect the brand, how people think of them. And then there's this group of people out there, and every big law firm that's going out there and bringing in all this [00:30:00] work and making a fool of themselves sometimes and falling on their face and getting shot down by clients and and, but bringing in the work for these people that are all concerned about the brand and not applying and acting a certain way.

And typically those people that act that way, a lot of times they went to the best law schools and so forth. But they're not the ones with the work. They're not the ones important. The people that are important are the ones that are getting out there and marketing. So I just want you to understand this dichotomy.

So it doesn't matter. You could have a partner in a law firm making well over a million dollars a year just doing work, but there's people gonna be way above them that are out there bringing in the work. And a lot of times the people bringing in the work don't even know how to do the work.

They're given to other people. So this is about marketing, it's about the role of marketing. Even in the best law firms. The people that are marketing and doing the marketing are often the most powerful people. And it's just how it works. They're often the most likable too. But but I want you to understand this.

And so if you're in a law firm right now, you're probably one or the other. [00:31:00] More likely than not, you're one of the people that's not marketing yourself. Not marketing because. People are scared into this role. And they believe that if they market, there's something wrong with them. And then there's people that are in there, so they want to be secure and collect a salary and do all this.

And then there's the people that are out there that are marketing and the attention's going to them, and the people are talking about them and they're not, And that's how it works. And so if you look at the media too, by the way anytime you go on to any one of these media sites there's people that are out there saying things and doing things and people are talking about it.

And then there's people that are in the background that are scared, that don't want to be seen that may be writing about and making fun of those people. So let's talk about some of these actors. So the first one is the law school, career services offices, they're, they have your back. They want to get you a job but they also need to control the hiring process.

And so most of these law school, career services offices, not all of them, but they have relationships with the best employers. So they know if they have a really good [00:32:00] student, that person can get a job at a certain type of firm. And this is how it's always worked. And so if students, if everyone in the school stood to blast in their resume to the same employers, there'd be complete chaos.

And the law career services obviously lose control over the process. And the idea that would happen would be that the law school career services obviously would become less. Then than if everybody was getting out there and marketing themselves. And because then they would lose the ability to funnel.

I, there's a lot going on there. And it's not to say that the law school career services office are wrong. You would probably do the same thing if you were a law school, career services office and and but and so these, they want to control the process and they should. Again, I have nothing wrong, no negative opinions.

But you many times need to understand that thought process of being in control of every, having someone else in control may not necessarily benefit you. Networking is very important and can help you especially when a lot of people can apply to places. But but you never [00:33:00] know.

When you apply to lots of places, what kinds of things can jump out to a potential employer and what can make them hire you? It could also, it could be your qualifications, meaning your background and things you've done, but it could also be things like you that you literally don't know. It could be a religion.

Sometimes firms will hire all people of one religion. It could be I'm sorry to say it, but sometimes firms will hire people that have a preference for people of certain racism backgrounds, and that's perfectly fine. I'm amazed that happens, but it's what happens.

Some firms have a lot of older attorneys in them and will hire old attorneys coming outta law school. Your hobbies, your sexual orientation. I've seen firms that are have know certain types of people. It could be how you look if you are. Some firms will hire people that are very attractive.

Some people will hire firms of people that are, have a certain type of look and are, I don't know. It could be how, where you grew up, sports, your name something you've done or written. Someone that knew you long ago and someone [00:34:00] that knew one of your parents. You just don't know.

But the point is that when people look at resumes stuff often jumps out to employers and makes them wanna hire you. And so you can never anticipate what this stuff's going to be. And the only way to address this is to get out there to, to lots of employers. And you have to to, to really, to only way to find a fit in someone that likes you many times is to get out there and just talk to a bunch of people.

And and and so this is just a fact and I don't really understand it, but not, I do understand it but it's a fact that most of the placements. , the majority of 'em, meaning wow, probably over 80%. And I dunno what the Cys are these days, but I think it's maybe over 85 even.

But are with firms that don't even have openings, meaning they don't, there's no opening, they don't, they haven't asked for anyone. They're not advertising openings anywhere. They don't have openings. And and so I make a lot of placements that with firms, and I'm not saying that there's anything special about me, but [00:35:00] but most recruiters will only work with openings and and and because I'm able to figure out places that are good fits for people it's that works.

And this is something that you should learn from. If I'm telling you that 85% of the the tens of thousands of attorneys that I've work with are getting jobs and firms that don't have openings, I would hope that would mean something to you. I would hope that would mean something.

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm sending people blindly to firms. There's a whole system to it. That means that the, they're focused. But what it does mean is I'm explaining the candidates to firms in a way that opportunities are created and and that where the. It could be a good match.

And there's a whole system, and I don't want to get too far into it, but the example would be if you're working and you're working in a firm where you're working primarily with consumers, I'm not gonna send you to firms where you'd only be working with big companies. You'd have to go to another kind of consumer facing program if you're working with a firm where you're representing insurance [00:36:00] companies and litigation.

I'm pro I'm not gonna send you to firms where you're rep, where you're going to work only for big companies that aren't insurance companies or to smaller firms where you're only representing, there's a whole system to it, but in every market you can break down the types of candidates and you can break down the types of firms.

And there's a big market for people. There's in an average city there's thousands of a decent sized city of attorneys that do like a state plan and different practice areas and litigation. And you can't just expect to apply to lots of openings though, and expect to get a job.

You need to create opportunities if you're applying to just job openings. The, there's a whole problem with that, and I'm not I don't want to get too far into it right now, but I will explain it to you so you understand the danger of only applying to openings when you're only applying to openings.

What's happening is there's a bunch of stuff happening. The first thing is that when the opening first comes. Typically the employer and the person in hr and the employer will receive lots of applications because the opening will go out on different websites and those websites will notify everyone that's a match.

And all those [00:37:00] people will apply right away. And so you'll get a huge influx of applications that come in right away. And so what are most employers will do? Almost all employers is a look at those initial applications over the first couple of days. They're excited because they're losing money without hiring.

And they'll start interviewing from that pile of people. They may interview three people. They may interview two people. They may interview one person. They may interview five people. I don't know what the number is, but they'll interview people from that initial list. And then but then all the applications that come in later are often ignored because they're already in the process and spending all this time and effort.

They find someone they like, they're done, they don't want to deal with continually taking up their attorney's time and hrs time interviewing all these people. Now, they will sometimes, and there are some HR departments are better than others, but that's just how it works. It's how it would work if you were hiring someone to work in your house.

If, say you needed to hire a nanny and you took out an ad and you got 20 applications the first day for a nanny, you would probably look through and pick two or three that you like, interview them. And then you [00:38:00] might get a hundred applications later, but you're not gonna keep looking through all these applications.

They're like noise. They're almost annoying. Think about it. Like they're almost annoying. So a lot of times people are only applying to places that have openings and. Holding them back. And it's not just applying to places, right? When they have opening answers, if they're applying to places where they may not actually be the best fit compared to other applications, there may be some stuff that's in their background that's not that great.

So what you need to do when you're applying to jobs, think about it this way, if you were, if you had an opening for a nanny and someone recommended someone to you, or someone just stopped by and said, Hey, I was a nanny for your neighbors. I've been there for five years, and they're moving and I don't don't want to move with 'em because I'm moving to I don't know.

Who knows? They're moving someplace. I don't want to go, but I'm looking for a job locally. Could you use me? And you're like, Wow, that's great. I've been thinking I needed a nanny. And that person gets hired. So that's how opportunities are created, and that's something that you need to do as [00:39:00] well.

And Coca-Cola doesn't care where it's marketing in itself. If it finds people that are thirsty for its product it, it will buy it. And that's why it's creating demand everywhere at can. So the next people that will tell you how to apply to places are your friends, and I don't know.

You can certainly listen to them and think that they're experts and some of them probably are. But but they are often competing for the same. You are. They may now want you to move. They may rely on you being someplace. They may be they may who knows? But what I've noticed is that the most competitive people are often the ones who are applying for the most jobs.

So most successful job searches are really the result of getting out there to a lot of firms. And I noticed that when I was in law school that most students I've told this story before, pretended they didn't study a lot. And then they did. So if someone's telling you not to apply to a lot of places, you need to question their motives.

What is wrong with applying to a lot of places? I don't know. I don't know what good can possibly come from that. Are they gonna get you a job if you don't get a job by not applying to a lot of places are they gonna, are these people gonna [00:40:00] support you when you don't have a job?

Are they gonna take care of you when you're unemployed? So think about that. If people are applying you and telling you not to apply to a lot of places, are there something wrong? Question their motives? Recruiters are the same thing. I when I have candidate and I have, when I have candidates and they a lot of times people are looking for second opinions.

And this is how it works with every service provider. If you have, if you go to a doctor and the doctor is not getting the results you want, you'll talk to other doctors. And same thing with everyth. So if people are telling you not to apply to a lot of firms, think about that. There's a lot of recruiting firms that if somebody brings in a job that they're the only person responsible for that firm in that job.

Each recruiter will get assigned a certain number of firms that they'll work with. And and you can see an example of how that works here. So if there's, say there's 30 firms in a city, recruiter A will get firms one through 10, recruiter B, 11 through 20, recruiter C 21 through 30.

And that's the reason contacts are set up that way is because the recruiting firm wants to have a relationship with a certain number of firms. And that's just how they do it, and it [00:41:00] works like that. With these firms, each recruiter in the office is the only one allowed to represent those 10 firms, and that's how that arrangement works.

And then these are the recruiter's clients, and each recruiter is the only one allowed to submit those candidates to those firms. What happens is if you speak to recruiter, That recruiter is going to tell you about the firm is one through 10, but they're not gonna tell you necessarily about the other firms.

They're gonna discourage you from applying to more openings. They're gonna spend various stories about how it's run to apply to certain firms. And then if someone comes to them, another recruiter comes to them and says, We want to apply to firm one through 10, they'll probably tell that other recruiter, Cause they won't make as much money that they shouldn't be applying to those firms.

And so this is a lot of recruiting firms do this. And the logic is that that those recruiters will have a good relationship with those firms, get their openings, be able to understand their needs better. And in the early days of recruiting it did make sense because law firms didn't work with a lot of recruiters.

But today just about every law firm in the country does so again, and so if you apply to recruiter C and recruiter C has firms 21 through 30, and you tell that recruiter [00:42:00] a about it then they have to go get another recruiter to submit them. The system. I'm just telling you the way it's set up, and I don't want to get into too much detail, but the way it's set up in a lot of recruiting firms is that you, you're actually discu, you're encouraged to apply to certain places and discouraged from applying to others if you're trying to allow if you're trying to only be submitted to certain places, it can it'd be harmful.

So if you talk to recruiters, they were discouraging you from trying to places and telling you bad things about the firms. And really making it seem then always question them about this. I'm not saying that all recruiters will do this and they certainly won't, but there's just a lot of stuff that happens.

And and so you need to be very careful about an information. And and sometimes cities are off limits. And for recruiting firms and you have to understand there's just a lot going on. And I don't want to get too much into that cuz there's really no need to keep talking about it.

But recruiting firms again you sh you should be very careful about the information that you trust from everybody, including me. [00:43:00] Trust no one. But my only point here is apply to lots of places and don't allow believe anyone that's telling you not to, including myself. If I tell you not to apply to places that don't, I will tell you that you're going to be wasting your time applying to certain places if you don't have certain qualifications.

But at the same time that's not always the case. And and great things happen to people every year. By the way, it's funny. I I see these resumes of people that and there's all, I don't know how it happens, but there's people in. Great law school, whether it's Chicago or Yale that, I have no idea how they got in there.

And and I know that no one pulled any strings or, cuz you, I don't think you can get in there, but with schools, people pulling strings. But there's always people at these schools every year. And and I think what people are just can be, you can get into certain firms where you would be amazed.

Just things happen so people's lives change and you get in, you can get into law schools that you never thought you would be possible. You can get into firms you thought would never be [00:44:00] possible. And things happen. Sometimes people just get lucky breaks. I years ago I was interviewing a girl that was a that had gone I couldn't believe, should, but I talked to several people that have gotten a group, great schools that, that there's no way they could have gotten in there, but they just got lucky.

And schools take chances on people. And so this is what happens. And so it's the same thing when you apply to lots of places. People wind up in the, these incredible firms that they you ask yourself, how did this happen? So I think a lot of people believe that their personal brand can often be harmed if a law, if the law firm doesn't bite at their resume, interview them.

And this, these, this is o often crazy and nonsensical. It's if a law firm doesn't interview you, right? This doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your brand. And if a law firm doesn't bite, it's absolutely insane. A lot of law firms receive hundreds of applications for positions.

Some of them just receive lots of applications each day. And that these law firms no one's even seen your resume. You could apply to a giant firm and and they may, in some cities, they may [00:45:00] have 30, 40% of the attorneys in the entire city in their database. Your that have applied there at some point.

So your brand is not harmed by applying to different firms. No one, there's nothing personal about it. No one's judging you. No one cares. I've never seen a law firm make fun of people as long as I've been in this job. I've never seen a law firm make fun of an applicant or say something negative about them or that, that be for them applying.

They will be very nice about it. They'll say, Thank you for submitting this person, and you'll be like, I can't believe I submitted this person. They're not even an attorney. I'm joking. But the point is that law firms for the most part are not judging you for applying. They appreciate it when you apply.

And and the reasons that people are rejected are often just don't make any sense. Here's some of the things that I've seen and heard. I've heard people say that they don't hire people from certain law schools because they don't like them.

They, I've heard people say that just with certain law school, they don't like, even if it's a good one. And then people that people that play certain sports, and and I've seen people like an example [00:46:00] of rugby I couldn't vote in. And so people's minds are random and they make decisions in ways that don't necessarily concern you.

Just like getting into some law schools can't be explained. I've seen people like go to Yale Law School and and just that, there's no, I don't understand it. And same thing with other, and it's not to say that 99.9% of the time but there's, the people are incredible. But the point is that you just, you don't know what's happening.

I've seen people at the best firms in the world like the top five firms that came outta law school with a c plus average. I can't explain this. I don't know how it had happened but as what happens. So some law firms are concerned with certain things and others are concerned with others, and and you don't really know, You don't know why you're being interviewed.

You don't know why you're not being interviewed, and it's not any opening. And I've seen people be rejected by firms that, we're just absolutely incredible. Very good candidates first in their class and and from top law schools and rejected and because they were too good.

[00:47:00] And and I I've seen people apply to 50 firms only get one interview and then get an interview with a, with literally one of the top firms in the country and go to work there. I think this one might have been Davis Polk, I don't remember. But you just, you don't even you, you never know what's going to happen.

And so when a law firm's looking at your experience, they're looking at you from a variety of ways. One person might be the main per person in charge. Other more than one person might be one person may dislike you because you've worked with certain institutional clients and not family owned companies.

But I've seen firms hired people in their late sixties with no business. You just so you just don't know. And It's just it makes no sense. What, what happens. And people will hire people that think their clients will they'll hire people because they want the job more than other people.

They'll hire people because they're not threatened by them or stealing their clients. And because they appreciate it, they'll hire people cuz they won't cause problems. And so the point of all this is that law firms review your background and and you have no way of knowing what they're looking for.

You could be [00:48:00] rejected by every firm and hired by the best firm in the market. You just don't know. And it's nothing personal. And and law firms are reviewing so many applications that your ego really should have No, no pardon in any of it. And I'll tell you, me personally, like I've come to I, I've been doing this for so long that I used to think that certain types of people weren't marketable.

So everyone reaches these conclusions about things and and then and then digs their heels in. So I used to think that people that were doing insurance defense were not marketable. Turns out they're very marketable. I used to think that trust in states turns out very marketable. Think family law wasn't, not, turns out extremely marketable.

So people will dig their heels in about practice areas, about different types of the people not being remarkable, about about people marketable in certain cities in that other city about. relocating to one city. People have all these opinions. Most of the time when you reach an opinion about your, even your own marketability, you're just basing that decision on something that might have happened years ago when the [00:49:00] economy was different or when you don't know.

You just, you can't dig your heels in about believing that you're marketable or not marketable or believing that that you just don't know. And you can't allow your ego to have any place in it whatsoever. And so I guess what I'm saying too is that a lot of stuff that I've used to look at and think was not marketable from different types of attorneys is actually marketable.

So it could be the practice areas, it could be the fact that the law school you went to really is less, much less important, if not even relevant for a lot of practice areas and locations and and your skill and your experience. There's all sorts of things that, that, that go along with it and that impact how you're hired.

And if don't ever worry about being rejected, don't worry about your self-confidence. Don't think it's personal in most cases. A lot of law firms by the way don't look at people properly. They don't. They don't know how to hire. And some do[00:50:00] some take chances on people that are very, that they know how to hire.

And so you just and if you are invested and you want to be an attorney and you are willing to learn and you have a good attitude you will go very far. But if you are just applying to places and not excited about it and stuff, you won't. Another thing is, I would say, is that you should never give up in your surge like that.

That's something that a lot of people do, and I think it's absolutely ludicrous. And nonsensical it's the worst thing you can do. It's giving up is so dumb. It's being a salesperson and giving up and and and when you have a good product and maybe you're, maybe the people that you've been selling to just don't have any money.

And it's your life. You've spent decades and most cases going through school and getting where you are, and you should never give up. You should you shouldn't. And it's, and giving up is because things aren't going well for you is crazy, and you're a complicated unique product, and it can take years to sell something.

I'll just tell another quick story. I was in I used to sell these asphalt products and and I would go in some cities you would think everyone would wanna buy it cuz the [00:51:00] city's very wealthy. And if you go into an example might be like it doesn't matter, but you go into a city that's very wealthy and then you go to one that's not as wealthy and the one that's not as wealthy, everyone's buying it and everyone wants it.

And then you go to the wealthiest one and no one cares and you don't, and you would think if I just try to sell to this one city and I hadn't been willing to drive an hour to this other city, I wouldn't have a business. And wow. So what I'm thinking, oh, there were two cities. There was one called, Birmingham, and there's no one called Gross Point.

So Gross Point, everybody was buying the stuff, everyone loved it. And then you go to Birmingham and everyone's suspicious, someone's knocking at my door trying to sell something. These are just two cities in, in Detroit. And so impossible to sell it in Birmingham. Very. And which by all accounts is a much, or back then at least was a much wealthier community.

So you just don't know. You don't know like why, what's happening in different markets. You don't know what's happening in your practice area. And so being upset about being rejected different places and it can be very [00:52:00] upsetting. I was in a hotel in the Middle East several years ago in the executive lounge and there was a and it was, I think it might have been in Israel and these guys were talking about purchasing a very expensive plane and.

And it was like, I dunno, a 50 or $60 million jet or something. And and so after the meeting, I started chatting with the men that were there, and they told me they'd been meeting with this guy for the past several years, just trying to interest him. And and purchasing one of these planes.

And they said it could take five years. They didn't know. And and then even if he bought one from a competitor, they would keep meeting with him and said it could take 15 years to sell one plane. And again, you're talking about a 50 million plane, but they found someone that was interested in buying one that would probably be a buyer.

So they just and I don't know, if it's a hundred, I don't think it was a hundred million plane that was a 50 or 60, but but you're not selling planes. You're selling yourself. And so as someone that's selling yourself you really wanna show the same level of persistence that a company would to sell a hundred million dollar airplane.

And there's just too much at stake. There's, it's your life, your income, your happiness, and you should never give up. And this is what people do. I, [00:53:00] again, I don't understand it like you it that you also if you aren't getting a lot of results you should think also about, things that you can do to the lessons you can learn about where you're getting positive results.

What are the things wrong with your. The resume. Are there things you can do to fix things and can you learn? And again, I talk about this book Thinking Grow Rich cuz it has so much to do with persistence. But there's a story about stopping three feet before gold and and it's it's a fun story.

And and then someone stops three feet from gold, They buy all this gold equipment cuz they think they're gonna find this big thing. And then someone else comes along and hires an engineer and they look in, they figure out that there's a lot gold there. And and then the per they buy this person's when bankrupt, basically drill it for gold and buy all their equipment and figure out that there really is gold there.

So people quit many times when they're overtaken by temporary defeat. And a lot of people are guilty of this mistake. And this story this is from Thinking Grow Rich. This says Uncle la au Dar was called by the Gulf Fear and the gold rush [00:54:00] days and went west to dig and grow rich.

And he that never heard that more go with mine from the brains and men and would take from the earth. He stated a claim and went to work with a pick and shovel. It was difficult, but he definitely wanted gold. And after weeks he was rewarded with the discovery of the ore. He needed a machinery to bring it to the surface.

And he covered the mine retraced and went home told people about the strike and got them to got the money for the machinery and had it shipped. And then the uncle went. To work at the mine and the first, or was mine shipped. And the returns proved that there was a very good mine. And after a few cars the, or cleared the guts and the vets and then would come a big lot of profit.

So the drills went and and then something happened, the vein of the gold disappeared. And the goal wasn't there, but they kept drilling and looked for the vein. They couldn't find it. And so finally they quit. They sold the machinery and went back home. And the junk man decided to call mining engineer and look at the mine, do little calculating and advise them that the project had failed because the owners weren't familiar with [00:55:00] fault volumes.

And as calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where they'd stopped drilling. And so that's where it was found. And the junk man made millions of dollars from the mine because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up. And it's very interesting.

So he ended up paying the money back and but took me years and then long afterward he became a salesperson which is just selling life insurance. And I remembered that he lost a considerable fortune because he stopped three feet from gold. And he profit from that by saying, I stopped from gold, but I'll never stop because men say no when I asked him to buy insurance.

And he became very successful doing that based. Not quitting him from that lesson. But the point is that before you have success in your career many times, not always, but you'll have a lot of feet and maybe some failure. And when and most people when they're, they meet with failure probably yourself included, they don't keep going.

They quit. And that's precisely what most people do. And and so this is just a quote from Think Can Grow Rich. It says More [00:56:00] than 500 of the most successful men in this country has ever known, told the author that their greatest success came just one step on the point which defeat had overtaken them.

And finding failures are cunning trickster with a keen sense of iron irony. And and and it takes great delight in tripping people up when success is almost within reach. So that is the webinar. I will take a quick break and then I will come back and answer questions and then but I'll be back in probably like one or two minutes.

All right, so we will get started. Just a couple quick things that I just wanted to just cover real quickly and then I will take questions. The biggest thing I think that for you to understand is that that in order to be successful in the practice of law and also in in getting a position is that really the most important thing you need to do is really realize that that you can't you, you just can't give up.

And what that means, you can't give up if you're trying to, lemme just pull this back up here for the questions. You can't give up. If you're trying to get clients, [00:57:00] you can't give up if you're trying to to get a position. You just, you can't give up and you need to get out there and and really apply to as many places as you possibly can.

And that really is the mistake that I think that a lot of people make. I think. That a lot of people and when I say a lot, the majority of attorneys that I encounter are, have an an aversion to applying to a lot of places. And and I could talk about this really almost indefinitely today, but I think what happens is people find out something negative about a person.

They look at a firm and they see that maybe the qualifications of people don't look as good as theirs. They make all sorts of mistakes. And honestly, I think that that can really do quite a bit of harm. And I think you need to to really help me to see how this works here.

Q&A

All right. Okay, let's see here. So let's see the question. So small medium law firms wanna expand their business in a new market like Chiang Mai What are the general strategies for young or experienced attorneys from your webinar, The answers seem to be reaching out and building long-term relationships with people in that field? Would this be correct? . [00:58:00] So if a law firm wants to expand generally to a new market, what other strategy and expectation for young?

Okay. I'm not really sure if you could reanswer re-ask that question. I'm not really sure what it is, what it means exactly. But I'm assuming you said what? For what? Yeah, I don't understand the question. I'm sorry. But if you re-ask I'll answer it. Okay. So this question so what other options are there for attorneys who keep getting rejected from multiple attorney job applications?

Okay, so this is a great question. So one of the first things I wanted to just make sure you understand is that in every city there are more law firms than you could ever imagine. So here's a list of firms on, you have Martin, Dale, and FEMA and all these different places where there's a list of firms.

And there's also a list of firms on Google if you search and there are magazines that have lists and t attorney rating organizations and there are tons and tons of different places [00:59:00] that have legal jobs, that you can apply to, that have a list of firms. And so in most cases when people are applying to firms they will apply to firms on certain lists and they won't look at others. And there are just lots and lots of lists of firms.

So if you keep getting rejected from multiple attorney job applications typically what a law firm's looking at when they look at your resume is there, And this is very important and there's a lot of stuff I've done on this, but but I'll I'll go through this real quickly.

They're asking, can you do the job? Will you do the job long term? Can you do the job long-term long term? Do you want the job? I should level one, can we manage you? We manage you?

Do you question mark? Do you want the job?

You want the job? And then the final one is do we. Do we like you? So these five questions really can you do the job as the one that everyone thinks that the firms are asking? Can you do the job means do you have the [01:00:00] skills and the smarts to do the work? So skills and smarts.

Smarts. Do the word right, smell, smarts. And then it would be pedigree. Pedigree to do the word pedigree to work here. So if you're getting rejected from for a reason that just means you're applying to the wrong places. So you certainly can't, not everyone can work in an am law 100 law firm.

Not everyone can get a job in certain markets and with big firms, but that's just what it means. So when, at BCG, we typically rank firms from five to four, a five, from four to three to one. And so one would be your small, it doesn't have to be small, but consumconsumer-facingng with unsophisticaconsumer-facing and clients. And those firms typically. Individuals without a lot of money to spend.

I just spend, and I apologize for going into so much detail here, but this is actually a [01:01:00] vtant question and onreasons threasons searches gets so messed up. And thpeople's other is the biggest corporations. Five would be no budget, willing to spend a def, lots of money.

One, the very best attorneys working on stuff is for long as it takes. So what happens when your people are applying to jobs is a lot of times people will say, I want to work at this big, these big company or these big firms and that pay these high salaries. And and this is what I'm entitled to because is the only type of job that I would take.

And that's fine. You can certainly do that. And then at the lower end, these are consumer facing jobs, obviously in client consumer-facing typically gonna be the lowest paying jobs, not always paying jobs. And so there's a whole thing, it's, I think it's bcg search.com firm ranking or something as the the url.

Let me see if I can find it for you reuickly [01:02:00] Gimme one second. Gimme one second. bcgsearch.com and I just want to show you real quickly firm front ranking. Okay. So this is a page on BCG where we discuss a lot of this and it's fun to look at. I think a lot of these things you can click, I'll put this in the chat for everyone. But firms are rank typically from one to five.

This is a ranking system that I developed. And just to show you, so a lot of times if you're not getting interviews you're I'll put this in the chat, everyone. Your mistake is that you're trying to apply to these you're trying to apply to the, I just put it in the chat. You're trying to apply to these firms that are the most difficult to get jobs in.

And so that's why people are, have a lot of times will have problems. Now, if you wanna work in these firms, you do need to have really good qualifications. They're gonna get the most applicants, but that doesn't always mean that you can apply to them. But most of the time, if you do apply to these types of firms unless you have the right qualifications, it's gonna be very hard.

They also have other, they also have other things where, they're only, they [01:03:00] typically only hire people laterally, with one to six years of experience. And that's just a bunch of things. So if you're not getting. Typically what you're doing wrong is you're applying to firms that are rank one.

Your four firms are going to be, your typical AM law 100 and 200 firms, and that sort of thing. So let me gimme one second here, one second. The, not always, but some they can be that, your threes are gonna be your mid-size firms and that sort of thing.

So I, I talked a lot about on the the thing I put in chat, what this is, but if you're applying to lots of places, these firms, by the way, these consumer facing firms will hire people. They just, they don't pay a lot of, they don't pay high salaries, but you can always, anybody can get a job at most of these firms.

You're just not applying to enough of them. And there's a lot of these firms in every city. So if you don't have the qualifications, if you're not getting into the biggest firms, all you need to do is you start out at the bottom and you can work your way up. I've seen tons of people start off with these consumer facing firms and then move to ones where you're [01:04:00] representing larger companies and stuff over the course of the career.

And that's really all you need to do. It's not, none of this is that complicated. If you're not getting rejected for all your applications, you're just applying to the wrong places and you do not even need to the, these places you can apply without them having an opening. If you're trying to apply to the, these largest firms and the most prestigious firms, it's gonna be more difficult.

So that's the first thing. You're probably not applying to the right things. Now, another thing that people do on their resumes and there's a bunch of stuff on BCG about having a focus resume. But the only way you can do the job is most the largest firms and even the smallest firms a lot of 'em, the ones that hire people, are looking for people that have certain specialties.

So they want you to be they want you to be commercial litigation, or they want you to be construction litigation, or they want you to be corporate, a certain type of corporate, or they typically want some sort of specialty. And so if you put on your resume that you're doing 15 different things, they're not gonna like that.

And so that's one of the mistakes that people make cuz their resumes aren't aren't, they have too much [01:05:00] going on doing the job. Long term means that, and these are five very important things. And and again, this is what I've noticed over decades of doing this job.

That means if you look like you've done bunch of d done a bunch of different things you're in house and you're in a law firm, or you're doing one thing and then you're doing another, or you're not, or you're moving around a lot. Law firms don't like that. If you were hiring.

If you were hiring someone to be a na, and I keep using this example cause I want to just give examples of people that you might hire yourself. If you were hiring someone to be a nanny in your house and that person had a job every six months you would probably assume that same thing's going to happen.

Or they were a nanny, but they also had other jobs. As a medical doctor and a giant hospital doing a neurosurgeon, you would realize that there's no way that person's gonna stick around. So the point is that if you have things in your resume that look like you're not gonna stick around, no one's gonna wanna hire you because that's just too much of a risk.

So you have to remember to, if you look too entrepreneurial. So that would [01:06:00] be outside interest incompatible with practicing law compatible too many moves inconsistent it should be like inconsistent dedication to practice area, et cetera. Or practice setting, which is law firm.

So these are all things that law firms look at. So you need to go through, everyone needs to go through your resume and. Ask yourself, am I applying to the appropriate firms, which is just the size of the firm and the type of work it's going to be easier to get into the smallest firms that are working for the least sophisticated clients.

It's, for smaller firms that are also consumer-facing, with more sophisticated clients, a little bit easier mid-size, and then the largest firms. So you just need to apply the appropriate ones. These firms will hire people all day long, They don't care where you went to law school. And because they're harder to get in, they're harder for them to attract people.

They're much, less willing to look the other way. And these larger firms are harder. So if you're not getting jobs, you're probably [01:07:00] applying to the wrong places, cuz anyone can get a job in a lot of these smaller firms. Doing the job long term means you need to look like you'll stick around, you're like, worth their time to bring it in train.

Would you, looking at your resume would you hire someone like yourself? So you have to look at, would you hire someone like yourself looking at your resume? So when I was young I I thought it was really a big deal for me to put all this stuff in about how I had this this asphalt company and done all this stuff and like how I was such a big deal cuz I'd done it.

That's really dumb. Like, why would you put that on your resume? It would, it just makes it look like you're gonna go do something entrepreneurial and pretty much every. With that type of stuff on their resume, ends up doing something entrepreneurial. Look at what I'm doing now. So bad risk to hire someone like that.

Manage you means are you, will you, do you look like the type of person that will follow instructions? Are you gonna create trouble or or just put your head down? I've seen a lot of people with stuff on their resume. They think it's important to have there all these groups that, that are agitating kind of groups.

And again, [01:08:00] I'm not judging that, but if I see someone with a bunch of groups that typical, that looks like an agitator of some sort, they're president of some organization. I've seen people with stuff on their resume. Like I was a president of, I don't know, this political organization, and we stormed the government off and they literally put this on their resume.

That's not good. So people want to be able to manage the people that are working for them. And if they feel that it's the other way around that the employer employee is not manageable, then they can't run a good business. If they have a soldier that wants to give orders, that's not appropriate. Like you can't, the soldier needs to follow orders so they can, they manage you and then do you want the job?

We'd like people that like us, so we wanna hire people that. Want to hire people that like us that you know that wanna work there because they're more likely to stick around, want to work there, and and it makes us feel good about our job. And then, do we like you? Are there things on their resume that they don't like?

So you have to [01:09:00] make sure that your resume doesn't look polarizing to people. If you put on your resume that you're the member of some very disliked political party then they're not gonna like that. Or so you have to think about all these things. So most people that aren't getting interviews, I just they're either applying to the wrong places, which I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that you have to apply to the firms that are likely to hire people with your background.

Now, I want you to understand something. I'm notaying that everyone needs to go to work for a solo practitioner doing a consumer bankruptcy which will be like a one firm probably. But what you do need to do is you need to get into the best firm. If this is what you're trying to do. If you're trying to play this game, you need to play.

You get into the best firm you possibly can and and then do it. But these firms all ht ere areh es They have rules that can make them very difficult or easy to get into. Other times there's other tricks you can use and it's fun if you have something wrong in your background, that's four-firme it very difficult for you to get a job at a five firm in your city.

Many. [01:10:00] Or even a four firm. Many times you can apply to smaller markets and get jobs in four firms. So someone that could, wouldn't get hired in a a four or ivfirm in a large city might be able to get one on a smaller market. You can also start at a one firm and move up to a two or three firms and anfirmsd so forth.

So there're are just lots of things here, but these are the reasons people don't get resumes. Most of the stuff, by the way, is fixable. I can talk to someone for 10 minutes and fix all these. It's not that difficult. But this is one of the things the reasons that people don't get interviews and you need to apply to tons and tons of places.

And I just, I wanna be really clear that that's important because and to fix all this stuff. So gimme one second.

Okay. Okay. So this a good a question. How does one assess whether it's time to use a legal recruiter than finding legal jobs on their own So you need to, So one of the ways to find a job is you need to use as many different sources of information as you possibly can. So legal recruiters, one source of information.

[01:11:00] Your law school career services office isn't one source of information. Friends are a source of information. A legal recruiter is again, one way of getting things. So I can help you with information too, but it doesn't mean that you should use a legal recruiter all the time. You can but, understanding information, I think that and our, the case of bcg, I think there's a lot of information on our website that is very helpful and and things that I've written that can help you understand the way to market yourself.

One of the things that, that's always the important people will get therapists. They will go to doctors. They will they will, What else do people do to they will talk to friends. They will, And so one of the ways to succeed in anything is to get other people's opinions about things and have people see things in you that you don't.

And most of the world, by the way, goes through their lives almost unconscious, like not confronting aspects of themselves that they want to feel are okay. So they don't look at different things about themselves. And they get very upset with [01:12:00] people confront them. A legal recruiter many times will give you information that says, this is what you can do or what you can't do.

And sometimes they're right, Sometimes they're wrong. In my opinion. It's like it, it's very interesting. But most people, myself included, are not gonna always give you the right information. Meaning you may talk to one person and they, and this is just like it with lawyers too. So one person may give you, say, This is your only option.

This is your option. It's like that with doctors. It's and then another person may say you have these four options, four options. And then another person might say, another person still may say only this option, because these six options not, do not work. So depending on the person you talk to you're going to get different input on, on, on things and different types of information.

My, my advice to you if you're thinking about [01:13:00] how to apply for a job is to talk to as many people as you possibly can and get as much information as you possibly can to help you reach conclusions and then talk to other people that will help you process that information. And I think it can be.

Very helpful when you do things like that. Okay. Because the information that you may believe is probably could of often be supplemented. So I'll give you some examples. Everyone thinks it's that if you start at a smaller firm, you'll never be able to get to a big firm.

Not true. You can start a smaller firm, you can move to a medium, bigger site. I've seen people move to the largest law firms in the world starting at one firms, so that's, not true. A lot of people think that law firms will be very excited if they have a lot of different experiences on their resume.

Not true. Most law firms want you to do one thing taking that off could help you. A lot of people think that law firms will be very impressed that you've had all these leadership positions and start a businesses and things not true, because that many times it means they can't manage you.

And then and then [01:14:00] many law people think that they're entitled with their political and other types of opinions. They should advertise that in their resume, not realizing that you're gonna upset half the people or maybe more in whatever law firm you're applying to, if you're politics and so forth.

They're different. So you have to poke holes in your own arguments about why you're employable and and really understand that. about what's going on. So when applying to a lot of places, should you just write a cover letter for each place or just send a resume? And and yes, you should have a cover letter for each place.

You can send a resume, but your cover letter ideally the, remember these two things. Do you want the job and do we like you? If you really want the job and you really want to work there and you tell the firm why you want to work there, they're going to like you a lot better than if you just send a resume.

Now, just sending a resume with a short cover letter sometimes is enough. Many times it is I would say more than half the time. But most firms and that if they [01:15:00] see that you have a real interest in working for them are going to be much more likely to hire you than than if you are just applying randomly.

I definitely recommend if you do want to work someplace and you see something about it that is realistic why you'd wanna work there, then you should share that information. Now, you can't always do that, and it's not to say that you can, but most of the time if you really wanna work someplace and you have reasons to, you definitely wanna share that information.

Let's see. These are fun questions. Give.

Okay, this is a good question. I appreciate this one. I went to the end, but I'm still, there's still a lot of questions from the beginning, so I'll keep answering them. But this question is after many months of rejections many months of rejections which prolongs current unemployment, how do I answer the common interview?

Why you've been employed for so long, other than just the honest truth. So you can do that in a lot of different ways. Most of the time, one of the things that I've noticed is sometimes I'll have job [01:16:00] openings and and and and really when someone's bringing you into interview, this is a secret that you should be aware of when someone is bringing you into interview bringing you into interview.

And it sounds like they are, they want to hire you. They really do. They don't wanna waste your time. They don't wanna waste their time. If they're bringing you in, they wanna hire you. So if they ask that question many times they're asking it cuz they're curious not to disqualify you that you've applied to a lot of places.

And one of the responses to that can be something along the lines of, I just haven't found a good fit yet. Or I, I wanted to take, you. You have to be somewhat honest, but you can always obviscate the truth. And sometimes you don't have to answer the question directly which is a very effective thing.

Sometimes people will do that, will start talking about something else. It's related, answering it in a political way. That's what politicians do. But but when someone's bringing you in for an interview, they wanna hire you. So they typically are, you're, it's the job is yours to lose in [01:17:00] most cases when you're brought in for an interview.

And so the way to make sure that you're not gonna lose the job, is to do everything you can to make sure that you answer the question in a way that makes them comfortable but not doesn't make it look like you're not interested in them or that there's something wrong with you.

In most cases, if you're not getting, if you're getting too many rejections you have to go back to this list and that the list is really, you're either, if you're getting in interviews, most of the time, the law firm thinks you can do the job. So you have the skills and smartest competitor to work there.

The only reason you wouldn't get hired is looking like not being likable enough. So not connecting with the interviewer, not seeing like you want the job. In most cases, if you want the job, you are gonna be liked looking like you're not manageable or looking like someone's not gonna stick around.

So this is really where you need to think. And and if you're not getting interviews is of these four questions. Will you do the job long term? What about you? Looks like you're not gonna do the job long term. Can we [01:18:00] manage you? What about you looks like you might not be able to manage?

So people start looking unmanageable, by the way, when they start talking about needing to work at home, which again, you can, but that's gonna make it difficult for you to get hired for a lot of places. Where they ask questions about vacations where where they look like they may have had problems in their last job from not following instructions.

They look like they don't want the job when they don't make eye contact or they don't seem, So these are all things they look not likable when the they're unable to be seen you. When you go into an interview, you need to be seen as someone that would be that would get along with your interviewers.

Now, that's not to say that you have every place you interview, people are gonna like you because they won't. And, one third of the people we meet typically like us, one third don't care, and the other third don't like us and we don't know why. And it's the same thing with the people you meet.

But if you're not likable they may have a little bit, there may be something that, that seems a little bit threatening or something about you that is putting people off. And so you need to think about that. So these are really the only [01:19:00] four reasons. If you're going into. To a lot of places, but just realizing that people wanna hire you and every interview is yours to lose.

And so I really recommend that everyone, if you're having problems with this, there is a there are a bunch of articles called The Only Three Reasons Law Firms Hire People, or Four Reasons or something. There's a bunch of stuff I've written about this I think would be helpful just to look at, cuz these are good questions.

Gimme one second.

Make sure I have all the questions.

Okay. So this question is how many applications does an attorney need to send out to you? Increase their chances of getting hired? So everything when you're searching for a job you have to think of what's called the moving parade. And the moving parade means typically this here I don't know how to do it.

Alright, but moving parade. So the moving parade is the parade's moving. I don't know what I'm doing here, doing this, right? And and at different points of time it's gonna be one place and not another. And and that might be that. So the point is that if an employer has a if an, if you send an application to an employer at certain points of time they're going to be receptive.

So this might [01:20:00] be new client someone threatening.

Threatens to quit.

This might be I don't know. Might be my, I dunno, someone quits. Someone quits quiets. So these are times when if you send an application to the employer where they may choose, where they may be very interested in hiring you, this is regardless of whether or not they have an opening.

You don't know when these times are happening. So I've seen firms where people have applied every six months for five years and suddenly got an interview. And a lot of times what happens is something something happens to make that happen. So in a moving, the idea of a moving parade is that you could send your application at any time and you don't know when the right time to set to send the application is.

So the ideas, how many applications you just send to get hired, you don't know. You don't know. But if you are applying to the appropriate places, let's say you do you work in a large law firm doing real estate and let's say interest rates are going up and real estate's slowing down.

So you may wanna work in [01:21:00] a five firm and you may be at a five firm, but maybe all the five firms are laying people off. So maybe your only. At this point in time is to go to a four firm, or a three firm, or maybe even a two firm, probably a three firm. And it may not even be, or maybe a four firm that may not even be in the, a large market like you're in right now, because maybe the large market's overwhelmed with attorneys.

So that's how you need to think about your search is you need to think about, what size, what size firms should I be in, depending on current economic conditions and depending on my market of billing, other factors. And there's a lot of factors that govern it. But but many times you may need to send a lot and other times you may not.

It really depends. But the point is that you do wanna look at places and you wanna look at a lot of places. And by looking at a lot of places, I am not saying that if you are a corporate attorney or a patent attorney at a four firm, for example that you should be applying to one firms, that's not the case.

But you may need to apply to more for four firms. You may want to even apply to some five [01:22:00] firms, and you may apply to some, a bunch of three firms, and you may wanna do it in smaller markets because the mis that's the mistake that people make. I'll tell you one of the reasons I reached this conclusion is when I was in law school, there was this thing called the NA guide.

And it didn't even come online. It was this big published guide and there were like, for each city they were maybe. A hundred firms. And some firms there were 20 some cities, there were 20 firms. And so the only firms people applied to were firms on this NA guide, which was absolutely insane.

And so when I was in a clerkship, I remember I applied to firms and then ALP guide and and there were in the city I wanted to go to, there were maybe 50 firms at the time. And I was like, Wow, that seems odd when there's hundreds of firms at Martindale. And and so applying to more firms drastically increases your chances.

So let me see here. Okay, so this is a interesting question is how can a law school career services office help students find employment? A law school career services office doesn't just help students. It can help it can help practicing attorneys, [01:23:00] it can help all sorts of people. And law, school, career services, office, paying a law school can be awesome.

So they have contacts that firms all over the country. They have they have jobs, many. They have they can help you with interviewing. They can they can give you a list of places to apply to. They can do mock interviews. They can do tons of stuff that I union that and this place to apply to.

They can have, they can put you in touch with alumni for information interviews. They can they, there's tons of stuff they can do and they can they can also they can also make recommendations of to, to employers to interview someone. So the, your logically career services obviously are tremendously helpful.

And and you shouldn't not use them. They're and again, I was, I apologize if I sounded like I was saying anything negative about the law school career services office. But all I'm saying about law school, career services offices is that if they're telling you not to apply to a lot of places that sometimes for law students in particular there are reasons for that.

And it's just the only reason would [01:24:00] be that they want to, they don't want, if they have 300 law students graduating and all applying to the same firms in the market, that's not gonna help anyone. It's chaos. So they don't recommend that and they but just because they don. You would do the same if you were in law school, but no law school, career services offices are massively helpful and should be utilized.

And you can also, you can get inside information from people from people about stuff about things from people about things. And and there's all sorts of things that can happen. So you need to make sure that that you, and you can use them for a job. Many times they know about government and other government and other positions that you might not know about otherwise.

So there's lots of stuff that a career services offices can help you with, and I think that you should definitely use them in all resources you possibly can't. Again I if my presentation to the, at any extent told you not to trust career services, not to trust your friends and stuff you, it doesn't mean that you should trust everyone, but you should also [01:25:00] realize that sometimes people have interest in your search that that may not necessarily be appropriate for you.

So you just wanna make sure that that you're getting lots of information from lots of different. About how to do something as opposed to just asking on people. And I just call this like the dig, dig the heels in phenomenon. And what that is is that a lot of times people believe certain things.

And and what that means is they believe that the sky is always blue. And because they live in an area where it is, but the sky is not always blue. If you live in Alaska, it's gray. If you live in it just, it depends. And so the point is that if you dig your heels in for any type of conclusion about how to search for a job or how to do anything, then you're just you're isolating yourself.

So you need to talk to lots of people, me included. I'm not, again, I'm not, though, I'm not right about everything, and I learn new things all the time. So you need to learn, you need to learn from a lot of different people. Let's see here.

Okay. Oh, this is an interesting question, and I like this one. Which is [01:26:00] better graduating from a a top law school with low grades or graduating from a lesser-known high school with high grades. Okay. So I think that probably probably a top law school with low grades for the most part.

Not always but I'll tell you why. With lower grades.

But not always. It depends on how your grades were. So if you were like, top, five student or something at a grade school and then I mean at a lower tier school, then that might be better than but I typically a top law school with lower grades I think is better. And you may have asked yourself why that is.

I think the top I've seen people like in a market like Detroit, like Wayne State is a great school. There's nothing wrong. Wayne State. People that go to Wayne State get jobs in the south law firms in Detroit. There's nothing wrong with Wayne State. It's a great school. But the point with Wayne State is if you are like the top two or three students in your class and you wanna move to a big firm in New York and get a job there, it's probably gonna be pretty difficult.

If you come out of University of Michigan and you're in the middle of your class you can probably get a job in New [01:27:00] York or Chicago or LA or wherever. So typically the best schools do open to more opportunities. Now, why do the best schools lead to more opportunities? Then the smaller schools or the ones that aren't, don't have as good of and I think it's just it's perception of a client.

The clients of the. The best law firms wanna believe that people went to the top law schools because they charged the most money for them. And so if you're charging, very high rates for a first year associate to your client, the client's gonna prefer the person who went to the best law school.

And and that's all there is to it. But in my personal opinion I think that I don't like that. I think the people that went to the lower tier schools don't have the, that have the better grades are often the most motivated. And and certainly if you do very well at a lower tier school and get good grades, you can get into any firm a lot of really good firms all over the country.

But in most cases it the best students at the local law schools end up in local firms. New York Law School is a great school in New York, and and it's not [01:28:00] as, doesn't have the rotation of nyu, but it's a good school and people come out of there and get jobs in the best firms in New York City.

But it would be very difficult to get a job in Los Angeles or in the Bay Area with a top firm from New York Law School. So I think whereas if you're in the middle of your class at NYU or Columbia or something like that, it's going to be a little bit easier. So that's why I reached that conclusion.

Do I like that conclusion? No, I don't. But. But it's what it is. And and if I see a resume of someone that went to a top law, a school that's not a top law school and and did really well, I'll, and they almost always wanna work with them. The only problem is with not going to a top law school is that that the many times you won't get as good of a job coming out of a smaller law school.

So you're, you'll start more, at many times at start at a three or a two firm, sometimes a four firm. It's very difficult to start at a five firm. So that's one of the drawbacks. Then the other drawback of not going to a, of a top law school is in my opinion, [01:29:00] it's the comp the people you're around around often set your expectations.

If you go to like a really good law school, like I was talking to a girl that worked for us and she'd gone to Harvard and done really well there. And, she was like, the only firms we would look at in York were at Debevoise, Sullivan, Cromwell, kva. And I was like, This is insane. And but that's how she thought.

And that. People that did really well there think. And so if you don't go to a top law school, you're often gonna be around people that are not going to have as high expectations. And and that to some extent will to control what happens to you because you wanna look impressive to those people.

Or those people will their thought processes will rub off on you while you're with them. I don't know if that makes sense. Give me one second. Sure.

Okay. Sorry about that. So this next question is how many is a lot to you in terms of firms? It really depends on the market. But if you are applying to and it depends [01:30:00] on the The type of firm. So if you're applying to these five firms, which are the largest firms you should apply to and if you're applicant that stands a chance of getting a job in one of 'em, then you should apply to all of them.

Same thing if you're a chance of starting to begin a four firm. So that means in a market like Los Angeles, there might be over a hundred. If you're a corporate attorney, for example, or a litigator, there might be 150 of or a hundred firms to do it. Now, that doesn't mean you're gonna be a good fit for all of them but you should certainly and if you may wanna work in one part of the city and not another, but you should apply to a lot of them.

Work, it's very interesting, is when you start applying to consumer facing firms. So in a market like Los Angeles or New York or Chicago, there could be hundreds if not thousands of smaller law firms that do consumer facing work. And if I was a personal injury attorney, for example personal injury attorney, your salary could range from 50,000 or maybe less to 250,000 as a second or third year attorney.

[01:31:00] So working for an equivalent size personal injury firm. So would it make sense to apply at the mall? Yes, it would. So that's what I would do if I was trying to do that because different people are gonna make different deals and be attracted to different things. need to really base those numbers on the type of work you're doing and who has the type of work.

Now, if you ask how many is a lot. So sometimes if I have a, an attorney in Los Angeles that does FDA approvals or something of I don't know, shampoo. This is literally a, I don't know if shampoos one, but shampoo, there might be two firms that they can reply to that do the work or there might be five firms.

So it just depends on the practice area. It depends on the location practice area and the location that the person's applying to. I often recommend as well and that if you are in a, if you have a skill like that makes you difficult to employ, which would be someone that only does FDA approvals of shampoo.

I'm just giving you a [01:32:00] example, then you would probably, someone in that situation would probably be smart applying to lots of markets because maybe there's only 300 firms in the whole country, maybe less than that, maybe a hundred firms where the person could possibly work. So you should apply to a lot of those in the country.

Couldn't work in. So that's, so that's how I when I talk about applying to lots of places you need to it's based on practice area. It's based on location. And then I often base it on the ranking of the firm. Now, these rankings of firms, you can find them on the BCG website cuz I've ranked most of the firms in the country.

It doesn't mean the rankings are always right. So some firms might be ranked a three. There could be a four, ranked a four, there could be a three. It just, but at the same time you do wanna apply to lots of places. And these rankings typically are most people know what a PHI firm is.

Most people know what a four firm is. Most people have a sense of what a three firm is. But a three firm's basically gonna be one that does corporate represents companies, but also maybe some individuals and smaller businesses two would represent smaller businesses and [01:33:00] individuals and a one pretty much exclusively Smaller businesses you can often tell just by the client base and the type of work that they do.

So consumer facing types of work would be a one and so forth. So that's a lot of information. These are really good questions. Okay, so here's another one. Do you advise attorneys to disclose learning disabilities like dyslexia for, when applying to firms? No. Again, I'm not sure though the, I don't think there's any reason.

to Disclose it when applying for positions? I think again unless it's going to impact your ability to practice law, there's lots of very successful attorneys, by the way, that have dyslexia, which would be like David Boys is one of them. There's lots of people that have positions that have learning disabilities and other things.

Some people have other physical ailments and and issues. I think that you're usually better off not disclosing those. One thing that I've noticed about practicing law that I think is worth mentioning is that cuz you're dealing with lawyers lawyers are taught to hone [01:34:00] in on weaknesses and and then blow those weaknesses up sometimes if they feel threatened or backed into a corner.

So the idea would be with a weakness is that you don't necessarily always want disclose it. And a weakness would be I don't know, having a, some whatever your, whatever you consider a weakness. I don't even want to say what a weakness would be, but if you consider dyslexia a weakness, then then you know what, how does that help you telling people about that?

If. If they're interviewing 10 people and one of them says, Oh, by the way, I have this serious learning disability, is that going to help you or hurt you? If they're interviewing 10 people and you say, Oh, by the way I have this condition that where I just suddenly fall asleep in the middle of meetings, is that okay?

You just think about it from the employer's point of view. So they'll be like, Oh, we're gonna very seriously consider it and we're going to, but they don't, it's you people that do that sort of thing. I don't think it helps you. So I just would be careful. It's not to say the law firms are gonna discriminate, but think about how you would if [01:35:00] again, put yourself in the situation of hiring a nanny.

And if the nanny shows up and you interview 10 nannies and one of 'em says, Oh, by the way I'm a former I had a horrible addiction to I dunno, painkillers and I was just crazy and I was arrested and all this bad stuff happened, but I'm okay now and 10 other people have none of those issues.

What, who are you gonna hire? Just, are you going to say maybe this person's gonna go off the deep end again? Even though lots of people, I'm sure, have tons of problems, it's just you have to be careful about perceptions. So I typically do not see a lot of benefit in when people.

Disclose those kind of issues. Because I don't, it doesn't really seem like it helps you very much. I'm just looking through these questions.

Okay. So this person says I'm a foreign attorney. This is fairly common. Question. These are good questions by the way. I appreciate everyone asking these cuz a lot of people have the same issues. Okay. A foreign attorney from Europe studied also at an American law school, but I keep failing the bar I'm discouraged thinking I won't be able to be an attorney [01:36:00] here.

Do You have any suggestions? What type of position would you recommend I apply to until I'm licensed in a state Okay. The first suggestion would be to, to obviously to pass the bar exam. You may be studying for it in the wrong way or you may not be studying enough. So people that typically fail the bar in the United States, it's not a question of not being smart enough because anybody can pass the bar.

It's a question of not preparing enough. So that would be the first thing that I would do would be to prepare. I would also wonder about the state you're applying to. So there are some states that are much higher, harder than others to pass the bar exam in. And so maybe you want to try to take it, and again, I don't know the rules these days about.

What states foreign attorneys can take the bar in. But maybe taking it in a much easier state at first and then and then and then not and then once you've done that taking the bar in a in a state or once you've taken an easier state, maybe practicing there. One thing I would say to you though that I think is important is a lot of the most successful attorneys in the United States are people [01:37:00] that that, didn't do it all well in law school, took the bar multiple times that, that sort of thing.

And so being an attorney there's definitely a lot of skill to it, but there's also people that are attorneys that it doesn't always require skill. Meaning it doesn't require the same sorts of skills. Certain things like, certain practice areas were, there are skills that are more important than others, which would be personal injury, we're negotiating.

And scaring the other side and being, there's just different skills required for different practice areas. So just because someone doesn't do well in law school doesn't mean they're not gonna be a great attorney. Just because someone doesn't pass the bar after multiple attempts doesn't mean.

They're not gonna be a good attorney because there's always practice areas where you can go into. Again, I like to keep coming back to this idea of the size firms. Your ability to think through problems and be a good student and understand things at a high level. And a lot of depth may is gonna be more important at the largest, most prestigious firms most of the time.

And then as you get into the smaller firms that are consumer [01:38:00] facing, it's gonna be less important. So just because you didn't do well in law school never means that you're gonna be a bad attorney. It just, or because you can't pass the bar it doesn't mean you're gonna be a bad attorney. It just means you have to go into a certain type of practice area.

And I think there's lots of very famous people that took the bar multiple times and never passed and then ended up starting businesses and stuff. But I, I would recommend that. The only other thing I would say is if, why would you wanna work in the United States if you're from Europe?

That would be something I would think about if you learned another way of thinking about things. But that, that's the only thing I would think. Okay. Let me see here.

Okay, this is a good question as well. So this question is does it make sense, is it a waste of time or does it maybe make you look bad to apply to jobs that list a lower number of years of experience? I was presume they list fewer years because they hope to compensate less No. So that is usually not the reason that law firms use less experience.

So the reason that law firms want there are a couple dif different rules. But the first rule is that once an attorney [01:39:00] has rule one once an attorney has at least five to six, five to seven years of experience, parents they are on the partnership, track,

ship, track or they are they are they should be at a place, not always where they could be partners Meaning that there's something, that they're in the race for that or they have a business. So law firms do not, is a general rule. Not always, but as a general.

Law firms do not like hiring people that have a lot of experience because they're, all sorts of things happen. Their billing rate goes up. They they're competing for work. And with partners, there's just so that's one of the reasons they list last experience. It's not because they want to compensate people less.

It's because they typically prefer younger attorneys After all they are typically more enthusiastic hope to work harder, and are less set in their ways. Their ways, meaning they, [01:40:00] do things a certain way. They do things or they follow instructions. Instructions and do not think they know.

Everything. And then and then make the people they're working for feel good about their work, that stuff. So that's those e the two main rules. So if you apply to a job with a listed lower number of years of experience that doesn't mean you're going to get rejected.

I typically look at experiences and ranges. So experiences are typically junior, which means one to two. Then you have mid-level, which is sorry,

Right? Three to six. Three to six, and the three to five or five or six. And then you have senior, which is six to, maybe five to six to, [01:41:00] maybe seven, nine, something like that. And then you have very senior, which could be like 10 plus. So most law firms unless you have a business, they're going to.

They're gonna wanna avoid you if you get this level. The reason they want Junior is that your billing rates are lower, and you're more enthusiastic. And when they want a midlevel, they p pretty much want someone that can do the work, who doesn't have their time written off and still who hopes of being a partner.

So midlevel is typically the most marketable for that reason. And then senior people are a little bit less marketable, but it depends on the practice area. So certain practice areas, senior people can be marketable depending on the economy. So when the economy's going very well, someone that has six to nine years of experience might be very marketable in corporate and sometimes in real estate.

And then it just depends on the state of the economy. Typically senior people are marketable in transactional areas and less, less so in non-transactional areas. So it's just something to think about. And then you also have junior people and junior people are [01:42:00] marketable typically for different reasons.

So it doesn't waste your time to apply to jobs that have a lot of years of experience. The other thing to keep in mind too is your practice area. So if I'm working with a patent attorney that has a very specific skill, as they might be I don't know, they might be experienced in drug trials with a certain type of, I don't know, but, some certain type of experience.

And they have, and they might be very. I will send them to mid-level jobs because I know that the firms are gonna have a very difficult time finding people with that experience. The same thing goes if you're a certain type of attorney trying to work, interested maybe in working in another market.

So you may be interested, you may be in Los Angeles or you may be in a very sophisticated corporate attorney in Chicago and want to go to work in Cincinnati which actually is a premarket But you may be at a huge firm and have nine years of experience and you could certainly apply to mid-level jobs.

 It's this kind of how it works. Okay. Let's see here. So that was a good question. Let me just make sure I have everything. [01:43:00] Okay. Thank you everyone for being on the webinar today. I appreciate all the questions. I think they were really good questions, so I appreciate all your questions.

And again, we'll be back next week. Lemme just see here. I just want to yeah, and I think I got all the questions. So thank you everyone for all the questions and I'm glad I answered the person's questions about Che Mai in another way. Thanks. And I will talk to you guys everyone and girls next week.

Thank you.