Description
- Harrison addresses the delicate balance of sharing personal hardships during interviews.
- Choosing Candidates: Employers face decisions between candidates with personal challenges and those without. Resilience is positive, but candidates’ risk being defined by these challenges.
- Consider Employer Perspective: Employers may hesitate to choose candidates with extensive personal challenges, emphasizing the importance of considering how potential clients perceive such information.
- Caution on Bios: Big law firms typically avoid showcasing personal struggles like addiction or health issues on attorney bios. Harrison encourages candidates to consider whether firms would include such information on their websites.
- Law Firm as Client: Harrison advises candidates to view the law firm as their client and act accordingly. Aligning behavior with what impresses clients is crucial for success as an associate.
- Real-World Observation: The real-world tendency is for law firms not to highlight personal struggles on their websites. Candidates should weigh the potential impact on their image when considering sharing such information.
- Impressive Personal Growth: While Harrison acknowledges the impressiveness of overcoming personal challenges, he highlights the need to consider whether clients would be similarly impressed when hiring an attorney.
- Conclusion: Candidates are urged to be cautious in sharing personal challenges during interviews, aligning their approach with what is typically presented on law firm websites, and considering the potential impact on client perception.
Transcript:
Some candidates may need to devolve extensive personal hardships or challenges during interviews. Can you guide me in striking the right balance between sharing relevant information, resilience, and avoiding oversharing to the point it could derail the schedule of life? Okay. So, here's the deal.
So, you have two people that you're choosing from. You have someone with all sorts of, maybe with, I don't know, someone who is a, what's convicted of a crime or a drug use, drug issues. Whatever, et cetera, someone with no issues.
So, what would you do if you were choosing between those two? Come on. If an employer has a choice, who are they going to choose?
It may show that resilience is a good thing, but people become defined by anchors, by things they say, and people will see them that way. It's up to you if you want to portray the stuff. Sometimes people you'll talk about someone, not just, again, I'm not trying to be prejudiced here.
I'm not trying to judge people from these backgrounds, but I'm just telling you must consider what you would think if you were an employer.
I don't know, you have to think about that. Now, certain people I've seen will say, I'm a cancer survivor, I'm this, I'm that. And it's very positive to have those things. And their background, but the people that put that down, I just want you to understand, if someone has, I know a woman that has her practice, who's very successful.
She says on the site that she's a cancer survivor when they talk about her fantastic background. That's great. I know, but you don't see. Let me just be clear here. When an attorney, if you go to a big firm website and look at the attorneys, I just want you to think about it this way because this is very important.
Look at the backgrounds and the bios of all the attorneys, pretty much any big firm. They're not going to say something like, this person overcame a horrible heroin or OxyContin addiction, I'm a proud survivor, or this person is a cancer survivor. This person is successfully living with Parkinson's disease.
This is different from what firms do on the bios of their websites. They don't. So I don't know why they don't. Did they think that? And again, I'm not trying to be prejudiced. I'm just telling you to look at what's out there. Why don't they do that? Why don't they want their clients to see that? Why? I don't know.
Again, or maybe it's just inappropriate to talk to potential clients. I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Is a client going to judge an attorney differently if they learned that they overcame a Vicodin addiction? I don't know. Again, that's not my concern, but you must look at what the real world says.
And again, the law firm. So, just think about it this way. The law firm is your client. So, the law firm is your client. It would help if you did things. That attorneys would do to impress their clients. Is it okay for an attorney to go in and tell a client that they've overcome a ten-year addiction to crystal meth?
I don't know. You have; I'm not going to be a judge there. But you certainly don't see people doing that on law firm websites. So, the law firm is your client. When you're an associate or associate, you associate with the law firm, or the partners are all your clients. They have work, and you do it for them and don't press them.
Learn how to do that. You do well. So, partners are your clients. All these things are essential to understand. You have to act like that. So, if you want to talk about this stuff, think about whether a law firm would put this under the bio of their attorneys. I don't know. Maybe that'll help you, but you need to be very careful.
I think it's imposing when people overcome this stuff. I'm personally very impressed by it a lot of times, and I identify with it because I've had, for example, parents that have had someone, my stepfather died of cancer, my mother, alcoholism, just all these things.
So, I identify with it, but again, do you want that in your attorney? If you were hiring your attorney, would that be something if someone tried to get your business? Would that impress you?
And you have to think about it that way. And I'm not trying to be harsh or say law firms are wrong places, but I'm trying to say that all of this stuff can potentially harm.
