Job Hunting (How to Market Yourself)

What is your "strategy" or "marketing plan" for finding employment in the legal field?
 

Where are the jobs if you have absolutely no legal experience?

Let’s look at where the legal jobs are if you have no experience:

Sole Practitioner

This is an attorney who operates a law office alone.  The reason this is one of the best places for you to begin your career as a legal secretary, legal assistant or paralegal is that the sole practitioner cannot afford to pay a high salary for a staff person.  He generally looks for someone with some basic skills who is willing to learn from the ground up. 

It is definitely an excellent place to start your career.  Why?  Here you are expected to handle everything in the office: telephones, ordering supplies and refreshments, opening and sorting mail, performing secretarial and paralegal duties, etc.

This attorney understands and is quite open to bringing someone into the firm who has very little experience. 

Of course, the stress level can be very high in this particular scenario but the rewards are wonderful.

Large Law Firm (30+ attorneys)

In heavily populated cities such as Los Angeles, Manhattan and Atlanta, there are large law firms who continually bring in inexperienced staff.  The main reason?  People with inexperience can be hired at a much lower salary and have a “hunger”, a willingness to learn.

Law firm administrators sometimes feel that “inexperienced” personnel can be trained in the methods used by the law firm more easily than those with legal experience  

Medium-Sized Law Firms

I have worked for both sole practitioners and medium-sized law firms and they have all been willing to bring on inexperienced people.  As I said before, one of the reasons is – money.

What’s important to understand at this point is that keeping “overhead” under control is very important to the law firm.  If they can hire people with little or no experience who have a good attitude and are willing to learn, it’s a “win-win” situation.

So, where should you apply?  Are you limited to a certain type or size law firm?  The answer, thank goodness, is “No”. 

Once you’re sure that you have a rock solid cover letter and resume, send it out not only to the law firms that have placed an ad online or in the newspaper but also to those who have not placed an ad.  This is called “cold calling”.

If an administrator is impressed with your resume, they will keep it on file and call you at a later date when there is an opening.  I sent a cover letter and resume to an administrator at an insurance defense firm even though there were no openings at the time.  She called me and asked why I had sent my resume and I advised that I wasn’t sure if there were openings, but I had heard that the law firm was a very good place to work and thought I would take a chance.

We had a great conversation over the phone and she said she would keep my resume on file if something opened up.  It’s another good way to network – it gets your name out there.

Ads (Newspaper; Internet)

Where do you find the best ads in the newspaper?

1.                 Legal Staff

2.                 General Legal Office

3.                 General Legal

4.                 Professional

How do you determine who the law firm is if their name is not listed?

Here’s where your detective work comes in.  If the P.O. Box or fax number is given (which is usually the case), try typing that information into Google.com.  Don’t forget to put in the city and state, also.  If all you have is the fax number, type that in and be sure to add the area code.

Another method for “reverse phone searches” is to use www.switchboard.com.  You’ll see a link for  “Search by Phone”.  Simply type in the telephone/fax number to see what you come up with.

Why should you check to see which law firm placed the “blind ad”?

This is called performing “due diligence” (“doing your homework”) in the legal field.

It’s important for a few reasons:

1.     If the firm has a website, you’ll discover what type of practice it is, who the attorneys are and what their specialties are, where the firm is located, the history of the firm, articles written by the attorneys and much more.

If you’re called in for an interview, you’ll already know so much about the firm that you’ll be able to converse quite intelligently with the interviewer.  Believe me, they’ll be impressed that you took the time to discover what their firm is about.

2.     You’ll know by watching the ads over a period of a couple of months just how high a law firm’s turnover is.  This is important.  It’s well known that high turnover is indicative of a problem within the firm. 

That’s why it’s important to network with people already working in this industry.  Don’t be afraid to go as a guest to one of the association meetings to begin some new friendships.

3.     After you’ve discovered what areas of law the practice is concentrated in, is this something you’re suited for?  For instance, if the firm’s practice is concentrated in divorce law, are you a people person?  This type of practice requires skill in handling many different personality types, the clients can be highly emotional (and you have to remain calm) and a divorce practice requires the utmost in privacy/confidentiality.

If, on the other hand, the law firm is one that specializes in eminent domain and the firm works for the state department of transportation, your contact will be with one or two people at the state department and possibly one or two appraiser experts.  It’s a relatively calm area of law.

What type of law practice would best match your personality?

Network with people in the industry, search the Internet (Google.com) for information concerning the duties required for in the various areas of law.  I’ve included overviews of several practice areas in this book to give you a head start.

Another website to visit when searching for attorney/law firm information:

www.martindale.com

www.findlaw.com

Reading “between the lines” of the ad.

If the ad asks that you submit your resume via the p. o. box or fax, then please follow directions.  Do not call the law firm.

In one of my high school business classes, I was encouraged to call the company a day or two after I had forwarded my resume.  I have never met a law firm administrator who thought this was a good idea.  In fact, the administrator may find it quite annoying.

Note:  If you do call when you have been asked not to,  the administrator may simply throw the resume into the trash.

Let me explain why the administrator prefers receiving your resume via the p.o. box or fax machine. They need time.  Period.  And they have very little time during the day.  Once an administrator receives your resume, she or he will look it over, discuss the qualities of the strongest candidates with the hiring attorney, and then give the strongest candidates a call to set up an interview at a time that is good for both the candidate and the attorney – not an easy task.