Archive for the 'Career Prospects' Category

PR With a JD

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/23/08
in Career Prospects
. 1 Comment

I’m a full-time PR guy and moonlight as a law student. So, I was intrigued to read the latest in a series of posts at Above the Law looking at alternative careers for attorneys: public relations. David Lat quotes an e-mailer who writes about PR:

While I have nothing quite as clever as Manager of Legal Sea Foods, I can propose a career that has unlimited earning potential, bonuses and still allows a JD the opportunity to be involved in interesting and high-profile issues: public relations. Several of the top agencies today, including those specializing in issues management or crisis communications, have positions available for lawyers (or recovering lawyers).

At my last agency, I worked with a total of seven, most of whom attended Top 15 law schools. Most of our clients were involved in product recalls, discrimination lawsuits, predatory lending practices, patent disputes, etc. The work was highly confidential and occasionally involved a good courtroom battle, aside with the typical battle with the NYT. Since we dealt with the general counsel’s office most of the time, it was a tremendous asset to have someone who understood their “language.”

I can’t disagree with the writer (except for the “unlimited earning potential” part). But it’s important to remember something up front. If you go into PR you need to appreciate the role that media and communications plays in the process. You will not be developing and defending your theory of the case or writing briefs or in the courtroom or negotiating for clients. You will not be doing the substantive legal work you trained for during law school.

However, communications can impact - and, at times, change - the outcome of the substantive legal process - or whateve process we’re talking about. Well-timed, well-executed communications can make up for a host of shortcomings in your client’s work and, more importantly, can help bring attention to the strengths of your client’s position, products, or issues. You become an expert at boiling your client’s problem/issue/message into a form that will play in the media and with those audiences. But you don’t develop the substance of those messages or issues - you just communicate them in the most effective way.

It’s fun. There’s no doubt about that. Just know what you’re getting into before you make the jump.

Just Answer My Question!

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/10/08
in Career Prospects and Law School Experience
. 0 Comments

Maybe it’s just the heat, but I’m a bit frustrated at my school. The law school cafe isn’t open during the summer. I’m still waiting on grades (just one left, though). The financial aid office hasn’t been very communicative. So I’m probably over-reacting to a minor exchange I had with the career office this week.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not seriously looking for a job. I am however trying to figure out what I’m going to do with this degree (answers range from staying where I am to working for the public defender). That means if there are chances to interview or talk with people in the legal profession, I’ll take them.

This week’s exchange with the career office left with the same question I’ve had several times since I started law school at Catholic U: Would it hurt to JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION?

We’ve been getting e-mails about fall recruiting on campus. I noticed a link to the Fall Recruiting packet during a recent login to our online jobs database. So I read through it and hadn’t seen anything about whether 2Es could participate. I returned to the database and noticed that most (perhaps all) of the employers interviewing on campus are only interviewing students who are 2D, 3D, 3E, and 4E. Makes sense, right? You want to catch students during their last summer.

I was still curious, however, as to whether there were opportunities for 2Es during fall recruiting. If there were I’d at least submit my resume. If there weren’t I wouldn’t go through the trouble of updating my resume, etc. So I emailed the career office, asking if there would be chances for 2Es to interview during fall recruiting and that I had reviewed the packet and the OCI opportunities and wasn’t sure. The answer I got was: “Follow the provided link to our Fall Recruiting packet. It contains all of the information for participation and deadlines. Let us know if you have any other questions.”

Of course, I went back to the packet and noticed that the definition of “all students” did NOT include 2Es. So I got my answer. But obviously I had missed that in my review of the packet. Would it have been so hard to just say: “Employers don’t typically interview 2Es during fall recruiting, but we’re happy to sit down to discuss options with you.”

One answer (the one I got) says: do it yourself. The other one says: here’s how we can help.

I know which one I wish I was paying for.

Choosing What You’re Good At

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 04/23/08
in Career Prospects
. 5 Comments

T-minus 7 days until our first exam. Torts. I have the requisite intent of making it my b&%ch. The question is whether that intent will be transferred to a C or lower. Ugh.

Actually, during breaks from outlining and when I’m not working, I’ve been thinking more about what I want to do with the law. Not so much: “work at a law firm” or “get up on the Hill” or “make my current job even cooler”. But rather: what area of the law am I really interested in?

I’ll tell you one thing, it’d be a lot easier to answer this question if I would just quit my job like some who shall remain nameless, but who, nonetheless should be waterboarded and then beaten with my torts casebook. But seeing as I have 50(ish) fewer hours per week than my unemployed colleagues to ponder the future (and, oh yeah, study), I’ve returned to a question that helps me get past gut feelings and hone in on the choices at hand: what am I good at?

Continue reading ‘Choosing What You’re Good At’

Top 25 Best Values in Law School

Published
by
Dr. Bombay
on 03/11/08
in 1L, Career Prospects and Law School Rankings
. 6 Comments

Everyone who has been through the law school application process knows exactly where their school sits in the rankings. The general perception is that the entire legal education market is a pyramid, and if you get better LSAT scores, you go to a better school, which gets you a better job, etc. (e.g. “If I go to law school at Harvard, I will get a top job at a New York firm and make lots of money.”) The converse is also assumed to be true.

Something has always seemed fishy about this to me. Looking over the data reported to the ABA, the so-called “T-14” only produces about 4600 graduates per year, or roughly 10% of the total number of law school graduates. Are they the only lawyers to get good paying jobs? Is everyone else out on the corner selling pencils? Of course not.

Continue reading ‘Top 25 Best Values in Law School’

Your School Sucks - Why Should We Hire You?

Published
by
BigShow
on 03/10/08
in 1L, Career Prospects and Law School Experience
. 1 Comment

Despite the fact that we’re just 1Ls, a lot of the folks in our program are concerned with job prospects after school. A friend of mine recently interviewed for a non-legal position at one of the top law firms in town here, and while I’m not surprised at what he found during the interview, it does make me question some of the facts of life in our profession.

Early on in the interview, the associate who was interviewing my friend made the comment, “You know, this firm would never recruit out of your school. What do you think about that? How do you distinguish yourself from your education?”

Now, one of the unspoken things at our law school is the fact that we’re not top-tier. Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it. So my buddy was taken aback by the fact that the associate came right out and said it, but he kept his composure. He replied that while he wasn’t happy hearing that, his experience outside of law school made him qualified for the current position etc. Anyone who knows my friend would be impressed with his credentials.

Continue reading ‘Your School Sucks - Why Should We Hire You?’

“I’m Not a _______. I’m a Lawyer Who Does _______”

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 03/05/08
in Career Prospects
. 2 Comments

I just caught up with a good friend who graduated recently from my law school. She’s currently looking for a new career - not because she doesn’t love the law (she does, actually), but because her personality doesn’t take well to much of the work involved in being a lawyer (i.e. hours spent in an office reviewing contracts).

It makes more sense to hear my friend tell the whole story, but she said something interesting that she and several of her friends have realized: when you become a lawyer, no matter what you end up doing (teaching, business, doing PR, day trading, etc), you have instant credibility because you’re a lawyer who is doing these things. The idea is that having a J.D. and being admitted to the bar is, in and of itself, worthy of respect - it is, in a sense, a universal credential.

I’m not sure I’d endure law school because of that and I wonder if the same could be said of any graduate degree (because it sets you apart from the legions of other undergrad degree holders). But it’s an interesting way of looking at it.

Do you think that’s true? Perhaps it’s stating the obvious? Or maybe they’re off their rockers?

Do the Math.

Published
by
Dr. Bombay
on 01/20/08
in Career Prospects, Law School Experience and News You Can Use
. 1 Comment

I wanted to offer a corollary to The Sherpa’s post about the “worth” of a law school education. To frame the debate, let my first offer a little background.

I went to graduate school at the University of Chicago immediately after I got out of college. Since I went to an undergraduate institution that did not have a stellar reputation in the Social Sciences and my academic record wasn’t off the charts, I paid my own freight for the degree. The program – a one year masters – was marketed as being a way to burnish your CV, and get into a doctoral program. Assuming you decided academia wasn’t for you, the claim was that you would be able to parlay the degree into a far more substantive job that would offset the cost. Incidentally, the total cost of this enterprise, counting tuition, fees, books, moving expenses, and credit card debt was probably on the order of $60,000.

Continue reading ‘Do the Math.’