Three years ago, I graduated law school. Hard to believe time has so quickly passed. I don't think anyone could've imagined, back then, the depth of the recession we'd endure. One of the most frustrating things I've experienced in my short tenure practicing law, has been watching people a few years ahead of me. People who got out at any time between about 1994 and 2001, literally, have lived a charmed life. Lower debt, higher pay, bigger firms. People graduating from 2002 to about 2004 had jobs, and so long as they worked hard, were fine. '05 and '06 classes were kind of touch and go. Students who graduated top third or so in their class were fine, the middle third had good jobs but they weren't great, and those at the bottom still got by. The class of '07 had decent jobs, and many have since lost them and been forced to start over. '08 had grads who were paid to not work. The classes of '09 and '10 have members who graduated top 5- not top 5%, but top 5 people- who are working at legal aid clinics.
In short, in terms of job prospects, there could not be a worse time to have less than 5 years of experience practicing law. Worse still, is the fact that many of the jobs that would've gone to recent grads are being filled by people with the 3-5 years experience. Here are some bullet points I'd throw out there, were I to give a commencement address to a group of 2011 JD matriculants:
1. Time is on your side. Most of you are in your mid to late twenties. The vast majority are under 35. In short, no matter how little you're making, no matter how mountainous your debt, the single biggest asset you have at your disposal is time. Union workers make a killing- and burn out at 50. Even people with business degrees making big bucks now will either burn out or top out at about age 55 or so. It'll suck, watching some of your contemporaries with no debt getting a $65,000 a year job with full benefits- that's great money when you're 22. Thing is, a lot of those careers hit plateaus. The CEOs and CFOs are the lucky few. The vast majority, though, will reach a point where they're as expendable as they are employable. Honestly, these are the people struggling most right now- they're age 45-60, and formerly were making anywhere from $50,000 to about $225k- and now they're stuck. They're looking for jobs like the ones they had- some will look the rest of their lives. The reason for this is that, for the most part, those jobs are high threshhold, low ceiling. Law practice is the opposite. Those of you who are 25 today can embark on a 50 year career. There are lawyers who make $100k a year in a shabby office, working 4 days a week, and are 70 or even 80 years old. You can do this forever. Simply put, I know a lot of lawyers who took a pay cut during the Recession; what I've yet to meet is an attorney who's been practicing 20 years, and who is also a pauper- or even struggling to make ends meet. Pay your dues, and play the long game.
2. Trade money for experience. Sometimes a fertile job market isn't such a blessing. Forgive me for sounding like the sour grape fox, but jumping rungs on the corporate ladder to the tune of 3 or 4 jobs in your first 5 years because they pay well is another thing that's great when you're 30, and maybe not so great when you're 45. The problem is that you don't stick around a job long enough to get good at it. Whether it's something as simple as a divorce, or something as complex as a Federal mesothelioma class action, the attorneys who make the most money are the ones who are the best in their fields. The way you get to be the best in your field is by starting with the easiest of the easy cases, and practicing- over and over and over again. All of a sudden, you're not just doing a simple divorce with a couple who've beeen married 4 years with no property; instead, it's a 25 year marriage, with 3 kids, a house, a boat, and half a million in pension. All of a sudden, it's not a simple DUI first with diversion, it's a DUI manslaughter. The line between a $1,000 case and a $10,000 case; a $10,000 case and a $100,000 case; a $100,000 case and a $1,000,000 case is very fine. The way you negotiate that line is experience.
3. Stay away from things like legal clinics and public defense- unless it's really an area of interest. It's fine to work there for a little while, but unless that's something you're really interested in, it's no place to make a career. Sure, you'll get big time felony experience in public defense; but as soon as you get that experience, take it to a firm. The reason I say this, is that, in order for you to get good- and this is something I'll talk about a little more later, you need to be around people who are good. If you want to be the best, you need to learn from the best, and the best of the best attorneys work in firms- either solo or collective. You'll get to a point- and you'll reach that point fairly quickly, where it'll be more beneficial to you, experience wise, to be around big time attorneys than it will for you to be trying big time cases with society's dead beats. There isn't much difference between trying 100 and 150 jury trials. An attorney who's accomplished either can try a case in his sleep. But there is no substitute for, and you can never spend too much time being around guys who are the Michael Jordans of their professions.
4. Speaking of Michael Jordan. Find the best lawyers in your field. Befriend them. Study them. Work with them, if at all possible. They weren't born big shots. And they didn't become big shots by being connected- although many are connected. They got there by perfecting a process. And they perfected that process by doing something- over and over and over again. And learning from their mistakes. Be the best. Watch the best. Learn from the best. Remember, you have time on your side. Those of you who are 25, think about some of the best lawyers you know. Most are in their early 50s. That means two things. First, they've spent at least half of their lives doing what they're doing to get where they are. Secondly, they've spent ALL OF YOUR LIFE doing what they're doing to get where they are. Some careers are fast track- you're in at 22, a stud at 30, and burned out at 45. Lawyers age like wine. Practice makes perfect. Practice with the best.
5. Don't limit yourself. What never ceases to amaze me is the sheepskin that so many attorneys of any age take for granted. Look at what you've got there. You all have doctorate degrees. By the way, as an aside, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people mix the English with the Latin. It's "Juris Doctor", or "Doctor" or "Doctorate of Law". It is NOT "Juris Doctorate". Saying "Juris Doctorate" is like saying "Veni, vidi, I conquered." If you want to say something in Latin, leave the whole phrase in Latin. If you want to say something in English, leave the whole phrase in English. Don't mix and match. Anyway, back to my point. You're all experts- in business, in taxation, in anything law related. Scary, I know, but true. You may lack practical nuance, but in terms of book smarts, you are experts. People will pay good money for your expertise. You can teach everything from business law to tax law to English and writing at just about any undergradute university. You can go into a career in business. You can practice any area of law. I'm so frustrated by atorneys who say, "I can't do this job. I'm a ______________ lawyer." Or, "That's not a lawyer job" (for a position that, eventually ends up being filled by a lawyer). There is so much you can do with your degree. Maximize your potential.
6. Along with not limiting yourself, don't pidgeonhole yourself, especially early on in your career. You want to make yourself a candidate for as many jobs as possible. No one is an expert anything at 30. Not in the law business. No one. The first few years of your career, and again, this goes back to my previous points about experience and time, you should spend getting breadth, not depth. The reason for this is that it'll allow you much more versatility later in your career. I have a good friend who, in seven years of insurance defense practice, has all but written the book on litigating bad faith. He just went out on his own. Mind you, he could probably lateral as a partner at any major firm, or get on in house with any major carrier. Suppose, though, that he for whatever reason, after doing a few DUIs and drug possession cases in his solo practice, he wanted to join a major firm's white collar crimes defense practice (by the way, I'm not trying to be critical of him; I don't think he'd ever want to do this; but he isn't everybody). Do you think he'd make a better job candidate than someone who's spent 7 years of practice doing everything from tax law to divorce to employment law, and who also has dozens of major felony defenses under his belt? Likely not. Why? Because the latter candidate need not even mention all the general stuff he did in his practice. He can simply state that he's defended dozens of felonies for 7 years, and has extensive trial experience. About the only job where the latter guy would lose out to my friend is one where an insurance defense expert is required. And even then, maybe not. The guy with a broad background will always have his foot in every door, and with a broad base of experience, can quickly add depth. A little experience goes an awful long way. Plant the seeds early in your career- you may not have the time to do so later. Later is the time for becoming the expert, and when you do, your repertoire will be that much more enhanced, by the breadth of your experience.
7. Meet as many people as you can, and stay in contact with them. This is the secret to networking. Wish you had connections so that you could get that plumb job? Yeah, it helps if your Daddy has friends in high places, but for everyone else, make your own connections. Look around. Your friends won't be low men on the totem pole forever. They'll climb the ladder. And if you stay in contact with them, and meet more people, and help your friends. Guess what? When they climb the ladder, they'll bring you with them! Then you won't need Daddy.
8. Get rid of your student loans, ASAP! This'll be hard to do, especially when you're young; especially when you're not making much; especially in a bum job market. But it's unsecured debt, that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Resist the temptation to call it good debt. In fact, resist the whole good debt, bad debt connotation. There really is no such thing as good debt. Debt is a liability. It makes you someone else's slave, and that person your master. Resist the whole "Well, student debt is only 2%, and if I'm getting a __% return on my investments..." I get it; in time, your snowball will be bigger than the debt snowball.......IN THEORY. But we don't live in theory. We live in reality, and this line of thinking is exactly the line of thinking that created this recession we're in. Sooner or later, the marker comes due. And we have an entire generation of Americans, who right now, have had the marker called in- and can't pay the check. Get rid of the debt. ASAP!!!
9. Get in a court room!!! "But I'm a transactional lawyer...." Bull....If you never wanted to see the inside of a court room, why didn't you just get an MBA? It would've been much cheaper, and at least for now, you would've had better job prospects. You're completely wasting your degree if you fail to exercise, at least at some point, the power it confers. You don't have to do it forever, but how can you possibly understand what's going on in a legal dispute if you've never seen one, start to finish? Part of your expertise is offering a practical solution to a complex issue. How can you offer a practical solution if you haven't, you know, practiced? How can you be a realist about something if you can't comprehend the reality of a situation? Even if it's just a traffic ticket here or there, or covering someone's docket, and only for a few years at the start of your career, get in a court room!
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