Monthly Archives: September 2011

J. Nick Augustine J.D. is the principal of Pro Serve Public Relations, a PR firm serving the law and finance industries. Nick advises and assists attorneys in transition based on his experience in legal marketing, public relations and his Secured Solo Practice model. Nick shares career growth strategy and experience with legal job seekers.

When preparing for a job search, your first stop is most likely the career services office. Make an alumni event your second spot. I can think of no better group with whom you can share your cheers and jeers while keeping in touch with your friends and meeting new people. Law schools and alumni both have everything to gain from alumni event engagement. Seize the opportunity and participate in the alumni networking process using these 5 methods: (1) meetings; (2) invitations; (3) follow-up; (4) programming; and (5) drafting.

First, the meeting method is the easiest to adopt and commit to habit. Simply locate your law school’s alumni event schedule and calendar your appearance at all the relevant events. There are times you might have other things going on and you don’t want to go to all of these events. I suggest you go anyways. After a while, event hosts make note of the regular attendees and simply by being present you earn value points.

Next, the invitation method assumes you are attending regular meetings and events so you are there when the more elite events are discussed, and you just happen to receive an invitation. Invitations to certain law school events are extended to a limited list of active alumni. The more frequently the people in charge of the lists think of you, the more likely your inbox will contain invitations to the more elite receptions and events.

Then, the follow-up method, after meeting new people at the exclusive events, requires proper planning and execution. First set time parameters for your initial follow-up, next cause for communication, and periodic good will greetings. I suggest calendaring these activities. Where appropriate you should ask new friends if they would like an invitation to stay in touch through your social and professional networks. Always maintain professionalism when engaging colleagues, regardless of your level of familiarity, maintain candor.

After capturing your human capital, i.e., valuable contacts and relationships are assets; the programming method presents the opportunity to give back to the group with a proposal for a new event. Programming can be an event, educational seminar, webinar, teleseminar or other medium through which alumni groups bring people together to work toward a stated purpose.

Finally, the drafting method of alumni participation concerns content your group will value. Think about how much there is to communicate among alumni and how little time most alumni administrators have to write articles, and material used to promote and engage group members. Simply attending an event and writing about it for the alumni newsletter is a great way to get your name out there and help the group.

Engaging your alumni associations and offering your time, talent and treasure are all great ways to meet more colleagues and reconnect with friends who are a great resource when you find yourself in transition. Don’t be shy about approaching the alumni directors; I am sure they will be pleased by your offer of service.

Angie Robertson graduated from Loyola University School of Law Chicago in 2010. She has experience with public interest law, family law, legal document review, and sales.  When she is not reading or writing about law, she enjoys live music, exploring Chicago, watching roller-derby, and spending time with her husband and her dog.

Throughout law school, I bought and sold textbooks on Amazon. I price my items competitively and provide accurate and honest descriptions of their condition, with a little note, “All orders ship from Chicago, IL.” I think this addition helps my business because people in the Midwest and both coasts think of Chicago as close to them.

After law school, I experienced a surge in sales. This was extremely exciting. It reminded me of my days working as an account executive for an information technology reseller while I attended evening law school for two years. I made my bids as low as possible to win business from government agencies while continuing to make a profit. But I decided this career wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the cold calling, customer service, data entry, working with pesky sales tracking and customer relations software—I needed to move on.

When making the precarious decision about whether I wanted to take out huge loans and go to law school, I didn’t have anyone close to me to ask for guidance. Our family friends who are attorneys were people I considered inaccessible for the mere fact that, well, they were attorneys. I thought they couldn’t possibly have time to talk to me about this. Consequently, I purchased a book to help with my decision:  “In Our Defense:  The Bill of Rights in Action,” Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy (1992).

Much like the constitutional law topics addressed in this book, law school encouraged me to think about the big picture. We discussed things like parental rights versus state intervention, free speech, gay marriage equality, internet privacy, corporate mergers. Also, we spent hours on the minutia of interstate commerce as it relates to the delivery of milk, subject matter jurisdiction as it relates to entry into the stream of commerce, and the strict typography requirements for formatting a 7th Circuit appellate brief.  The latter topics dominated the lectures and would put me to sleep every evening after I’d worked a full day. I’d be worried about meeting commission goals, how my dismal attempts at making cold calls were being noticed by superiors, and whether the sales trip to the Caribbean that I’d just won would run into my finals schedule. (Thankfully, it did not.) When I was at work, I thought of torts and contracts. When I was at school, I thought of closing just one more large order before the end of the quarter. I didn’t even make up my mind about quitting my sales job until about halfway through my 2L year in 2008.

I have now been working in the real world long enough to see the multiple ironies in this. Every job is ultimately a sales job—and I mean this in the most literal meaning of the phrase. There will be performance metrics, customer service, superiors, meetings, etc., even if by different names. If you don’t believe me, just ask the person who works on development for your firm or non-profit organization. Everything that an organization does is measured and utilized as a way to gather more support, budget, profit or what have you. Your work is almost always billed hourly and bid out amongst multiple firms before you are hired. If you have ever worked for a corporation where there are sales trips, incentives and commissions, chances are it was not a law firm. That trip I won to the Caribbean (and I won more than one of them) will never be replicated while working for a small or medium-sized law firm—unless maybe I get into maritime law, an option which I still consider from time to time.

Last week I received an email from Amazon that I’d sold “In Our Defense:  The Bill of Rights in Action.” The past year since being sworn into the bar has been extremely rough for me, bouncing from doc review to doc review and being scrutinized about my litigation experience in job interviews that required zero years of experience. I have yet to encounter an assignment that relates to a “big picture” constitutional law topic. Since the world brought me and this woman I’d never met together through e-commerce, I decided to make a bold move. I inserted a small note into the book before I mailed it to my customer in the Baltimore area: “If you are not already in law school, and you are considering it, please e-mail or call me first. I’d love to chat. Thanks for the sale. –Angie”

J. Nick Augustine J.D. is the principal of Pro Serve PR, a public relations firm serving the law and finance industries. Nick advises and assists attorneys in transition based on his experience in legal marketing, public relations, and his Secured Solo Practice model. Nick shares career growth strategy and experience with legal job seekers.

Your law schools are there to help. This week, I attended the Professionalism and Engagement Appreciation Luncheon at The John Marshall Law School to honor the local judges, justices and practitioners for their generous assistance and dedication to helping law students prepare for their career in law. The Office of Professionalism and Engagement, directed by recently retired Illinois Appellate Court Justice Margaret O’Mara Frossard, prepares students to compete with the best and uphold the standards of the legal profession.

Law students who embrace professionalism are more likely to advance quickly and earn respect from colleagues. Professionalism and engagement efforts focus on several practice management functions such as marketing, management, technology and finance. In a competitive marketplace, with so many opportunities for referrals, our best ambassadors are those who know, like and trust us.

Justice Frossard offered the following statement: “We appreciate the fact that over one hundred  members of the legal community  have committed to our in-classroom professionalism program which addresses the challenge presented to law schools by the Carnegie report , namely, to teach professionalism across the curriculum to IL’s, 2L’s and 3L’s. With this innovative program we are bringing judges and practitioners into the classrooms to explain what professionalism means, how to resolve ethical problems in a professional manner and most importantly, what professional skills are valued by employers in the workplace.”

Students should seek out programs that prepare them for the real world and the business of law practice. Look for professional responsibility professors, practice management lecturers and your career services staff who can identify useful resources in the pursuit of professionalism. Current student, Yolanda Delgado comments: “The John Marshall Law School’s Office of Professionalism and Engagement provides students and recent graduates invaluable preparation to achieve the skills valued by employers.”

Lawyers, judges and law school faculty working on professionalism outreach at the law school level to give students an opportunity to start their career with solid footing. I strongly suggest students get involved and take advantage of these opportunities so that law school administrators continue to develop and promote these programs. Ask your law school professors how they can help you move from academia to business. Get involved!

Jill Rorem, Esq., is senior manager, legal staffing at Blackman Kallick (www.blackmanstaffing.com). Jill oversees the successful recruitment of attorneys, paralegals and contract legal professionals. Jill (and the Blackman team) staffs document reviews using qualified contract attorneys and thus, works with attorneys-in-transition daily. You can follow her at twitter.com/roremlegalstaff.

As someone who regularly goes in front of clients and potential clients to “sell” our document review teams and facilities, I am asked this same question over and over by the “buyers”: who are the attorneys who work as contract attorneys and why do they work in this capacity?

So, who are these people? Which ones should you hire for your document review?  Consider the following types:

• The New Grad: Law schools are relentlessly dumping thousands of new graduates into the market each year and fewer employers are able to hire them, so they register for temp work and review documents to combat their mounting law school loans. These folks are eager beavers ready to soak up any legal knowledge and do any legal work they can get their hands on. If you hire a new grad for your review, make sure that the review is either fairly simple or that you are prepared to be very available for in depth training and direction throughout the project. You can expect to pay below market for attorneys with this experience level.

• The Downsizee: These are the attorneys who are casualties of downsizing that is still occurring in big firms and small firms alike. They are typically experienced attorneys from a variety of practice areas. They may or may not be skilled in document review (i.e., they may have negotiated leases until they were downsized). If you hire a downsizee, you’ll likely get a solid attorney with a practical perspective and a strong work ethic. You may, however, lose them when a permanent position arises.

• The Supplementor: This attorney is looking to supplement their down time with work that pays. This person could be a stay-at-home mom who wants to work on a project here and there to supplement her income or keep her brain moving. This could also be a solo attorney whose practice is not yet large enough to keep them consistently busy and picks up contract projects when things are slow. Supplementors appreciate a flexible “come and go as you please” arrangement (as opposed to a rigid 9-5 schedule) so that they can run off to court or take a child to an appointment.

• The Career Contractor: These are attorneys that chose the contract route over a traditional firm or corporate position. These folks traded the stress of deadlines, court appearances and billable hours for flexibility and the luxury of mentally leaving their work in the office. They know the “drill” when it comes to ideal projects, top agencies and competitive rates. Beware – they have seen it all and are not afraid to sound off when something isn’t right. They know every discovery tool and often serve as team leads or project managers.

Over the past few years, as the market has drastically shifted towards using economical contract attorneys over using expensive associates to review documents, the question of “who are contract attorneys” has become a recurring question. Knowing the make-up of the contract attorney community and the various types of reviewers is helpful in planning a document review.  Whether you hire a New Grad, a Downsizee, a Supplementor or a Career Contractor, rest assured that the contractors are people too! They are educated, worldly, artistic, funny, multi-lingual, creative, analytic, sarcastic, knowledgeable, cultured, sophisticated, polite, enjoyable, meticulous, reliable, hard working, athletic, well-dressed, clever, brainy, quick, sharp, thought provoking and the list goes on. I always tell my clients that the key to a thriving contract attorney/document review team is to know the type of attorney you want on the project, and articulate your desires to your agency. If you are working with an agency that understands the make-up of the contractor “pool” and how to best utilize each type of contractor, your review will be a success.

Jill Rorem, Esq., is senior manager, legal staffing at Blackman Kallick (www.blackmanstaffing.com). Jill oversees the successful recruitment of attorneys, paralegals and contract legal professionals. Jill (and the Blackman team) staffs document reviews using qualified contract attorneys and thus, works with attorneys-in-transition daily. You can follow her at twitter.com/roremlegalstaff.

Attorneys in transition who have been regularly working as contract attorneys have probably seen just about everything when it comes to the space used to house them from project to project. As a staffer, I hear horror stories all the time. One contractor told me that “we were packed in like sardines” and that someone called the fire marshal and described it as not fit for humans.” Another time, I was told that the internet connection was so bad that it crashed and shut them down several times. Another reviewer told me that he had to see a chiropractor for weeks after a project where the agency provided banquet chair seating (as opposed to ergonomic task chairs). Just recently I heard that the reviewers were working in a moldy basement.

Wake up out there – contractors dissatisfied with their work environment will hit the road! If they don’t they will certainly lack incentive to produce. Turnover or lack of effort on any document review is disturbing. Replacements need to be trained and get up to speed and deadlines can’t be met. I wish that the clients and law firm leadership would look past the pure cost per hour paid on a document review project and take in the bigger picture. It’s called productivity guys!

Here are some fairly simple rules to consider when choosing contractor housing options:

 Workspace pitfalls that cost production

1. Rented space.  If you or your agency has to rent space, odds are there will be space issues that are unknown which could later cause problems on the document review. You must consider space that is dedicated to document review day in and day out. Amenities such as access to a kitchen or lounge are also a nice option for better productivity.

2. Furniture not intended for long term use.  Few jobs require someone to sit for a straight 8-12 hours per day with little movement and contract attorneys do just that. The space must have comfortable task chairs and work stations that are the proper height for typing and review.

3. Slow internet speed/dated computer equipment. The advantages of having contract attorneys working at an affordable hourly rate are negated if you incur internet troubles. Your review space must have top of the line equipment, a lightning fast connection and an onsite tech team that is available to troubleshoot 24/7.

4. Lack of personal space.  Contract attorneys must have 3-4 feet of space to spread out.  Sitting any closer will not only be uncomfortable but also will hurt productivity.

5. Remote or off the beaten path locations. Look for space that has easy access to public transportation and free parking.

This is simple stuff really. The space need not be sleek and stylish, just comfortable and functional. Your document review is imperative and no doubt – you are under the gun. Don’t lose people and time by choosing inadequate workspace. The contractors will thank you for it by sticking around and being productive!

J. Nick Augustine J.D. is the principal of Pro Serve PR, a public relations firm serving law and professional service firms. Nick advises and assists attorneys in transition based on his experience in legal marketing, public relations, and practice management. Nick shares career growth experience and innovation with legal job seekers.

Coming up on 10 years since I graduated from law school, I have seen shifts in practice areas. Some are due to economic conditions and others likely follow a lawyer’s interests and values developed through experience in practice. One thing I learned from lawyers who shifted to different practice areas: Just do it. Allow me some editorial then I will share a few practice areas that seem to be growing.

What do you really know about different practice areas? Do you get most of your information from word on the street? Did you consider the factors that come into play when someone tells about their practice area?

Most of us make initial opinions on reports from others. Often we do not dissect the information or fact check people in polite conversation. If you wanted to cross examine popular word on the street about various practice areas, consider a few of these questions: (1) Do you have enough work in your practice area, so much that you don’t want my competition; (2) Do you complain about how difficult and stressful your practice area is, and fear I will realize it is not that bad; (3) Is your impression of your practice area affected by the years you have spent there?

Some of the most successful lawyers I know say, “There are plenty of clients out there who are looking for good lawyers.” I suppose the best advice is being good at what ever practice area your chose. If you become knowledgeable, pick up a lifeline colleague to phone in a question, you should be ok. The people who do not do well fail to learn the ins and outs and take cases outside their practice area proficiencies without assistance.

Here are a few practice areas I would recommend for future growth:

(1)    Collaborative Practice

There are several uses of the word collaborative. For purposes of this example, I suggest that attorneys working in a team-like setting with other professionals and with the client is a practice model more clients will be seeking in the future. Some quick research on collaborative practice in various underlying practice areas will lead you to groups and associations who certify collaborative practitioners. Another good collaborative practice is to delegate reasonable tasks to clients and help them participate in litigation. Many clients enjoy saving money on making copies and organizing bank records. Some dislike the idea of a client getting too close to the work. I think it depends on the situation.

(2)    Intellectual Property

As the call for efficiency increases, business and technology will continue shaping our presence in the marketplace. For many, the intellectual property focus areas such as trademark, copyright and patent will continue increasing with the ease of electronic communication and collaboration. More and more businesses launch with cloud-based operating systems, tablet pc’s and smart phones. The lower the cost of entry makes low-overhead business start-ups easier to get off the ground; many come with IP needs.

(3)    Information Technology

Think about the potential list of defendants on in information technology lawsuit where the project management team alone could fill a room. The IT bus is in motion and picking up more passengers with complex software issues and various agreements, and addendums to keep a perceptive IT lawyer busy. The online networking opportunity is ripe here where you find several IT professionals actively participating in LinkedIn discussions and chat boards on various topics.

(4)    Corporate Litigation

Economic change challenges small to medium sized businesses.  Flexible companies survive these economic transitions when they can reorganize to meet new market demands. During reorganization, there are new agreements to draft, old agreements to sever and everything in between. I anticipate plenty of growth in the business services legal market so long as the number of businesses increases.

(5)    Commercial Real Estate Finance

The economic changes I reference also affect residential and commercial real estate, affecting local and state revenue; an empty building sitting is no good. Economic shifts offer the opportunity for some to move around and improve upon their surroundings. Many financing agreements require work at several times in an agreement’s life cycle.

Jill Rorem, Esq., is senior manager, legal staffing at Blackman Kallick (www.blackmanstaffing.com). Jill oversees the successful recruitment of attorneys, paralegals and contract legal professionals. Jill (and the Blackman team) staffs document reviews using qualified contract attorneys and thus, works with attorneys-in-transition daily. You can follow her at twitter.com/roremlegalstaff.

I’ve spent the last few entries discussing agency behavior and protocol and how contractors can take care of themselves when staffing agencies treat them unfairly. What about proper contract attorney behavior? The pendulum has to swing both ways for this system to work properly. Quality contractors with scrupulous morals, efficient review skills and a strong presentation will undoubtedly lead to improving the perception of this industry and could possibly lead to future, non-temporary opportunities. Many of the contractors who used to work for my firm as contractors are now the very same people working at big firms as staff attorneys or associates and are hiring our contractors for document review. Opportunity exists and reputations precede you so always treat each position as though it is an interview for a permanent position.

With that in mind, I suggest the following:

• This should be obvious but, be on time to each project – especially to the training. If you are late, it may not only give the agency’s client a bad taste in their mouth, but the agency as well.  When given the choice between you and someone of your equal but who is always punctual, the agency may choose the punctual person for the next review instead of you.

• Respect neighboring reviewers. This means, mind your personal habits. Shower and skip the heavy perfume. Eat, but don’t rattle the Cheetos bag and make crunching noises.  Sneeze, but cover your mouth. Take personal conversations and phone calls into the hallway. Make sure your music volume is low.

• Even if your project is low paying, do your best work. This is a tough pill to swallow, I know. However, you can always turn down a project due to rate and I wouldn’t blame you based on things I hear! If you do decide to work for the proposed rate, then give it your all. It’s the honest and ethical thing to do.

• Be honest with your agency about your schedule prior to accepting any project. When you don’t disclose a vacation or another obligation and the agency’s client has a tight deadline, you put your team in the position to pick up your slack and the agency in an embarrassing situation. That is not good for anyone. If you had disclosed it ahead of time, it’s likely that the agency could have gotten your time off approved in advance and then the agency’s client can plan around it during the review.

• Do the best you can do each day. If you know that the expectation is for you to review 500 documents per day but you know you can accurately review 750, do the 750 even if it means cutting the project shorter because of it. You’ll look like a superstar and likely get picked up for other projects quickly.

I learned something important from the mailroom at ICM in Hollywood where you could go from pushing a mail cart to being a studio head in a year:  you never know who someone will turn out to be, so treat everyone as though they could one your next boss or client. We are not in Hollywood, but the world of document review and e-discovery is similarly small and since you never know who someone will turn out to be – always put your best foot forward. Remember – it’s these reviewers that could wind up with an opportunity to recommend you for a permanent position and your chances will be slim if you cough all over their keyboard.

Angie Robertson graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 2010. She has experience with public interest law, family law, legal document review and sales.  When she is not reading or writing about law, she enjoys live music, exploring Chicago, watching roller-derby, and spending time with her husband and her dog.

Since childhood, I have always gone out of my way to be involved in plenty of activities. 4-H, band, dance, debate team, I was doing it all. If we had a chess team or “Mathletes,” I probably would have done that too. I did all right in school, but I was far more concerned about my activities. Being extremely busy gave me a sense of purpose, even though it was an impressively nerdy purpose. I hoped that my ability to multitask, work late into the evenings and try challenging things would lead to a thriving legal career one day.

Fast forward a dozen years or so, it turns out that the legal career is a childhood dream not yet realized. Unfortunately, I am not alone. Crowds of recent law school grads flock to this metropolis with the hopes of practicing law and, for the past few years, we’ve all been clamoring over the same limited job opportunities. Most of us are not independently wealthy and have to do either non-legal or semi-legal jobs, such as paralegal, financial advisor, administrative assistant, insurance sales, retail sales, waitress or document review. We do our best to remain relevant, which means we volunteer for legal hotlines, we volunteer to prepare wills for firefighters and police with Wills for Heroes on the weekends, we occasionally do simple divorces or fight parking tickets for friends, and some of us volunteer for a myriad of other legal service providers. We go to networking events for attorneys and non-attorneys, and we hedge when asked what we do for a living.

Our “lost” generation of attorneys, the ones who graduated in 2009 and after, can frequently analogize our day jobs to the time we were stuck in a less-than-challenging classroom. Practicing law, for us, is like all of those extracurricular activities we used to get so excited about when we were adolescent over-achievers-in-training. I may try explaining it like that at my next cocktail party. “I have a day job … but for fun, in my free time I really enjoy practicing law—for free!”

I take pride in my hobbyist legal practice in the same way that I took pride in jamming out Jethro Tull songs on my flute. I envy people who have made careers out of hobbies they love, like a surf shop owner, an artisan, or a professional Kardashian. But alas, I am not to the practice of law what Jethro Tull is to the very niche musical genre of 1970’s rock flute, at least not today. I have become extremely happy doing all of the diverse activities that constitute my professional life and my livelihood(s). But while all of these things work for my own personal fulfillment, they are not the coveted “3-5 years of litigation experience,” that Holy Grail prerequisite for so many of the sparsely-posted junior-level legal jobs.

In the years to come, I sincerely hope that hiring partners and maybe even some non-profit organizations or government agencies start considering hiring the legal hobbyists of our generation. We are a friendly, flexible, congenial group. What we lack in litigation experience, we make up for in work-ethic, humility, personality and sense of humor. This may be somewhat unlikely, and if it is, we may all be front-lining our own 2010’s niche rock bands, i.e. going solo. Or we may also fledge on as garage band-style, we-play-weddings-and-Bah Mitzvahs, i.e. hobbyist lawyers. There is no shame in that.