CLO Compensation Increases While Other In-House Lawyer Compensation Declines

In 2009, we have seen salary cuts for associates at large law firms, where the $145-$160K starting salaries are no longer the norm. What about the salaries and bonuses of Chief Legal Officers and other in-house counsels at large companies?

According to a recent 2009 Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey by ALM Legal Intelligence, median U.S. chief legal officers saw their total cash compensation (salaries plus bonuses) increase by almost 4 percent this year to $485,200.

In light of the current economic climate, CLO’s have goods reasons to be happy to be taking home nearly half a million dollar in pay, even if it falls short of the 13% increase they received in 2008. CLO’s are not far from their law firm counterparts, when law firms like Cadwalader posted a 30% decrease in profits per partner, but still took home $1.88 million during one of the worst economic markets in nearly 60 years. Clearly, there is still plenty of money being made.

Those who are experiencing most of the compensation squeeze are “other in-house counsels." While CLO compensation increased, total cash compensation for deputy chief legal officers, division general counsel and high-level specialists decreased during the same period, by 1.4 percent, 9.8 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively. The ALM Survey did not provide figures. For more information on salary and bonuses for "non-CLO in-house counsels", see our previous Blog post: “In-House Compensation Remains Flat As Companies Continue Cost-Cutting Measures.”

If you are not in a “management” in-house position, what’s the best paying practice? Not surprisingly, patent law is the most lucrative specialty for senior attorneys and attorneys. Senior IP attorneys took home 40 percent more than the national median total cash compensation last year. It pays to be in IP, whether in private practice or in-house.

To compile this survey, the ALM polled organizations with 5,000 or more employees (46%), with 66 percent of participating organizations reporting annual sales revenues of $1 billion or more.

2009 Brought the Largest Drop in Lawyer Headcount in Thirty Years

The results of the 32d annual National Law Journal survey of the nation's 250 largest law firms provides a vivid picture of the toll that the economic recession exacted from law firms this year. The total number of attorneys working at the top 250 law firms plunged by 5,259 lawyers. How significant is this loss? According to the article, it's as if all of the lawyers working at two firms the size of Jones Day vanished in 2009.

The 4.0 percent decline in the total number of attorneys marked only the third time that the lawyer count among the group has dropped since the NLJstarted collecting headcount data in 1978. The last time totals backslid was in 1993, when they dipped by 0.9 percent. The first decline was in 1992, when they fell by 1 percent. The tally this year wipes away nearly one-third of the growth that firms made during the past five years and puts many of them well below levels they enjoyed in 2005.

The number of attorneys in 2009 sank to 126,669 lawyers, compared with 131,928 attorneys last year. In 2008, the number of attorneys increased by 4.3 percent. This is only the third time since 1978 that lawyer counts has dropped.

Which of the 75 law firms on the NLJ list bled the most in 2009?

• Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, which declined by 26.4 percent to 468 attorneys from 636 in 2008.
  
• Latham & Watkins, which shed 444 lawyers, had the biggest number of layoffs. It had 1,878 attorneys this year, compared with 2,322 in 2008, for a 19.1 percent decline.
  

Which are the biggest firms in 2009?

• Taking the No. 1 position on the NLJ 250 was Baker & McKenzie, which had 3,949 attorneys.
• DLA Piper took the No. 2 spot this year. Its lawyer population fell by 7.3 pecent, to 3,450 attorneys from 3,721 attorneys in 2008.

Associates were the hardest hit by layoffs; their rank shrank by 8.7 percent, to 61,733 from 67,648 last year.

Partners, on the other hand, seem to be doing better as a whole. The number of partners in 2009 was 53,468, compared with 52,980 in 2008, an increase of 0.9 percent.

Perhaps the most worrisome numbers are those of first-year associates whose start dates law firms deferred. Of the 250 firms on the list, 113 reported that they deferred a total of 2,784 associates. That figure represents 42 percent of the 6,636 law graduates who would have been in the incoming first-year associate class.

This will have a major impact on the future of employment for both current and would-be lawyers that have recently graduated. The unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October. All told, 15.7 million Americans are out of work. Lawyers are no exception.

The legal sector lost 5,800 jobs, according to seasonally adjusted statistics in a recently released report (PDF) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. When not seasonally adjusted, the figures show a gain of 1,500 jobs, but that is probably attributable to the elimination of summer associates from law firm payrolls, reports the Am Law Daily.

What can these unemployed lawyers expect from the job market? Many are looking at a long road ahead, often looking for 6-12 months before gaining employment. Grim figures that are unlikely to change in the near future, especially with the end of the year closing in, which traditionally provides for additional layoffs.

[Leigh Jones, The National Law Journal, November 09, 2009]

What Does It Take To Become An In-House Counsel?

The number of attorneys who are interested in making the transition in-house is increasing, despite current economics. While securing an in-house position has always been difficult because of supply and demand, doing so in this economy is even more challenging. There is a significant distinction between wanting to go in-house and being ready to go in-house – something that many attorneys tend to miss when conducting their job search. In this article, we discuss what it takes to become a strong candidate for an in-house position in today’s marketplace.

Experience

The ideal in-house candidate is an experienced attorney with at least five years or more of professional practice experience, who can operate fairly independently. Why five years or more? In-house legal departments are not good training grounds for recent law graduates and junior-level attorneys. Companies generally do not have the resources available to train attorneys. Moreover, in-house attorneys, unlike their law firm counterparts, are viewed as part of overhead. Therefore, while attorneys are a necessity, they do not contribute to the financial bottom line of the companies they serve. Therefore, in-house legal departments have every incentive to want to hire experienced attorneys who require little training or supervision.

Is there such a thing as too much experience? In some cases, there is. Companies tend to value hiring attorneys who have both law firm and in-house experience. Partner-level attorneys who only have law firm experience are at risk of being passed for positions, junior-level or otherwise. They tend to be viewed as too specialized, not business-oriented enough, and lacking in industry experience. That prejudice tends to grow in accordance with the length of time they have remained in private practice without ever having held an in-house position. Partner-level attorneys are often viewed as too “inflexible” and expensive to successfully transition in-house. In an employer-driven market companies get what companies want, whether or not these preferences are justified. Therefore, the best time to consider an in-house transition is after five years of practice and before partnership.

Practice

When it comes to the type of practice area in-house legal departments are interested in when hiring, it is important to remember that not all practice areas are created equal. While corporate law departments do hire attorneys in a variety of specialized practice areas, including litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property, real estate, and tax – to name a few, these positions are few and far in between. In other words, there are very few in-house legal opportunities available for these practice areas. Moreover, because of the type of competition that is generated for these few position, outstanding candidates are often kept from ever making the final cut.

If you are playing a numbers game, which is what you have to do when considering an in-house attorney position, and you are interested in moving up on the in-house totem poll, you should have general corporate and commercial contracts experience. In other words, transactional attorneys have an edge in the number of positions available to them, not to mention improved prospects for advancement within law departments, including general counsel positions. 

To improve your odds even further, you should supplement your transactional practice with some exposure to litigation, employment, corporate governance, finance, intellectual property, and governmental regulations, to be able to assist a company gets its goods or services to market. Corporate law departments tend to look for “generalists,” or attorneys who are able to spot issues and handle matters in a wide variety of areas. In other words, most in-house counsel act like ER doctors conducting triage when the ambulance gets in. They have to quickly identify the problem, establish priorities, determine what they can handle themselves and whether they will require the services of a specialist, or in this case an outside counsel.

Aptitude

Even if you have the required experience and practice area to be a good candidate for an in-house position, there are a number of “soft skills” you need to be competitive and successful for these positions. First, as an in-house attorney you need to have business sense. When a company hires in-house counsels, they are expected to provide legal advice in a business context. The ability to understand business objectives and provide legal advice to non-lawyers is crucial to succeeding as an in-house counsel. Along those lines, the ability to persuade is also an important quality to have, as counsels often have to defend their positions. This assumes strong negotiation skills, as well as superior oral and written communication skills. 

In-house attorneys are also required to work with a wide variety of people, from senior executives to employees on the floor. Therefore, having strong interpersonal skills and the ability to be comfortable in a variety of situations, from conducting formal board meetings to dispensing informal hallway advice, it very important as well. Finally, a successful in-house attorney must be able to provide practical advice. In other words, companies tend to turn to their counsel for solutions to their business problems, rather than for textbook advice or opinions. To be an effective problem-solver, an in-house attorney must not only be familiar with his company’s business, structure or industry, but also its culture and its risk management standards. Of course, these are but a few of the soft skills that are required to be an effective in-house counsel; there are others, many of which are company and industry-specific. What is to be remembered is that being an experienced and skilled legal practitioner, while a requisite, is not always sufficient to become a strong candidate for in-house positions in today’s marketplace.

Legal Resources For the Public: Laws.com

There are thousands of laws in the legislation of the United States. Understanding every single law is an impossibility, especially for the general public.

Laws.com is one of the largest online resources specialized in legal information. They have resources available regarding many different areas of the law. Whether you are struggling with a divorce, issues of immigration, personal injuries, bankruptcy, or other legal issues, laws.com offers information that addresses your issue.

Although laws.com cannot help you directly, they provide an attorney referral service to help you identify attorneys in various practice areas. This site guides you to a list of resources according to your issue. You should remember that most legal issues are regulated by the law in the state where you live, or where the problem occurred. That said, laws.com does provide useful information referring you to various types of attorneys and their specialization, such as DUI or Family Law attorneys for example.

Even if you only need a simple legal question answered, such as "What is the difference between civil and criminal law?" Laws.com can help.

[InHouse Insider and its affiliates are not related to Law.com. The inclusion of links from this site does not imply endorsement by InHouse Insider. InHouse Insider makes no endorsement, express or implied, of any links to or from its site, nor is it responsible for the content or activities of any linked sites. Any questions should be directed to the administrator(s) of this or any other specific sites.]

Newsline - 10/26/09

• BofA's Outside Counsel Sings Two Different Tunes. Eric Roth, a litigation partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, apparently was telling the Bank of America Corp. leadership one story about how difficult it would be to escape from the merger with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., while singing quite a different tune to the federal government. On Dec. 19 Roth advised the bank's chief executive, Ken Lewis, and its interim general counsel, Brian Moynihan, on how difficult and financially risky it would be to try to invoke a so-called MAC -- or material adverse change -- clause, which would allow the bank to get out of the merger with Merrill. But another e-mail from associate general counsel Teresa Brenner to Moynihan, sent several hours later and on the same day as Roth's e-mail, says, "Eric made a very strong case as to why there was a MAC" during a conference call with some officials from the Federal Reserve. That's why you pay "beaucoup bucks" to lawyers like those working at Wachtell; so you can have your story spin both ways. Corporate Counsel
  

• Greedy Deputy GC Found Guilty in $12M Fraud - Used For Shopping Spree sand Comestic Surgery. Kate Johns, the former deputy head of legal at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, was paid a salary of 150,000 pounds ($250,000) in her role at the bank. For some, that would be considered a handsome salary, but for others like Johns, that was simply the tip of the iceberg. London's Southwark Crown Court ruled that Johns was guilty of having repeatedly conned colleagues into signing off large sums of money for investment. In total, the bank lost 7.4 million pounds ($12.3 million) as a result of the scam. The money was diverted to struggling Indonesian airline Air Efata, which was owned by her friend Frank Taira-Supit. Johns received personal payoffs from Taira-Supit totaling 1.95 million pounds ($3.2 million), which the court was told she used to fund a luxury lifestyle, including shopping trips, breast surgery and paying off the mortgage on a 1.1 million pound ($1.8 million) north London townhouse. Air Efata went bankrupt last year, after which Taira-Supit committed suicide. Johns' sentence will be handed in December. It's a sad story of greed and betrayal. The Legal Week

• New Kids On The Block: PetSmart Hires New GC Emily Disckinson, and Charter Communications Hires Gregory Doody as new GC. Dickinson, 50,comes to PetSmart from Hannaford Bros. Co., which runs a chain of grocery stores and supermarkets along the Eastern seaboard. (Hannaford is owned by Delhaize Group, which operates supermarkets in Europe.). The St. Louis–based company hired Doody to serve as its chief restructuring officer in March, when Charter filed for a prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but Doody originally joined last December to assist with the company's financial restructuring. In May, Doody, who is 44, also accepted the post of general counsel. He replaces former GC Grier Raclin, now Charter's chief administrative officer. Corporate Counsel
  
  
• Want to Know Top 25 In-House Counsels in Asia, Look Here: The ALB has identified 25 of the most outstanding legal counsel in Asia - from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, China and India. These lawyers represent the health, real estate, banking, technology, shipping, energy, and consumer good sectors. Some have worked on precedent-setting transactions, while others have quietly built up strong legal teams, ensuring continual compliance of their organization and also influencing the passage of legislation. ABL Legal News.

Conducting an Attorney Job Search During a Recession – Part 4

If you are planning to conduct an aggressive attorney job search, you should think about working with a legal recruiter. If you are focusing on an in-house attorney job search, you should consider sending your legal resume to one or more legal recruiter.

Involving a legal recruiter in your attorney job search can be very beneficial, especially if you are considering in-house legal opportunities. Legal recruiters can open the doors to great legal opportunities, and assist you in securing the right position.

Working with Legal Recruiters

In terms of in-house attorney jobs, over 50% of companies engage legal recruiters to recruit their lawyers. This means that the barrier to entry for in-house attorney jobs is very high. Companies are generally not well equipped to handle these types of searches and prefer to rely on specialized legal recruiters to identify talented attorneys for their positions. Recruiters can save them the time and expense of advertising, reviewing resumes, pre-selecting candidates, as well as keep the process confidential.

Selecting a Legal Recruiter

When selecting a recruiter, it is important to select an expert in his or her field. Working with a legal recruiting firm that specializes in in-house attorney search and placement can make a number of opportunities available to you. They can give you exposure to hidden/unknown jobs, and put you in touch with companies you would not have otherwise known about.

If you are looking for work in the legal marketplace, someone who has experience in the legal field will be better able to understand your needs and the expectations of potential legal employers. How can you find a good legal recruiter? Ask friends and colleagues for referrals. Also consider contacting a few recruiting professionals in your area. In addition to checking their experience, expertise, and open positions, you must also be comfortable with the person with whom you have partnered. The key is to identify a legal recruiter you can trust and who can represent you effectively to potential employers.

What Legal Recruiters Can Do For You

Legal recruiters can save you a great deal of time. Good legal recruiting firms spend a lot of time and resources researching the market, contacting companies about job openings, and determining who is and who isn’t hiring. In other words, attorney recruiters can give you a good sense of the market, and direct you to companies and industries that are active in the marketplace. Something you would neither have the time nor the resources to do by yourself.

In addition to giving you access to active and unknown job opportunities, a good legal recruiter can provide you with invaluable services including sharing key information about a particular position or company, reviewing and revising your legal resume, assisting you with interview preparation, and helping negotiate your compensation package. Because the employer, and not the job seeker, pays a legal recruiter’s fee, all of these services come completely free to you.

Conclusion

While a legal recruiter, like a good trainer, can give you the tools to win the race, they can’t do it for you. In other words, you still need to continue your independent job search efforts. Legal recruiters can be invaluable in helping you secure an in-house attorney job, but in most situations working with a legal recruiter should only be one piece of your job search plan.

In-House Compensation Remains Flat As Companies Continue Cost-Cutting Measures

Over the last 18 months, the press has well documented the various efforts by corporate law departments to cut cost, including reducing outside counsel expenses. According to a new Hildebrandt survey, in-house counsels have also been impacted by these measures, namely in terms of their compensation.

Lauren Chung, director of the Hildebrandt survey, told the ABA Journal that while in-house counsels at Fortune 500 Companies might not necessarily be making less “They’re not getting the increases that they had been enjoying for the past several years. Every year they were almost guaranteed an increase. This year we see very clearly that is not the norm anymore.”

While this is an accurate statement; there are other factors at work that are negatively impacting in-house counsel compensation that were not addressed in this article.

Existing In-House Counsels vs. Newly Hired In-House Counsels.

If existing in-house counsels at Fortune 500 Companies are not enjoying increases in their base salaries, newly hired in-house counsels are seeing a significant dip in base salaries. It’s a supply and demand market, and the majority of law departments hiring in-house counsels are offering packages that are notably lower than those they were offering to in-house counsels just a year ago.

An existing counsel pondering whether he/she will get a 3-8% percent increase on a compensation package of over $200,000, is quite different from a newly hired counsel with the same level of experience and practice area looking at a compensation package of $150,000 or less. If cost-cutting measures have not had a significant impact on the overall compensation package of existing in-house counsels, they have had a disparate impact on the compensation package of newly hired in-house counsels. It’s a tale of two cities between new hires and existing counsels.

Cash Compensation and Company Performance.

According to the ABA article, when Hildebrandt asked companies responding to the 2009 survey to report total cash compensation numbers for March 2008 and 2009, they reported a year-over-year increase of 3 percent. Last year’s survey reported a year-over-year increase of 8 percent in total cash compensation.

The decrease in cash compensation may not only be related to company cost-cutting measures, but also to company performance. It is a well-known fact that in-house bonuses are tied intimately to personal as well as company performance. A dip in overall cash compensation could most likely be attributed to a decrease in overall profit or lack thereof as a result of the recession, rather than cost cutting measures.

Fortune 500 In-House Counsels vs. Others.

If the average total cash compensation—base salary plus cash bonuses — for in-house lawyers in March 2009 was $229,000 — those figures are not reflective of the overall in-house legal market. Those figures are representative of senior counsels, with typically 10 years or more of practice experience, working at companies with a minimum of $9 billion in revenues with at least 30 lawyers, 18,000 employees and $28.0 million in total legal spending – in other words, primarily Fortune 500 Companies. That’s a sliver of the in-house legal market. Median cash compensation for most in-house senior counsels, typically falls between the $100,000 and $150,000 mark.

Here are the other findings that The Intelligencer and Hildebrandt reported from their Fortune 500 survey:

• The average total cash compensation—base salary plus cash bonuses—was $229,000 for in-house lawyers in March 2009.

• The average total cash compensation—base salary plus cash bonuses—was $236,000 for in-house lawyers in March 2008 survey.

• 18% of the respondents anticipated a decrease in the number of in-house lawyers in their departments.

• 30% of the respondents anticipated an increase in the number of in-house lawyers in their departments. The numbers reflect a cost-reduction strategy of bringing more work inside that had been done by outside counsel, according to the press release.

• Nearly a 1/3rd of the respondents expect to use fewer outside firms in the United States. Only 8 percent expect to increase the number of law firms they use.

• 46% of the responding companies anticipate that alternative billing arrangements will make up more than 11 percent of their outside legal budget, compared to 33 percent last year.

• Total legal spending increased by 5 percent in the United States, the same rate of increase as the year before.

Conducting an Attorney Job Search During a Recession – Part 3

Conducting an attorney job search is a full‐time job. It’s also more challenging because you will have to compromise, resist the temptation to broaden your search, network with no immediate success, take a lot of rejection, and have just as many bills to pay.

Train to win the race, but don’t overdo it.

You need to train for your attorney job search – and if you have to channel images of Rocky and blast “Eye of The Tiger” to do it, go for it. The first step is to make a plan, and to stick to it:

• Step 1: Keep the same habits as when you were working. Get up, get dressed, make your coffee, and get started in your “home office.”

• Step 2: Make a “to do” list, no more than 10 items, and make sure to get to all of them by the end of the day.

• Step 3: Keep regular office hours. Resist the temptation to change them because you are tired, feeling anxious, want to do more, or find yourself distracted.

Just as it is important to be rigorous in your approach to your attorney job search, make sure you do not overdo it. Because this is an especially stressful time, be sure to also spend quality time with family, friends, and support groups. Take time to exercise or enjoy those activities and hobbies that make you happy and relaxed. It’s all about keeping a delicate balance.

Searching for a job can be a challenging, stressful, and ultimately necessary. Sometimes even the most determined job seeker can have difficulty staying motivated when he or she receives little response from prospective employers or, sometimes worse, polite rejections. How can you keep the motivation going?

• Stay Connected. Spend time with friends, preferably those who are still employed. While you can commiserate and help those in your situation, remember that a positive attitude is just as catchy as a negative one. So stay connected with people who are positive.

• Exercise. It doesn’t matter what you do, or how long you do it. Just getting the blood moving through your veins will make you feel better, pump up your adrenaline, and help you stay positive and energetic.

• Get Out of the House. It’s easy to get stuck in front of the computer and the TV and let the day pass you by. Don’t stay home all week; be sure to make lunch appointments, take coffee breaks outside, or just take a walk.

• Take a Break from the News. While you want to stay on top of current events, it’s easy to get sucked into a spiral of negative news about the job market. Mix it up a little. Skip the news once in a while, and read articles unrelated to the economy, career, jobs, etc.

• Have Some Fun. While it’s easier said than done, life goes on and so should you. Take some time to do the things you enjoy, pick‐up the hobbies you did not have time for when you were working, or find new hobbies and interests.
  

Conducting an attorney job search is a full‐time job. It is easy to get off track, to get distracted, and to become unmotivated. So remember to stay focused, organized, and to set goals. Just as importantly, you need to stay motivated because a positive attitude can go a long way to ensuring success. Remember: be diligent with respect to your job search, but don’t forget to enjoy life.

Newsline - 10/09/09

• Outside Counsel Spending Projected to Drop By 4.7%, But Regulatory Hiring Is On the Rise. A new study projects a 4.3 percent slide in corporate spending on outside counsel next year. Outside counsel spending dropped from an average of $20.8 million in 2008 to $18.5 million this year and is projected to dip to $17.7 million in 2010, according to a study by BTI Consulting Group. Wile that's not good news for lawyers looking to go in-house, there is a glimmer of hope. Regulatory hiring has been on the rise. The National Law Journal
  

• Deferred Associates Seek Interim Jobs, Some Taking Waitressing Jobs. Next time your order that chicken salad, the person waiting on you may not be starving actor, but rather a starving law graduate. Law firms have been asking new hires to defer their employment start dates, an unprecedented step for many firms that had weathered previous economic downturns without wide-scale postponements. To cope, some would-be attorneys are seeking pro-bono fellowships, while others are taking jobs ranging from temporary work for their alma maters to waitressing or bartending. And law school career-service officials are advising students to take whatever work they can find to pay their bills. What about law school reducing their admission rates as well? Apparently, that's not an option they are putting on the table. The Wall Street Journal.

• New Kids On The Block: Quiznos Hires New GC Pat Meyeres, and VMWare Hires Dawn Smith as new GC. Denver-based The Quiznos Master LLC, known for its toasted sandwiches, has named Pat Meyers as its new legal chief. Meyers was the company's general counsel for ten years, and left two years ago to become chief legal officer of Consumer Capital Partners, one of the private company's largest investors. Dawn Smith who made partner two years ago at Morrison & Foerster will now serve as general counsel at one of Silicon Valley's biggest new companies, VMWare Inc. Smith, 45, has no in-house experience, which is unusual for this type of hire. We wish them both lots of luck in their new endeavor. The Recorder and Corporate Counsel
  
  
• Recruiter Got Zip in 12-Lawyer Leap, Now Seeks $100M in Federal Suit. Just when you thought it was safe to recruit and collect your fees again, there goes another fee dispute. And this time, the numbers are big. C.B. Legal Search has sued Los Angeles-based Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith for $100 million in actual and punitive damages, contending that the 700-attorney law firm squeezed it out of a 12-attorney placement deal it helped orchestrate. In March, C.B. Legal Search introduced partner Edward Ruberry of Bollinger Ruberry & Garvey to "senior-level employees" at Lewis Brisbois and he revealed the identities of insurance lawyers at his Chicago firm who would be interested in moving to Lewis Brisbois, alleges the suit, which is now in federal court in the Southern District of Texas.After the initial meeting, C.B. Legal Search asked Lewis Brisbois to sign a confidentiality agreement, the suit says, and the firm's then-chief financial officer e-mailed the recruiting firm that each party would do so. But, the suit states, no such agreement was ever signed. Courts have not been kind to legal recruiters in the past (See our previous posts: Good Faith Went Up In Smoke In Lost Recruiting Fees and The Wheel Turns On Another Recruiter Fee Dispute). Perhaps C.B. Legal Search will be luckier than its predecessors. The National Law Journal.

• BofA Shareholder Urges Board to Unmuzzle Former GC - The Saga Continues. If this was Summer, this would make for an interesting beach read, full of twists and turns and mystery. The BofA saga seems to continue to unravel, to the delight of many news agencies. Everyone wants to know what happened in the BofA and Merrill Lynch merger: If only Mayopoulos culd speak and shed some light? large shareholder at Bank of America Corp. That's exactly what a large shareholder is urging its board of directors to do: allow ex-general counsel Tim Mayopoulos to testify about the bank's merger with Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. The shareholder also is asking the board to hire outside counsel to conduct an internal probe into the deal. Stay tuned for more. Corporate Counsel.
  

Conducting an Attorney Job Search During a Recession – Part 2

So now that you have an idea of the route you want to take with your attorney job search, you cannot do this alone, you need a team. How do you find it? By networking.

Oh, no, not that dreadful networking business! I’d rather get back under the covers and pretend that everything’s all right. Well, it’s not as scary or daunting as it seems, and networking when done right can be a lot of fun.

Put together a team to help you win the race.

I am assuming that by now you have told your closest friends and colleagues about your attorney job search. The key to networking is to dust off your rolodex, or Internet address book, and start contacting both the people you know well, as well as those you don’t know as well.

Yes, this can seem scary and awkward, but trust me you are not alone. Plus remember this: networking is quid pro quo. Those people you are contacting would be doing the same thing with you if they were conducting their own job search – or at least you should now expect them to do so in the future.

Let them know about your attorney job search situation, the route you have chosen to take, and determine whether they are willing or able to help you achieve your goal. The key is to sell them on what you bring as much as you would a potential employer. If you can present yourself as a talented and skilled attorney and make a personal connection, you will get much farther with your networking efforts.

The key to networking is to gather information – not necessarily land a job. It is to get the word out, obtain information about the marketplace (who is hiring, not hiring, who knows who and what), and to obtain contacts, and even more contacts. In other words, you need to think of this process as free advertisement and information gathering.

Let as many people know that “John Doe” the best jockey of the West is racing in the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita. Lucky will be the one ready to sponsor him to win this race! Ok, so I am stretching it a bit here, but hopefully I am making my point clear. You have to generate interest and excitement about your attorney job search, get the word out, and hope that employers will eventually find you, or that you will find them.