Is your legal career like a canoe ride across a lake or like a whitewater rafting trip? In my latest podcast, I speak with Jose Sierra a partner at Holland and Knight who has done it all (Clerked in 5th Circuit, served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, served as senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer for two pharmaceutical companies, and worked at small, mid-sized and large law firms). Read more…

Like most people who share content on LinkedIn, whenever I post something, I start to focus on how many views the post has had.  It is a fun way to see if my messaging is having any impact and in a small way, it is a measurement of whether my marketing is working.  I do the same when I send out newsletters.

Anyone who posts on Facebook or Instagram knows the feeling.  You get a little rush of dopamine when you see the “likes” adding up.  But focusing on the quantity of views on LinkedIn may not be a very good measure of how much impact you are having with your target audience.

Read more…

I joined ProVisors today and I’m really looking forward to getting to know the members of my home group, Cambridge I.  ProVisors is a business networking organization that provides a great platform for building your network.  There are a lot of lawyers who are members and I can already see how valuable it is going to be. Read more…

I recently listened to a great episode of my favorite podcast, Stay Tuned With Preet  (see May 16-D.C. Dramas & Advising Obamas).  Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge fan of Preet Bharara, a rational voice who provides insightful commentary on the law, politics and the Trump administration.

In this episode, Preet interviews Valerie Jarrett a former senior advisor to President Obama. She has just released a memoir called Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward and she is on the book tour.  While she spoke a lot about Chicago politics, Barack Obama’s rise and her own career from biglaw to public service, a lot of what she had to say is relevant to legal marketing.  Here are some of my takeaways from the interview: Read more…

In my latest podcast, I interview Deb Scaringi about ways to increase your effectiveness at networking functions.  Click here to listen or find Counsel to Counsel on your favorite podcast app.

See show notes for lots of business development resources.

Thanks to my colleague Amy Levine for her valuable input and wisdom which helped in drafting this post.

It continues to be a strong labor market and the war for legal talent remains fierce in some circles.  Good candidates have options and great candidates are not staying on the job market for very long.  Read more…

For many lawyers, travel is something to do for a business trip or on vacation.  But for Robert Finkel, travel was a way for his family to live abroad and experience a new culture.  For two years, Bob lived in Israel with his wife and three children while continuing to work for his law firm in Boston.  In my latest podcast, Bob tells his story and discusses how he leveraged his expertise in tax to make this adventure become a reality.

If you are invited to be a guest on a podcast:

• Limit your use of words or verbal fillers on this list.
• Avoid using combinations of these words.
• Understand that podcasts are not live and can be edited after the fact.
• If you feel compelled to say one of these words while pausing to think, try breathing instead.

Blogging is a great way to capture ideas in a highly readable format.  Good blogging is generally brief but frequent.

Admittedly, I haven’t focused that much on my blog in recent years (it was more of a passion when I launched it in 2005); but when I’m at my best, I post to Counsel to Counsel several times a month.  Blogging is a way for me to gather my thoughts about career and marketing issues facing the legal community.  In a small way, blogging also helps me to raise my visibility in the legal community.  Read more…

If you are in a job search, time can seem to stand still.  You send out resumes and hear nothing.  Or you get an initial response indicating that the employer would like to invite you in for an interview.  They say they will get back to you to schedule a time to meet; but weeks go by and you don’t hear anything.  And then there is the lag time after you actually have the first meeting.  You have a good first round of interviews, you connect with the interviewers, you send out thank you notes and you wait.

While it is a good idea to do periodic follow up during these lulls, it is also important not to be overly persistent.  You want the employer to know that you remain interested. But you don’t want to project an air of desperation.  If you don’t hear anything after an interview, wait at least a few days before following up again.

If you are working with a search firm, often your recruiter can be the squeaky wheel that helps keep the process moving forward.

The reality is that by the time an employer is looking to hire, they are already busy.   That is why they need to hire.  So their sense of urgency and your desire to have some closure may be in conflict (at least in the short term).

From the candidate’s perspective, you have had the interview and you are ready to move to the next step. Your job search is at the top or near the top of your priority list.  While employers are interviewing because they have a staffing need, the day to day demands of the business make it hard for the employer to move quickly.  In a law firm, for example, there may be several partners and associates involved in the search.  Each one of them may have client demands that make it hard to focus on the new hire.

Sometimes, the hiring process can be hampered by the schedules of other candidates.  You are in the mix, but in an attempt to be thorough, the firm wants to interview a number of candidates.  Each of these candidates may have their own scheduling conflicts.

I call this phenomenon “living on candidate time”.  Be aware that in all likelihood, if you are actively interviewing, your sense of time may be different than the employer’s sense of time.  The employer is likely to move more slowly than you would like.

If you remind yourself of this, then it may be easier to deal with the stress of not knowing.  You may still end up waiting a lot; but at least you’ll know that delay is not necessarily a reflection on your candidacy.  It’s just the reality when you are living on employer time.