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Chief
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Any family lawyers here?
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Rising Star
Listings are only one part of a jobsearch. You need to reach out to alums and network and do informational interviews. The more you talk to practicing lawyers, the more you'll understand the local job landscape. Note that mon and pops are a hard way to build a practice. You might want to refine your goals to get transactional experience.
That’s what I’ve been doing so far. COVID has them all pretty sparse on both their own work in the area and opportunities though.
Would you include internships and in-house internships viable experience? I worked every year in internships and clinics while in law school but I’m starting to get a feeling those experiences are no longer viable including my current pro bono clinic work.
I was literally just in your EXACT position last year and trust me, I know how incredibly difficult it is to find them (especially in this environment). I was top 20% at a sub-100 ranked school and ended up getting me 7 biglaw interviews and landed a spot doing corporate M&A at a v10 firm in my ideal city.
What I recommend you do is put together a list of all the law firms in all cities of choice that have a transactional practice. Once you have that list, you can narrow it down by focusing on firms with newly opened offices, that have had a lot of associates depart recently, or that have gotten busier during this time and might need to expand their pool of associates (I realize that given the environment these may be few and far between but just some general considerations).
Once you know what firms you want to interview with get on the website and try to find anyone with a connection (same law school, home state, undergrad, etc) and email them with your resume/background/interest in their specific practice area and ask if they’d be willing for a quick phone chat to discuss their job. Most people are surprisingly receptive to talking to students and if you have even a small connection most people will want to help you out. After the call tell them you know the environment is tough and you realize they likely already have an incoming class but that you’re really eager to do this type of work and would love if they could pass your resume along to HR to be considered if a spot opens up.
You’ll get 100 rejections, 50 unanswered emails and 20 referrals to other attorneys/firms to contact that may be hiring (definitely follow up), but if you’re lucky 1 or 2 of them will have you in for an interview. Cast your net wide and be friendly and appreciative and always follow up and be persistent (even if you feel annoying).
I graduated from an unranked school and essentially networked (bulldozed) into a bunch of internships and opportunities. After I graduated, while waiting for bar results, I went to some of the people I interned with (for free) and asked if they needed help. That gave me the chance to work on my skills — didn’t pay the bills, but it’s something I could do and put on a resume.
What kind of transactional work are you looking for?
Startups, small and mid sized business consulting (compliance, filings, contracts) and for IP mostly copyright and trademark concerns (merchandise, etc.) There aren’t many postings. Plenty for litigation, but not much for this stuff even on firm websites.
Trying to find a place that serves local mom and pop shops. Found a few but they’re not hiring. I’m already involved with the local clinic but I’d like this to be what I do daily and not just during clinic days. No in-house openings anywhere either but been keeping an eye out on job boards.
Easiest way is to get into biglaw and then go from there. Everyone I know (myself included) that does purely transactional is in biglaw or local biglaw equivalent firms. Easiest that way to transfer in-house too
There are plenty of small firms started by biglaw attorneys that do purely transactional, or a mix of lit and transactional. Reach out to them and maybe you can get in doing half and half, and then slowly cutting down on the litigation part more and more over the years.
Chief
F big law. Look at the small to mid size shops that have a niche transactional area cornered. I found mine on a law school job bank
Chief
People don’t forget folks they like, keep your head up
If you’re interested in commercial contracts, look for contract negotiator/contracts specialist roles at big companies. Some require JDs, some are JD preferred. Plenty of lawyers who don’t want to litigate & don’t go big law go this route & you can make a good living.
I’ve done some informational interviews and shadowing with contract managers and it’s definitely not something I’d want to do. I have a lot of transactional in-house and clinic experience from law school which was where I shined so I was hoping to continue that path but things just didn’t worked out as planned.
I’m in big law and do IP transactional (90%): I was hired to do Trademark/Copyright prosecution. To be clear, I applied for “trademark attorney” but I think I’m classified as “IP&Tech Attorney” internally/externally.
My job functions now include: Trademark/Copyright prosecution, IP due diligence, tech transactions, and supporting the litigation teams with prosecution/transactional questions.
A note on transaction Trademark/IP attorney: It is terrible for billing. Since most things are piece-meal, you end up billing .2,.3, etc for most things. Yet you lose a lot of time switching tasks.
So I started working with tech transactions people (IP focused) so that I can actually bill time. I think it’s a good mix. You could go for something like that?
Pro
That’s the sort of work I’d love to do if I can find it in my area. I love doing risk assessments, trademark prosecution, drafting and advising on licensing agreements, etc. Not really worried about making money so long as I enjoy my work, unless it was a situation where you were pushed to meet unreachable billable requirements.
Also interested
It’s cyclical. If you had checked immediately prior to COVID you would have seen quite a few transactional positions open. Look at gobiglaw.com
I figured COVID would have thinned out listings. Even doc review responses are sparse right now for me. There’s no listings for my area sadly. Regardless, I don’t think I qualify for biglaw.