Attorney Career Change, Career Options for Lawyers, Alternative Careers for Lawyers, Alternative Careers for Attorneys, Career Coaching for attorneys

Branding — Are you a better candidate than another lawyer?

A key to success in marketing is to have a clear brand strategy — to create an understanding in the marketplace about how your product is different from, and a better value than, another similar product.   Without a clear brand strategy, you will not be successful in the marketplace. This holds just as true for job seekers as it does for consumer product marketers.

Back the day, when General Motors was the leading car company not only in America, but in the world, each product line had a unique brand strategy. Chevrolet was the budget model. Pontiac was the fun, sporty model. Oldsmobile was the conservative model for our parents. Cadillac was for the rich. Over time, GM amalgamated all of its models, and you couldn’t tell a Chevy from a Pontiac or an Olds, and even Cadillac dabbled with less expensive models (remember the Cadillac Cimmaron? It was just a re-badged Chevrolet!). They were all parity products build on the same platforms, with the same look and same engines.

The result? Market confusion and a loss of brand identity. So what happened? GM lost its supremacy in the world market. It is not even America’s #1car maker anymore. Pontiac and Oldsmobile have disappeared. GM simply couldn’t compete against the other car makers whose products were easier to define and whose value was more apparent.   The same concept holds true for attorney job seekers. How is an employer supposed to tell the difference between legal job applicants who have the same experience in the same practice areas?  They can’t. This makes it much tougher for an attorney to prevail against the competition in the job market.

I have spoken with literally 20,000 attorneys over the last 20 years. That’s about 20 per week, week-in and week-out. They all claim to have the same core skills.   What are you good at? Write down 5 or 6 things on a sheet of paper, then come back to this blog article. (roll theme music from “Jeopardy) … OK, ready? Here’s what many of you will have said are your core talents:

1. research

2. writing

3. analyzing

4. problem-solving

5. advising

6. learning new things quickly

7. negotiating

If this is the best you can come up with, you need to do better. There is hardly a lawyer out there who cannot say that they lack any of the talents listed above. You can’t triumph against your competitors if you are making the same claims as they are.

I am not saying that these are not valuable skills. But you need to offer more. A Chevy and a BMW both have four tires and a steering wheel, and both will get you to work in the morning — but which would you rather drive?  If you think you are a BMW-level attorney, are you positioning yourself in the market as a Chevy?  If so, start doing some serious thinking about your brand strategy so you can gain a competitive edge in the hunt for a new job.

The Top 10 Reasons Why Lawyers Seek Alternative Careers – Part 2 of 2

The law can be a wonderful profession, and indeed it is for many people. But it can also be draining. After doing something for 10 or 15 years, some people are simply ready for a change. Nowhere is it written that you need to stay with one career your entire life.

My colleague, Dr. Edward Speyer, and I have interviewed more than 20,000 attorneys and counseled more than 2,000 lawyers on re-careering and job search issues. Based on our nearly 19 years of experience, we have compiled The Top 10 Reasons for Wanting to Leave the Law. Last  week we covered the lesser five reasons — now here are the biggies!

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Alternate Careers Lawyers Should Consider

With the economy being what it is these days, more and more lawyers and law firms are feeling the pinch. Business in many segments has simply dried up. This may mean seeking a new position or career somewhere else, or it may mean you’ll need to pick up some additional income. Here are three of the easier ways to accomplish this:

1. Freelance legal work. If you’ve just been laid off from your big firm, or if you have a lot of extra time on your hands, and you do not want to make an actual career change, try doing freelance legal work. You can get in touch with the contract legal staffing or legal temp agencies and get on the list for document review or other short term assignments. You can also contact law firms that do not provide services in your practice area and work out a split for business that they can refer to you. You can also approach law firms to take on some of their over flow work.

2. Freelance writing. There are all kinds of journals, papers and magazines that could use a fresh legal perspective – your legal knowledge could earn you money, without having to do any actual legal work. Write up some query letters and send them off to as many editors as you can find. Publications like Writers Digest and Editor & Publisher will have names of companies. You can also do a Google search for publications. Lawyers doing freelance writing work can command a high per-word fee.

3. Consulting work. This is one of the easiest moves for a lawyer to make. There are lots of businesses, both large and small, that are in need of legal consultants. This work can often be rewarding, and is a fantastic way to break up the monotony of day-to-day legal work. As an added bonus, contracted consultants usually are able to charge significantly more per hour than their salaried counterparts. The hardest part of making this kind of career change is finding the actual consulting gigs, so having above average networking skills are important.