Lawyer Layoffs

It’s getting ugly out there for lawyers. A profession that has been fairly well insulated from economic downturns in the past is now being roiled with unprecedented numbers of layoffs. Each day brings more bad news. I check sites like “Above the Law” or “AmLaw Daily” and read headline after headline of white shoe and [...]

Unprecedented Times

These are unprecedented times, at least for my lifetime. From where I sit at work, I can hear the hedge fund guys speak with our clients/investors and with other hedge funds. Things are bad across the board out there. Sure, the DJIA falls quite a bit each day, but there are so many other gauges [...]

Complying with Compliance

During my last year of law school I interviewed with one of the bulge-bracket investment banks in New York for a position in the regulatory compliance / anti-money laundering department. While I was hoping to get a job with a law firm, I was at least interested enough in exploring other opportunities. At the time, [...]

Markets to Meetings

With all of the despair and uncertainty in the U.S. financial markets, it’s kind of nice to be here out of the country, unaffected. I hear from friends that New York is depressing right now. From this morning’s headlines, more carnage and consolidation is to come and no one’s job is safe. Thankfully I am [...]

Dead to Them

I’m sitting in my almost-bare office with little work to do. It’s as if I am dead to my firm. Last week I gave my two-week notice and little by little the law firm has passed me by. I thought I was a part of a team and that by announcing unexpectedly that I was [...]

No Risk, No Reward

No risk, no reward. That’s the idea behind many of life’s decisions at home and in the boardroom. But how much risk is prudent? Should a steady job and paycheck be given up in the pursuit of one’s own interests and desires? Should a family be asked to sacrifice because of a potential opportunity that [...]

Chasing Japan

For three years in law school I toyed with the idea of spending one semester in Tokyo at the Temple Japan Law Program, a specialized study abroad program through Temple University in Philadelphia. I requested the application more than once. I personally reached out to the director of the program and made sure I met [...]

Using Soccer to Get The Point Across

I recently read of an interesting survey of 23,000 employees across various industries regarding employee engagement and understanding of their business’s direction. Some of the results were as follows:

Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
Only 20 percent were enthusiastic about their team’s and [...]

Execution

In the book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, the authors describe seven essential behaviors in creating an environment of execution. The seven behaviors are: know your people and your business; insist on realism; set clear goals and priorities; reward the doers; expand people’s capabilities and know yourself (as a leader). These seven behaviors [...]

Uncertain Times

Traditionally, January has been a good time for lawyers to leave their jobs and begin looking for positions at other firms. This is true for many reasons, but primarily because very little movement takes place at firms between August and the end of the year; lawyers wait to receive their end-of-the-year bonus before they are [...]

Running From The Law?

I’m not sure we as a country can stomach eleven more months of this type of aggressive campaigning and media frenzy. The fighting going on now between potential candidates is all occurring within the same party. Just wait until the two front runners emerge in the coming weeks and begin attacking the opposing party. I [...]

At the Closing

As a transactional lawyer, I occasionally have the chance to attend closings with our clients. Prior to working at a law firm I constantly heard lawyers say that they were “busy with closings” or that they “couldn’t get anything else done until the closing” or even the ubiquitous, “I met him at a closing once.” [...]

Attention Employers

Loyalty is not what it used to be. Of course, one should be loyal to his or her spouse, family and friends, but the days of continual loyalty to his or her workplace for an entire career belongs to a bygone era. When older generations refer to my generation and younger, a constant complaint seems [...]

The Current Legal Job Market

Last week a Wall Street Journal front-page article created quite a stir. The story addressed the current state of the legal job market and the disparity in salary and opportunities between those who attend top-ranked law schools and those that attend lower-ranked law schools. Having not attended a top-ranked law school (usually meaning top 14), I [...]

Manhattan Criminal Court

I was reminded today why I chose to go into private law practice over working for the government. I stopped by to visit a friend and former supervisor of mine this afternoon that happens to work in the Manhattan Criminal Court, that decaying, filthy-looking building at 100 Centre Street just off of Foley Square in lower [...]

The Business of Law Firms

Since before starting law school, I have been interested in law firms as businesses. When I had downtime at my college job, I used to surf the websites of law firms to view the practice areas, office locations, and profiles of the various attorneys on each site. I was impressed with various firms long before I [...]

Risk Takers

I made a new friend yesterday. He moved into our apartment building (and thus into our ward) and it turns out that we have quite a bit in common. In speaking with him yesterday, he explained to me the numerous ideas he has. He’s excited to be in New York around so much talent and various opportunities [...]

Am I Really Worth $230 An Hour?

A recent study conducted by a law school ethics professor reported that most lawyers “pad” or increase the time they bill their client (click here for article). Padding, as the practice is known, can involve either doing unnecessary or trivial work and charging the client for it or it can involve bumping up the actual amount of time that they [...]

Project Project Finance

I’ve been doing some Project Finance work the past few days and find it to be quite interesting, if not very complicating. People often hear or read of large project finance deals going on somewhere in the world, but few know the number of parties and the amount of work that goes into making the deal [...]

A Busier Schedule

My absence in writing this past week can only be blamed on a busier work schedule.  I even left work once at 11:00 pm last week. Leaving at 11:00 pm was, however, earlier than anyone else I was working with on the other side of the deal. So life in this practice group is not [...]

To: JDs Without A Job

Below is the email I wrote to a 2L from my law school who contacted me regarding a job.
Thanks for the e-mail. I started here at this firm in September and am in the corporate and securities group. Although the firm does have a small trusts and estates practice, I have no idea what their [...]

Law of Not?

It’s interesting to think that I am working as a lawyer. I don’t even feel like I use, let alone know the law. After being immersed in laws and rules through three years of law school and a grueling two months studying for the bar exam, I am now free from cases and the minutia of [...]