Pack a Professional Punch with Your “Thank-Yous”
Embrace opportunities to write and send thank-you letters that are spot-on in terms of tone, context, and substance.
Author: Erin Binns
Author posts
Five Ways to Seize Every Opportunity
Access to the inner workings of any legal employer is a gift. Take full advantage of every opportunity you have to be inside an organization as a law clerk, volunteer, or intern. While there, arm yourself with curiosity and observe, inquire, and evaluate. The observations you make and the people
Been There, Done That—Stand Out with Practical Training
Are you making choices that will keep you competitive in the job market? Legal employers are calling for “practice-ready” graduates who can hit the ground running when it comes to performing on the job. The economics of practice disfavor past-used training structures where new attorneys tagged along to depositions, meetings,
How to Rethink Interview Preparation for Alternative Careers
There’s nothing new or trendy about law students searching for careers outside the traditional parameters of practice. Lawyers are everywhere, and we have been for a long time. We infiltrate industries, organizations, government agencies, and companies. It makes sense when you consider the fundamental skills and strengths that are honed
Refining Your Career Aspirations
What do you plan to do with your law degree? This question evokes tremors of anxiety in many law students because either they don’t know or they thought they knew but their interests are now expanding rather than narrowing. Relax. You don’t need to define “forever,” today, but you do
Interview Attire - Spend Smart to Look the Part
By Erin Binns. Grab your wallet . . . it’s time to invest in your career. Qualifications and academic accomplishments alone don’t generate offers. You need to look the part, too. Legal employers value appearance and will judge you for it. If you opt not to wear a business suit to
What Employers Really Value
Grades—they don’t matter as much as you think they do. Despite all the hype (especially at this time of year for 1Ls) most employers don’t rely exclusively or even heavily on academic achievement when making hiring decisions. Yes, some employers are persnickety about grades and use class rank as a
Stop Squandering Opportunities - Master the Follow-Up
Students listen to lawyers present on career panel. The end. Students attend class with lawyer as guest presenter. The end. Students attend a Student Bar Association event and mingle with lawyers. The end. Does your story end with being in the same room as a lawyer and never following up? Ignoring chances to
Rejection Hurts, the Opportunity That Comes with It Shouldn’t
Rejection is something most students only flirt with from afar before law school. A legal job search tends to change that. Few students navigate a legal job search without becoming intimately familiar with the “thanks-but-no-thanks” letter. And then there are the silent rejections, which are arguably even more painful. You
Navigating the Mentor-Mentee Relationship
Depending on the relationship and the moment, they may serve as your cheerleader, coach, reality check, therapist, and/or teacher—and who doesn’t need one or all of those from time to time? I find four compelling reasons, among many others, that make it particularly important for you to establish mentor-mentee relationships: The
LinkedIn® or Locked Out
You’ve heard it before. The decisions you make on social media sites can damage your professional reputation. Career services offices remind new law students every fall: Be careful. Keep it private. Shut it down. Don’t offer photographic evidence of your lapses in judgment. All sound recommendations. But the
Resourceful Grads Find Great Work
If you’re looking for stories that graduates aren’t getting legal jobs, hit the blogs. But I recommend instead considering what you can learn from the gainfully employed. Their stories don’t seem to populate the Internet to the same degree. As noted by a working grad, “When would I have time
Resumes - Creating the Best First Impression
Résumés have two stand-out moments in the application process. The document’s first job is to generate an interview. The second is to serve as a springboard for questions and conversations during the interview. Approach résumé creation with an eye toward both. All formatting and content decisions should be filtered with
Networking by the Numbers: 4 Flights, 2 Airports, 1 Day, 8 Contacts
The necessity and benefits of networking are espoused by career planning professionals from sea to shining sea. Likely to student annoyance at times, I weave the wonders of networking into nearly every student communication and meeting. Because I promote networking so ferociously, I took advantage of a personal trip to
Silence the "What Ifs" When Deciding to Accept a Job Offer
Getting a job offer feels fantastic. Deciding whether to accept it doesn’t always produce the same euphoria. Your legal training has taught you to assess situations from every angle, to analyze, to overanalyze, and to respond to questions with “probably yes” and “likely no” rather than definitive yesses and nos.
Own Your Job Search with Planning, Persistence, and Determination
Planning, persistence, and determination are essential ingredients in every legal job search. Jobs—summer or permanent—aren’t secured by luck. Even the right-place-at-the-right-time stories have a backstory of someone seizing an opportunity, cultivating a relationship, or taking initiative to be in that right moment. Like the first-year
Above and Beyond Will Set You Apart
“There just isn’t a wow factor.” This wasn’t quite the reaction the student was going for when she submitted her résumé for a job. The student’s grades were impressive—top 15th percentile—so she was befuddled when she didn’t even get an interview. In following up with the employer, the student learned
Hang On! Legal Careers Can Take Wonderful Twists and Turns
I have a Peanuts© comic sitting on my desk where Charlie Brown asks Linus if he knows what he wants to be when he grows up. Linus responds quite simply: “Outrageously happy!” Worrying about class rank, student loans, and job searches makes it easy to forget that the goal of
Managing Your Contacts and Applications
A law student walks into a bar and sits down by a lawyer. The lawyer says to the student, “I was expecting your call a few weeks ago.” That’s it. There’s no punch line to this guy-walks-into-a-bar story. Ryan, the student, had proactively sent a résumé and letter
Stats and Grads: You Can Learn from Both
NALP—The Association for Legal Career Professionals—has been compiling and analyzing placement data for law graduates since 1971 and is the go-to source for employment statistics and trends. So it’s noteworthy when NALP publishes an article called “The Legal Job Market for New Graduates Looks a Like it Did 15 Years
Punctuate Your Exit with Gratitude and Good Judgment
You have things to do before you go. You need to wrap up your summer internship or job with the same attention to detail and deliberate actions that got you the position in the first place. Your departure should be thoughtfully orchestrated. Recommendations, references, and offers can hinge on your
Jobs: Present Yourself Like a Lawyer, Not a Student
You’re not a law student anymore. Ok, technically you are. But for students, if you are in your final semester of law school, it’s time to adjust how you view and market yourself. Legal employers aren’t hiring you to serve as an understudy. You’re being cast as a
Jobs: Uncovering Résumé and Skill-Building Opportunities in Today's Market
Legal recruiting isn’t business as usual, and it hasn’t been for a while. In February 2009, I wrote a column for this publication titled, “how to get good legal experience in a Bad Economy.” Two years later the column’s advice is still relevant as the residual effects of
Gear up for Your Spring Job Search
Take advantage of winter break—when casebooks aren’t competing for your time—to establish the foundation for a spring job search. There’s much you can do now to ready yourself to roll out a strategic and effective plan. Nurture existing relationships. Toasting old acquaintances
Jobs: Use Cover Letters to Tell Compelling Stories of Fit
Pair your résumé with a fabulous cover letter and employers will take note. Cover letters, or letters of interest, shoulder important responsibilities in a job search. Cover letters allow you to pique employer interest differently from résumés. Résumés are lists that tersely detail your professional and academic credentials.
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