Building a Better Legal Profession's Guide to Law Firms : The Law Student's Guide to Finding the Perfect Law Firm Job

by Building a Better Legal Profession; Irene Hahn

• ISBN13: 9781427798381
• ISBN10: 1427798389
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-07
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing

Summary

The law firm hiring process is something that the vast majority of students at top law schools will experience during their 2L year, but it's also something of a mystery. In contrast to the lively availability of guidebooks to the first year of law school, books about law firm hiring are almost non-existent, which leaves students with the burden of figuring it out on their own. Unfortunately, law firm hiring isn't set up in a way that's conducive to helping students make informed decisionslaw firm interviews are easy and amount to informal chats about the candidate, each of the firms follow the same protocol of flying their best candidates out for second-round interviews and wining and dining them at the same fancy restaurants, and the glossy brochures project the same polished image. So the choice between firms is often arbitrary, and based on subjective criteria such as the relative prestige of the firm. Unfortunately, many students get to law firms and regret their choicefor a job with starting salaries of 165k a year, firm attrition rates are startlingly high, with 40% of young associates leaving the firm within 3 years, and 62% by the end of their fourth. Some of those students didn't have a clear idea of what firm life would entail. Some of them just picked the wrong firm. Clearly a little more guidance upfront about choosing a firm could save students a lot of trouble later on.Beyond what BBLP publishes online, Building a Better Legal Professions's Guide to Law Firms gives career guidance and stories from the professionals already at the legal firms reviewed. It's truly a balanced report of factors needed to make an intelligent choice of where to spend your career.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. v
A Note on BBLP	p. viii
Introduction	p. xv
Debunking the Vault Myth	p. xviii
The State of the Legal Profession	p. 1
The Modern Law Firm: A Brief History	p. 3
Going to Heaven: Trends in the Modern Law Firm	p. 16
Finding Your Perfect Law Firm Job	p. 23
So What Do You Actually Want to Do?	p. 25
So What Is It Like at Law Firms Anyway?: An Insider's View	p. 28
A Day in the Life of a Summer Associate	p. 29
A Day in the Life of an Associate	p. 33
The Law Firm Hiring Process	p. 38
Technology and the Legal Profession	p. 76
When Law Firm Interviewing Goes Wrong	p. 80
How to Distinguish Between Firms	p. 83
Choosing a Practice Area	p. 85
Choosing Sides: Litigation or Transactional Work?	p. 94
Practice Area Overview	p. 101
Location, Location, Location: Geographical Differences Between the Major Domestic Legal Markets	p. 133
Getting a Law Firm Job Abroad	p. 142
What Money Can't Buy: Quality of Life in a Big Law Firm	p. 146
Choosing a Best Law Firm for Women	p. 160
Diversity Initiatives	p. 164
Coloring Expectations	p. 174
Finding an LGBT-Friendly Law Firm	p. 177
Evaluating Pro Bono at Elite Law Firms	p. 182
Law Firm Partnership Models	p. 194
Maximizing Your Associate Experience	p. 201
Using Your Summer Experience to Evaluate a Law Firm	p. 203
Maximizing Your Opportunities: The Multi-Year Hiring Trajectory	p. 205
How to Succeed at a Law Firm	p. 208
Report Cards and Rankings	p. 215
The Foreign Legal Markets	p. 315
How We Did This	p. 325
Notes	p. 329
Index	p. 336
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