Associate Lateral Advice (pt 1 of 3)

WWL recently interviewed a Nevada legal recruiter named Jordan Ross of Ross Legal about the process/perils of attorneys attempting a lateral move between firms.

Jordan Ross is the only Nevada member of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants. He is the principal of Ross Legal Search, LLC and previously served four years as a Vice-President with John Kurosky & Associates, a legal search firm in Irvine CA.

We put a call out to the readers for questions and apparently numerous attorneys are itchy to move to another firm because we received numerous questions to put to Mr. Ross. So, here, for your reading pleasure, is part 1 of 3 of our interview with Jordan Ross:

1. What does a firm look at when evaluating a lateral applicant’s work experience?

Before they look at experience they will look at two things that hang around your neck for years: your school rank and your class rank. Fair or not, that’s a fact of life, so get over it. They’re not so much an issue in Las Vegas as the BigCities (New York, LA, Chicago, etc.) but as more domestic firms are acquired by regional and national firms, it’s becoming more important. Relevancy and focus of practice area is next. If you’re trying to get a job doing something you haven’t before or you’ve been a generalist, you’re in trouble. This is why you have to be focused on a practice area. Then they want to see writing samples for litigators and transaction lists for transactionals.

2. Is the size of the applicant’s previous firm taken into account when deciding whether or not to grant an interview?

Yes, but not always. Far more important is what I politely call the three sectors of private practice; General Commercial, High Volume Commercial and Consumer. It’s very hard to move from one to another. It’s all about billing rates; that’s how they really judge a law firm. General Commercial firms are distinguished by doing high billing rate work for commercial clients and the wealthy. High Volume Commercial firms are doing various forms of liability defense, mostly for insurance companies on behalf of commercial clients at heavily discounted rates. Consumer firms do work for the average (i.e., not wealthy) individual clients; mostly plaintiff litigation, probate work, family law and criminal law. General Commercial firms usually are not going to be interested in your experience if it’s High Volume or Consumer. They just won’t.
Don’t try. Suck it up.

3. How much weight does experience with depositions, mediations, arbitrations and trials play into the consideration to grant an interview?

Plenty, especially jury trial experience. But never think for an instant that it’s a substitute for high quality writing skills. Real life law is not like television; if you can’t write a decent motion or brief, you won’t work at a top firm.

4. Is there an average amount of experience that an applicant should have before applying to large/regional/national law firms (in terms of years as an attorney and/or work performed—depositions, hearings, trials)?

Ideally you should have summered during law school and gone to work right out of law school. Before you move to any law firm of any size, you should be three years into your first job and at least two years into your current job. Unless there was a situation such as a layoff, you really want to keep the number of jobs before partnership to two; no more than three. Suck it up.

5. Do firms like it when applicants are assertive and call to follow-up on resume submissions or an applicant’s status post-interview?

In theory, yes, but keep it down to one telephone call and an e-mail or two. If you have a recruiter, leave it to him, until you get to the final stages of a placement.

6. Should an applicant target firms with which she has had a good previous experience?

At the risk of sounding biased, which I am, don't use references or other
acquaintances to obtain an initial interview. It places a double obligation on
them. Use your recruiter to make the presentation and secure the first meeting.
Let your friends be a reference, not a door opener. That being said, any firm
you’ve had good contact or experience with is good place to start with.

7. What are the essentials an applicant needs to know to make himself more marketable to larger firms?

Class rank, school rank, writing skills, billing volume, happy clients, selling.
Decent upscale social skills don’t hurt. The rest is fluff. There are no swell
groovy hippie marketing books or seminars with magic bullets. You have to
produce or perish.

[Our thanks to Mr. Ross for donating his time and wisdom to the readers of the blog]

[look for pt 2 and 3 of the interview next week]