Dumbing Down Your (Legal) Resume

So the question of whether to dumb down your resume came up on the Career Track chat on washingtonpost.com. Specifically, the question was whether to leave off advanced degrees.

Here’s the short version of the debate:

I was having trouble getting a job and so began leaving off my MA thinking that employers would think I’m too young to have one (I was 23). Long story short, after doing so I received 5 offers for interviews and got a job. Few months later I told my boss about that casually and he laughed and told me I never would have been hired if he knew because he would have thought I’d want too much money. Unfortunately our society punishes very educated individuals sometimes.

When you are transitioning as a lawyer to nearly any other career field, you’re going to have to tackle this beast: Employers fear that you’ll want too much money, simply because you have a JD. I definitely ran up against this. It is now easier to at least get some interviews, now that I am four jobs deep in publishing—I’ve been out of law practice so long, even the more clueless employers probably figure I can’t easily go back to practicing law.

But boy, I wish I could have figured out a good way to leave off that JD when I was transitioning out of law. Even with functional resumes, which I think are a must for career changers, there’s going to be this three-year gap between college and your first real job (assuming you went full-time to law school. If you went at night, it would be much easier to leave off the JD). I suppose if you listed summer jobs during those years, it might not catch a hiring manager’s eye.

[To digress: that’s the weird thing about resume reviews. On the one hand, all the “experts” say that potential employers only spend 60 seconds, max, looking at a resume. And yet, a tiny typo toward the bottom of the page is supposedly the kiss of death. The truth is somewhere in between.]

One strategy I did use with some success is to include a professional summary at the top, emphasizing things like analytic skills, strategic thinking, quick learner, etc. Next, I had a section called “Representative Achievements,” which discussed results and specific projects, not job titles. So something boring to other attorneys, like supervising a document review, was retooled into “Supervised team of attorneys and paralegals to review 100+ boxes of documents in three months, coming in before deadline and under budget.” Definitely corporate-speak, but much better than legal-speak for job-hunting purposes.

Anyone else with some good ways to emphasize transferable skills and downplay degrees? Please post in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.

 

Depression and Its Toll on Lawyers

The California Bar Journal is running an article “Depression and Its Heavy Toll on Lawyers,” in its May 2008 issue.

Here are some of the more eye-popping stats:

• According to a Johns Hopkins University study, lawyers suffer the highest rate of depression among workers in 104 occupations.
• A University of Washington study found that 19 percent of lawyers suffered depression compared to 3 percent to 9 percent in the general population.
• And a University of Arizona study of law students found that they suffer eight to 15 times the anxiety, hostility and depression of the general population.

So no, we’re not imagining that often our fellow lawyers really are more hostile than, say, rocket scientists (who are at least as smart as lawyers, but in different ways and vastly different work environments).

One of the lawyers’ assistance program licensed clinical therapists, Tim Willison, quoted in the article makes this observation about lawyers and emotions: “Emotional stuff is seen as a weakness.” Cf. my post on A Law Student Tells It Like It Is.

The great thing about this CA bar article is the news that Daniel Suvor, a George Washington Univ. 3L who is chair of the ABA’s Law Student Division, is spearheading some focus in law schools about the problem. Hallelujah! (Or, Alleluia if I’m singing in the choir, but I digress.) I’m a big fan of early disclosures, generally, and law school seems like an excellent time to alert future lawyers that they are going to have to deal with depression, either their own or their colleagues’. I can say from experience that dealing with depressed lawyers can drive you crazy and into depression yourself.

Funniest part of the article:

. . . Willison points out, the initial reaction from a lawyer to [the idea of attending] group support is often incredulous: “‘You want me to sit in a room full of attorneys and you tell me that’s going to help?’ I have to offer some reassurance.”

Heh heh heh.

 

A Law Student Tells It Like It Is

My new hero for the day is Amelia Rawls. She is a 1L at Yale (don’t roll your eyes yet), and wrote a piece that appeared in today’s Washington Post about whether Ivy grads are, well, nice people or not. Now, she isn’t making a completely broadbrush statement that everyone who attends an Ivy isn’t nice. Instead, she observes:

I’m saying that sometimes some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to “do what is right.” . . . It is these people, though, who often climb America’s ladder of success. They rise to the top, partly on their own merits yet also partly on the backs of equally deserving but “nicer” people who let them steal the spotlight.

Being a graduate of a nice, small, regionally strong liberal arts college, and then having gone on to a top 10 law school, I have experienced precisely what Ms. Rawls describes. I have to admit I was shellshocked when I got to law school at how really un-nice most of the folks there were. Not that everyone I went to college with was nice, but I was (and remain) deeply dismayed by how little value lawyers place on things like kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and having a moral compass in the face of large quantities of money. There’s such a contempt in law for those so-called soft skills.

Soft implies weak to most lawyers and leaders of corporate America, which is a shame for so many reasons (see my friend Quinn’s discussion, for instance, of soft skills in the workplace). People who possess those skills can make a high-pressured workplace more bearable, and thus more productive. Unhappy people don’t do their best work. I know, I know, many unhappy lawyers think they do, because they are working so hard. But half of their labor is pouring enormous energy into getting themselves to do something they dislike, shouting down their own values and senses of self. That is a huge freaking lot of work, I can say from personal experience. But think about it–it means at best, only half of an unhappy’s person true potential is showing up at work. Yikes! for that person, even that lawyer, and for society as a whole.

 

The Blinders You Rode in With

When I accepted that first job that wasn’t practicing law, I got a lot of questions. A big one was: Well, what can you do if it doesn’t work out? Isn’t that kind of a dead-end job?

(For those of you who have not committed my CV to memory, my first post-law job was as a reporter and editor for a legal publishing company in Washington.)

The truth is, I didn’t have pat answers for such questions. Hell, I didn’t even have non-pat answers. But I did know that practicing law was making me miserable pretty close to 24/7, and I thought that this new direction might at the very least improve that to a mere 8 hours a day of misery, if it turned out I didn’t like it. I was plenty scared, but the alternative, continuing to work in a law firm, seemed an even scarier choice.

So I jumped.

And it turns out I was often miserable in that job, but not for reasons I would have predicted. Having a highly dysfunctional boss will make you miserable in any job you have. (Of course, many lawyers are pretty dysfunctional, so sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the solution to your particular miserable situation is switch bosses/firms or switch careers altogether; more on that in another post.)

On the other hand, I very frequently enjoyed the hell out of my new non-lawyer job. And because I enjoyed it, I soaked up a lot of knowledge about the legal publishing business, and publishing in general, which helped me down the road. Because of course there was another path I could follow that would lead me out of there into something better.

What’s behind the question, “what will you do if it doesn’t work out?” is a wheelbarrow-load of fear. Lawyers in firms, particularly, cart these huge, honking blinders around with them about career paths, and how you must not deviate from the safe, known path if you want to achieve career success. So if you jump out of the law firm world and it’s not to government or in-house, your legal career is shot, absolutely forever.

Just to be clear, that idea is complete horseshit.

There are always options. If I had really wanted to, I know I could have found some small law firm to work at after spending two years at a large legal publisher. Or I could have cozied up to some of my more favorite sources at non-profits and found a gig as a staff attorney. I’m not saying I would have snapped my fingers and had it happen, but those certainly were some options I had when I wanted to leave.

But I loved writing, so I decided that I was in publishing. And for several years thereafter, got a lot of questions about whether I thought I would go back to practicing law. People believe what they want to believe about your background and experience, but I have managed to convince enough editors, etc. that I did not expect to be paid as an attorney that they gave me a chance and hired me.

There’s a quote that I love for this situation and many other trials and tribulations during the alternative legal career search:

Leap, and the net will appear.

—John Burroughs

 

Friday Files: Poor Choice of Words

So I’m at lunch with my two sisters, celebrating the 40^th birthday of one of them. Being girls, we of course must all go to the loo together after the meal. Fate smiled on us, giving us three empty stalls and indeed, an entirely vacant loo. So much the better to keep gossiping and catching up.

While still engaged in my personal business, I hear one of my sisters coughing. It’s a really hacking, smoker’s kind of cough. Since one of them is in between rounds of trying to quit smoking, I naturally call out, “Hey, you gonna live or what?” No response, but the loos are flushing and sinks are running.

I step out of the stall to see both sisters nearly doubled over, hands over mouths. One of them whispers, “That wasn’t us coughing!” And then they bolt.

Greeeaaaaaat. I’ve just insulted a total stranger. And since I can’t get my hands washed and bolt myself before my victim appears from her stall, I decide I have to act like an adult. I’m the oldest, after all.

As she approaches the sink, I turn to her and see a wispy-looking woman in her early 60s, I think. Not a lot of gray, but she definitely looks a bit fragile. Oh, even better, I’ve insulted someone my mom’s age. Super. So I suck it up.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. I thought you were one of my sisters, and I was just joking with her.”

“Well, that’s OK,” she replies, in a soft, quavery voice. “I had breast cancer a while back, you know. The cancer came back in my lungs.”

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear that.”

At this point, I’m really hoping someone will bust in to rob the restaurant and coincidentally shoot me, as well. Really, can this get any worse?

(Note to self: Remember what they always taught in trial practice about asking one question too many?)

The lady in question continues, “Well, I’ve had chemo, and they say it went pretty well, but it’s not going to get rid of the cancer completely.”

The blood drains from my face, my brain stops working, and I can only manage to stammer, “Well, gosh, best of luck to you,” before finally bolting myself.

The sibs are in the restaurant lobby, and I give them the highlights. Confronted with the horror of what I’ve just said to a poor lady dying of lung cancer, we do the only rational thing: Go to the outside entryway and start laughing so hard we nearly pee ourselves.

And then stagger toward the car, whilst carrying on a bit more.

Then the 37-year old baby hisses, “She’s coming out!! Stop laughing!!”

Ah, to be 10 again.

 

Get On Your Hobby Horse

It used to be normal, even expected, for adults to have hobbies. You know, something you pursue just because you like it, not because it could land you a job, a client, or whatever eventually. But in our mad-rush existence, hobbies are one of the first things to go. And that’s more than a shame, it’s smothering some important part of you.

Just so you don’t think I’m all talk and no walk, I’ll let you in on a little recent secret: I joined my church choir, just a few weeks before Easter. Yes, roughly the definition of insanity, in hindsight.

Because, you see, I did not know how to read music (and mostly still don’t). And oddly, choir has changed since I sang in the children’s choir and the Christmas pageant 30-some years ago. Even in my small church, with its 20-member choir (on a good Sunday), we sing in parts, sometimes a cappella, and sometimes even in Latin. Holy moly! It’s been the rough equivalent of 1) learning to drive, 2) on a stick shift, while 3) on the interstate. I have somehow managed to survive.

(By the way, check out Eddie Izzard’s take on Church of England/Episcopelian music here. It’s within the first two minutes. At about 6:30, the hilarious Cake or Death segment starts. If you haven’t seen that, your life is not complete.)

But here’s the funny thing: even though I’m constantly fluffing notes, breathing in the wrong places, and generally making an ass of myself, I’m having a total ball. I’ve always liked singing, but never took it seriously.

“Seriously” possibly is the wrong word here, because it implies a lot of judgment that I just don’t have about this. I don’t care whether I’m the star or in the upper tier of singers, or if the choir director thinks I’m any good (OK, I do care if she thinks I’m totally tuneless). I’m just doing this because I like singing, and it feels really good, down to my soul, to be part of making something beautiful.

That’s what I would urge you to find for yourself, as you search for career alternatives: find at least one thing to do simply because it gives you pleasure. Not everything we do has to lead to a career or other tangible payout. Your days as a lawyer are filled with bottom lines and end results; balance out your life with something that offers nothing except the satisfaction of doing it. It makes all the rest of the crap along your career search path so much more bearable.

 

Not Dead (Yet)

For the 3 or so of you still reading, no I have not died. Or abandoned this blog. I’ve even been thinking a lot about lawyers, as I’ve been busily interviewing some intellectual property attorneys for a profile series. One of those “Top Brilliant Amazing Lawyers You Can Never Be” kind of deals.

Yeah, it’s a real sop to my ego. Not that most of the profilees aren’t perfectly pleasant to talk to, and stunningly successful, but if I hear one more story of how perfect a lawyer is at his job, I’m gonna hurl. (And sadly, most of the profiles ARE of men. Sigh. That’s another rant entirely.)

So in case you were missing the lawyer lovefest here, I promise I’ll be back soon.

 

Goldilocks and the Legal Career Coach

You may have heard that you shouldn’t sell therapy short just because the first therapist you chose wasn’t a good fit. The same goes for legal career counselors—the first one, or two, may not be right for you.

You know I’m a fan of career counselors and therapists. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that I had such a bad reaction to the first career advisor-type I paid to see, I was in tears by the time I hit the lobby. He had a JD, wasn’t a bad guy, and he gave what, in hindsight, was decent advice. But he had a curt manner when I needed reassurance and endless hand-holding, and I felt utterly overwhelmed by it all. Like going to see the drill sergeant when you needed the school nurse.

The next guy had a better bedside manner, so to speak, and I saw him several times. He wasn’t an attorney. We worked on interviewing techniques and LOTS of informational interview stuff. I think of him as the informational interview crack dealer. It was, again, decent advice, but I was really too depressed to go out and convincingly sell myself to a bunch of strangers via artificial networking. In hindsight, I’m not sure he understood that most attorneys wanting out of law probably suffer mild to severe depression. He hadn’t worked in law, after all.

Then there was the one who had a kind eye, a soothing voice, and legal credentials that beat mine all to hell. Yet there he was, doing career coaching and counseling. As it turned out, he and I both were INFPs on the good old Meyers-Briggs typology chart, so we really clicked. He was the one whose advice and help (plus my own efforts, of course) got me out of law practice. He was just right.

And that’s the lesson for today: keep going until you find the one that clicks, who gets you. Not that you won’t have to explain yourself, but when you do, this person will say something that makes you think, “Yeah, she gets it. She totally gets it. And I feel comfortable telling her more.”

 

Friday Files: Lawyers and Carolyn Hax

Here’s another one of my guilty addictions: Carolyn Hax’s Tell Me About It columns and online chat. I’ve been reading her since her very first column appeared in the Washington Post. Strictly coincidentally, her column started about a year before I left law. I remember reading the column in the firm library on Fridays. Good times, good times.

Friday’s chat had a bit of discussion about the plight of lawyers who don’t like their jobs, courtesy of some guy who was thinking of law school, mostly because he didn’t have any better idea of what to do with his life. Apparently, Carolyn got inundated with responses from lawyers shooting down that idea, because she posts one (sadly, not MY pearls of wisdom, but ah well):

 Law School: I’m sure you’ll be inundated with disgruntled-lawyer responses, but please, PLEASE let someone else tell San Francisco that law school is NOT the panacea to career unhappiness. As someone who thought law sounded interesting (wrong, for the most part) and felt pressure to have a “professional” career (needlessly), I can assure you that being trapped at an all-consuming BigLaw firm just to pay my $70K of law school debt is not so great. Please reconsider going, particularly if you’re not super enthusiastic about being a lawyer. Plenty of other careers exist that cause far less debt and ultimate workload.

Carolyn Hax: We are (inundated), and I will (let), so thanks. The rest of you, get back to work–this can’t possibly be billable.

There’s no real lesson here, cause if you’re here you already know that. Just thought I’d share. If for no other reason than to lead you to the bit about bridesmaidzillas and the cosmic justice of making them wear the dress they picked for their bridesmaids, to your wedding.

 

Finding a Career Coach

Some of the best money I ever spent was on a career coach who helped me actually get out of law. I’d been wanting to find that miraculous alternative legal career, but I kept getting in my own way. Having someone who could help me sort out what was fact (I’m highly creative) from fiction (no one would want to hire me for that) was invaluable, because I’d certainly lost any objectivity and self-esteem about my good qualities over eight years of practicing law.

So how do you find a career coach or counselor? And is there a difference?

There is a difference. A coach does not delve deeply into your childhood or diagnose mental illness, for starters. Coaches help you see yourself and your goals more clearly, and help you find strategies that will help you, specifically, to get there. Coaches are “doers,” if you will, while career counselors are more “thinkers.” They help you think about your problems, see some recurring patterns that aren’t helping you out and root out why you keep doing them, and figure out what your interests are.

Of course, these lists are not exhaustive or necessarily exclusive of one another. One thing coaches should not do, unless they also have a degree and licensing to support it, is help you address mental illness like depression. Coaches don’t have the tools or training for treating illness.

So how do you even find a coach or counselor? As always, referrals are best. A colleague of mine at work recommended my coach/counselor. She, though, had seen his ad in Legal Times. So obviously, ads are another source of information. Of course, there’s always Googling or other internet searches.

There are tons of coaches who will work with you remotely, but I don’t recommend that if you’re feeling fragile in the slightest. It’s not that such coaches aren’t great at their job, but too much of communication—something staggering like 60%—happens non-verbally. It’s too easy to hide your feelings on the phone, or misinterpret something your counselor says. And, so many lawyers struggle with depression that I would try to find a coach who also has her or his LISCW, aka social work degree. Many certified counselors also do coaching, and can be very good at both. Or, a good coach can and should refer you to a counselor if they suspect depression, bipolar disease, or any other psychiatric malady. Personally, I like one-stop shopping, as it were, but you may not.

Unlike plumbers or decorators, you aren’t going to get a reference list of happy clients from either a career counselor or career coach—protecting a client’s privacy comes first. So if you’re on a listserv where it might be appropriate, consider asking for recommendations (for your friend, of course) or digging through the archives.

Be prepared to try out a few coaches/counselors. Chemistry is important here. More on that next time.