Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

If you are an attorney, what does it mean to be a professional?  What is the borderline between zealous advocacy and uncivil and obstructionist behavior?  My guest in this episode, Don Frederico, has a lot to say about that subject. 

Don is a lawyer I met over 30 years ago when I began my own legal career at Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education.  At that time, Don was a litigation partner at the law firm McDermott Will and Emery. Today, Don leads the Class Action Defense Practice at Pierce Atwood. 

I met hundreds of lawyers during my days at MCLE.  While many of our volunteers were true experts in their fields and generous with their time in helping to educate the bar, there were some standouts.  Don was not only someone who was willing to step up when asked, but he was an enthusiastic participant and someone who I thought really modeled true professionalism in the way he treated everyone.

In this episode, I speak about Don’s career, how he has found career satisfaction beyond serving clients, and what he thinks it means to be a professional in the law.

On this podcast, we talk a lot about relationship building.  Doing great work should always be your number one priority as a lawyer.  But successful careers are not built on merit alone.  The people in your network are critical.  Whether you are thinking about an in-house move or growing your law practice, relationships matter….a lot.  In this episode, I speak with someone who is a master at relationship building.  Ben Sigel is a lawyer who has been a litigator at several mid-sized and large firms, Director of Client and Community Relations for an AmLaw 100 firm, a Candidate for the United States Congress in my district, and President of the New England Chapter of the Hispanic National Bar Association.  He is someone who actively works to build communities and a natural connector. He is also someone with deep roots in both the LatinX and Jewish Communities.

About a year ago, I began working on a diversity initiative with ProVisors, a great business networking group that I belong to. I talk about ProVisors a lot on this show (and to anyone who will listen). When I was thinking that I wanted to build deeper ties in the Hispanic legal community, everyone said Ben is someone I should meet.

And so we had coffee in the lobby of his office building and he taught me something very important.  If you want to build connections in a new community, you need to show up.

Since that time, I’ve seen Ben show up over and over and over again.  He cares deeply about building bridges and he embraces both his LatinX and Jewish heritages.  Ben and I will be talk about his philosophy about bringing together constituencies and what it was like to run a congressional campaign during a pandemic. .

The New Year is finally here and without getting into it, let’s just say that many of us are happy to welcome 2021.  A new year brings hope, a chance for a new beginning, and if you are in private practice, a great opportunity to ramp up your marketing and business development. So today, that is what we will be focusing on: how to grow your practice in 2021, and what it is like to work with a business coach to achieve that goal.

For this episode, I have invited Alay Yajnik, award-winning business coach and founder of Law Firm Success Group. Alay's firm helps law firms owners across the country make more money, get better clients, and take more vacations. He hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, and we met through our business networking group ProVisors. I’ve already appeared as a guest on his podcast  the Lawyer Business Advantage. 

Additional Resources

• Can Hiring a Coach Enhance Your Practice and Your Life?
• How Coaching Can Help Attorneys Increase Career Satisfaction-Stephen Seckler on the Legal Toolkit 
• Coaching to the Next Level-My Guest Appearance on the “Be That Lawyer” Podcast 

For the last 10 months, most interviewing has gone on-line.  Zoom interviews are the norm right now and new hires are even being on-boarded virtually.  While the world will eventually shift back to in-person interviews, Zoom, WebEx and other virtual platforms are likely to continue to play a significant role in the hiring process.  The convenience of bringing together parties who are in different locations and have different schedules, it high.  As we enter 2021, I decided to that updating my interviewing tips was long overdue.  In this episode, I share with you the latest tips for on-line interviewing.  Click here to read my more comprehensive interviewing guide which covers both live and virtual interviews.

I also invite you to listen to a conversation with my former colleague Amy Levine.  Her advice on interviewing is pre-COVID; but her tips remain very relevant (Nailing the Job Interview).  And as always, I welcome your emails and phone calls if you would like to discuss.

It has been a hard year for most of us.  But we have a lot to be thankful for as well.  In this special edition of Counsel to Counsel, here is my list of things to be thankful for.  What's your list?  Practicing gratitude is one way to provide solace to ourselves.

Many lawyers choose public service early in their careers.  In a public agency, attorneys may find that they are getting more responsibility than they might get at the same stage in private practice.  Assistant district attorneys, for example, find themselves trying cases almost from day one.  Lawyers working for agencies that regulate industry may be given a lot more responsibility for crafting policy than they might otherwise be exposed to as an associate at a law firm.

But salaries in the public sector generally lag far behind salaries in private practice and for many lawyers, the career path often runs from government into the private sector.

In truth, there are many opportunities for lawyers who are further along in their careers to move in the other direction.  At the highest levels of government, politicians often turn to the most successful attorneys in private practice to head agencies or craft policy later in their career.  For these senior lawyers, it is a win-win.  It is a chance to give back and find another burst of career satisfaction at a time in life when the economics are less important.

My guest in this episode, Rich Johnston, did just that in 2015.  After a long and successful career as a litigator at Wilmer Hale (a firm that was Hale and Dorr for most of his professional life), Rich was brought on by Maura Healey, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, to be her Chief Legal Counsel.

In this episode, I speak with Rich about his path to the Attorney General’s Office, what he loves about public service, and advice he has for lawyers thinking about making a move like this after a lengthy law firm career.

Related Episodes

• Episode 22-From Litigation to Public Service to Government Affairs with Former U.S. Senator Mo Cowan
• Episode 35-A Career in Electoral Politics-A Conversation with Senator Becca Rausch
• Episode 14-From Biglaw to Government to In-house

Many lawyers who start out in private practice don’t expect to stay in a law firm setting.  Sometimes the move in-house is planned.  At other times, moving in-house becomes a more realistic option when partnership doesn’t seem likely. And after moving in-house, things can also change quickly.

My guest in this episode, Bill Gabovitch, has a lot to say on the subject of adapting to change.  Bill began his career in private practice, experienced a layoff, ended up in-house and found his role in-house changing rapidly one day.

Today he is General Counsel of Primark US but he previously worked in-house at Staples and for three major firms in Boston.

Bill is someone I always run into at non-profit events.  He is one of the most civically engaged lawyers I know and someone who has a deep commitment to diversity and inclusion.  Bill and I discuss his career path, how he has pivoted several times in his career and the role that his non-profit work has played in helping him to find more career satisfaction.

Lateral partner movement is alive and well in the practice of law.  While partners and practice groups were changing firms with increasing frequency in the past decade, the pandemic has not really slowed down the process.

There are many reasons why law firm partners seek out greener pastures. In this episode, my guest Susan Mendelsohn, talks about some of those reasons.  But what makes a lateral move a success?  Why do some partners make a lateral move and stay for years while others quickly discover that another lateral move may be in the offing.

Susan Mendelsohn has a lot to say on the subject.

Susan Mendelsohn has been recruiting in the legal space for over 20 years. While she is based in Chicago, she serves clients throughout the United States and not only does recruiting, but like me, Susan also spends a portion of her time on coaching.

Other Resources

Episode 12-The Lateral Partner 20 Questions For Law Firm Partners

Many attorneys I speak with think about transitioning to an in-house role at some point in their career.  For some lawyers, the path to in-house is planned and deliberate.  But for many lawyers, in-house opportunities arise through serendipity.  That is what happened to my guest in this episode.

Jonathan Moll, had a long and successful career in private practice.  But by developing an expertise in education, a great in-house opportunity arose with one of his clients and he seized the moment.

Jonathan and I  talk about what drew him to education and how early on, he developed an early niche in crisis management.  He also talks about taking advantage of the opportunities that come your way and what he is doing now in the latest stage in his career.

Jonathan is someone who has always been very generous to me with his time.  He has always been willing to be a sounding board and I’ve benefited a lot from his career wisdom.  He currently serves a General Counsel to Arx Urban, a real estate development company run by his two sons.

In this episode of the Counsel to Counsel podcast, I am joined by a talented communications expert, Charlotte Dietz, Founder of Speak Well Partners. Charlotte is a communications and public speaking coach and business story strategist.  She shares some great insights into how we can all do a better job communicating in a virtual environment.

Since March, most of us have been getting a crash course in how to use Zoom (or other virtual platforms). In some ways, Zoom is really just another phone call and most lawyers are very accustomed to speaking on conference calls. But Zoom has its own nuances and as many of us are learning, there are pluses and minuses of being able to connect visually from a distance. In the early days (we back at the start of the pandemic), many people were experimenting with virtual backgrounds, learning to unmute themselves (and at appropriate times, shutting off the video camera.) Some of us have tried to improve the optics through better lighting and even through better equipment. 

But the main issue that many of us are grappling with his is how to make a real connection with other professionals when we are not in the room with them.  This is true when we are one-on-one, and it is even more true when we are in a group or even delivering a presentation.  These issues are challenging when we are in person.  But in a virtual world, it is that much harder to be “heard”!

Charlotte has some great tips to help us communicate more effectively on Zoom or other virtual platforms.

Additional Resources

• If You Don’t Like Sports, Try Becoming a Sports Fan Fan
• Be Interested; Be Interesting
• Getting the Most from Networking Meetings and Troikas [podcast]
• Zoom is a Great Tool for Relationship Building—But Use it “Right”