Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

It has been over a year since I finally left the legal recruiting business to focus exclusively on coaching. Since the market has changed a lot since early 2022, I thought this would be a good time to invite someone who is still in the business to talk about the state of legal hiring. I also thought this would be a good time to revisit the topic of legal recruiting in general and who can benefit from working with a recruiter.

Emily Witt is a legal recruiter with over 20 years of experience. She began her career as an in-house recruiter for Wachtell, Lipton in New York. In 2016, she moved over to the agency side and today, she places attorneys in both law firm and in-house positions. In particular, she enjoys focusing on women's advancement in both tech and healthcare.

Emily hosts the podcast, Beyond the Legal Lens, that helps open the door to jobs in tech and health law. She also has a platform, the Advocate's Mic, that highlights mission-driven attorneys who are creating impactful initiatives in their communities.

Emily shares her wisdom on the state of legal hiring in 2023 and offers some tips about working with a recruiter.

In the last two episodes of Counsel to Counsel, I spoke with a lawyer who left corporate practice for management consulting and a trial lawyer who has built a trial consulting business but continues to try cases.

In this episode, I speak with a corporate lawyer who cut his teeth at international law firms, went in-house, moved into a business role, and is back again at an international law firm.

Carl Berglind is a Shareholder with Greenberg Traurig's Health Care & FDA group. He is based in Denver, Colorado. He focuses his practice on M&A and other complex transactions in the healthcare industry, representing both sellers and investors.

In his business roles, Carl served as the CEO of an early stage animal health / AgTech company. He was also VP of M&A of a private equity backed ophthalmology platform, and Senior Vice President of Strategic Transactions at a Fortune 500 diversified health care services company.

Carl was born in Sweden, and grew up in New York, Copenhagen, and Brussels. He speaks fluent Swedish and conversationally fluent French and Danish. He uses his background by working with international clients in addition to his domestic health care transactional practice.

Additional Resources

• Episode 113-From Litigation to Trial Consulting with Marc Diller
• Episode 112-From Corporate Counsel to Management Consultant-Leveraging Your Legal Career with David Lesser
• Episode 96-David Abromowitz-Practicing Law in the Public Interest at an AmLaw200 Firm

In Episode 112 of Counsel to Counsel, I spoke with David Lesser, a corporate lawyer who transitioned into management consulting and quit his day job as a corporate lawyer.

In this episode, I speak with a litigator who has transitioned into jury and trial consulting while keeping his day job as a litigator.

Marc Diller is the managing partner of Diller Law, LLP. He concentrates his practice on plaintiff side wrongful death and catastrophic bodily injury cases. As a partner with Total Trial Solutions in Massachusetts, he also acts as a trial consultant to other well-respected trial attorneys.

Marc serves on the Executive Committee for the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorney and as chair of the Judicial Administration Section Council of the Massachusetts Bar Association. He has been involved in some of the largest jury verdicts in the state of Massachusetts.

Related Episodes

• Episode 112-From Corporate Counsel to Management Consultant-Leveraging Your Legal Career with David Lesser
• Episode 104-Freelance Lawyering and Returning to Work with Montage Legal
• Episode 56-Practicing Law with a Side Hustle ("Mindful Return")

When lawyers approach me to speak about their careers, one question they often ask is "what else can I do with my law degree".

The answer to that question is of course complex. As lawyers, we are trained to spot legal issues, evaluate risk, document deals, and litigate disputes. Most employers are not actively recruiting lawyers to do anything other than practice law.

But that is not to say that lawyers are destined to be lawyers for eternity. As a lawyer, you do develop transferable skills that can make you valuable in other ways.

The challenge, of course, is to figure out what that transition should look like and how you can best execute a job search when your resume speaks largely to the legal work you have done.

One approach to find a bridge. Look for opportunities in an industry that you are already familiar with. Another approach is to take the experience you have in doing certain types of work and find something that leverages that experience.

That is what my guest, David Lesser, did after a long and successful career as a corporate and finance attorney.

David spent 17 years practicing in several large firms; but for the last several decades, he has run his own business consulting firm. He and I discuss how he made that transition, what were some of the challenges, what lessons he took from the practice of law, and what advice he has for anyone thinking of moving out of private practice.

David Lesser is the founder and managing partner of the Klarian Capital Group in Chicago. He provides an array of management consulting services to small and middle market companies. He helps his clients with operational, financial, and strategic planning issues.

I recently met Dave at a meeting of our ProVisors networking group and we soon discovered that we both grew up in the same town on Long Island. We also figured out that he was the water polo coach of one of the kids in my grade. More importantly, I was intrigued by the fact that he actually enjoyed being a lawyer when he left the practice. He didn't run from the law.

Addition Resources

• Episode 104-Freelance Lawyering and Returning to Work with Montage Legal
• Episode 103-Ben Sachs on Building High-Performance Legal Teams
• Episode 56-Practicing Law with a Side Hustle ("Mindful Return")

Relationship building is the key to growing your practice. But who should you be focusing on when it comes to relationship building? In this episode, Steve Seckler explains how the acronym C.H.I.L.L. can help you to make smart choices in finding the "right" professional relationships to cultivate.

Additional Resources

• Episode 100-Word of Mouth Marketing with Michael Katz
• Episode 85-Peristence, Follow-Up, and Avoiding Fatal Attraction-Tips for Building Your Business Relationships
• Inexpensive Ways to Build Business Relationships

Like most lawyers, I went to law school because I wanted to enter an honorable profession. I wanted to have a career where the emphasis is on intellect and not on business. Not long after graduation, I realized that law IS a business and if you want to be successful, being a great lawyer is not enough. You need to learn how to run your practice efficiently. You need to learn how to manage people. And you need to learn how to sell your services.

If you can master those skills, your chances of success will greatly increase.

As I've noted many times on this program, sales is one area where many of us feel uncomfortable. As attorneys, we are supposed to be above that. People should hire us because we are good at what we do.

In reality, that is not the way the world works. Just like practicing law requires a unique set of skills, so does selling our services.

In this episode of Counsel to Counsel, Dominic and I discuss the business of law and some of the ways we can be more successful in our sales process.

Dominic Grew is the Founder & Owner of Elevate Business Coaching, LLC. He is an expert in business management and business development.

Prior to opening Elevate, he spent more than 25 years working internationally in the insurance and investment management sectors. As a former COO for Global Business Development, he learned how to scale to operational excellence and to prioritize and execute growth initiatives for complex and competing practice areas.

Today, as Founder of Elevate Business Coaching, he partners with law firms and their lawyers to build, grow, and manage thriving practices. Dominic's tools of choice are coaching, training and facilitation. He prides himself on bringing an outside perspective to the business of law, teaching attorneys to work smarter rather than harder to accomplish their business goals.

Additional Resources

• Episode 100-Word of Mouth Marketing with Michael Katz
• Episode 74-Turning Business Conversations into Business

This episode was recorded during Well-Being Week in Law 2023. In Massachusetts and around the country, there are a lot of programs being offered to get lawyers thinking about the many mental health challenges that are widespread in the legal community. This particular week was designated to align with Mental Health Awareness Month which is May, and many organizations ran workshops and gatherings to talk about depression, substance abuse, anxiety, stress and a host of other topics.

Underlying many of these issues is having too much to do and too little time to get it done. Many lawyers need tools for effectively managing their time and dealing with overwhelm.

In this episode of Counsel to Counsel, I spoke with Sarah Tetlow of Firm Focus who gave some great tips on delegation, dealing with interruptions, and generally managing our time more effectively. Sarah is an expert on the subject.

Sarah is an experienced productivity consultant, trainer, and international speaker for attorneys and other busy professionals. Through one-on-one consulting, strategic planning, workshops, and group trainings, Sarah works with attorneys, law firms, and busy professionals to find personalized ways in which to manage one's day with a proactive and focused approach.

Sarah is also the creator of the ARTT® Email Productivity system and course which she discussed in this episode.

Through Sarah's passion for focused work and her unique and sympathetic coaching approach, she helps her clients change their behavior and reduce their stress and anxiety.

Additional Resources

• Episode 97-What Law Firms Can Learn From Corporate America About Well-Being
• Episode 70-Shailini George on Doing Well and Being Well in the Law
• Episode 64-Building Your Practice and Your Management Skills with Mindful Communication
• Episode 57- Billable Work v. Investment Hours (Dr. Sarah Reiff-Hekking on Time Management)
• Episode 37-Managing Anxiety in a Time of Crisis

In this Episode of Counsel to Counsel, I'm bringing you the feed from Steve Fretzin's great podcast, Be That Lawyer.

Steve is an outstanding business development coach for attorneys. He is an author and friend who has taught me a lot about BD coaching.

In this episode, Steve interviews me about why coaching can be a great tool to help lawyers achieve higher levels of career satisfaction and marketing success. I talk about one of my favorite topics: why lawyers need to wear a different hat when they are not giving out legal advice (and why that can be hard for some attorneys.)

Steve has been a guest on Counsel to Counsel and this is my second time as a guest on Be That Lawyer. Steve has also been great about inviting me to participate on his panel of attorney coaches called Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner.

He is a practitioner of co-opetition and very generous with his time.

Additional Episodes

• Steve Seckler: Coaching to the Next Level (on Be That Lawyer)
• Episode 44-Getting the Most from Networking Meetings and Troikas (Steve Fretzin on Counsel to Counsel)

I don't spend a lot of time talking about technology on this podcast. But I use technology all the time to manage my business and to increase my marketing efficiency. In fact technology is a critical reason why I am able to operate as a solo and while I don't have to outsource much of my own marketing.

While I haven't focused on technology on Counsel to Counsel, my interest in technology is actually high. And when the next shiny object comes into my consciousness, I'm often intrigued.

In general, I'm not an early adopter. I'd rather let others do the beta testing. But in the four months since we heard about ChatGPT, I've been meaning to give it a try. And this month I finally did. And what I discovered blew me away.

So I figured this was a good time to invite back Jared Correia, a legal tech guru who gave me my start in podcasting 5 years ago. Jared was last on Counsel to Counsel in 2020 when he spoke about podcasting as a marketing tool. You can hear him on Episode 34.

Jared has also been kind enough to have me on both of his great podcasts, The Legal Toolkit which is sponsored by the Legal Talk Network, and the Non-eventcast Podcast hosted by Above the Law.

Jared Correia is the founder & CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, which provides business management consulting to attorneys directly, and through partnerships with bar associations. He is also the cofounder & COO of Gideon Software, a technology company that offers chat-based intake, qualification, scheduling and document assembly services to law firms.

And he was a pioneer in legal podcasting.

Jared is all about helping law firms improve their operations and grow their businesses. Part of that includes helping lawyers be more effective in leveraging technology. He's been a huge help to me as well when I have technology questions.

Today, Jared will give a quick overview of ChatGPT and how it can help you streamline your marketing. And while I have him here, I'm going to pick Jared's brain about other marketing.

So today will be a high level overview of the tools that you should have to ensure marketing success. You should listen to the Non-Eventcast if you want to get a lot more depth.

Additional Episodes

• Episode 34-Podcasting as a Legal Marketing Tool -Jared Correia on Counsel to Counsel
• How Coaching Can Help Attorneys Increase Career Satisfaction-Stephen Seckler on the Legal Toolkit
• Referral Marketing and Marketing Technology-Stephen Seckler on the ATL's Non-Eventcast

Coaching is a field that has exploded since I graduated from law school in the late 1980s. There are now life coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, marketing coaches, career coaches, and coaches like me who borrow a little from each.

Coaching is about achieving your goals and moving past roadblocks that are getting in the way of your success. A good coach is a sounding board and holds you accountable to your stated goals. But not every coach uses the same tools or focuses on the same things.

My own focus is helping lawyers to stop thinking like a lawyer when they are not giving legal advice.

In this episode, I speak with a career leadership coach who takes a different approach from my own. She talks about her approach to attorney coaching, why attorneys make good clients, and how she helps lawyers manage their energy to move towards their goals.

Emily Hirsekorn is a certified career leadership coach who works with attorneys. She speaks regularly on authentic leadership, work-life balance, career fulfillment, confidence, and energy management.

After earning her JD, she represented educational institutions in employment law and special education matters. She then left the practice to conduct anti-bias education, and soon after, moved into law school career development at the University of San Diego where she worked for six years.

In 2020 Emily launched her coaching business and now lives in her hometown of Kansas City with her husband, two children, and two rescue pups

She is passionate about disrupting outdated legal industry norms, advancing women in male-dominated industries, anti-bias education, and animal rescue.

Additional Resources

• Energy Leadership Assessment (mentioned in the episode)
• Emily Hirsekorn's Career Accelerator for Lawyers Who Lead