Counsel to Counsel - Career Advice for Lawyers

In this episode, I'm very pleased to welcome back Kevin Agnew. I spoke with Kevin just about a year ago about his career path. We talked about the career services program he runs at one of the largest firms in the world, and he shared many pearls of wisdom for lawyers who are navigating their careers in private practice. If you haven't heard it, you may want to go back and listen to Episode 83 first.

Kevin Agnew is Director of Attorney Career Services at Latham and Watkins, an international law firm with almost 3000 lawyers. He runs the firm's career design program and oversees the global Alumni Program. In a confidential coaching environment. He works with attorneys on the full range of career issues. Kevin created the program and now offers services to attorneys at the firm, firm alumni, and friends of the firm.

In this episode, we continue the conversation we started and focus more on what success looks like in private practice.

Additional Resources

• Episode 83-Career Services at Latham & Watkins-How One Law Firm is Creating New Models for Success
• Episode 91-Transitioning Your Legal Career to In-house and Beyond With Amy Katz
• Take Steve Seckler's career assessment and sign up for a complimentary discovery session
• Career Paths: Mapping Out Your Future (Program Notes from a Boston Bar Association Panel Discussion)

I really enjoy stories about lawyers who have taken their careers on a less traditional path. I especially enjoy speaking with lawyers who have done some very unlawyerly and more entrepreneurial things. At the same time, I'm always looking for guests who can speak to my audience about alternative ways to practice, particularly when it involves better work life balance. My guest in this episode, Erin Giglia, has deep knowledge about both subjects.

Erin practiced at several major firms in Southern California until she co-founded Montage Legal Group in 2009. Montage Legal Group is a nationwide network of experienced contract/freelance attorneys with impressive credentials from top law schools and training in prestigious law firms. Montage's attorneys assist law firms with temporary and substantive legal projects on an hourly basis, providing a cost-effective way to manage case overflow.

Erin talks about building her business. She also discusses how lawyers, particularly women, can get back into the work force after an extended break.

In this episode, I speak with Ben Sachs of the Landing Group. Ben is the author of a terrific new book entitled: All Rise-Practical Tools for Building High-performance Legal Teams.

In the conclusion of the book Ben writes: For many attorneys, the legal work is their comfort zone. They would rather be consumed by case law, deal papers, policy memos, or other traditional billable tasks then have to navigate a tricky issue of team dynamics or dysfunction.

In this episode, Ben addresses those issues head on and why good leaders need to change these attitudes. He also talks about his own alternative legal career.

Ben Sachs is President of The Landing Group. He is an expert in management, strategy, negotiation, and communication. He serves on the teaching faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law, offering courses on negotiation, public speaking, and legal ethics. Ben also provides consulting and training services for government and private sector organizations in the United States and internationally. His past clients cover a wide range of industries, from law firms to telecommunications providers to retail and more.

Additional Resources

• 15 Tips For Leadership Success
• Episode 80-Leadership for Lawyers-Moving Up in Your Law Firm or Corporate Law Department
• Episode 89-Carol Marzouk-The Executive Lion Tamer

In this episode, I'm coming off of a string of marketing successes. Therefore, instead of interviewing someone else, I've decided to share my experiences.

The Reader's Digest version is that most lawyers who achieve marketing success do so through a variety of channels. The important thing is to choose the channels where you'll find your clients and referral sources.

But it is equally important to choose activities that you like.

In the end, you won't be able to predict which ones will work and which ones won't. And that is to be expected.

Related Episodes

• Episode 100-Word of Mouth Marketing with Michael Katz
• Episode 79-Digital Marketing for Your Law Firm: Getting the Right Mix
• Episode 74-Turning Business Conversations into Business
• Episode 63-LinkedIn in 30 Minutes (with Kristyn Brophy)
• Episode 44-Getting the Most from Networking Meetings and Troikas

When I work with lawyers who are doing career exploration, I always encourage them to have informational interviews with attorneys who can give them some perspective. The lawyers who have the best career perspective are attorneys who have varied work experience. My guest, Linda Ricci, is an attorney who has A LOT of that perspective.

Linda Ricci is a partner with the law firm Greenberg Traurig which she joined in the Spring of 2021. Prior to that, she spent 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston.

Linda began her legal career with two federal court clerkships, worked for two other major law firms, and spent two years as in-house counsel prior to joining the US Attorney's office.

Today, she focuses her practice on white collar criminal defense, including matters related to corporate compliance, internal investigations, and government investigations.

I invited Linda to talk about the career lessons she has learned working in several public sector jobs, three different law firms, and a stint in-house.

Additional Resources

• Episode 78-Transitioning to General Counsel-Career Lessons from a Litigator
• Episode 50-A Late Career Shift to Public Service
• Episode 38-Breaking the Glass Ceiling on a Part-time Schedule

In this episode, Michael Katz, returns to Counsel to Counsel after a 3 year hiatus. In 2019, Michael and I spoke about how to use newsletters as an effective marketing tool. Check out Episode 29 of this podcast.

Newsletters have only grown in value, especially during the pandemic when in-person marketing went away.

As many of us have resumed in-person activities, however, live relationship building is moving back to center stage. Of course it never truly went away and Zoom made sure of that. But more than ever, we now have the chance to build strong referral relationships by participating in activities that we enjoy.

One of the challenges of relationship building is how to stay top of mind so that our prospective clients and referral sources will think of us when they hear about an opportunity that is right for us.

If you are like me, it is easy to deliver a lengthy discourse when someone asks what you do. In all likelihood, you do a lot of things. And some of those things are actually hard to explain.

While a lengthy discourse may be effective when you are making a closing argument in a $200 million dollar theft of trade secrets case, it's probably not effective for generating referrals.

So how do you make a lasting impression on someone so they will tell someone else to call you?

Michael Katz has some great tips on that very subject.

Michael Katz is an award-winning humorist and former corporate marketer. His company is Blue Penguin Development and he is founder and Chief Penguin. Michael specializes in coaching professional service firms and solos in improving their marketing.

Since launching Blue Penguin in 2000, Michael has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week Online, Bloomberg TV, Forbes.com, Inc.com, USA Today, and other national and local media.

He is the author of four books and over the past 20+ years has published more than 500 issues of "The Likeable Expert Gazette," a twice-monthly email newsletter and podcast with 6,000 passionate subscribers in over 40 countries around the world.

And he is someone I have learned a lot from through our business networking group ProVisors.

Additional Resources

• Episode 29-How Newsletters Can Set You Apart From the Competition
• Episode 74-Turning Business Conversations into Business
• Episode 44-Getting the Most From Networking Meetings and Troikas
• Making Introductions that Generate Referrals

The pandemic was a mixed bag for me. As some of my listeners know, both of my parents died of COVID in April 2020. While that was very sad, it wasn't tragic. My dad was 95, my mom was 94, neither suffered, and neither knew the other one was gone.

At the same time, the lockdown created some great new opportunities to expand my network both here in New England and throughout the country.

Zoom existed long before COVID. But going on-line in March of 2020 dramatically expanded my professional connections.

Through my ProVisors business network, I met hundreds of great professionals in every corner of the United States. I now coach clients in New England, New York, Texas, South Carolina, Chicago, California, and Seattle.

Beyond that, I've also met some other great people thanks to virtual platforms including today's guest Rudy Rivera. Rudy is Chief International Counsel at Fidelity National Financial. He has extensive international litigation and business experience in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

I reached out to Rudy after listening in on one of his live streaming presentations. The subject was leadership and Rudy and his guest did a great job of offering some very practical advice. I reached out to Rudy afterwards to thank him, and he responded right away. He suggested that we speak and soon after we did.

Since that time, I have listened in on a number of Rudy's shows, Conversations With Rudy Rivera, and we have spoken about his career, his humble beginnings, and what it is like to manage counsel around the globe. I thought his story would be of great interest to my audience.

In this episode, Rudy tells his story and offers up some great career advice for younger lawyers.

IMHO, the two most important words in the English language are "Thank You".

As lawyers, we can be stingy in offering thanks to our colleagues and the people who support our work. In addition, as we enter the holiday season and are thinking about showing more gratitude, now is a great time to start thinking about the changes we'd like to make in the coming year.

In this special addition of Counsel to Counsel, I share my thoughts for Thanksgiving in the run up to 2023.

The subject of attorney well-being is a topic of conversation at most major law firms today. Several years ago, the Report of the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being was issued by the American Bar Association, Conference of Chief Judges, and other legal organizations. It called well-being an essential element of a lawyer's duty of competence.

More recently, Law.com and ALM Intelligence conducted a survey of lawyers and staff members, mostly from large firms, has found that anxiety, depression, and isolation remain at concerning levels. And about 74% of the respondents thought that their work environment contributed to their mental health issues.

When asked about the factors that had a negative impact on mental health, top concerns were always being on call, billable hour pressure, client demands, lack of sleep, and lean staffing.

In January of 2020, The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts created a Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. And there are similar initiatives in jurisdictions all over the United States.

But what are the core issues that these committees are addressing? Why are businesses paying attention to the subject? How are these issues playing out in a corporate environment and what can the legal community learn from corporate America.

Mari Ryan has thought a lot about well-being in the workplace and while her focus is not the legal community per se, she has worked with companies in many industries to address these issues.

Mari Ryan is a workplace well-being strategist, speaker, and award-winning author. Mari works with organizations to create workplaces where both the people and the business thrive. Mari is the author of award-winning book The Thriving Hive: How People-Centric Workplaces Ignite Engagement and Fuel Results.

Additional Resources

• 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 33-Mindfulness, Biofeedback and the Practice of Law
• Massachusetts SJC Standing Committee on Lawyer Well Being (there are a lot of other resources on this site)

Is it possible to practice in the public interest at a major law firm? How can you build a legal career working on complex commercial real estate deals while serving a higher purpose?

David Abromowitz has been doing that for almost 40 years.

David Abromowitz is a real estate attorney who is nationally known for his work on complex development and finance deals. A major focus of his practice has been on affordable housing and economic development. He also has significant experience in workforce development issues supporting youth opportunities.

David is a longtime partner in the law firm Goulston & Storrs, where he headed up the firm's real estate group and its pro bono committee. For the past dozen years he has been moving more into the non-profit and political realm.

Most recently, David launched the New Power Project, a national effort supporting people who've grown up in underserved communities run for local and district elective office. Before that he served six years as Chief Public Policy Officer at YouthBuild USA.

He is a past chair and founding member of both the Lawyers' Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness and of the American Bar Association's Forum Committee on Affordable Housing and Community Development. He also served six years on the board of Mass Development, the Commonwealth's economic development agency.

And he recently wrote his first novel!

Additional Resources

• Episode 21-Creating a Mission Driven Law Practice
• Episode 41-Using Pro Bono to Build Your Skills and Enhance Your Career Satisfaction in a Time of Crisis