Using and Building Your Social Capital Correctly to Boost Your Attorney Career

Research (Bourdieu, 1986, Coleman, 1988) shows that “achievement within the bar is directly and heavily influenced by an attorney's membership in organizations, networks of friends, family, community members and colleagues, or professional activities outside of one's workplace” (Dinovitzer, 2006). This entire range of human resources is clubbed together as the ‘social capital' of an attorney. The question as to who would win the tourney for law firm partnership is ultimately decided by the differences in social capitals of attorneys, when others vying for the same position have similar social backgrounds, academic credentials, or gender.
 

The positive or negative impacts of your social capital depend largely on how you build and maintain ties with your social networks. This is why it is necessary to understand how social capital can be built and maintained ‘correctly' to boost one's career, in contrast to allowing social networks and social capital to build up haphazardly.


Most modern attorneys are quite aware of social networking and social capital. However, almost all of them believe that just keeping on increasing contacts and networks would yield something of value. At least, the majority holds that increasing contacts is never of harm to any attorney. This is as far from the truth as it can be. An attorney is open to similar sociological dynamics as individuals in other professions seeking career growth. When it comes to social capital, what is proven to happen in other professions would also mostly hold true in the career track of an attorney, and research suggests that the outcome of social capital is not always positive.

The negative impacts of incorrectly built or received social capital

There is a myth that having a dense or closely knitted social network always helps to support career growth. In many cases, this is true. However, in his in-depth research Granovetter (1974) found that immersion in dense social networks restricts the information received by job seekers about new jobs and newly evolving opportunities. Acquaintances, rather than close friends, introduce greater information about career opportunities because the move in different social circles. So, the advantage is gained by individuals with weaker social ties when it comes to information about new opportunities, but individuals in dense social circles have greater support in accessing existent opportunities.

Both Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993) and Fortes (1998) identified the “free rider” problem in closely knit communities, where less successful community members place demands upon those who are more successful. While such demands help in the mobilization of social capital and contribute to the success of many immigrant communities, it is also the reason why many talented individuals in dense social networks fail to realize their potentials. Geertz's (1963) classic study of entrepreneurs in Bali found that ethnic businesses were bound by norms that expected them to assist community members turning ‘promising enterprises' into ‘welfare hotels.'

I think the above scenario is not unfamiliar to many members of dense social networks, though few care to identify such problems and aspire to rectify situations, as such corrective measures imply the loss of social comfort zones. However, this is needless fear as proven many times over. Nothing succeeds like success, and the same community that may turn its face away from you would accept you back and with better grace, when you succeed in your career.

For an attorney trying to establish himself or herself, it is necessary to determine when it is appropriate and affordable to abide by the norms of giving back to the community, and when it is advisable to detach one's self in order to succeed in individual career. It is necessary to understand when the demands of one's social network create negative influences upon one's own career, and also necessary to understand that a person can give back much more to his/her own community as a successful attorney, than as a failed associate.

Conclusion

By itself, social capital is neither positive nor negative as a resource; its value depends on how you convert it in order to successfully mobilize it as a resource. Unless you can identify valuable social capital, detach yourself from wasteful social capital, and learn how to convert social capital into a meaningful resource, the time you spend in building networks and maintaining them becomes useless.

Sometimes, social capital can also become a burden and drag down an individual under its weight – the number of people who found success after leaving behind their hometowns and relocating, aptly emphasizes this phenomenon. This is something one needs to be wary of, though social capital is usually helpful in the life of an attorney.