Year Graduated From Law School: 1993
Years Practicing Law: Two
Mindy Bass knew from the very start that she might not practice law. Like many recent college graduates, she thought a law degree would give her the credibility to pursue a variety of options. A psychology major at SUNY Binghamton, Bass always liked working with people. She thought law school would be an interesting path to furthering her career objectives, and entered Cardozo Law School in 1990.
After spending law school summers clerking for a judge and working for a small medical malpractice firm, Bass took a job with a personal injury firm after graduation. "I took the first thing that jumped at me," she said. "It was a big mistake." She left after about a year. "If I had really loved it, it would have looked good on my resume [to stay]." But her heart was not in it.
After a brief stint with a legal placement agency she was back in the job hunt again. "It turned out to be all sales," she said. Her turning point came when she interviewed with a law firm and, at the end, sensing her ambivalence, the interviewer told her, "You don't really want to work here."The interviewer then spent some time brainstorming with Bass, suggesting she do pro bono work and take continuing legal education courses.
"Everything that had happened to me pushed me further and further away from the law," Bass said. Ironically, what she really did not like about practicing law turned out to be the very thing she loves about the job she now holds at the Bar Association. According to Bass, she is making the equivalent of what she would make at a small law firm and the transition from lawyer to bar association executive wasn't very difficult. She had several transferable skills, including knowledge of the legal profession and the Bar Association structure, as well as the ability to relate to lawyers. She also was adept at program planning and had volunteered at the organization prior to her interview.
Working at a Bar Association
- Director, Programming
- Director, Continuing Legal Education
- Director, Bar Fund (fund-raising)
- Director, Community Outreach Programs
- Communications Director
- Meeting Services Director
- Staff Attorney
- Executive Director
But the turn the business took was somewhat of a surprise to her, as lawyer layoffs were to the entire legal community when they began. "What I do now didn't even exist when I was in law school. The whole concept of outplacement is really a child of the boom years of the eighties when the firms started to heavily leverage themselves and the one-to-one associate-partner ratio went out the window. And when they started to realize they created a monster that they felt very guilty about, that was when a couple of firms came to me initially," she said.
For a while, Kanarek and Shaw continued to do both recruitment and outplacement, but when Shaw left the business for personal reasons, and the need for outplacement grew, Kanarek focused exclusively on outplacement and consulting work. Her now solo outplacement business has continued to be very successful and has maintained the professional image that it started with.
Although Kanarek did not especially like law practice, and does not miss her days as a corporate associate, she has no regrets about having practiced law for several years before leaving. "I wanted to stay long enough to really feel like I had mastered things and that I was successful at doing it, even though I didn't like it," she said. "It was very important for me to get to the point that when I did leave, they would be sorry to see me go...I still have many good friends at the firm." The firm also remains one of her major clients to this day.
Kanarek, always an expert on legal market trends, is now using that knowledge to help lawyers identify potential positions. "A lot of my focus now is on longitudinal things, which is helping people to identify rapidly developing companies that may not have in-house [counsel], rather than just the traditional, let's see where there's a job...helping people to analyze the marketplace." Next, people have to figure out how to market themselves to the employer, according to Kanarek, not as a "sales job," but a way to present themselves as someone who can fill a need, solve problems, and do the job faster and cheaper. Her advice to lawyers is similar to the route she herself took in starting her business and adjusting it to changing market trends.
Kanarek, who is known for her kindness as much as she is for her superior knowledge of the job market, remains a soft touch, sensitive to the needs of lawyers.aBecause every time I see somebody who is junior and has been fired, I think, and I've seen hundreds of them now...I never fail to have this sort of little pang of, what if that had happened make people realize that this is a systemic their fault."
Kanarek's Advice to Lawyers Wishing to Leave Law Practice:
- Don't let yourself become too immersed in the lawyer "lifestyle", or It will be harder for you to leave. Try to living within, or below your means.
- Learn to identify what it is that you are trying to emulate so that you can functionalize your background to make sense in the new world that you are trying to enter.
- You have to learn to walk and talk like the people in that different world.
