Alternative Legal Careers: Comparative Skills Worksheet Exploring Alternative Legal Careers Skills Worksheet (203 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Writing a Non-Legal Career Survey Exploring Alternative Legal Careers Non-Legal Career Survey (95 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: What are your options if you are planning to leave your legal career? This guide is intended as a reference for career services professionals and as a workbook for law students seeking alternatives to traditional careers in law. (753 views)
The Job Offer: Accepting a Non-Legal Position Any job search is an emotional and exhausting time in your life. Search¬ing for a non-legal position with a law degree is especially difficult. You will find yourself educating employers about the specifics of a law degree and all the wonderful skills a legally trained professional can bring to their organiza¬tion, while trying to sell yourself as an individual. It may... (127 views)
Alternative Legal Career Profile Checklist You should now begin to focus in more tightly on the ideal position for you. Review the list describing your ideal position and the notes you have taken on your potential career areas. You should also have completed more extensive research and possibly some additional informational interviews before you complete the career profile list. (21 views)
Long-Term Planning For a Successful Non-Legal Career Search Once you have tested your ideas about your job search through the networking process, you will want to put together an overall job hunting strategy. (6 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Job Hunting Tools There are three main methods utilized in the job hunting process: (108 views)
Narrowing Down Your Alternative Legal Career Paths Once you have discussed potential career paths with a number of professionals, you should begin to narrow your options. An easy way to begin is to list the top five titles or occupation areas you would consider. Try to keep the areas relatively broad in scope. Eventually you will need to be specific with a tide. Early on in the process you will be much more successful in... (15 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Chart Your Professional and Social Networks In order to begin developing a referral list, or a chart of your network, you may wish to complete the following worksheet. This should help you get organized. Consider this form as something that will continually be expanded as you consider referral sources— (21 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Identifying the Right Resources You may find it difficult to discover what resources are appropriate for your non-legal career search. The best way to begin is to think about all of the possible ways you might approach a specific career area and all of the groups, agencies, individuals, and written materials that could possibly have information about the area. (49 views)
Setting Priorities: Your Ideal, Alternative Legal Job Setting The "where" has to do with more than simple geography. It may include the types of knowledge one would expect to use in the job hunt, the people internal to the organization and those served by it, as well as the everyday working conditions. "Where" would also include the level or salary you would expect if you worked in this particular organization. (39 views)
Self-Assess Your Transferrable Legal Skills Once you are committed to the idea of a non-traditional career you should remember the importance of beginning the job search in an organized manner. Defining transferable skills is an important first step. Transferable skills are the skills and abilities you possess that you plan to utilize in the new posi¬tion you are seeking. The most important of these to consider are... (147 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Defining Your Perfect Career List the qualifications that your ideal job would possess. These qualific-ations may be tangible or intangible. There are no boundaries, except the ones that you set. (88 views)
Evaluating Your Abilities Before a Career Shift There are a variety of elements that need to be taken into consideration in conducting the self-assessment aspect of the career search. You may wish to consider some of the following: (39 views)
Before You Embark on an Alternative Legal Career, Define Your Goals There are three essential parts of the career planning process. They are the What, the Where, and the How of the career search. (35 views)
Alternative Legal Careers: Planning for a Job Change as a Lawyer The career planning process will go on throughout your lifetime. Although you have chosen to pursue the study of law or are currently practic¬ing law, there are still a number of decisions that you will need to make. There are also a number of myths that you need to dispel as you make your career decisions. Probably the first and foremost myth to dispel is that career... (284 views)
Researching Your New Career in a Non-Legal Field One of the goals of your research program was the development of your own listing of potential employers. Names and addresses alone, however, will not be enough for an effective job search. What you will require is a system for organizing the information you will be acquiring. (86 views)
Beginning Your Search for a Career in a Non-Legal Field By now you probably have a feeling that obtaining a non-legal position that will allow you to utilize the skills you have acquired in law school is going to require a different approach than you would use if you were seeking a position in legal practice. You are right. However, in both areas, more positions are probably lost through failure to do adequate homework than for... (6 views)
Selling Yourself and Your Legal Skills To a Potential Employer Applicants for positions often feel that the qualities the employer is looking for represent some sort of an impenetrable mystery. This simply is not so. Rather, there is a formula by which the qualifications required for any position can be determined. With a little imagination and some practice you should be able to analyze the requirements for any position in which you... (72 views)
Pros And Cons Of An Alternative Legal Career For Lawyers One of the inescapable facts of any career decision is that it will have both its pros and its cons. Since your needs, interests and abilities will not be a duplication of those of another person, it is vitally important that you give careful consideration to all the factors that might bear upon the success of your final decision. (100 views)
More Alternative Career Choices for Lawyers The foregoing areas are the ones in which most legally trained persons are currently filling non-legal positions. However, anyone contemplating a business management career should be aware that this is far from a complete roster of the possibilities. An active imagination can easily expand the number of opportunities. Just a few examples of positions currently filled by... (25 views)
Lawyers Finding Jobs in the Security Industry If the word "security" conjures up a picture of a lonely guard at a plant gate, you are undoubtedly wondering why this category has been included in material on non-legal positions for legally trained persons. Actually, the plant guard is only one visible evidence of the vast area of responsibility of the security department, which must develop and monitor a program that... (33 views)
Lawyers Finding Jobs in the Marketing Industry This area is the cornerstone upon which the company bases its whole existence. Without the sale of its products or services, the very reason for the existence of the company, profits, disappears. (33 views)
Purchasing and Contract Administration Jobs for Lawyers It may seem a little odd to join purchasing, which is concerned with the assembling of supplies, equipment and services essential to the company's production, and contract administration, which is concerned essentially with the sale of products, in a single category. Yet in reality they are closely related inasmuch as both are primarily concerned with the developing and... (121 views)
Lawyers Finding Jobs as Coporate Secretaries Long before legally trained persons were working in the regulatory compliance area, lawyers were involved in the corporate secretarial area. Indeed, it is not uncommon that the title "Secretary" is also held by the "General Counsel." Thus, this area was one of the first to demonstrate that non-legal positions within a corporation could benefit from the attention of legally... (2 views)
Lawyers Choose Non-Legal Careers In most large corporations the number of legally trained persons employed in management and administrative posts far exceeds that of the legal department. (17 views)
Back to School As a Teacher? Have you ever thought about how a vacation rejuvenates a person and his/her career? I am sure you have. But have you, as an attorney, thought of going back to school for anything else rather than for higher studies? Like joining as a teacher perhaps? (5 views)
Academic Careers for JDs With the notoriously difficult legal market nowadays, a lot of JDs are considering what alternatives they have to finding something in Big Law. One of the options worth considering is working in Academia. Are you in love with the bountiful books in the libraries, the youthful enthusiasm of the students, and the wizened widely-read discussions of professors? You might make... (199 views)
Why Go For a Non-Lawyer Career with a JD With one lawyer in every 247 citizens in U.S., going for a non-lawyer career with a JD is a question that crosses the minds of many law students and attorneys, quite frequently and quite logically. To establish success in a career, besides the obvious formulae of hard work, time management, acquiring effective habits and other essential strategies, market positioning is... (1765 views)
Challenges of Shifting In-House From a Law Firm As an attorney in private practice, it might seem that an in-house job may be preferable to the billable hours’ sweatshop environment in private law firms. Sometimes it may be true, but otherwise the only shift that happens is a change in work environment. It does not relieve you from carrying your work home, even if it is only in your mind, but you can carry it... (352 views)