Questions Older Lawyers Should Answer Before Beginning a Job Search

Anon
Aug 3, 2009 8:40 AM CST

More “brilliant analysis” from the legal search industry. 

Older lawyers rarely get to the point where they can make this pitch to an employer. 

Many if not most job ads not-so-subtly exclude older candidates (“no more than 10 years out of law school”), and most evaluations of whether to invite a candidate in for an interview are made solely on the basis of resume, with experienced candidates weeded out.

And rather than adopting policies against age discrimination or at least making statements that heighten awareness of the problem, many professional organizations actually encourage it.  A representative of one national in-house counsel’s organization told me recently that they felt age (or “experience”) boundaries were a legitimate way of cutting down large numbers of candidates, and if the headhunters who posted job ads on their site wanted to do it, they had no objection.

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VA
Aug 3, 2009 9:48 AM CST

How do you finance the office space, library, Westlaw/Lexis, technology and support you need to hang out your own shingle in this economy and market?

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Kathleen Hunt
Aug 3, 2009 2:03 PM CST

I was an “older” new lawyer with a very high GPA, and thus participated in many on campus interviews.  I broke all the rules—I wore what I wanted to wear (no pastel blouse with navy skirt suit), informed the interviewer that if I could not focus on employment law they should make the offer to another student, AND made sure that I told the firm at all interviews that I realized I was a new lawyer and that I intended to treat my first 5 or so years as an internship AND that I could follow direction from younger lawyers with more legal experience.  I got 17 callbacks and 15 offers.  Be yourself, reassure the employer that you can take direction in your enclosure letter with the resume and in all interviews, realize that an employer won’t ASK that question becauise of age discrimination statutes.  And if all else fails, start your own firm.  Most clients don’t ask when you were admitted, don’t read those utterly boring and superfluous framed displomas—they hire you based upon the way you project knowledge and confidence.  And we old folks are just better at that than younger candidates.  Nanner nanner nanner…

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Rath
Aug 3, 2009 3:09 PM CST

@Kathleen - Ummm, The article is about “older” lawyers in terms of years of legal practice, not entry level attorneys that are older than most of their peers.

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Dee
Aug 3, 2009 9:00 PM CST

Re “A representative of one national in-house counsel’s organization told me recently that they felt age (or “experience”) boundaries were a legitimate way of cutting down large numbers of candidates”

I completely believe this, and it jives with my experience, but my question is - at some point all the people ultimately in charge of hiring have to be older too, which theoretically means they should know their own value vis-a-vis the less experienced crowd. Are we now discriminating against ourselves, having drunk the U.S.culture that glorifies everything young? My judgment is 100x what is was ten years ago; why is that considered a bad thing? For recent knowledge, there’s CLE, but nothing replaces having been around the block.

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Rath
Aug 4, 2009 12:37 PM CST

@Kathleen - You can heartily disagree but you are still wrong.  I read the actual article on law.com to which this one refers which has the lead in paragraph:

“Much of the recent legal press has been focused on the plight of new and junior attorneys in this economic downturn, but senior lawyers have been impacted as well. Senior associates, non-equity partners and even equity partners have been demoted, downsized or asked to explore other options. This series of articles will address job search strategies for the seasoned lawyer in current market conditions.”

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