Perhaps I Have Been a Wee Bit Discouraging

I am very lucky to have lovely readers - law students and lawyers and former lawyers and even real people too. The emails and the comments that I receive here about my job search have been such an important part of my year since the lay off.

But this post is for the law students and the lawyers. I have received emails from lawyers telling me that, from what they have read on my blog, they are very apprehensive about starting their own job search. I am afraid that I may have been unnecessarily discouraging. So, let me clear up a few things.

First, it is notoriously hard to find legal jobs in this state, even when the economy is booming. There's just too damn many of us here, and too many people who will jump at the chance to move here. I have been on the job boards constantly and I can assure you that there are many more postings in other places.

Second, I am highly specialized. It has been very hard to convince people that I am willing to learn/want to learn something else, or find anybody who is willing to train me in another area of the law. I saw the writing on the wall when rumors were going around about lay offs at my old firm. I started to take all the partners at the law firm out to lunch to convince them to teach me what they do. I wasn't able to broaden my base in time. On the other hand, when a firm is looking to practice in my area of the law, I should be at the top of the list for consideration.

Third, I have no litigation experience. A very large majority of the posted positions over the past year have been for people with litigation experience. When I didn't get that job last fall that I was practically told was mine during the first round of interviews, it was later explained to me that they went with someone who had similar experience to mine but who also knew how to litigate.

There is good reason to believe that my results are not typical. Sadly, I have not received any return emails from the other associates who were laid off with me. I don't know whether this is because of the embarrassment over continued unemployment, whether they have moved on and want no memories of their past job, or, maybe, they just didn't like me (although nobody else in town seems to know what happened to them either). Promises to do coffee and to keep in touch just never panned out . . .