Law is one of the last professions in America where most newbie graduates get stuck.
In THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Law Blog and THE LAW JOURNAL there are tales about and tales by new law school graduates with $70,000 student-loan debt, no job, jobs paying between $30,000 and $50,000, and deep disappointment that those $160,000 salaries weren't offered.
This getting stuck is inevitable in law. That's because law is the last of the old-line professions in which everything still appears to be linear. And for one-tenth of the graduates it is. They did the right schools, right grades, right internships, right networking. Those one of ten, says THE ECONOMIST will make partner today, although it's taking longer and might not last since senior partners are pushing out junior partners to up their own compensation. In every other profession, be it medicine or business, even that illusion of a predicable high-paying career path is over.
So, for the other nine-tenths, the solution might be to get unstuck and move on to work world realities. My colleagues and I, who got hit and are still getting undone by seismic technology shifts in our field, figured out this: Getting unstuck is a mashup of common sense, surrender of all expectations about being special, entitled, a cut above, deserving of, and the ability to try, fail, try again without self-consciousness.
The common sense is the skills assessment part: What do I got to sell and where can I sell it? Good news for law graduates is that the growing field of public relations, where senior and even mid-range executives can make as much as elite lawyers, is packed with those with law degrees. Politics, publishing, presentation coaching, speechwriting/ghostwriting, and management also are. Lawyers who are willing not to be lawyers have a lot to offer. For those who want to be lawyers there is now a growing field of being a temp or just-in-time employee instead of being an employee hell-bent on becoming partner. For those who don't want to be lawyers all-day there is part-time work.
The surrender means developing the mindset and behavior of just being another bozo on the bus who needs work. One job will lead to a better one. One client will lead to better-quality clients. Once we ditch the heavy burden of specialness we have the energy to hustle. Being the elite is killing off the elite at THE NEW YORK TIMES, Time-Warner, Motorola, and Harvard.
And the willingness to fail has already become a management cliche. They even have cute phrases for it such as "failing forward" and "failing wisely." The point here is that the global economy is so volatile. We now continually have to try out new things. Most won't work. People will gossip about us. So?
There are already plenty of role models of law graduates who managed to move on. Think Marcia Clark, JFK Jr., Michael Cherkasky who became Marsch & McLennan chief executive officer, and Bruce Cutler who seems to be morphing into a TV personality.
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