Lawyers: Second Careers

Denial has shifted right into despair for too many JDs who never practiced as a lawyer as well as unemployed and underemployed attorneys.  Bottoming out is a good thing since you break open to possibility.  The timing is excellent to present to you very realistic second careers.

If you have already taken an inventory of your skills and experience you know that you can market your ability and track record for:

1. Test Taking
2. Applying to Educational Programs
3. Persuasion/Advocacy
4. Game Theory and Practice
5. Networking
6. Research
7. Writing
8. Oral Presentation
9. Strategic Thinking
10. Assessment of Risk-Taking, as when advising clients
11. Magical Thinking, as in overconfidence

Therefore, the following career paths are suitable to explore.  You do that by informational interviews with those already in them, studying the help wanted ads in the fields to discern requirements and pick up the language and concepts to insert in your new resumes, cover letters, and interviews, requesting to sit in and observe how the field operates, as in shadowing a sales representative or LSAT-preparation teacher, and researching the demand scenarios.

Here are some of those fields:

• Academics.  Clearly, you have this game down cold, ranging from how to excel in standardized tests to compose the personal essay on admissions forms. to mind-reading what professors want.  Despite the push back against over-education in America, the demand is growing for test preparation coaches, ghostwriters for personal essays, term papers, the master thesis, and dissertations, presentation coaches for admissions interviews, and tutoring for difficult courses. You can start out as a worker bee, then start your own shop.  This market is global, with increasing requests from China.

 

• Public Affairs.  That's an umbrella term which includes all branches of the influence industry.  Standard fields are public relations both in agency work and corporate communications departments, lobbying in-person from K Street or state capitols, lobbying behind the scenes as in reaching out to networks, trade association leadership, creating promotional materials in all media, fund-raising, and foundation work. 

 

• Communications.  This covers all media, both in journalistic and commercial settings.  Jobs for those with a legal background are regularly listed on JournalismJobs.com, Mediabistro.com, Craigslist.com, and CareerBuilder.com.  Freelance work is available through middlemen such as eLance.  You can also promote yourself.

 

• Sales. This is a binary situation.  Either you can sell or you can't.  Pick the right setting to sell in and you can earn plenty of money.  Then you can go on to sales management.  If you want you can develop an enterprise teaching ordinary people the fundamentals of selling.

 

• Career Transition Expert. Those of us who hit bottom in career one or two are naturals for advising others on the pitfalls to transition.  At the top of the list is magical thinking and you know plenty about that.  Also, you can teach the basics of game theory.  Most professionals don't bother with that and should.

 

• Evangelist.  The setting could be the pulpit, lecture circuit, political movement, or foundation.  If you are gifted in performance art, this may be your calling.  You could wind up joining the Roman Catholic priesthood, one industry in which there is a definite shortage of manpower.

 

Comments

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