Tips from the 'other side'

I just received an e-mail with this newsletter from Alston & Bird LLP offering tips on interviewing from an OCI interviewer, insight on cover letters from an office hiring manager and a timeline for a typical day at the firm from two summer associates.

Lawyer Depression

The timing of this article in the ABA Journal is very appropriate given today is our Bear Essentials Stress Management Day! If you are unable to join us at the lunch where we will have a representative from the Texas Lawyers' Assistance Program, we will have extras of the brochures available in the Career Services Office.

"Welcome to the Real World: 10 Survival Tips for New Associates"

This article in Texas Lawyer gives helpful tips to new attorneys.

The Public Interest v. Private Firm Dilemma

For those of you struggling with this decision, this Washington Post article lets you know you are not alone.

HIV/AIDS Law Conference

The registration fee for this conference in Dallas is only $25 for law students!

An ABA National CLE Conference
HIV/AIDS LAW AND PRACTICE CONFERENCE
FROM LOCAL CLIENT TO GLOBAL WORKFORCE
April 9 and 10, 2008
Hilton Anatole Hotel
Dallas, Texas

The American Bar Association’s national CLE conference, HIV/AIDS Law and Practice: From Local Client to Global Workforce, will convene lawyers and policy advocates nationwide to explore cutting-edge legal issues affecting people living with HIV/AIDS and the people around them.

The conference program will include a comprehensive ‘business track’ on the key linkages between employers, employees and HIV, the critical challenges facing small businesses and multi-national corporations alike, and the private sector’s vital role in combating the AIDS pandemic.

In addition to a keynote address by Amb. Mark R. Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, the conference will cover such topics as:

HIV in the Workplace: Global Demographics in 2008 and Beyond
Labor/Management Collaborations: A Brave New World
Corporate Involvement in Community Activities: Who’s Doing What?
Criminal Transmission of HIV: Current Trends and Enforcement
Immigration and HIV
Access to HIV Medications: Negotiating the Minefield
States Respond to CDC Routine Testing Guidelines: An Update for Practitioners
HIV and Human Rights at Home and Abroad

For more information and to register, visit the conference page or go to the Committee's Web site. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the ABA AIDS Coordination Project by email or telephone (202/662-1025).

Improvement to the College Cost Reduction Act

This just in from Heather Jarvis at Equal Justice Works:

Great news! The House just passed a technical amendments bill, S2371, that eliminates the "marriage penalty" under the income-based/contingent repayment options. Having already been approved in the Senate, it goes next to the President without a need for a conference.
The fix works like this: if a married spouse files a separate income tax return, the spouse's income will be entirely excluded from the borrower's when calculating repayment terms.

You can find information about the CCRA here.

Career Sucess and Life Fulfillment

Tips for the Young Lawyer

Finding a Job in a Small Firm

Words of wisdom from the General Practice/Solo and Small Firm Division of the ABA

Formula for Failure

This ABA Journal article discusses the problems leading to associate attrition in big firms.

Thoughts for the Solo Practitioner

This recent article in Texas Lawyer discusses finding success as a solo practitioner.

Will clients bear the burden of higher salaries?

The ABA Journal is reporting in this article that Wal-Mart is refusing higher fees attributed to higher associate salaries.

Our Behavior As Attorneys

A Baylor Alum (who also happened to be my moot court partner) wrote this article for the Texas Young Lawyers Association on "Our Duty to be Nice."

Hot Area of Practice

The Texas Lawyer is reporting here there is "No Shortage of Opportunities for Counsel Skilled in Energy Trading."

"Now that the energy trading markets have rebounded from a post-Enron decline and the business is rebuilding in Houston — oil hit a new peak of $96 a barrel on Nov. 1 — there's plenty of opportunity for lawyers who have experience in the business or skills to do the work. In fact, there's so much demand that two headhunters in Houston say it's difficult to find lawyers to fill legal jobs at trading operations..."

Percentage of Women and Minorities at Law Firms Continues to Edge Up

The following article was taken from the NALP website:

As in all the prior years that NALP has compiled lawyer demographic information from the NALP Directory of Legal Employers, the percentage of women partners edged up slightly, from 17.90% in 2006 to 18.34% in 2007. The percentage of minority partners also increased a bit, from 5.00% to 5.40%. Minority women accounted for 1.65% of partners, compared with 1.48% in 2006, the first year that the demographic information included race and gender together. Aggregate figures are shown in the table below. These findings include more than 135,000 lawyers in 1,562 offices, and over 12,000 summer associates in 1,171 offices reporting summer associates for summer 2007.

Representation of women and minorities increases in all lawyer categories. Among associates, 45.06% were women and 18.07% were minorities, compared with 44.33% and 16.72%, respectively in 2006. For other lawyers the figures were 35.16% and 8.87%, respectively, both up from figures of 34.08% and 8.18% in 2006. Among summer associates, the figure of 45.58% women represents a decrease from 2006 (46.67%), whereas the percentage of minorities (24.19%) was up from 23.05% the year before.

Because the demographic information captures race and gender together, we also know that the majority of minority partners are men, while among minority associates and summer associates, women outnumber men. In the coming weeks, NALP will be publishing more demographic analyses from the 2007 NALP Directory to show city-by-city information, as well as analyses for specific racial/ethnic minorities.

Note: Figures for partners, associates and other lawyers are based on 1,562 offices reporting information in the 2007 NALP Directory of Legal Employers. Figures for summer associates are based on 1,171 offices reporting one or more summer associates for summer 2007 and minority counts.

See full article including a chart of the statistics here.

Fall OCI

Stats from the Fall 2007 On-Campus Interviewing program:

Number of students that took part: 2Ls - 124 3Ls - 31

Number of employers seeking 3Ls: 22

Number of resumes submitted for on-campus interviews / resume collection programs: 3,221

On-Campus Interview firms: 78 firms recruiting for 209 offices

Resume Collection firms: 30 firms recruiting for 54 offices

Direct Contact firms: 12 firms recruiting for 37 offices

Interviews conducted between September 10 - October 5: 1,162 interviews

New firms that took part this year:

ON-CAMPUS INTERVIEWS
DLA Piper US, LLP - Dallas
Fee Smith Sharp & Vitullo - Dallas
Looper Reed & McGraw - Dallas
Patterson & Sheridan - Houston, New Jersey, California
Sutherland Asbill & Brennan - Houston

RESUME COLLECTION
Carstens & Cahoon - Dallas
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer - New York City, Washington DC
Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office - Miami
Morgan Lewis & Bockius - Houston
Morris Manning & Martin - Atlanta
Oppenheimer Blend Harrison & Tate - San Antonio
Sutin Thayer - Albuquerque

Ethics in the Electronic Era: Staying Out of the Briar Patch

Audio presentation by Sharon D. Nelson and Jim Calloway that addresses some potential ethical issues that can arise with attorneys' use of technology

Young Lawyer Financial Program™

I received this (unsolicited) e-mail yesterday and thought I would pass along the information. I have no idea whether this is a good company and am not endorsing their product. Please research them carefully if you decide to take advantage of their services.

How can you help third year law students who decide they are not interested in exploring traditional career paths and want to venture out on their own or start a small practice upon graduation? What do you tell a 2002 graduate who contacts your office in search of a way to exit the “big law firm” rat race? These may be difficult questions for you to answer, but we can help.

Civil Action Finance, Ltd. (CAF) knows how difficult it is for a recent law school graduate to start a law practice. The capital resource requirements and lack of a legal support structure can be overwhelming and intimidating. In an attempt to give back to the legal profession and provide some impetus to those with an entrepreneurial spirit, Civil Action Group, Ltd. developed the Young Lawyer Financial Program™.

CAF began financing law firms and their litigation costs back in 1997. We are not a structured settlement or pre-settlement loan program. We work directly with the lawyers and law firms to provide them the necessary funding to litigate personal injury or product liability claims against the “deeper pockets” of the defense firms and insurance companies. That has been the primary obstacle facing sole practitioners or the smaller boutique firms.

As Career Services professionals you know that not everyone fits the same mold. We feel we offer a career option for those that look forward to “fighting-the-fight” on their own rather than going to a Top 250 firm. And we can help you give them that opportunity. Please forward this information and attached materials to those students or alumni that might be interested in this program or direct them to our website at Young Lawyer’s Program.

Should you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Craig Robbins
Civil Action Finance
A Division of Civil Action Group, Ltd.
1800-328-7171 crobbins@CivilActionFinance.com

17th Annual Entertainment Law Institute 2007

Institute offered by TexasBarCLE:

17th Annual Entertainment Law Institute 2007
Austin - Live Presentation
October 11-12, 2007
Hyatt Regency Austin
Register by September 27th and save up to $45!
Get More Info or Register

Highlights will include:

Legal Issues Encountered in Multi-Artist Rap/Hip-Hop Album Production
Nashville Record and Publishing Deals
New Legal and Business Challenges Arising from Digital Distribution
Producing and Pitching Film & Television Projects to Cable TV Networks
Negotiating for an Athlete's Services
Texas Star Award Presentation Honoring Marybeth Peters
Lunch Provided on Thursday
And Much More

Unfortunately, they are not offering a special rate for law students, but this could be a great conference for networking if you are interested in this field.

College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007

The following is an abstract found at this link describing the recently passed College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007. This Act could have implications for those you considering pursuing careers with lower salaries.

Abstract: In the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, Congress has created the income-based repayment (IBR) plan for student loans, through which graduates with high debts and low incomes may substantially reduce their monthly loan repayment obligations. Congress has also created a public service loan forgiveness plan, through which the federal government will forgive the remaining debt of borrowers who make 120 IBR (or certain other) payments while serving full time in public service jobs (very broadly defined). These programs are available to those who borrowed for graduate and professional training as well as for undergraduate education. These two programs will be of great value to public interest lawyers because of their typically high debts and low incomes, but they will also significantly assist social workers, government employees, soldiers, nurses, doctors, teachers, and many others who work in non-profit organizations and government agencies. This article explains why Congress created these two related programs, demonstrates the magnitude of the benefits available to representative borrowers, and outlines how graduates can obtain these benefits. It also elaborates how, even before the income-based repayment plan becomes effective in 2009, public service employees may make monthly repayments that will help to qualify them for eventual loan forgiveness. Finally, the article discusses the need for additional legislation to enable these new programs to achieve their objectives fully.

Interested in School Law?

Take a look at this e-mail we received:

In 2006, the National School Boards Association’s Council of School Attorneys launched an effort to increase the number of new lawyers choosing to become school attorneys who represent k-12 public school districts. The Council is a membership group of over 3,000 attorneys nationwide who have public school districts as their clients. http://www.nsba.org/cosa.

On Nov. 1-3, 2007, the Council will hold its fall School Law Practice Seminar at the Austin Hilton Downtown, and we would like to invite law students from the Baylor School of Law to attend at a greatly discounted rate of $50. Non-member registration for this two and one half day event is $650. About 150 school lawyers from around the country will attend, and we thought this might be an ideal opportunity for law students to see constitutional law and other law at work in k-12 public school districts.

Members of our law school committee would be pleased to host law students for the seminar. We request that you make this offer available to your students. Our law school committee chair, Allison Brown Schafer, is general counsel for the North Carolina School Boards Association. We also have three Council board members in Texas: Shellie Hoffman Crow, at the Walsh Anderson firm in Austin; the seminar chair, M. Kaye DeWalt of the Adams & Reese firm in Houston; and Jeff Horner, of the Bracewell & Giuliani firm also in Houston.

The online brochure is available at http://www.nsba.org/cosa2/practice/index.htm Students must register by fax or mail to receive the discounted rate. Advance registration is required. Students should send registrations with a check or credit card payment to: Lyndsay Andrews, NSBA, 1680 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314, or fax to 703-548-5613. Students will be asked to verify their student status. For additional information about this special registration offer, contact Lyndsay Andrews, Council membership manager, at landrews@nsba.org (703) 838-6738 or Laura Baird, Legal Services Assistant, at lbaird@nsba.org.

If students from your law school are unable to attend, we encourage students to subscribe to our free weekly online news service, Legal Clips. An online registration form is available at http://www.nsba.org/site/page.asp?TRACKID=&CID=373&DID=8614 Our Legal Clips editor, Tom Hutton thutton@nsba.org, would be happy to welcome students from your school by name in a weekly issue of Legal Clips. Just contact Tom, NSBA Senior Staff Attorney, and give him the information about classes that are subscribing. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Equal Justice Works Opportunities

3LS: Deadline for the 2008 Fellowship Application is Sept. 18

All Students: Upcoming Conference and Career Fair Deadlines

Recent Graduates:
AmeriCorps Attorney Positions available in the 2007-08 Pro Bono Legal Corps

Recruitment for the 2007-08 Pro Bono Legal Corps (PBLC) is now underway. The PBLC is an Equal Justice Works' AmeriCorps-funded program which places law graduates at pro bono and legal aid organizations to develop quality pro bono opportunities that expand legal resources in low-income and underserved communities. AmeriCorps Attorneys may serve for up to two 11-month terms starting in August 2007. Positions are located at sites in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Boston, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Helena, and other cities across the country. The Pro Bono Legal Corps is an excellent first step to building a career in public interest law. More information about these positions and how to apply is now available at http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/programs/pblc/apply.

"Best Law Firms for Women"

Working Mother magazine recently conducted a national survey on the best firms for women. You can find the results here.

Department of Justice Honors Presentation

For those of you who were unable to attend the presentation by Stephen Booker from the Department of Justice, you can find the PowerPoint here. His e-mail address is Stephen.Booker@usdoj.gov.