The Best Book On Getting Corporate Law Jobs

Personalities, and the type of personalities, in law school are very diverse. You run across people all across the spectrum, especially in terms of introverted and extroverted personalities.  Firms, too, are microcommunities with different areas of expertise and personalities.

For example, I’m a trial junkie, which means I want to be in court no matter what the area of dispute, because I like doing things with that kind of pace. The type of person interested in that is very different from the type of person involved in a long-term employment battle between a single plaintiff and a big company, which can go on for years.

When you go into a firm, you start to see how different practice areas reflect different personalities. There are many types of intellectual property (IP), but when you see IP in Silicon Valley, it generally means hard IP, which is patent work. Patent work is very technical, so a lot of big firms will not let you do hard IP work unless you have a technical background. The type of personality you get there is that which comes with a scientific degree, whether it’s computer science, engineering, medical, or chemical. Those are different personalities than the Political Science or English degree personalities that you tend to think of when you go into law school.

One of the nice things about working at mid-size law firm with 50-70 lawyers is the interaction with people different from you. You have little communities that pop up. Corporate people have shorter timelines, so they tend to have different lifestyles. They tend to be people who either don’t mind the on and off and quick demand or they’re more active in managing and balancing their family life.  They may want two crazy weeks, then a week off to be with family.  Different types of personalities flock to different groups. Part of that is reflected in the practice area, so certain characteristics can be found in trial teams and IP teams across firms.

I once worked with a partner in the Los Angeles office who specialized in brief writing, so his team would work on a case where a lot of writing needed to be done. He had a big team of people, one of whom lived on the East Coast and had never set foot in the LA office. That’s more of a lifestyle issue. The associate didn’t want to be Mr. or Mrs. Big Firm, so the office found an arrangement that would work for both.

There’s no dominant law school or law firm personality, but you want to shop around to find the group that matches in both leadership and expertise.

There is a stereotype about the alpha male who prides himself on being a great cross-examiner in a courtroom. Those types of personalities do tend to congregate in certain kinds of litigation practices, but it is not a prerequisite, and many are not like that. Introverted and extroverted has little to do with how much talking you do. Some people have a little stage fright. You’re not always on a stage in a big law firm, in fact you rarely are.  You will need to have certain conversations and you may have to present research, findings, and factual evidence, but no more so than any other person in the professional world. You don’t need to be a master orator or unafraid of public speaking.

{ 0 comments }