The path for a career isn’t the same step ladder we once thought it was, but in the legal field, the steps still remain for attorneys: associate, senior associate, partner, of counsel. Yet we are seeing this path evolving to include considerations for how can employees and the employer firm or corporation truly mutually benefit from each other and grow. The roles, when done well, are much more symbiotic than hierarchical anymore.
This is where someone like me comes in to help make matches to achieve these symbiotic relationships. After a career as an intellectual property lawyer that included identified strategic licensing opportunities and relationships, I decided to explore the principles that make work, where we spend more hours of our days than anyplace else, worthwhile. And with a minor background in feature and investigative journalism, I bring lots of questions with me whenever I am meeting an organization or a practice group for the first time. I bring those questions to candidates who come to me by word of mouth and to those I’ve actively sought to fill a role. Nothing is more satisfying in the whole world than being a teammate in the growth of a team or the progress of one’s career. This is why I am extremely conscientious about the delicate job of matching attorneys, c-suite executives and compliance officers and staff with law firms, practice groups and corporations. This is always why I am a trusted consultant to law firms, corporations and candidates -75% of which are referrals from prior placements.
I have a very tailored approach to each search, recognizing each search, each team, each candidate and their circumstances and views on what progress looks like are all different. I have placed staff in as little time as a few weeks, attorneys in a few months but I have also worked with candidates who have waited a year or longer for the exact right opportunity. I will never push my candidates to take a role unless they feel it is right for them and encourage them to ask the questions they value and need answers to themselves.
And most importantly, I invite my candidates and the employers I work with to ask me questions to be sure I am the right matchmaker for them. Transparency is everything in creating a perfect, or at least a perfect-for-now match. We are all panning for gold, that right employee, that right employer, but sometimes it helps to have a helping hand so employers can keep doing their regular functions and employees can continue with their regular work.
