Jobs

Subscribe to Jobs via RSS

In my final post on the subject of “respectability” of lawyers (the first four can be found here, here, here and here), I’d like to tie my thoughts together, discussing what the various parties can do to make Bird and Orozco’s thesis of assimilation of lawyers into corporate business teams the “new normal”.  This should give lawyers more career opportunities in the future, slow the loss of influence of the legal profession in businesses, and make legal education a more attractive choice.  Much of the discussion in academia has ignored the in-house counsel approach as being a viable option for the woes of the legal industry.  Below the fold, this post will discuss the roles that academia, in-house counsel, and business firms each may play in increasing the potential for success of a new model for business lawyers.

Earlier this month, The Tennessean reported that the state of Tennessee approved $8 million of incentives for the fourth season of ABC’s show Nashville. The city of Nashville also plans to chip in about $500,000.  According to the article, the “show spends about $20 million each season on local labor.”

Economic incentives seem to be increasingly common, but this arrangement is interesting for a few reasons. First, this is an arrangement that not only brings jobs to town, but also brings publicity and tourists. Second, the lion share of the incentives appear to be coming from the state, but the lion share of the benefits seem to be directed at the city of Nashville – causing some in other parts of the state to complain. 

Some businesses, like the Bluebird Cafe, are featured regularly on the show, and I wonder whether they pay for that privilege. I don’t think they do, but have not been able to find out for sure. 

My wife and I watch the show, if only because we like seeing our city on TV. Nashville is a wonderful place, has been called an “it city” and the “south’s red hot town.” Even…

Last month, Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino, and Michael I. Norton of  Harvard Business School posted Humblebragging: A Distinct – And Ineffective – Self-Presentation Strategy to SSRN (available here).  

Here is the full article abstract: 

Humblebragging – bragging masked by a complaint – is a distinct and, given the rise of social media, increasingly ubiquitous form of self-promotion. We show that although people often choose to humblebrag when motivated to make a good impression, it is an ineffective self-promotional strategy. Five studies offer both correlational and causal evidence that humblebragging has both global costs – reducing liking and perceived sincerity – and specific costs: it is even ineffective in signaling the specific trait that that a person wants to promote. Moreover, humblebragging is less effective than simply complaining, because complainers are at least seen as sincere. Despite people’s belief that combining bragging and complaining confers the benefits of both self-promotion strategies, humblebragging fails to pay off.

Although the authors accurately explain that humblebragging is “bragging masked by a complaint,”  I am partial to the Urban Dictionary definition:

Subtly letting others now about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or “woe is me” gloss.

…

In my first post of this series, I asked whether business leaders had unknowingly provided the legal industry with a long-term solution to declining interest in the legal profession and potential waning influence.  I suggested that business leaders may be the driving force that ends up saving the legal profession, and its “respectability”.  In my second post, I discussed the current state of in-house attorneys.  In this post, I would like to look at the current state of private firms as it relates to the in-house attorney discussion.  My view is that the competitive marketplace reactions of a growing number of firms are partially contributing to the dimming of their own future prospects.  Firms will need to evolve rather quickly; how they can, I’ll discuss in a future post.  However, because of the firms’ relatively weaker position compared to corporations, many firms are in very precarious circumstances.

In this interim period between past firm dominance and the future corporate acceptance of Professors Bird and Orozco’s “corporate legal strategy” (in which attorneys are fully accepted and integrated as part of business teams in corporations, resulting in greater legal opportunities), firms are struggling.   From my discussions with attorneys, I have learned that…

I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to post!  I have been following this blog for some time with great interest.  I hope to bring a third perspective—not as an academic, nor a private firm practitioner, but as an employee of a company who happens to be a lawyer. 

A few weeks back, Professor Heminway posted, and I commented, on the difficulty good law students have in finding jobs.  I made the point that the law is in a state of transition—firms are becoming smaller, but more opportunities are arising within corporate models.  Over the past 20 or so years, attorneys have gradually become more integrated in the corporate world, and we have seen the number of positions with firms gradually decline in comparison.  

As part of this mainstreaming of lawyers into the business model, lawyers are becoming more and more part of business teams, not walled-off in legal departments.*  By incorporating lawyers into operational divisions, have businesses “humanized” lawyers, making them more accepted and respected?  Will this growing engagement and familiarity, with lawyers as co-workers in the business environment, lead to greater opportunities for all lawyers, including those in private practice?  The answer is, maybe, possibly.  It’s complicated.  Allow me to…

I currently teach two classes that are on the bar exam—civil procedure and business associations. Many of my BA students are terrified of numbers and don’t know much about business and therefore likely would not take the course if it were not required. I know this because they admit that they take certain classes only because they are required or because they will be tested on the bar, and not because they genuinely have an interest in learning the subject. I went to Harvard for law school and although I had an outstanding education, I learned almost nothing that helped me for the NY, NJ, or FL bars (hopefully that has changed). I owe all of my bar passages to bar review courses so naturally (naively?), I think that almost any student can learn everything they need to know for the bar in a few short months assuming that they had some basic foundation in law school and have good study habits.

The pressure to ensure that my students pass the bar exam definitely informs the way I teach. Though there has only been one round of civil procedure testing on the multistate, this semester I found myself ensuring that…

PrawfsBlawg has compiled an entry-level hiring report for law professors a number of years. Brian Leiter tracks law professor lateral hires with tenure. These lists serve at least two purposes:

  • welcoming new hires into the academy (or to their new positions) and
  • providing a summary of the state of the legal academic hiring market

As a curious law firm associate, with hopes of an academic career, lists of this type were especially valuable in shining light on the qualifications of new academic hires.

While the lists of law professor hires seem well-covered elsewhere, I have not seen similar hiring lists for legal studies professor hires in business schools. For this first edition, I am simply pasting the material sent to me via e-mail or in the comments. I will cover full-time entry level or lateral hires in this list, but may split them into separate posts in future years. I will continue to update this list periodically, as some business schools may still be hiring.

Updated 7/7/2015

Details below the page break.

There’s good news and no news from me on the 3L job search front.

First, the good news.  One of the talented 3L business law students whom I have been mentoring in the Quest for Employment (Q4E) recently secured a position that is perfect for him.  He is a great fit for the firm and the position, and the firm is lucky to get him.  Yay for our team!

The rest of the news on the Q4E front is same-old, same-old.  Two other terrific 3L business law students who have had career/life changes that have led them to seek employment in new markets better suited to their professional or personal objectives are still on the market.  Of course, this is nothing new in Knoxville and much of the rest of the State of Tennessee, where many law firms cannot really assess their needs until much closer to the bar exam/hiring start date.  And these two promising lawyers-to-be are getting bites at the line.

Haskell earlier wrote a great post here on resumes and interviews, and I earlier wrote a companion post on cover letters.  But what happens after you’ve sent the cover letter and resume and have not been granted an interview?  Give up on the Q4E with those folks?  No way!  At least, that’s not my advice . . . .

UL_Lafayette_Logo

Some business schools are still hiring for this coming August. Here is a recent legal studies professor posting by University of Louisiana-Lafayette. University of Louisiana-Lafayette is a special school to me because they made my first tenure track offer, which was quickly followed by an offer from another school that was in a better geographic location for my family. While my decision was definitely the right one for our family, I have only good things to say about University of Louisiana-Lafayette. They ran a professional search process and have a collegial, bright faculty. Also, Lafayette seemed to have a wonderful, unique culture and excellent food.

I have updated my legal studies professor openings list here.

As I have previously mentioned, unlike law schools, business schools appear to hire virtually year-round.  While most of the business schools have filled their open positions by this late date, there have been some recently posted positions. 

Bentley University (full-time, non-tenure track) (posted 3/9/15)

Central State University (assistant) (posted 3/5/15)

Lincoln Memorial University (assistant, instructional faculty) (posted 4/1/15)

Quinnipiac University (full-time, non-tenure track) (posted 4/7/15)

Saint Mary’s College of California (full-time, visiting professor) (posted 4/9/15)

Sam Houston State (tenure-track assistant) (posted 5/19/15)

University of Houston-Clear Lake (tenure-track assistant) (posted 2/24/15)

University of Louisiana-Lafayette (assistant professor) (received 4/21/15)

University of Wisconsin – La Crosse (tenure-track assistant) (priority 3/23/15)

University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (full-time, non-tenure track) (posted 3/19/15)

Western Carolina University (assistant, non-tenure track) (posted 3/6/15)