Job Seekers

As law firms start the process of reuniting their lawyers in the office, a few lawyers are rebelling—threatening to leave their firm for another, so that they can continue to work from home.  

Take control of your practice. Put yourself in a position to attract and retain clients you admire and find challenging and interesting. Become less dependent on others to feed your pipeline.

Partners are opting to continue working well into their 60’s and beyond – act decisively and
quickly. There will never be a better time to make the lateral partner move.

If you’re NOT going to be transparent when making the lateral move, don’t bother.

A young lawyer with three children abandoned a job at a firm to seek a better work-life balance, with a new position inside of a corporate legal department. The past year has been full of late-night Zoom calls, scrambling to keep up with a shifting regimen of public health regulations and not as much influence over the company’s overall policies than the lawyer originally sought out. 

It has been well over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic pushed law firms to quickly move out of their office spaces. Law firms have taken a wide-range of approaches when it comes to getting people back into the office. Some firms moved personnel back in last summer, while others are still remote, or as close to it as they can. 

Big law is on a hiring frenzy for regulatory, policy and enforcement lawyers, with a string of big firms in mid-April adding former government lawyers, prosecutors and legislative aides. 

After a monumental financial year for law firms, the associate lateral hiring market is on a hot streak, and firms are making every effort to entice more corporate young lawyers, including huge signing bonuses and extending offers to associates the day of their interviews. 

In the good old days (12 months ago), when lawyers interviewed for jobs, they dressed up in suits, maybe flew across the country, met with numerous people – sometimes sequentially and sometimes together – shook hands, ate a meal, and had a glass of wine. In other words, they exchanged germs in as many ways as possible. Chances are good they even wore shoes. 

The demand for associates from law firms in Atlanta rebounded this year after a major slowdown in associate hiring in 2020 from the pandemic.