5 Ways to Enhance Your Value as a Lawyer
The legal job market is more competitive than ever before. As law firms advance into the digital age, standards and expectations seem to have been raised accordingly. Modern attorney candidates tend – as a general rule – to have more diverse backgrounds, broader skillsets, and demonstrate greater career flexibility when compared to their previous-generation counterparts.
So, given the heightened competitiveness of the legal job marketplace, how can you better position yourself to secure employment at the top firms and companies in California?
If you’re looking to maximize your future prospects as an attorney, there are a number of strategies you can employ to enhance your value as an attorney and thus get a leg up on the competition. Whether you’re planning on transitioning to a new position in the future, or are just now beginning the job search process, try to keep the following tips in mind.
Learn a New Language
As time goes on, both firms and large corporations are starting to recognize the value contributed by skilled multilingual candidates – especially firms with an international focus or with major clients from particular regions where English is not yet the dominant language in the professional world. Being fluent in a foreign language can give you a serious competitive advantage vis-à-vis other attorney candidates.
If you do not already enjoy fluency in a foreign language, consider learning a language that is commonly associated with international business or spoken cross-regionally (i.e., Mandarin, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, etc.).
Develop Stronger Communication Skills
Capable attorneys are valuable on the legal job marketplace. Capable attorneys who can “talk-the-talk” are even more valuable.
If you feel that your professional communication skills are not up-to-snuff, consider developing those skills further. If you have a fear of public speaking, attend public speaking seminars or classes. If you have difficulty projecting charisma and confidence with your body language, look for a nonverbal communication specialist or simply identify and alter your nonverbal behavior on your own through practice. If you have a confidence issue, improve your communication “comfortability” by attending more networking events and challenging yourself to speak to more strangers.
Communication skills – both verbal and nonverbal – will serve you well over the course of your legal career. Strong communication skills are a crucial component of the professional toolkit. You’re almost certain to field better results in your job search if you develop better communication skills first.
Position Yourself as an Industry Expert
If you have the opportunity to focus your assignments so that you mostly work with clients in a particular industry, you can later position yourself as an expert in that industry. Top law firms and companies value specialized expertise and familiarity with the big clients in a given sector. If you’re looking to enhance your future prospects as an attorney, focusing on a specific industry is a surefire way to measurably increase interest at those firms and companies that value such expertise.
Develop a Substantial Digital Footprint
In today’s legal job market, hiring managers often conduct thorough research on a candidate’s digital footprint.
What does this mean?
As a candidate, your social media posts, online profiles, and other similar items may be seen by legal hiring managers. Though the prospect of having your digital footprint revealed to potential employers may initially be frightening, it also presents a unique opportunity to enhance your value as an attorney.
Consider starting a helpful blog in your practice area. Contribute posts to LinkedIn and law-focused Facebook groups. Strive to develop a substantial and positive digital footprint in which you are contributing knowledge to the community at-large. Firms are always looking for attorneys who have demonstrated success in engaging nontraditional means of attracting client attention.
Network Actively
Many attorneys make the mistake of only attending networking events and actively networking during the job search process. Those attorneys who make an effort to actively network outside of the job search process tend to enjoy a significant competitive advantage, however.
When networking outside of the active job search context, candidates tend to be more relaxed and more confident in their interactions, since there is no pressure to “win” the favor of a given connection. As the connection is more natural, when you do follow up months later, you are likely to be well-received and treated as an authentic individual.
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The legal job marketplace is highly competitive. To be successful, attorneys looking to make an upward transition should strive to better themselves professionally in order to raise their perceived value on the job market.
If you’re an attorney looking for a new position, speak with a Los Angeles legal recruiter at Garb Jaffe & Associates. We have extensive experience placing attorneys with prestigious law firms and large corporations located across California, and will advise throughout the recruitment process so that you can secure an ideal placement.
Call us today at (310) 207-0727 for a free consultation.