Career Management Tips for Legal Executives

by Dan Resendes, Chief Consulting Officer at The Barrett Group

Legal executives who want to change their careers should consider the following tips from The Barrett Group Legal’s career management professionals to prevent some of the most common mistakes:

1. First of all, if you want to get out of litigation, do not focus on litigation as your main competency, billable hours and case work in your value proposition. In contrast, highlight your marketing or business development skill sets and how you run operations of your own law firm. Also, include your community outreach and all of the charities. Finally, list the relationships you built with municipalities and government representatives.
2. When transitioning from a private practice or law firm employer to a corporate in-house or legal services employment, include your competencies in collaboration, leadership, interdepartmental and cross functional communication. Furthermore, list best practices and protocol authoring/compliance. And lastly, convey your work in customer, community and vendor/3rd party acquisition, outreach, and relationship nurturing.
3. Similarly, focus on corporate or company challenges versus cases won and case law.
4. Highlight operational expertise, accounting and financial wellness, marketing and business development efforts, pro bono, community or charity work.
5. Include metrics and quantifiable results – while employing workarounds in content authoring if concerned about confidentiality.
6. Get used to working with Word documents versus PDFs for your hiring process.

Full Spectrum of Your Opportunities

Most legal executives do not know the full extent of their career options. Fortunately, at The Barrett Group Legal, we know the full spectrum of opportunities available to you. We offer comprehensive career management that will allow you to take control of your future and create options to make your career financially and personally rewarding.

Contact us today for a confidential, complimentary consultation regarding your career opportunities.

More articles by The Barrett Group Legal:

TBG felt like extended family to me – they were there when I needed them for professional career support and just general moral support. I never felt alone throughout the painstaking process of landing my dream job. And, like a good family member, they knew when I needed a push in the right direction, and they gave it! Their knowledge and support were invaluable to me. I would recommend them to any professional looking for that extra edge in their job search.

Tracy Morehouse, VP Legal, E3 International Corporation

The Barrett Group provided structure and short-term goals that were invaluable to me during my search. I had no experience in the executive search process, but having the guidance and support of TBG gave me confidence to understand what I wanted from my career and direct my search accordingly.

Scott was excellent in communicating, making everything as clear as possible, and working through the process in a smooth and systematic way that made things seem natural and easy to work with. Scott has an incredible personality and works professionally and personally that allows you to feel comfortable through the entire process of working with him. If things would be confused in anyway he would reword or make things seem more natural for you to relate to the question or subject being discussed. I had an extremely awesome experience working through the clarity coaching part of this process. Thank you Scott, it was a pleasure working with you.

George was OUTSTANDING in all regards. He consistently went above and beyond with his coaching and guidance.

The success of the program rest on the shoulders of the person utilizing the service. If they can not be open and honest with themselves about who they are then the impact of the assessments will be limited. Scott was amazing and made me feel very comfortable. His insights and approach to breaking down the “big rocks” is an invaluable skill. I know I am early in the process but my time working with Scott has already started paying off in the way I view myself and my abilities. Thank you!