We typically hire individuals who recently have, or will soon have, a Bachelor’s Degree in any major. Transport your classroom learning and skills into the “real world” with us and we’ll help you develop lifelong skills. We want (and our clients need) the Best and Brightest!
A CHALLENGING CAREER We are a targeted, boutique law firm representing the multi-family housing (apartment) industry with cases including Fair Housing discrimination defense, litigation and evictions. The firm has clients with national properties and a genuine “Play To Win” culture that is well known within the industry. The firm routinely then has to make substantial efforts to accomplish often challenging client missions. In the context of a long tradition of a successful law firm, you’ll be on the front line. Yes, that’s where sometimes it can be a little scary and stressful – but it’s where legal battles are fought and won and clients realize and thank you for that. You’ll feel the self-satisfaction of clients appreciating what you’ve done for them, your hard work and commitment to their matter and your results. You’ll build genuine personal relationships with clients who will respect and like you. Being part of a professional “Play To Win” culture is rewarding and challenging – we think in a good way.
CAREER TRAINING Are you ready to use your education for a professional career and not just a job? Professional training includes, of course, written materials such as outlines and notebooks. But more importantly, career development includes one-on-one training, typically at a dry erase board, on concepts and procedures such as the legal process and strategies concepts. Your trainers will include the attorney and you’ll have a full team of other friendly energetic associates who love the opportunities to help you.
Beyond substantive nuts and bolts training, there is much to be taught on how to play to win. The lawyer has a degree in psychology and training and experience in the social sciences concerning principles of persuasion, both face to face communication (including juries and witnesses) and written communication. Principles include open versus leading questions, primacy versus recency, and K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) (yes this means your writing style will become simple and to the point).
The lawyer is a very busy professional with little “free” time, but it is obvious when he gets anywhere near any “teaching moment” that he instinctively enjoys teaching, and values the long term benefits for both the firm and employees of learning to do things the right way from a process and conceptual standpoint. That does not mean there will not be times you wish he was more available. But probably most important is his teaching attitude – an attitude that is a large part of the firm’s culture for all employees. And teaching can always also be done outside of any chaotic business days if necessary just by asking – if you want some extra or some focused training time on a Sunday afternoon, we’ll be there for you!
PERSONAL GROWTH We look for candidates who are appropriately proud of being bright, creative and successful. Anyone we bring on board is someone who we clearly believe is an exceptional person with strong traits that we respect. This position will also be an opportunity for continued significant personal growth. You’ll become even more analytically sharp, mentally thorough, organized and intellectually tenacious than you ever thought possible. You’ll gain even more of a “failure is not an option” approach than you could ever have previously imagined. You’ll develop an over-the-top insatiable desire to meet a client’s missions no matter how seemingly impossible, very quickly, efficiently and effectively. You’ll learn how to “think like a lawyer.” That might sound exciting but it can also be frankly disturbing to some because you’ll soon never be able to have a normal casual conversation with friends and family again. You’ll start gently cross examining, become annoyingly inquisitive, pointing out logical gaps, making people define pronouns in conversation for clarity and all sorts of abnormal behavior !
UNTEACHABLE TRAITS Some skills and instincts are hard or impossible to teach or develop so a candidate must come on board with them.
Strong interpersonal skills are fundamental because an associate will be communicating in a variety of ways to a variety of people. Communications will frequently be by telephone and in person, as well as electronic and written. Communications will be with clients, witnesses, adverse parties and court staff, in addition of course to other colleagues on our team.
Some people are naturally mediators and want everyone to get along and all of us have some of those traits in us. But this position requires someone who also has an overriding personality of truly enjoying to “win.” If winning and beating the opponent feels bad or wrong then this is not the position for you. We are hired to win cases and cause others to lose and be unhappy. Vince Lombardi said “winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is” – only Lombardi’s will fit well on our team.
Because of our volume, different associates take the lead on different matters – like most successful operations, we conquer by dividing. We hire a candidates who look forward to being groomed to take the lead on their matters. We need someone who naturally finds excitement from not only just being part of a larger successful team (you’ll feel that too) but who also wants the satisfaction that comes from “taking the lead” on assigned matters.
Consistent with looking for a leader, we need a self-starter. That does not at all mean someone who knows what they’re doing. A new associate will have no clue what they are doing, and that’s okay at first. But our firm’s culture will critique someone who just sits quietly, not knowing what to do, scared to ask and scared to demand obtaining what is needed to then move forward. Everything substantive can be taught, some quickly in the early days, weeks and months, some mid-range, some over several years of experience. But what cannot be taught is having the feeling that now a matter is on your plate, that you do not know what to do, and not being aggressive in causing something to happen with someone to get you going in the right direction.
A candidate with demonstrated success, including academically, we know has to then have a good work ethic. This position has varied and sometimes multiple urgent legal deadlines and complex cases. A successful candidate will have a work ethic capacity within them to meet the sometimes extraordinary needs of clients and cases no matter how many hours it might take. There are legal deadlines or emergencies that sometimes can’t or shouldn’t be pushed or delayed. We dig deep and show our capacity for hard work to do what it takes.
YOUR MAJOR One risk of this honest detailed description is that a reader might think a successful candidate is someone who has wanted to be a paralegal or lawyer or was always president of the debate team. That is not at all the case (but yes we’d love to have them too !) You should not be hesitant in the least because you think your major is “not a good fit.” Your major does not matter. Looking back over the years, we have had successful associates with majors such as marketing and creative design. If by getting your degree you realize that what you appreciate and value and enjoy most are the challenges and skills associated with that, then that is all that matters. Majors don’t.