After Layoffs, Junior Associates Must Balance Speed and Strategy

Key Takeaways

Kate Reder Sheikh offers practical guidance for junior law firm associates who need to find a new role quickly following layoffs. She argues that urgency should not replace strategy, particularly for first- and second-year associates who may be earlier in their careers than the typical lateral candidate.

• Work with one trusted recruiter who will act as a teammate and provide guidance, not simply push applications.
• Stay open-minded about firm prestige, geography and practice area rather than insisting on a like-for-like move.
• Conduct your own search rather than waiting to see whether partners will bring you to their next firm.
• Get your résumé, transcript and representative matters or deal sheet ready immediately, and use law school career services as another resource.
• Move quickly but remain deliberate in interviews and applications, showing genuine interest in each potential destination rather than approaching the search in panic mode.

We saw it with some of the layoffs a few years back: attorneys all the way from junior associates up to counsels without books, who need to move and to do it yesterday.

As a senior recruiter for law firm associates, I have lessons from those past waves, particularly for first and second year associates whose tenure is short of the sweet spot for a lateral move.

My best advice to those who need to search for a job fast, especially if they are junior, is as follows:

Find one recruiter who comes recommended. Do not choose a recruiter because they were the most recent one to reach out to you. Take the ten minutes required to look their name up on Fishbowl, read their LinkedIn reviews, and scope out Reddit.

A recruiter may tell you to apply directly to firms if you’re very junior (i.e. a first year who just started this fall), but should also provide you with guidance and a list of jobs.

Your ideal recruiter is a teammate. When you’re stressed, have loans to pay off, and are new to the market, you need someone trusted walking beside you.

Widen your aperture regarding prestige. A lot of attorneys after the Covid-19 layoffs were myopic. They wanted to go to a direct peer firm and weren’t open to a broader array of options. This was, generally speaking, not a fruitful strategy.

Now is the time to get employed, even if you have to drop a lot of spots in the AmLaw or Vault rankings. I’m not saying you should accept the first offer you get if you’re unhappy with it, but time is of the essence. People with your exact same profile are also on the hunt. There is time later to climb the AmLaw or Vault rankings. Just get back in a seat, one you can get excited about.

Keep the aperture open for geography and practice area, too. Now isn’t the time to insist on a like-for-like trade with your current role. It’s important to stay nimble. A new place or practice area may prove to be a great career move down the line.

Don’t wait to see where the partners you work with land. This is a trap and may leave you dangling. Pursue your own search. If you get brought along, let that be a wonderful surprise. But don’t rely on assurances from partners as a plan.

Gather your job search materials ASAP. You need a resume, law school transcript, and a representative matters or deal sheet if applicable. To help your recruiter, you need to have thought about your geographic and practice area preferences.

Contact your law school career services team. They may be receiving the same outreach that recruiters are, which looks like: “If you have candidates from this firm, can you send them our way?” Leverage that part of your network.

At interviews, be knowledgeable about the firm. As you interview, pivot from why you’re looking immediately to why you’re excited about their firm. Move fast, but be mindful that destination firms don’t want to feel like any port in a storm. They want to feel chosen.

Take a deep breath. Your career is long. If you get hit by a serious curve in the road, remember that road goes on and on. It’s really easy to go into panic mode, and spray your resume across your city, but I don’t recommend that. Run a search, complete with strategy and discretion.

This has happened before. Lawyers who were let go during the 2009 financial crisis, or during the Covid-19 layoffs, are here to greet you on the other side of this storm.

You’ll be amazed how happy you may be doing something you didn’t imagine. So many lawyers before you are proof of that concept. Learn from how they moved forward.