Career Builders: Career Advancement/Transition

Self-Assessment: Exploring an Alternative Career
Do you find yourself daydreaming about teaching yoga, delivering mail, doing anything but practising law? Maybe you’re in the wrong field. Or maybe you just need a change of scenery. Here’s how to perform a thorough self-assessment to determine if law is the right career for you.

Career Alternatives for Lawyers
In recent years, a whole mini-industry has sprung up to assist lawyers seeking non-traditional jobs. Legal career coaches, niche job posting websites, courses, specialized recruiters and several textbooks are all available to help you find a rewarding alternative career. Read on for tips on how to find the right fit for your legal training.

Career Change in a Recession: Is the Grass Greener Outside Your Practice?
In the current economic climate, lawyers may be wondering whether the grass would be greener if they left for another firm, started their own practice, or exited the practice of law altogether. The decision to make such a change should not be taken lightly, and should involve weighing four fundamental considerations...

Learning From Our Mistakes
A wise person said, “A mistake is not a mistake unless you fail to learn from it.” I made my share of mistakes in my legal career, and here are a few I learned from.
 
Leaving your Employment – with Grace
There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only one good way to leave your employment: with grace.

The road back: from in-house law to private practice
Much less common is the opposite path, back to private practice.

What can I be doing to ensure I make partner?
When your destination is partnership, there are three key things you can do to steer your career in the right direction: develop your legal skills; build internal relationships and take key strategic steps at various stages of your career.

A sign of the times: handling career transition
It’s a reality today: that firm you thought you would retire from may be gone or restructured tomorrow. Are you ready to look for other work?

Recession-proof your career
With Canada’s economy now clearly on its way into a recession, many young lawyers will find themselves facing a serious economic downturn for the first time in their careers. But lawyers can make smart decisions now to help prevent their careers from cooling along with the economy.

To Leave or Not to Leave your Law Firm
Leaving a law firm is an emotional process. You must want to do so, and believe you have no other alternative. Even if you are going to another firm, a successful transition will require the traits of an entrepreneur: motivation, acceptance of risk, resiliency, commitment and persistence.

Book review: The Curmedgeon
The conventional wisdom is that law school teaches you to think like a lawyer but doesn’t teach you how to be a lawyer.

Going solo: Making the jump
When you go solo, you’re trading one set of problems and responsibilities for another. Whether you’ll be happier with the problems and responsibilities of a solo practitioner than you were with your previous situation depends primarily on who you are and what you want.

Young Rainmakers:  Law Firms Must Look to the Next Generation
The financial health of most law firms relies on the efforts of a few rainmakers – lawyers who are able to keep the new-business pipeline flowing while their colleagues focus on the practice of law.  Who will make the rain fall at these firms when it comes time for the traditional rainmakers to retire or move on?

Now what do I do? How to succeed as an associate
Most articling students obsess over “getting hired back,” and devote all their energies to that end. But those who succeed rarely give much thought to the more formidable, long-term task ahead of them: practising law as an associate.

What to Look For In a Partnership Agreement
All those years of hard work have finally paid off and you’ve been invited into the partnership! Now you have the opportunity to make more money; you can join the players at the partnership table and have an active say in the operation of the firm. Your future in the firm is assured. Or so you think…