The Only Thing You Should Consider When Accepting or Leaving a Legal Job

Summary: Are you thinking about leaving a legal job or accepting a new one? Make sure you consider this very important factor before making your move.

One of the most persistent myths in the legal profession and in society in general is that wealth, titles and success are distributed to people based on intelligence, race, pedigree and other factors. This, however, is not the case. In fact, most people are suspicious of intelligence, race, pedigree, and of people who rely upon these things as "presumptions" for their contribution to society. People who believe that they should be advanced based on these factors often find themselves actually discriminated against because society values something else entirely.

What society values is productivity. This article is about the way society values productivity and the reason you should make career decisions based on whether and how much a given career choice will allow you to be productive and contribute to society.

Why Overachieving Personalities Succeed in Law Firms and in Society

Historically, the attorneys I have watched succeed the most are the ones who attended good to exceptional colleges, did extremely well there, and ended up at lower to average-ranked law schools and did exceptionally well there as well. In most cases (certainly not all) these attorneys ended up going to lower-ranked law schools because they did not do well enough on their Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) to get into a top law school. However, instead of being discouraged by average LSATs and the relative prestige of their law school, they focused on doing the best they could with the opportunity they were given and as a result came out on top.

These people tend to have "overachieving" personalities and end up experiencing great success in everything they do. They work extremely hard, figure out the "global" rules of the game, and commit to whatever it is they are doing. Overachievers do very well in law firms and always have. They want to contribute and do whatever it takes to be productive.

The law firm game is not necessarily about how smart you are-it is about how much you give compared to the other people you are competing with. In this respect, your pedigree, race and other factors are often meaningless because what is valued is your work product. Overachievers produce more work and that is why they do so well in law firms and in society.

The main impediment to succeeding in law for most attorneys is not a lack of intelligence, a lack of a pedigree or any other "external" factor. Attorneys do not succeed and reach their full potential because they do not produce enough valuable work for clients-whether the client is a law firm or an outside client. There is no escaping this simple rule and it follows attorneys wherever they go.

At some point in time, law firms often decide that they should hire the children of clients, the worst performing students from the best schools and others who are unlikely to succeed. What ends up happening to these attorneys, of course, is that they are often "underachievers". Underachievers are the absolute worst types of attorneys for law firms to hire because they rarely give 100%, are rarely committed and frequently drop out of the race early. (Notwithstanding any of this, firms continue to hire these sorts of attorneys because clients prefer to have attorneys from top law schools working on their matters as opposed to attorneys from lower-ranked schools.)

The most productive members of society, the ones who add and create the most value, are the ones who succeed. Success thus has more to do with how much a person produces as opposed to what that person's social class, race, or status is. If a motivated attorney decides to leave the practice of law, or practice in another environment, the better judge of why the attorney should move is often whether this other environment will allow the attorney to be more productive or to produce something that is more highly valued. This is often the calculus I discuss with attorneys who are considering leaving their current positions.

For example, imagine if the two Founders of Google had taken jobs inside of a company after getting their PhD's in computer science from Stanford. If they had pursued that option, they might have settled down to work inside of these companies and simply done what was asked of them and nothing more. But that option would likely not have allowed them to make the best use of their skills and to make the greatest contribution to society. They were better off starting a search engine because it allowed them to make a greater contribution to the world.

Just as with the Google founders, all of us should make career decisions based on whether and to what extent our decisions allow us to make contributions to the world. The decision a lawyer makes about whether to switch law firms, quit the practice of law, or remain working at his or her current firm should all be based on whether that decision will allow the attorney to make the best contribution he or she can to society. Every decision should be viewed through the lens of how productive we believe that we can be and the quality and level of our contribution.

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About the Author

Harrison Barnes has one true passion: getting lawyers jobs. His tireless drive to succeed, his extensive contacts in the legal world, and his uncanny ability to draw out the best in his candidates have made him one of the most sought-out, respected legal recruiters in history. His company, BCG Attorney Search, places more attorneys in law firm jobs than any recruiting firm in the world.

Harrison Barnes is also the founder and CEO of The Employment Research Institute, an umbrella of 500 job search websites, employment publications, placement firms, and companies. The institute employs several hundred people and is headquartered in Pasadena, California.

A prolific writer in his own right, Mr. Barnes pens a daily career blog that circulates to 800,000 readers. He has published numerous books and is a frequent lecturer on recruiting issues. He cares about his candidates and genuinely wants to help them find fulfillment in every aspect of their lives.