Using Transferable Skills to Land Alternative Jobs for Lawyers

How many times have you heard that you can do anything with a law degree??

For me, I heard it when I was applying to law school, while I was in law school, and pretty much every day since I graduated.

While I don’t disagree with the premise that?lawyers can do pretty much anything with (or despite) their law degree , I take issue with how easy people think it is to find an alternative career as a lawyer.

Nobody tells us how to find and land an alternative legal job, so we’re left to figure it out on our own.

And when we struggle despite our best efforts, we begin to wonder if it’s just us or if this pursuit for an alternative career is trickier than we’ve been led to believe.

For the record: It’s not just you!

Keep reading--or check out the video--for the “how” behind finding and landing an alternative legal career.

Alternative Lawyer Careers and Your Soft Skills

It’s not that lawyers don’t have soft skills, it’s that they don’t recognize what their soft skills are.

While hard skills are directly related to your technical training and knowledge--the things you learned in law school and on the job--your soft skills are the way in which you carry out your technical skills.

I go more in depth on what hard and soft skills are here.

Your soft skills are the “how” behind your hard skills.

The grammar nerd in me likes to think of soft skills as the adverbs of the career world.

How do you communicate with clients?

How do you take depositions?

How do you negotiate?

Maybe you’re a great listener who allows clients to feel heard, which in turn leads to greater trust and a strong referral relationship.

Perhaps you’re very calm and disarming in your depositions, which leads witnesses to feel less nervous and be more forthcoming with information.

If you’re curious about what qualifies as a soft skill, just head to Google and search for “in-demand soft skills” and you’ll get plenty of examples.

Bottom line: Identify your soft skills and how they translate into value in your chosen alternative career.

Which Alternative Legal Career Do You Want?

You need to do the foundational personal work to figure out what non-legal or legal-adjacent career you want to pursue.

While the “right” path forward may feel like looking at a list of potential careers, finding one that seems doable, and then squeezing yourself into the mold for that job--that usually doesn’t lead to long-term satisfaction.

See my point above about lawyers having the skills to do pretty much anything.

It’s more helpful--not to mention more sustainable for your career--to first identify your core values and get really clear about what’s most important to you in life.?

You can work through a values exercise I created here.

Next you’ll want to get a general idea of what your interests are.

Yes—what you find interesting!

It’s incredibly important to understand not only what comes easily to you, but also what interests you. You might even find a career you enjoy.?

Imagine that for a moment…

And once you’ve gotten clarity around your values and interests, a great resource for exploring alternative careers for lawyers is this non-exhaustive list from Sarah Cottrell of the Former Lawyer podcast.

A Side Note About Alternative Career Assessments

While the psych major in me loves the entertainment value of a personality test like Enneagram (I’m a 7!) or Myers-Briggs (ENFP here!), career assessments should be approached with caution and taken with a grain of salt.

I’ve had many clients come to me after having taken a MAPP assessment or a super intense version of the Myers-Briggs, each purporting to tell them the careers for which they’re best suited.

Their results were disappointing to say the least. And many of them felt even more stuck than before they took the assessments.

All that to say: there is no shortcut to figuring out which career is right for you. You gotta actually do the foundational hippie dippy work.

Alternative Careers Don’t Care About Your Lawyer Experience

Non-legal employers don’t care about your lawyer experience.

In fact, talking about it with them can work against you.

People outside the legal profession can’t imagine why someone would want to quit being a lawyer based on their perception of the high pay and prestige.

So when they see a lawyer looking to break into their non-legal field, they’re skeptical.?

These employers tend to fear that you’re a flight risk and you’ll return to lawyering as soon as you get an enticing offer.

While you’ll be drawing from your experience as a lawyer in communicating the value you bring, you need to talk about it in non-legal terms that are applicable across industries.

Connect Your Transferable Skills to the Alternative Career

It’s your job to show employers how the experience you’ve had as a lawyer benefits them.

When you get to the point where you’ve selected a career that aligns with your values and interests, the next step is figuring out which skills--both hard and soft--are most important to those employers.

Those skills are your transferable skills.

Spoiler: these will include a lot of soft skills.

Transferable Skills - Real World Application

When I was looking for an alternative career, I explored becoming a college admissions officer.?

At the time, I was a commercial real estate and finance lawyer who represented lenders.?

Instead of putting on my résumé that I closed multi-million dollar loan facilities for financial institutions--which is understandably meaningless to an admissions officer--I would highlight the skills I used in order to close those deals.

Collaboration was a soft skill that stood out in the job description, so I highlighted my experience in coordinating the closing logistics with all involved parties--my banking client, the borrower, borrower’s counsel, government agency counsel, title company agent, recorder of deeds--in order to close the deal properly and on time.

As lawyers, we tend to place less value on our soft skills compared to our hard legal skills. But you’re doing yourself a HUGE disservice by ignoring your soft skills--especially since they’re so easily transferable across industries.

Learn How to Identify and Communicate Your Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are important in any job search, but they’re vital when changing industries. To learn how to identify and communicate the value of your transferable skills to non-legal employers, you can check out my free masterclass,?3 Simple Strategies for Uncovering Any Lawyer’s Transferable Skills.?

The strategies you learn will help you:

• Figure out the vast array of your transferable skills
• Identify which of those skills are most important to an employer and
• Connect the dots between your experience as a lawyer and the value you’ll bring to their organization.

Take that first step toward the career you always wanted, but didn’t think you could have!

Feel free to send me a DM if you want to find out how we can work together to get you into your ideal job.

Annie

P.S. You can access the original article and accompanying video at https://www.thejdnation.com/blog/alternative-careers-lawyers