The investment strategy of value investing-seeking fundamentally sound companies with strong balance sheets and price-earnings ratios (properly audited, of course) provides a good analogy for lawyers in the recession.  Because the fundamentals of law practice remain constant , this environment requires all lawyers to perform a rigorous self-assessment of their goals and their skills and to plot a career strategy:
1. Determine how do your academic credentials stack up objectively (e.g, law school ranking, class rank, honors, clerkships) and how are lawyers with your experience and skill  set faring in the current market.
2. Are you organized, analytical, and outgoing? What non-legal education and work experience and life skills do you have that will help you enhance or retool your practice?
3.  Establish honestly your career goals and priorities, both near and long term.  What is your dream job?  Do you want to stay in the law? Do you want to maximize your compensation or your personal time? Do you prefer a more or less structured work environment? Do you want to be a “headliner” or a staffer?  Do you like working with lawyers?
4. Be informed-what jobs are available?  How do they stack up against your current job and your dream job?
A good career counselor or recruiter can aid you in this self-assessment and developing a career strategy.  Good consultants give you the tools to evaluate your situation and determine the way forward.  That requires you to examine closely what you want to do, what you can do and what is available. You may decide to stay where you are, to test the market aggressively or to invest in yourself though education.
Establishing a strategy based on your fundamentals: your experience, skills, priorities and goals and on accurate market information can grow your “portfolio” personally and professionally.  You can do nothing more important for your career.
© 2008 David Bargman
President,  Baum, Stevens