Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the legal learning podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the Legal Learning Center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school; to receive three money saving strategies today. Visit legallearningcenter.com/money. Today, we are joined by Annie Little. Annie is going to share transferrable skills, that is especially helpful if you are trying to get a job where you have no experience like your first law job or law adjacent job.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hi, I’m Annie Little. I am a former lawyer turned lawyer career coach. So I practiced real estate law for seven years. And I founded my coaching company, JD Nation in 2012, and I’ve been doing that ever since. So now I focus on helping lawyers find and land their ideal job.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So how can a lawyer land their ideal job?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, with a lot of forethought, that’s one big thing. And it sounds really obvious and especially to probably people who are in law school or who have recently come out of law school, because I remember when I was in law school, that’s like, all I did, right. I was constantly thinking about what’s my next step. Like, what’s my next move? What are my longterm career plans?
But what happens to most lawyers is once we get into the profession, we get into our job. We lose all perspective on that because our job is really consuming and we’re very stressed and you just don’t have the extra like space and bandwidth to be thinking about that kind of stuff. And so you kind of lose that muscle of being able to think strategically and long-term. And so that you’re in there like, well, I’m a lot of people will tell me like, well, I’m pigeonholed. Like I I’ve been in this practice area for so long. I can’t do anything else. And I’m like, really? You really believe that. So what we really do, I mean, I think what’s at the root of it is helping people understand that they have transferable skills, no matter which practice area they pick or whatever jobs they’ve held in the past, everything you’ve done, you can translate it into something else. It may not be readily apparent, and that’s where I come into to help out.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So what do you mean by transferable skills?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Ah, yes. Great, great question. So transferable skills just mean skills that you’ve, you’ve gotten developed honed in your current role or in prior roles that you can then take to a new job and provide value there. So I think, or I know rather when people are moving from one legal job to another, as long as that’s in like a semi familiar practice area, they’re not as concerned. Like for me, I was in real estate and finance. So I went from a place where I did more finance stuff, but it was all real estate stuff. And then I went to a boutique firm that all they did was real estate. So the focus was more on, you know, acquisitions, zoning, that kind of stuff. So I was like, well, that’s pretty transferable. I, you know, like I get it all. Like I’ve seen it all.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I’ll just, my focus will shift a little bit. But when people are like, well, I want to go from litigation to transactional. I can’t do that. It’s too late. And it’s like, no, no, no, no. Like you have to break down what you do as a litigator. You don’t, you don’t put on your resume, like write briefs. No, no, no, no, no.
Like what types of issues are you talking about in the briefs? You know, what kind of analysis are you doing? Who are you talking to? Do you do research? Do you do client interviews, witnesses, you know, depositions, what kinds of like, how do you interact with other people? That’s where a lot of it comes in. And then being able to understand how to describe it in a way that the employer is going to understand, because that’s what really, really matters.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Especially if you’re going from law to something else employers don’t want to hear about your legal stuff and it’ll hurt you if you do talk in lawyer terms, because they’ll just think, why would you want to be anything but a lawyer? Like, why do you want to work here? You’re just going to leave if you get a better lawyer job. And so that’s where a lot of people come to me to they’re like, I just can’t get my foot in the door at a non legal place. And I look at their resume. I’m like, oh, your resume reads like a lawyer. Like they’re not hiring a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That’s so true. Cause I know my resume has a lot of my wins, right. Because if I were moving within my industry, they don’t care about my skills because my skill should already be there if I’ve been doing it for so long. But I want to tell them my wins. Like I went to the California Supreme court, you know, and there’s not a lot of attorneys that have, so it’s, you know, that’s within our industry, a big deal. I’ve handled million dollar cases. That’s not common in my industry. So again, those are like big resume boosts for the industry. But if I were to try to become a party planner or something, that’s just not gonna work.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Right, right. What you would want to do instead, it’s like, let’s just take your Supreme court case that you took. It might be something where we look at, what did it look like and who were you representing? And instead you’d be like, I did X thing for this client so that they could then. And so it shows like what value you provided in a way that the employer can sit in those shoes and be like, oh, well we can use someone who can do that here. And then like on the backend, you’re like, that was a Supreme court case. And they’re like, what? That’s amazing. You’re like, yeah, but it’s not important to what we’re doing here.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
I love that because that just, it’s so creative but it’s, it’s simplistic enough we can do it. It’s doable. We can do that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It’s so doable. And you know, there’s a bit of a process that goes into it. In my course, there’s a module called the soft skills, scavenger hunt. And maybe I should talk about soft skills too, because that’s a thing that clients, when they come to me and I would mention, what would you say your soft skills are – like, what are soft skills? Like what even are those – I’m like, oh my goodness.
Well, that’s something that we need to, you know, get into people’s sort lexicon, right? As lawyers, we’re just, we’re really focused on our hard skills, which are like training education, like our technical skills. And if we’re like you said, if we’re going within our industry, those are the most important things. But I always say that even when that’s the case, employers often hire based on people’s soft skills, because that’s what differentiates you from someone who does the same work as you.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And of course, if you’re moving into a different practice area or different industry, those soft skills are what are going to allow you to communicate what you can do for this other employer in a way that they will understand. And to anyone out there watching this, or listening, you can just Google soft skills because it’s a huge, vast world of what it is. But generally it’s like communication skills, leadership are common. Empathy is a big one these days that people are looking for. But there’s usually like a top 10 for every year. And usually some kind of variation like work ethic. I mean, that’s kind of generic, time management, I wouldn’t say multitasking, but there’s often in like especially like legal job descriptions -able to like prioritize multiple deadlines, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So in that case it’s like, oh, so, well, what part of that are you really good at? Are you always like known as the person who comes in on time or ahead of schedule? Like that’s a really valuable, soft skill. And so by looking through what a job description has, you can see which soft skills are most important to the employer and then pull out yours that may match it.
So that’s what the soft skill scavenger hunt does since lawyers. We’re not as familiar with those skills and we really take them for granted because like you and I have talked about before, lawyers are so resourceful, we have so many skills. We’re just like, yeah, of course I can like talk to people. I have to pick up the phone to do my job. It’s like, right. But you have to listen to people and you have to translate legal principles into everyday language, you know, and those are really valuable skills
Speaker 1 (08:06):
They are. And I think that you’re right, different lawyers have different levels of those skills. You would think that all lawyers are good listeners because that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. But some really aren’t. So, it can really make a difference. And especially again, yeah, if you are, for example, let’s say I wanted to become a wedding planner. Being a good listener would be a really good skill because I need to listen to what the bride wants, right?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And managing like multiple projects at a time, because like one, like if you’re doing a wedding, for example, like how many mini projects are there within a wedding. Right. Cause you’ve got like, you can even think of it as departments. Right? Like there’s catering and then there’s music and dancing and then there’s then you know, all that stuff. And so you can sort of make an analogy to like your caseload and be like, oh, there are all these competing priorities with different deadlines. And you could even talk about like money concerns. Cause that’s something that I’ve noticed with my clients who are looking to go in-house or kind of legal, adjacent, like legal ops or something like that in their interviews. They get asked a lot about like, what kind of experience do you have with like finances? And I think there’s this myth or perception that lawyers are just, Dunces when it comes to math and that’s not the case. I took a lot of math. I loved that kind of weird stuff, but, we know how to balance an account. We know how to like manage a budget. So that’s, that’s kind of a thing where you would want to be able to come up with some examples of that. But that’s like the latest thing I’ve noticed.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
That’s a good one because I know that’s kind of the running joke is, we don’t do math, but I know over the years I had to do a lot of math when I was calculating settlements and whether maybe we underpaid a few years ago on some benefit and overpaid. And so we’re taking a credit here, but we owe you over here. And so the settlement actually changes numbers and it’s sometimes complicated math. You actually could be surprised at how much you do math in law.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yes, because I did settlements in real estate. I would actually, if there wasn’t real estate involved, if it was just like a business purchase or something, I would have to create that settlement statement, like in Excel with the formulas and like the credits and the taxes. And yes, I know how to deal with money person interviewing me for a business job.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I think that’s a good point because I think as soon as you said it, I cringe, but really I think we are more resourceful and driven, we can really get things done and figure out a way to get things done, than we realize. Now, as far as the soft skills go, is there a special spot on the resume? We should be putting it under extracurricular activities, like a soft skill section, or should we be mingling it in?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Oh, that’s a great question. I would say, do not make like a separate section for soft skills. It’s more, I think I like to think of soft skills as the adverbs of the career world. So it’s all about how you do your job. So it’s like, how do you do your hard skills in a way that’s different from other people? You know, so maybe your really, I always struggle with them with these examples on the spot, right. I’ve never had a thousand at my fingertips, but kind of like if you give, if you take depositions, maybe you are extremely calm and patient and, and disarming, you know, so you would find a way to work that in, in that kind of framework I was alluding to before where it’s like I interview clients in this situation, you know, and I disarm them so that, so that they feel comfortable sharing personal history with me or something like that. So if you were going to go into a field where you needed to really gain trust with people, you could be like, oh, like what soft skills do I have that helped me to develop trust?
Like, oh, people really like warm up to me pretty quickly in a deposition. And it’s because I’m really, really calm. And I’m really, I listened really well as opposed to being like really aggressive. But that’s another thing maybe you’re really aggressive in your negotiations. Like maybe you’re just like, I am just known for being like the like hardest core negotiator, but I won’t kill a deal either. You know? So I’m like, I’m like a really hard nosed negotiator so that my clients can get the best possible deal without destroying it.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
This is so great. Cause you know, I, I did a little research on this ahead of time just to make sure I knew what I was talking about. So, but I still had a lot of trouble applying it to myself and the examples you’re giving are so great because definitely, you know, I’m your best friend at deposition. Right. I pull out all the stuff and again, I don’t know why wedding planning sounds so natural for me, but you know, if you had to sit down and really figure out why a bride was having a resistance against a Friday night wedding or something, or I don’t know, whatever, the perfect spot. And so let’s dig into this or, you know, just, yeah. Or like you said, negotiations, I am very known for being friendly. I’m the schmoozer, you know, and I’m not a hard nose, but I don’t play around, here’s my number, take it or leave it. Let’s go to trial. I’m done. I don’t want to talk, like, let’s just, here’s my number. This is the reality. You know, I’m friendly and firm so that we can get to a resolution as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
And I can totally see, like when you talk about how that might translate it’s so interesting because really, I just feel like, okay, yeah, I have my skills, but I just seriously don’t see how they translate. So obviously yes. If anyone wants to make a big transition, they do need you because I tried to Google this and it just was so overwhelming. I mean the soft skills, there’s like 500 of them.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So right. And it’s like, we all have them to some extent. Right. but it’s trying to look back in the soft skills, scavenger hunt, I have all these exercises that help you to go back and look at all kinds of things you’ve done. Not necessarily in your career too. Like I always use the example of like, maybe you were a lifeguard in high school, let’s go back and then answer these prompts about, you know, what did you look forward to in that job? Because you know, even when you have a job that’s awful. I still remember like sometimes being like, oh, I actually like doing this today, you know, and be like, Ooh, I actually really liked drafting loan documents or whatever.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Sounds so nerdy. And then the next stage is why did you like that? You go cause maybe a soft skill in there that helped you, that made it easy for you so that you found it enjoyable in some way. So it does take some work and sometimes lawyers get a little sort of like overwhelmed because it’s almost too much. And it’s tough because right now you’re kind of in a vacuum, but what’s really, really helpful is when you, if you have an idea of what you want to do, which not everyone does, that’s a whole separate thing. But once you have an idea, you pull up a job description and you can go through and see, and this is something that a lot of us lawyers, myself included didn’t do most of the time is when you see someone, like we need someone who’s a great communicator.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You’re like, blah, blah, blah. Great. Like, it’s just fluff. Like that’s what my clients say. Like, well, it’s just fluff. They want someone who’s a good communicator. Someone who can meet deadlines and someone who can manage projects like duh. And I’m like, great. I’m not going to put down like great communicator. Of course you’re not, but let’s tell me some stories about when you communicate, you were a great communicator. What made you a great communicator? What kind of benefit did your employer, or did your client get because of your communication skills and then they can kind of drill down from there because yeah, I mean, if you say, you know, like one of my soft skills, that’s also one of my top characteristic or my top character strength is like humor and playfulness. You can imagine how useless that was as a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It was so under like valued, you know, there were, you know, there was a good way for me to get clients and build relationships. But as far as like my bosses and stuff, they were just like, Hey, smart. I mean, that’s why I never even tried to go into big law. Like I can’t, like, I just can’t fake it. It’s stuffy. But I wouldn’t want to just be like, oh, like one of my best soft skills is the ability to like, to bring levity to a situation. Because if an employer isn’t looking for that, you don’t need to really focus. I’m not saying you need to hide it, but you don’t want to like put it to the forefront. It’s much more effective. If you can sort of learn how to seek out what soft skills they’re looking for. And then those will also help to kind of bridge any gaps you might have in your technical experience. Because you can say like, well, I’m a really good communicator. I haven’t really done this exact thing, but I got these really great results by my communication skills in these other scenarios.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah. You’ve got me totally dying to go look at my resume right now. Just, you know, to have two different ones or whatever, but oh my gosh. I wonder what I have on there. I think we do shoot ourselves in the foot a lot with trying to put our wins on there, trying to put how impressive we are instead of how helpful we are or creative we are or whatever the thing is that these places might be looking for. Whether it’s a startup that we’re just trying to get into, or something totally like a floral business, whatever it is, you know?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And a great question to ask yourself when you’re going through your resume. And this comes up a lot with lawyers and they’re like awards, accolades. And I just, I say, okay, what I need you to ask for each one, I need you to put yourself in the shoes of the place where you’re applying and picture them saying. So what? And if you don’t have a good answer for them as to why that particular thing is relevant to the work you’re going to do for them, take it off. Like your, your real estate on your resume is precious. Don’t take up that space with something that someone’s gonna be like, so what you’re like, oh, I argued at the California Supreme court, you know, and the florist or whatever is gonna be like, and thanks for telling me.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
He might be like, I didn’t know we even had a state Supreme court.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
It’s like, no, no, come back. I can help you. What? Let’s stop talking about that.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I could totally see that. Okay. Now what about students who you just want their JD they don’t really want to go into law, but they don’t necessarily know what they want to do. They just, you know, they really are interested in, like you said, law adjacent, you know, just the whole career path in general. How can they make themselves not just marketable in the resume, but get past that whole, are you just waiting for your bar results? Kind of question.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah. And there’s so much to unpack there. Right. But just to get the, the short answer because I work with more experienced attorneys and they tend to have like two to three years of experience, some, some, a little less. But they, whether they, and some of them start in JD adjacent or they’ve done some other things and they fear that they’re just going to focus on my past experience and I don’t want them to, what do I do? And I’ll say, well, you don’t have to do this, but this is the challenge I like to pose to them. As I say, why don’t you take the first sentence of your cover letter and address that concern. Because if there’s something that you’re worried about that you can anticipate, that’s going to be the big hangup issue for anyone who sees my resume or my cover letter nip it in the butt it’s just like in litigation, right?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Where you like put your own client on the stand and bring out their dirty laundry. Like you do it first, you get to control the narrative and the, like the jury, the judge you’re like, see nothing to see here. Like we totally know it’s a thing you’re like, I’m not pretending to waltz in here. Like I know how to be a day trader or whatever. Like I know that, you know, so with people like that or people who, you know, want to convey like, Hey, I know I went to law school, I’ve got a law degree. Here’s why I don’t want to be a lawyer. Right. You have to make it really clear. Like I’m applying for this job for this reason. I know it seems weird because of my background, but this is why I’m doing it. And then they can at least be like, well, I’m not sure I believe them yet, but they’ll keep reading instead of being like, why did this person apply?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So, and the people that try it, it works. I mean, I understand it’s scary. And my little trick there is to like, you know, they always say the first sentence, they, whoever they are, you know, the first sentence you should say, I found this job posting. And I mentioned, I just put it in a subject line, let’s put subject line, job number, whatever. And then that first line it’s going to really stand out in the first place. And it’s second place be like, oh, oh, they actually, how are they in my head? They know I’m like looking at them. Why are they applying? And I’m telling them, you know, same thing for like people, if you’re going to be moving to a new location, yes, my address is Minnesota, but I’m moving to Philadelphia. Boom.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
That’s smart. That makes sense. Okay. Just get rid of it. Okay. Okay. So I have a question. I know you said you work usually with people who have some experience, but when I was kind of thinking about this, I was so worried. I, I worry about everybody, but I was so worried about those 1Ls who either drop out or get kicked out and, you know, they have so many skills. I feel like the majority of your skills in law school, you really do learn in that first year. I mean, you really learn how to analyze, how it tear things apart. You learn I think just about everything you need to know about a contract and you learn the basics of legal writing. So you’ve got most of your law school skills. It’s just maybe not hammered into as much. But how do you think they could make a transition out of law? How can they explain themselves? And again, using those skills, they just developed to bolster the resume.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah. I mean, another, just right off the bat, address it, address, why didn’t you finish law school or like you have a thing, you know, one semester, two semesters of law school, you say like, yeah, I went, I really liked this, this and this about it, but ultimately I’m more interested in doing what you’re hiring for. That’s like, that’s your first line of your cover letter or of an interview or whatever. And then, so you have, you know, you have it like on your resume, but it’s not going to be at the top, but just, you know, put that you have it there. Unless it’s one where they would value kind of that kind of experience, like if it were, if you were going to be like a contract specialist some of those jobs like with the federal government that are kind of administrative, they might value that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
But what you would want to do again, is to take a look at those soft skills that they’re looking for in the job description and dig down and think about ways that you used that in law school. And it will be like, I hear you on the 1L thing. Cause it’s a little tougher because as a 1L you don’t do a lot of like clinic type stuff or a lot of volunteers. So you’re just kind of trying to stay afloat in that first year. But now that you have those analytical skills, you might also be better equipped to leverage any past experience from other jobs in explaining how those relate as well. But I mean, that’s a tough situation. That being said, my friends that left law school after a semester or the first year I was so jealous of them.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I wished I had had the courage to do that. Because I hated it, but I had this reason for going to law school, which wasn’t great, but I needed freedom from my family. And I wanted, you know, financial independence. It was the easiest way to get there. And I was just like, oh, good for them. You know? And then you have the whole ego thing too, like, oh, was like, everyone’s going to think. I, you know, I quit. Like, why’d she quit? You know, that kind of thing. But so for anyone out there who’s considering it, I’m so proud of you, listen, you’re saving yourself like possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing that and making that decision. And you know, that, I think I was also falling prey to like the sunk cost fallacy as well. It’s like, well, I’m already like 30 grand in what’s another 60 or whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Right. That’s what we all say. It’s really, it’s that, two-fold thing of, how am I ever going to pay that back? I might as well just finish. And then also the other half of what is everyone going to think? Whether it’s your family and friends or classmates that I don’t know why you care.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Right. Because you’re probably not going to be around them anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I know at my school, since they kicked out a third of the first year of class, no, you, you could say, oh, I chose not to come back, but who’s going to believe you. So, there were people when we came back in the fall, everybody was looking around right. And saying, oh, who’s not here. And so we were collecting the stories. And I remember there was one girl who had been in a car accident over the summer. And so she was going to take the year off. And I don’t know if she did or not, you know, that runs through your brain. Was she in a car accident? Like, I don’t know. Maybe she just, yeah. Got kicked out and just made up that story or maybe she did pass, but barely and decided to cut her losses. So it’s almost kicked out basically. Right. It’s the same thing really. And so it’s just, it’s horrible because you know, it’s like, who cares? Stop, just stop.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, we can’t control what other people think. And it sounds very like easy to say and almost trite these days. Cause we all say, well, you can’t control it, but then what do you do? Will you focus on the things that you can control? Like thinking about how you’re going to feel if you do another semester, you know, or how are you going to feel if you quit and think about that. And it’s tough because the only way to really know is to do it. Like practicing law. You don’t know until you try it.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
With stuff like this, though, where you’ve really honed in on these transferable skills or just how to define yourself and how to explain yourself. You know, I think that was one of the biggest fears was if I drop out and I’m $50,000 in debt, I need a good paying job. I can’t afford to just, you know, become a hairdresser. I need to actually have a good job. And so I need to have that great resume. I need to explain myself. And this is where I think, yeah. When I was kind of thinking about transferable skills and lawyers, I thought, oh my gosh, what about the poor 1Ls?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Well, and a big part of it is that sort of lack of confidence that you’re speaking to where it’s like, how do I talk about myself if I didn’t graduate? Or if I haven’t had a legal job yet, and I want to have a legal job, you know, and I’ve been a lawyer and that kind of stuff. And just, and that’s something that a lot of my clients will talk about. They’ll go through the process, they’ll find the job they want. And then they land an interview and they’re terrified.
They’re like, what do I tell them? Like, I’ve been out of work for two years. What do I tell them? I’m like, honestly, it doesn’t matter. The words that you say all that matters is that you say it confidently that you feel comfortable explaining it. You don’t have to say any more than you want to, but if you can say it in a way that feels good to you, that feels truthful to you, that’s going to come across. It’s like, because really what they’re looking for is to see, are you hiding something? Right. And that’s the fear. They’re like, well, they might think I’m hiding something I’m like, right. But you can’t control what they’re going to think.
All you can do is control how you’re going to feel when you tell them, you know? And so we kind of like worked out some various scenarios. Like, how would you feel talking about this? How would you feel saying it this way? Because there are always those concerns, you know? Like you don’t want to bad mouth, your employer, prior employer, even though they were jerks. Right. And everyone reads between thee lines. Like they get it, it happens, but they just, you know, that’s a really big thing though. Like they want to see how honest you are, you know?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And that says a lot about your integrity. And I mean, that person in particular, she totally landed the job. She was like, I just felt so good going into it. I’m like, right. Because it’s not what you’re saying, but when you are apprehensive about being asked that question, even if they never asked the question, you’re going to be like, you know I’m not like tight. Like you’re going to be like nervous that it’s coming up the whole time and you’re going to come across as nervous. And like, you’re withholding something, even though you’re just nervous.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It’s horrible. I’m one of those horrible interviewers. If you’re new, I’m nice. But if you have experience, I like to just see how, yeah. How people answer questions. I don’t care what the answer is. I just want to see how they answer. And so I remember one guy, he lived like an hour south of our firm and we had a courthouse, two hours north of our firm that we never went to. I mean, it was technically in our jurisdiction, but like we never went there and we had a few people who lived an hour north of our firm. So we would always send them. And, but it was like never. And so I just asked him, well, you know, we cover that courthouse. Right. And he’s like, yeah. And I’m like, so how are you going to feel about that?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
If you have to go there. And he was just like, well, you know, I work really long hours and you know, I hope I wouldn’t have to go there a lot, but I figure it would be a bit of a trade-off because I understand that you guys work less hours here. So I’m hoping overall there’s still benefit in my favor there. And I was like, that is a brilliant answer. I love you. Like, I just want to hear, I don’t care how fumbly it is or how bad it is. It’s just, I want to hear something real.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
As opposed to like, oh, no problem. I don’t mind that at all. We were like, really? Yeah. Two hours each way.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
This is so exciting because you know, honestly, even people who have to take time off, like you were saying, you know, I had a friend who had twins right after we graduated. She never got to practice law. And then when she tried to re-enter, she was so nervous and she just failed at every interview. And then she finally actually worked with someone like you where they drew out her skills. And they found out that because her kids were in they were special needs. They were in all this therapy and all this stuff. And that’s partly why she couldn’t go back to work. And so in order to have some me time, she would get up at 5:00 AM every day to exercise. And it’s like, girl, you are motivated. You are organized. You’re on top of it. Like disciplined. And so then she got a job and it was just a matter of how she looked at herself, how she looked at her situation and that’s yeah, it was, but it took someone like you to really help her find her things, you know, what she was doing. Cause I think the soft skills are just part of us and we don’t see them and we don’t realize them because we’re just like, well of course I have to do that. No, you don’t.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And we don’t also, we don’t always understand how much value our soft skills bring, you know, when, so when you add in that can be something you do after the soft skill scavenger. And I’m like, if you’re having trouble finding patterns, have somebody else look at it for you or I’ll look at it for you and I’ll pull out some patterns and, you know, explain to you why they’re valuable. Those skills are valuable because what it means to somebody, for you to be able to do that. And they’re like, oh, I hadn’t thought about it or, oh, not everyone can do that. No, not everyone’s that good at that. And it’s part of it is like this, you were in this echo chamber as soon as we get into law school. Right. And we’re told like, what success is supposed to look like, I call it like the law school, a measuring stick.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
And we take it with us, even though don’t like it we’ll still take it with us. And we compare ourselves to it. And I mean, I was one of those like, well, I’m never going to work in big law. So like F that, but at the same time, my husband is in big law. And so when I would go to his parties and stuff and I, people would ask me what I did. I always be like, am I detecting some condescension? I’m like, get over yourself and do you care? Or don’t you care? Like, clearly I care, clearly this measuring stick is following me around. And part of that is this myth. I don’t know that they tell us, like you can’t have any breaks in your career, any gaps in your resume, it’s the kiss of death. And it’s just not true. And sometimes I have people come to me and they’re like, I don’t think it should be a deal breaker, but am I crazy? Like, am I just delusional? And I’m like, oh no, no, no, no, you’re fine. You’re fine. And I mean, that’s a big thing. Like, well, how do I explain my time off? You know, or my time away. Right. I’m like, you just do like truthfully and candidly. And once you give an answer, everyone’s going to move on. Yeah. Especially like with health issues and like children.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah. That’s, I think it’s so important. I think. And especially with COVID, I think that people have become so much more understanding that life happens, that we actually do have a life, you know, that I’m not alone in this bubble here. I have children, I have dogs. They bark, you know, things like that, you know, I mean cause I was actually, I wasn’t disciplined, but there was a year where I had a lot of big cases and in corporate, you know, the whole team gets on board all the way up the chain. And we have so many conference calls that I started doing them even sometimes on my day off or in my commute. And that year during my annual review. And not that I was marked down, but it was kinda like, Hey, we got a few complaints that there was one time, one time, a dog barking.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
And once or twice there was like kids, like maybe you were in the car. And I’m like, okay. So they were on the east coast and I was trying to like do the 7:00 AM that they all want to do, which means I had to take my kids to preschool. I’m sorry. They’re pretty quiet. And yeah, one time I was on PTO, but I, you know, did it anyways, cause everyone else could do it and I wasn’t doing anything. I was just doing errands that day. So my dog was there. I’m sorry.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I’m sorry. I was trying to go above and beyond and it wasn’t good enough for you. Right?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Well, after that point I just stopped and actually never got complaints that, you know, I wasn’t available for two weeks on an important case. , but you don’t find that that’s how you want it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
It’s kind of the Sophie’s choice and we’re supposed to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Exactly. So yeah. And then when you want to maybe move or transition or yeah, come back after you’ve taken some time off, there’s just so much more to, it just seems so much harder. Even with our own jobs, we can’t figure it out. So it’s just, how are we supposed to figure it out when we step outside our box?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
But it is possible. And once people start to do that, you know, introspective work, you know, and reflective work and looking back at what they’ve done and then looking forward at what they want it all, it kind of starts to make sense. And that’s where the confidence starts to come in again, because I feel like I’m saying that a lot on this, but like confidence is really important. And I think one of the things that surprised me the most when I started coaching lawyers way back, when was that their confidence was so low, you know? And like what you’ve been saying, you know, like lawyers, they’re so resourceful and they’re so smart and they have so many skills and that’s where I come from too. And I’m like, wow, there’s really a lot happening here where confidence or the lack thereof is what’s causing a lot of problems for people in their careers. And so doing it and it’s not, you know, you can’t fake it till you make it. You can’t just say like, oh, say these mantras and be confident. You really have to figure out like, so where is your lack of confidence coming from? And a lot of it is, I don’t think I have any transferable skills, honestly. I’m like, wow, well we can help with that.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Okay. Well we’re just about out of time, Annie, do you have any overall tips that you want to make sure the law students know maybe going into law school so that they are better prepared when they come out?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
So what I heard going into law school, what so many people heard as we were considering going to law school, once we got there, as we were in, it was, you can do anything with your law degree. I agree. You can, you can. However, you need to be a lawyer first. If you want to go that route, if you want to take your JD and use it as a tool to catapult you into other things that you may not otherwise get into as quickly or easily or at all, you don’t get that advantage just by graduating with your JD.
That in and of itself is not enough. So just having that understanding, like if you want to go and have like your JD and an MBA or something, you know, you have to have the experience to go along with it. And not a ton, not a ton. I’m talking like one, two years. That can be enough, but people don’t, people know, people do know that you don’t know how to be a lawyer and you don’t have a whole, like the type of legal skills that they want from someone with a law degree. If you’ve just graduated, of course, there are a few exceptions, but that’s the expectation that I always like to clarify because yes, I do believe you can do anything with a law degree after you’ve practiced a little bit.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Awesome. No, that’s really, really good advice because everyone thinks they can go to law school just for the JD and I mean, okay. Yeah. Technically you can, but there’s a whole issue with that. Yeah. Okay. So now I know you’re all over. You’re on YouTube. What’s your YouTube channel?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Oh, I don’t like, what is it? I don’t have like a personalized one yet. It’s just Annie Little look me up on there. I love to play on LinkedIn. Like my thing is like the backslash little Annie and the JDnation.com is where I live on the interwebs. And then I’m kind of on Instagram a little bit at the JDnation.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Okay, perfect. I’ll make sure to link it all up. And what was the name of your program? So they’re aware of that as well.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
My program it’s called Make Your Next Move. And it’s a combo of courses or a course and group coaching and Q and A and community support. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
No, that sounds awesome. And it’s all just to help lawyers transition, whether it’s in law or out of law, is that right?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yep. It’s a practical process for finding and landing your ideal job, even if you don’t know what that is yet.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Awesome. I love the sound of that just sounds so I guess hopeful, because when lawyers get burnt out, we don’t know what to do. We’re so burnt out and you know, and a lot of people just want to leave law or just change within their field. And I think that having group coaching can be so helpful and insightful to see all the options and not just make a hasty wrong move.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
That is key because we’ve all been there. I think everyone I talk to it’s like made a couple of hasty moves now I’m ready to not, you have to, sometimes you have to get out, but yeah,
Speaker 1 (40:12):
When you’re ready and sometimes you need to make the hasty moves to realize that you actually need to slow down and make a plan. So thank you so much for joining me today. And I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
My pleasure Jolene.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor. Juno, if you have to take out student loans, check in with Juno first, Juno can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor.legallearningcenter.com/Juno for more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Annie, whether you didn’t complete law school, you took time off. It doesn’t really matter. It’s all about how you present yourself. Number two, keep track of your soft skills as you progress through your career. It’s not just about your wins and that’s it for this episode. All the tips, links and so forth will be in the show notes. A full transcript will be available at legallearningcenter.com/annielittle. And if you learned something today, please leave a review that just makes the show more visible to others and can help more people who may need it. Thanks.
