TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

It was predictable - to use that current wealth-creation term - that some youth on Wall Street would be featured in Interview Magazine without their employers' permission. Essentially the four were positioned and packaged as lads about town. They were from Goldman Sachs, Barclays and PwC. Not at all the right image for buttoned-down institutions handling global funds.  What they might have sensed is that they no longer had to accept the hazing culture of Wall Street. That ranges from impossible hours to top-down authority. Now, you bet, there are options to making it big. One lad - Demarre Johnson - is already gone from PwC. Details not disclosed. But I have a hunch Johnson isn't skipping a beat in his journey to become wealthy. Things have changed a lot since David Solomon started out. Wall Street could be forced into oblivion. See, among the seductive emerging career options is the prediction markets or what's known as the "collective intelligence." Back when ...

The legal sector recalls the multiple guerrilla-like poaches of Kirkland & Ellis' UK talent by Paul, Weiss. The "value" of those quickly became evident as the latter gained prominence in that location. Although it had been operating in the UK since 2001, only recently did Paul, Weiss become a power player. The UK now is a major profit center for the US law firm. Well, Paul, Weiss did it again. In the Brit legal tabloid RollOnFriday competition for the law firm providing the best creature comforts for employees Paul, Weiss comes out: Tops. The satisfaction rate is 95%. Ahead of Kirkland & Ellis. This law firm receives a 94% rating. So delighted are staff at Paul, Weiss that wild praise is shared with media. One senior solicitor puts it this way: “It’s like working in the Ritz but without the high class hookers” Also citied was the amazing free cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I wonder if anyone stuffs their attache case or backpack with some of that to fee...

  Two from Astronomer were caught on camera kissing during a Coldplay concert. Both were married to someone else and it was a boss/subordinate situation. They were CEO Andy Byron and HR executive Kristin Cabot. Both stepped down last July.  Since then , Cabot shared on an Oprah podcast,  she has been unable to get another job. And she needs one. However, Byron had had promising activity on his own job search.  When there is a corporate scandal, is there still a double standard? We all know that at one time it was standard when an inappropriate romance was uncovered, the woman was the one to leave the job. The man stayed on, unless there were ethical considerations such as abuse of power or favoritism.  Could that still be the way it goes?  I'm not sure. In the Epstein files scandals both males and females have been punished severely. There will probably be no coming back for Larry Summers and Leon Black. The same could hold for Kathy Ruemmler and former Har...

 This could be the good times rolling before the perfect storm upends law firms, both large and Main Street.  The time frame US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sketched out in his Rice University speech is four to five years. After that, things could be "tough" for young lawyers. AI can do many of the tasks they used to do. He adds that, of course, there will always be a place for the best and brightest. But in addition they will have to learn to be "nimble." Partners and judges will also have to change. AI can be leveraged to predict expected outcomes. That will put pressure on partners and judges perhaps to do what is forecasted to be the winning moves. Partners don't want to lose trials and ground in transactions. Judges don't want to have what they oversee appealed. Law firm players actually in the trenches, ranging from Brad Karp at Paul, Weiss and John Quinn at Quinn Emanuel, have been more specific on how much of the manpower at law firms co...

  There's the old joke about becoming partner at a law firm. It's like a pie-eating contest. That's how you get there. And winners get to eat more and more pie. Well, after taking part in the coup at Paul, Weiss which landed him the job of chair Scott Barshay gets piled on to his practice pressures leading a law firm in crisis.  That crisis has been going on for a year, ever since March 20th when the deal with the Trump administration was announced in order to lift an Executive Order. It was contended that the EO could have put the firm out of business. The terms and conditions involved pro bono assignments.  In Bloomberg Law , Roy Strom provides the details of that very bad year for Paul, Weiss. Those include: Reputational hits. Of the nine firms which cut deals with the administration Paul, Weiss was singled out for the worst of criticism. That's because it was the first in and seen as establishing the template for how the EO could be handled via pro bono assignments....

Puzzling that influential work network LinkedIn retains a slot in your profile for where you got your degree.  This is at a time when not getting a degree carries increasing social status. And social status, as Toby Stuart hammers in "Anointed," is what keeps opening doors to opportunity. Once society "anoints" you as worth chasing after, your prospects are golden. Back to no-degree. Well known is that OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman doesn't have a degree and that billionaire Peter Thiel pays you not to get one ( Thiel Fellowship ). Look at how far Jeffrey Epstein got without a degree and how he duped all those Ivy graduates, ranging from Larry Summers to Leon Botstein. The objective of the LinkedIn alma mater identity is probably so that you can loop in with other alumni for help in getting, holding and moving on to better work. But the reality is that those alumni might themselves have become powerless to aid. They have been unemployed. Knowledge workers are lo...