TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

  The raids by US-headquartered law firms in the UK for legal talent have grabbed headlines. In particular, the seeming almost personal competition for stars between Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Weiss captured attention like an American football playout.  Also professional anonymous networks such as Reddit and Fishbowl have been posting an escalating number of queries about how junior lawyers could apply for work at those London branches of the US firms. The usual advice was: Sure, they're hiring and go for it but be prepared to put in extreme hours and always be available. LawCareers.Net  documents the grind: "Trainee and junior  solicitors  at US law firms in London are facing intense work schedules, with some exceeding 70 hours a week and often finishing after 10:30pm. US law firms occupy the top 11 spots on the hours table, according to a new survey by  Legal Cheek ." Now it is becoming clear what is driving all this activity in the UK legal market: Su...

   It was a heady time - that is, the counterculture. And the "street people" - that era's term for the homeless - primarily were young folks who could fend for themselves.  They knew, for example, to come to liberal sanctuaries such as university towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan which provided essential services as well as compassionate mental health outreach. Oh, and all the free concerts.  Some were runaways. Some were simply experimenting with an alternative lifestyle. Many would return to the conventional way of life of paying rent or, down the road, even buying a house.  Now, we Boomers who were free spirits during the counterculture, bear witness to a very different kind of homelessness. It lacks many support systems. It certainly isn't an adventure or a voluntary time-out. And since it includes so many aging, there may not be any way back to being able to have your own roof over your head again. MSN  documents: " Single adults 50 or older  are no...

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Around the globe there are more than  50 million social media influencers.  That's the new glam gig - often lucrative - young people want to work in. In America, the majority of Gen Zers aspire to become influencers. With the banning of those under-16 on social platforms in Australia that will mean a delay in entering that game. Those platforms include TikTok, Facebook, Snapshot, Reddit, X and Instagram. I have to assume that the new Blue Sky is also off-limits. Delay could prevent acquiring the know-how and the skills to get, hold and grow followers. Essentially that's a young person's territory. If youth is locked out until they are 16 they may "age out" of the opportunity to pursue this career. There really is such a phenomenon of "starting too late" in a specific profession. Those could range from the dream of practicing law in a large firm to consulting in an elite operation such as McKinsey.  Not that being an influencer is an easy way to make a bu...

 " He [Brad Karp] has not been featured on vogue, cosmopolitan, men’s fitness, etc unlike other men who are famous."  That is one of the responses on Reddit Big Law to this query:  "Is Brad, Karp (of Paul, Weiss) not very admired outside the legal community? ... Has biglaw made us view him with rose color glasses?" Again, the long-time (dating back to 2008) chair of major law firm Paul Weiss has become the focus of a kind of adolescent fan force field. We Boomers can reach back to memories of the ethos of screaming teen girls attending the performances of Frank Sinatra and Elvis. What we know, though, is this: Being on the cover of glossies can actually be a brand/legacy destroyer.  Both Jill Biden and Kamala Harris had been Vogue cover girls. The two have been deposited in the junk pile of history.  John F. Kennedy Jr., once featured on the glossies, has had his reputation trashed. For instance, peek at bestseller "Ask Not: Kennedys & The Women They Dest...

  Bloomberg reports that AI love relationships have been so bliss-filled that some of the human partners have married their virtual soulmate.  If you're considering deepening your AI relationship with marriage you probably first want to sort out the legalities. After all, this is America The Litigious: Would a marriage to your AI avatar even be legal?  Could such a marriage prevent also having a legal marriage with a human?  If that matter of the heart sours, do you have to arrange some kind of "alimony" paid to the service for the abandoned avatar?  Well, just a week ago there has been an opinion published on just those kinds of legal issues. Mariapizie states: "...  existing laws specify that one cannot marry an inanimate object or a robot, which includes AI entities. The legal framework for marriage necessitates mental competency and the capability to comprehend consent ... The law must evolve to encompass new definitions and understandings of personho...

   80 years old and savvy in the ways of the world political strategist James Carville says we need to dig deep into this question:  Where do people get their information from?  In posing this question, Carville is referring primarily to the implications for voting. However, in coaching those over-65 who are semiretired and looking for work I see the relevance of the same question for getting, holding and even moving on to better jobs and contract assignments.  What I have observed is that those who are up on social media/networks, pore over comments following articles, gossip with God's Plenty, break through generational silos and listen versus pontificating are never without work when they want to work. Yes, they know what is really going on with those hiring and have insider intel on how to apply for whatever.  Incidentally, this goes back to the 1970s  research of Mark Granovetter about the strength of weak ties.  That is, jobs are bound to co...

  Typically, it is so obvious that you are being forced out of an organization that when the exit actually occurs it's a downright relief.  It almost isn't emotionally relevant if you pull the plug or that's done for you. Of course, it is financially and legally very relevant what terms and conditions you will negotiate. Those could be associated with if you resign or if hold on and are fired. So, as you pick up that you might be iced out it could be wise to consult an employment lawyer.  Yet there are those who come to me for intuitive coaching who contend getting the boot was a shock.  Admittedly there are some organizations so skilled in concealing their cards that you are blindsided. A setting for that is the professional services niche. In law firms, for example, some partners are known to keep you laboring long hours and preoccupied with producing quality work products right up until the day on your calendar pops up the meeting with HR and the partner. In this ...

  For those blessed with the ability to let the career go, semiretirement can be a time of emotional and spiritual abundance. If you play it smart in the labor market it can also provide a sense of financial security - at least as long as you continue to bring in income from work. That's the semiretirement dynamic: ensuring the continual inflow of revenue from laboring at something, anything.  That is symbolized in the tarot by the Seven of Cups. The card represents the new access to almost limitless choice. The world has opened to you in unexpected ways. The abundance can happen because you are empowered to transform back into the human being who might have lost so much control during what a career can do to you. In some Native American tribes there is this belief: Trauma or even simple adversity takes away a piece of you. If you are willing to surrender to an awareness of that loss the part can be grafted back on. Again you are whole + there is the gift of having learned imp...

  It was for the Boomer generation that the Career Guidance Industry came into being and exploded in growth. The post-war boom plus access to a college degree gave us Boomers unprecedented opportunities. Here we were the emerging Knowledge Worker. No longer was the focus on getting/holding jobs. It was all about careers. Inside the career box was the shot at movin' on up. The career experts were supposed to assist us in maxing those opportunities. There were "oughts" about everything from matriculating at night for the MBA to the importance of face time to dressing for success (including those cute bow ties for The Professional Women). Did all that help us with upward mobility? Or not? The reality is that once inside an organization you tend to learn fast how the game operates. So, come on, how much did we really require outside guidance? What most of us did derive from that abundant external expert prompting is the kind of daily angst our parents' blue-collar labor n...

From "Unsafe at Any Speed" to litigation to the grassroots "Raiders," activist lawyer Ralph Nader pioneered consumer rights. Part of his pull power was that he had been an outsider. In the late 1960s that fit perfectly with the ethos of the counterculture. So many of us Boomers applied to be Nader Raiders.  If the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is approved there could be the insider, that is establishment, version of Nader. Bloomberg Law reports: " ... Kennedy’s history of defending consumers, questioning the pharmaceutical industry, and calling for more stringent food regulation has mass tort lawyers cautiously optimistic." Those plaintiff lawyers, as began with tobacco and extended to lead paint, utility emissions and pain killers, could leverage the legal concept of public nuisance. Legend has it that it was Motley Rice which first applied public nuisance to product liability. Meanwhile a rising tide, as the cliche goes, lifts all boats. The opp...

  44,733.92 USD ▲  +437.41 (+0.99%) today November 25, 10:05 AM EST   This phenomenon is being called The Trump Bump

  It "felt wrong" that former US President Barack Obama was so front stage during the Kamala Harris campaign. What seemed palpable was a need to be highly visible yet again. More recently (November 19th) with his second memoir  "Citizen,"  former US President Bill Clinton is again out there.  The Guardian  is not kind: "Like an old-time vaudevillian, the 42nd president, now 78, finds it hard to leave the stage." Although the book has a high ranking on Amazon, it comes across as more than 400 pages of platitudes. The style is out-of-date (that is, boring) and the content rings inauthentic. About the latter: "I had loved being president, but I supported the two-term limit and was determined not to spend a day wishing I still had the job." However, the whole Bill Clinton ethos can be experienced as a longing about "wishing I still had the job." Then there is Disney leader and author of bestseller "Ride of a Lifetime" Bob Iger who...

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  When a sector enters hard times the negative impacts can fan out to its supply chain. Actually those businesses which are contractors can get hit worse than the industry itself. They might have fewer resources to navigate those tricky currents. So, with the multi-dimensional troubles overtaking the global auto industry, a supplier like Bosch has announced it will cut the workforce about 5,500 in the next few years. Bosch cites these reasons: Lower auto sales Overcapacity in factories versus the amount of sales Stalled transition to the EV. Of course, other kinds of contractors, ranging from tire manufacturers to advertising agencies, could also be set reeling. A standard strategy is diversification: Don't just provide ABC or XYZ products or services.  In 2008, law firm Paul Weiss, known to be the powerhouse litigator for Wall Street firms, made a strategic shift. That was to bring in star legal talent to also become a leader in transactional services. Initially, it launched...

  43,974.03 +565.56  (+1.30%) It will make me sound old (which I am) but I can't help reaching back to the optimism of Alfred E. Neuman. He observed: "What, Me Worry." That's how we boomers started out. Then came the deep 1970s economic downturn. 

 It was quick. As in the sci-fi "A Quiet Place," human beings have changed their essence - or will have to. That is to survive the incoming take-over of all branches of government by the ideology of Donald Trump. That could go on for at least 16 years.  One-time creator of the very left Abovethelaw.com David Lat covers on Bloomberg Law the panel of the very right Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention. The subject, which Lat treats with respect, is how to be a change agent. The advice includes being patient. Many of us recall how a 2022 "Pivot" podcast saluted progressive chair of law firm Paul Weiss Brad Karp for also being a change agent. That was in social justice. Will that kind of outreach by any law firm be toned down? It could be organizational death to not be aligned with clients' mindsets. Meanwhile, liberal political/legal analyst Elie Mystal, an Abovethelaw.com alumnus and best-selling author of "Allow Me to Retort," is get...

"Tis bonus season. Often that is the most unambiguous communications organizations send about how they are doing financially, their culture and how they assess individual employees.  By now everyone in the law-firm sector knows that  Cravath and Paul Hastings essentially matched Milbank.  The two law firms announced both an EOY and special bonus which totaled what Milbank had provided during 2024. And that's at $140,000 for the topper. The chatter, including my conversations with those in the loop, focuses on two issues: When will their own law firm come in with the numbers? Will any law firm exceed the package of EOY, Special Bonus? As for the former, no one anticipates their law firm will not at least match. It's just  the agony of waiting for the official word.  After all, for the three quarters of 2024, law-firm revenue has been up 12%.  About the latter, as the posting on  Fishbowl Big Law  puts it this way: "Someone has to come over the top ...

   "Elizabeth Stotland Weiswasser and Anish Desai [from Weil Gotshal] are joining Paul Weiss as partners in its litigation department ... The pair has represented tobacco giant Altria Inc., as well as pharmaceutical companies Sanofi-Aventis and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc." -  Bloomberg Law,  November 20, 2024 This broadens the focus of Paul Weiss' aggressive poaching to rainmakers in trial work. The two specialize in patent litigation. Weiswasser will be one of the five litigation co-chairs at Paul Weiss. A lot of the watchers of this firm's escalating pace of high-profile lateral hires will probably now stop issuing warnings - like a Greek Chorus. Those chanted that Paul Weiss could be heading into a Dewey & Leboeuf kind of disaster. Part of the reason Dewey & Leboeuf went kaput was that it chased rapid growth through what Paul Weiss is doing right now: Recruiting and retaining brandname talent through nosebleed compensation, along with mul...

  "He's a nice guy." or "She's such a good human being." That's how the typical tarot reading starts out if the person in pain is struggling with the decision to end the romantic relationship.  At least that's what's typical in America. That's not what is standard in a number of other countries in which I conduct tarot sessions.  See, in America too many can "afford" to rule out most of the pragmatic issues when it comes to matters of the heart. Those can extend to what is accepted as loyalties supposedly due in friendship and even in the office.  In less affluent economies pragmatism dominates. It has to. That takes the actual form of being aspirational, as in "Where will this take me?" At the very least, that means survival. But it can be linked to hopes of getting beyond just getting by.  Usually in America the unease about a relationship sets in when A) Adversity hits or B) Success begins to happen. Then, there is the ...

Professional anonymous networks, formal career guidance and lots of internal organizational chatter focus on performance reviews. Unfortunately, most on the receiving end of both positive and negative reviews interpret them personally. Usually that's short-sighted and won't get you up to speed on what you should be doing or not doing to accelerate success or prevent being terminated. The reality about performance reviews is, as this comment on Fishbowl points out, is: "A ... review is ... a management strategy" That means that it is essentially a tool of management to achieve its objectives. Those range from legally covering itself in a termination (negative review) to motivating the ambitious to even work harder (positive review).  In addition, another reality is that in some professions such as practicing law in a top law firm positive reviews do not ensure much or even everything. Depending on what the management strategy is they can be undercut by a scathing more...

  For years large law firm Paul Weiss has represented Apollo in legal actions, especially deals. That could position it for unique access in providing input on the big-time national money issues. That is, if Donald Trump decides to give the nod to Apollo CEO Marc Rowan as Treasury Secretary. As  The New York Times  reports, Trump has broadened his search for that role. On it is currently Rowan. That shouldn't be a stunner. A few days ago on  Yahoo Finance  (owned by Apollo) Rowan gave high marks for Trump's approach to national leadership. The headline read: "Trump admin. is going to bring needed change: Apollo's Marc Rowan" Access inside the beltway is everything. It is critical for law firms since they need to advocate for their clients's issues. Immediately after the announcement of the conservative landslide it appeared that progressive law firms such as Paul Weiss would be locked out. During the Biden Administration that law firm was well known for being...

  There is the current platitude - which is usually true - that the 60-year-old looks more like late 40s.  The exception could be those who make it to partner in those elite law firms such as Paul Weiss, Cravath, Skadden, Simpson and Kirkland & Ellis. And what seems to be almost a sci-fi kind of saga of rapid aging is getting attention. On  Reddit Big Law,  13 hours ago was posted this query, along with an observation: "Is There Premature Aging of Law Firm Leadership/Partners? "The early aging seems to kick in during the early 60s, when other kinds of white-collar workers aren't showing the wear and tear much yet. Of course, they tend to leave their younger self photo on the law firm website." So far, there have been: 41,000 page views 37 comments 69 likes 41 shares. Overall the responses confirmed the assumption that working in Big Law as a career does trigger the early onset of the ravages of aging. Most date it back to the 50s, a decade before the 60s. Or even...

  It's free. And it's attracting everyone from influencers to Everyman/Everywoman uneasy on Elon Musk's X. That's Bluesky. The leadership, partners, associates and staff at progressive law firms ranging from Covington to Paul Weiss can join this decentralized social network. Here is everything you  need to know.   If you have been active on X, the learning curve is short on Bluesky since the format is similar.  You can join at bsky.app or download the app on mobile. There is no longer a waiting list. Those I coach have been able to attract followers quickly. UPDATE:  Bluesky adds 1 million new users in 24 hours, post election. Here are more details from  LinkedIn. Life is hard. Business is even more difficult these days. Get answers – and relief. Jane Genova is a results-driven confidential intuitive coach, tarot reader and content-creator related to careers. Complimentary consultation (please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com)

  The award-winner  "Close to You"  puts it out there that family, even the most well-intentioned, may block not only growth but the basic survival instinct.  When being part of his family of mother, father and three siblings, as a female, in a small town in Canada now-male-Sam had been frozen into sadness. His father feared finding her dead. Four years later he has found himself as he transitioned into a male in a large city in Canada where he lives a little life with a roommate. With dread but willingness he returns home for his father's birthday.  That is a disaster and he leaves during the birthday dinner.  But before he does he reconnects with the disabled woman (deaf) he once loved back in high school even when he was a female. Later they consummate that love in a brief and temporary encounter. This Sam has found quiet self-acceptance. He is no activist.  His family only knows how to provide a ham-handed version of liberal acceptance. Not deep un...

  Hollywood is one of the sectors which had blown up and, like management consulting, teaching in liberal arts, old tech and content-creation, may never return to its original size. Employment in California's film, television and sound niches had contracted 30% and has not bounced back.  So, some have decided to take on that very difficult rite of passage: finding work in a very different field. For O'Dwyer's Public Relations I explained how much of an ordeal - and not at all an adventure - that is. Gone poof are the network, confidence about what you can do and marketability of lots of what you had been rewarded for.  Hollywood Reporter zeroes in on this struggle. One aspect is employer bias against or lack of knowledge about the entertainment industry: " ...  job seekers are wondering whether having entertainment credits on their résumés helps or hurts their chances of finding other work."  Laid-off junior lawyers whom I coached during The Great Recession we...