From the Career Files: Ten Tips for Your Summer at the Screen

From the Career Files: Ten Tips for Your Summer at the Screen « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site – News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law Schools, Law Suits, Judges and Courts

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Disney World Guru

Mickey Mouse, Esquire?

“I’m leaving the legal profession.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Disney World!”

This is, in a nutshell, the story of the latest lawyer featured in our series on career alternatives for attorneys. But there is a lesson here of broader applicability.

Are you looking to leave the law? Your treasure trove of “useless” knowledge could be a valuable asset….

After graduating from Seton Hall Law School, clerking, and practicing with his father for almost a decade, Lou Mongello turned a longtime obsession into a full-time occupation. He explains how he transformed his lifelong interest in the world of Disney into a successful business, in this interview with Spencer Mazyck of Bloomberg Law:

It’s an inspiring story, isn’t it? Mongello took his incredible knowledge of all things Disney and parlayed it into a thriving multimedia enterprise, featuring radio and video shows, books, and websites. And as he explains in the video, he gives back to the community of Disney lovers through the Dream Team Project.

If you might want to follow in Mongello’s footsteps, try your best to maintain hobbies or interests outside practicing law. You never know how or when an interest in a seemingly obscure topic could evolve into something that allows you to enter the Magic Kingdom — of life beyond the law.

Stealth Lawyer: Lou Mongello, Disney Expert & Historian

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Revamping Career Services: Two Modest Proposals

Does somebody need a professional headhunter?

There are two sides to law school career services. One side you meet at conferences and events. The CSO employees you meet in public are smart, earnest people. They care about their students, and they know better than their deans the challenges of the legal job market. They’re pleasing to look at and interested in meaningful reform. You end conversations with them feeling like they’re underpaid.

The other side of CSO is the side you only hear about from the disgruntled students who actually need them. If the student has a job, they say there is one good CSO person in an office beset by lazy morons. If the 3L doesn’t have a job, the whole office is a solitaire-playing, baby-making, incompetent den of secretaries who are contractually obligated to use the word “network” in every single sentence.

I think both sides are true. There are some real CSO gems who work hard, and the law schools like to show these people off. But the system of law school career services is based on legal jobs economy that is gone and never coming back. People are using 2003 skills to contend with the 2013 job market, and it’s failing students all across the country.

It’s failing even students at Ivy League schools, as this story will point out. But I have two simple solutions that law schools could implement for next fall that would significantly improve the performance of law school CSOs….

Today’s amazingly disgruntled 3L goes to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In fairness to Penn, there are a number of schools where students are totally underwhelmed by their career services officers. But it is a little weird to hear this from a 3L at an Ivy:

Many of the graduating 3Ls from UPenn Law (who have attended other undergrad Ivies and schools such as Stanford and Berkeley) have been upset with the incompetency of UPenn Law’s Career Planning office (I know, it may not sound like news). This school is like a faux Ivy.

Many of us are still unemployed or stuck with undesirable back up jobs, even though we worked for consulting firms, the government, and major corporations before coming to Penn Law. There are still many of us with decent grades who are unemployed. And a lot of us have massive debt.

The Career Planning office at UPenn appears to do little to get job for students who strike out at On Campus Interviewing (or for those who want to work in public interest or government). It does not matter if you are west coast or east coast, the situation is bad all round.

Throughout the year, Penn’s career office will send a “job of the week” job posting email to the 3L class. Yes, that includes ONE job of the week. Other comparable schools (Duke and Harvard) send “job posting

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From the Career Files: An Open Letter To The Bosses Of Young Lawyers

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from the ATL Career Center’s team of expert contributors. Today, Alison Monahan offers advice to the bosses of new lawyers.

After writing a few pieces advising young lawyers how to start off on the right foot in their new jobs, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to look at the question from the other angle: If you’re supervising a young lawyer (or a law student in a summer job), what can you do to help ensure a smooth transition?

Here’s some advice for the care and feeding of young lawyers (and lawyers-to-be)….

If you’re in charge of a law student intern, summer associate, judicial extern, or new hire, you’re probably pretty busy and stressed out yourself. It’s easy to view this fresh-faced

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