THE JSL MONTHLY
JURISolutions' News and Updates for the Month of May
A WORD FROM OUR CEO
Running a company while raising three children seldom leaves me with a shortage of stories surrounding the horrors that can occur when my two worlds unavoidably intersect. While I have enough material to write an entire book on how not to do it, there was one occasion where I actually got it right. In honor of Mother’s Day and all our working moms, I thought I would share the story.
It was the week of my oldest daughter’s 10th birthday, which just so happened to coincide with WBENC’s Annual Summit & Salute Gala. What a dilemma! Do I miss one of the year’s best networking events or do I miss my firstborn’s milestone of reaching double digits? Then I had an idea: “Honey, how would you like to go to a black-tie gala with mom for your birthday?” She was thrilled! She not only had license to buy a fancy dress, but she was also going to get to spend the night in a hotel with mom, alone!
What started out as a simple plan to avoid the unbearable guilt of missing my daughter’s birthday proved to be so much more meaningful for both of us. In addition to the gala, I took my daughter to some of the WBENC Summit programming. As I watched her listen attentively and hang on every word spoken by the woman giving the keynote, it occurred to me that this trip was no longer about alleviating guilt. It was about setting the stage for the next generation of successful women. It was about being face-to-face with real-life role models teaching my daughter that there is no limit to what a woman can achieve. While I have an incredible amount of respect for formal education, that day my daughter learned lessons you just can’t learn in school.
We had an amazing time together at the Salute, watching on as all the successful women business owners were honored for their accomplishments amid the glam and the glitz. But that is not all that happened that night—I also landed a great client thanks to my daughter! The reason this client and I met was because she used to take her own daughter, now grown up, to the same WBENC event every year for the very same reasons I discovered earlier that day.
OFFICE UPDATES
Meet Our Team
Each month, we will feature one of our fantastic JURISolutions team members so that you can get to know us a little better! This month, we would like to introduce you to Bob Peterson, Senior Recruiter for Attorney and Paralegal Development at JURISolutions.
Q. As a key member of the Attorney Development team, what does your typical day look like?
A. A typical day for me involves wearing several different hats. I’m part research analyst, part hiring manager, part negotiator, part human resources manager and part business developer. On a typical day, I’ll source and review several hundred resumes for multiple job openings on which I’m working simultaneously. Once I’ve identified the best attorneys for those positions, I’ll interview them by phone, and oftentimes via Skype or Apple FaceTime. From there, I’ll draft and present a concise profile of that attorney to share with the client, in the hopes of getting a phone or in-person interview set up.
Because I work in both our temporary and permanent recruiting service lines, CYLA and JXP Search, respectively, I also handle the issues attendant to the active recruitment of passive candidates. On a daily basis, I’ll typically reach out to attorneys who fit a certain profile my client is seeking to see if they’re open to considering new opportunities that will provide career growth or other tangible benefits.
On any given day, I’ll typically have at least one attorney who is currently in some stage of the interview process. I’ll coach the attorney through the process, based on JURISolutions’ Interviewing Best Practices, my knowledge of the client and their needs, and the unique value the attorney offers. I may also have to check a professional reference or two, and share that feedback with the client.
Another part of the interview process in which I’m involved is preparing an attorney for an offer and walking them through the offer negotiation phase. My role is to get the deal done, and to clearly communicate both sides’ expectations so that they’re able to agree upon a mutually beneficial arrangement. There’s also a certain amount of on-boarding paperwork that I have to complete, and I frequently speak with our clients and our attorneys to see how engagements are progressing.
In addition to these responsibilities, I’m usually working on at least one internal initiative within JURISolutions, whether it’s a task force for improving or developing procedures or producing content for our newsletter or social media presence.
Q: Are there any practice areas in which you have seen a need for increased support the past couple of months?
A: One practice area in which I’ve seen a need for increased support over the past several months is data privacy and security. Data privacy is ubiquitous these days, as there are data breaches, law enforcement evidence production requests and new, or evolving, regulatory regimes that are happening almost every day. While data privacy safeguards and mechanisms are a software engineering issue at heart, attorneys are the ones tasked with interpreting privacy statutes and regulatory regimes. These attorneys also ensure corporate compliance within those frameworks and work with software engineers to determine how the laws apply to their products and processes. I’m a layman in this space, but it’s fascinating to me, and it's also a burgeoning area of law.
There are many opportunities that I’ve recently seen in this practice area, both in-house and with law firms. Tech (software and hardware) corporations have an obvious need for highly skilled data privacy attorneys, but several other industries have very large needs in this space as well, including retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial services and media/entertainment/advertising, just to name a few. These positions tend to be centralized in the major tech, financial, entertainment and life sciences hubs (San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia), but I’ve recently seen many opportunities popping up all over Texas and Florida, too. Law firms are also increasing their activity in the privacy space, as they’re either going to capture these billings with their own data privacy experts or lose that business to their competitors. While corporations tend to keep data privacy matters in-house as much as possible, there’s so much work in this space right now that they have to refer a good portion of this work to outside counsel. As our personal and professional lives migrate more toward the internet and the cloud, the need for strong data privacy protections, and adept privacy attorneys, is only going to continue to grow. So, it’s a great area in which to gain experience these days.
Q: What advice would you offer to attorneys seeking a new opportunity or interested in exploring a change in their career trajectory?
A: Refer to my answer to the last question! But, in a larger sense, the best piece of advice I think I have to give is something I’ve appropriated from Dick Bolles (http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/), author of “What Color is your Parachute?”—which is this: identify your best personality traits, identify your strongest and most transferable skills and identify the practice area and industry you want to pursue. Then, begin networking with all of the aforementioned factors serving as way-points guiding you to your new career destination. It’s not an easy, or comfortable, process but statistically speaking, it produces the highest yield of job offers and successful career transitions. There’s certainly more specifics we could get into, depending upon each attorney’s unique, individual situation, but this general approach leads to a high percentage of successful career transitions.
Working with a recruiter mirrors this approach, in that, as a recruiter, I’m leveraging my network on behalf of the attorneys with whom I’m working. I’m also focusing on personality and cultural fit, transferable skills and functions, and specificity within a practice area or industry niche. Working with a recruiter can be a very effective means of transitioning to a new position or company in order to take that "next step" in your career because my clients are often seeking attorneys with in-depth, highly-focused practice area, and sometimes industry-specific, experience. Transitioning into a different practice area is a more difficult, yet not impossible, proposition. In such cases, while working with a recruiter can increase a candidate's visibility, in my opinion, following the Dick Bolles method of networking and staying optimistic is the key to success.
William Penn Award Gala Honors Judith von Seldeneck
Cindy Towers and Rachel O'Hara of JURISolutions had a great time celebrating the accomplishments of Judith "Judee" von Seldeneck, founder and CEO of Diversified Search, on April 15th at the 2016 William Penn Award Gala.
Annually awarded to a local business executive since 1949, recipients of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce’s William Penn Award are chosen for their outstanding contributions toward the betterment of the region, their professional accomplishments, and their commitment to charity as well as to the community.
As a leader in the local community and the recipient of many industry and community awards, Judee told stories about her path to success, which began in Washington, DC when she served as an executive assistant to Vice President, Walter F. Mondale. Congratulations to Judee from all of us at JURISolutions!
JSL Escapes the Room! ...Well, Sort Of
On April 13th, JSL's internal employees tested their mettle by solving riddles and puzzles at Philadelphia's Amazing Escape Room on 101 North 15th Street. The Amazing Escape Room aims to challenge the minds of participants by encouraging them to collaborate with others in a uniquely interactive, team-building environment.
Some of the rooms got the best of us, this time... but, we had a great time putting our teamwork to the test!
Health and Wellness Corner
Skin Cancer Awareness Month
Fortunately, skin cancer is also one of the most preventable forms of cancer. May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month, so make sure that you familiarize yourself with what you need to know in order to protect your skin and your health:
Brain Cancer Awareness Month
Together, people are more powerful than brain tumors. Arm yourself with the facts about symptoms, treatments, and clinical trials, and be sure to access helpful resources and tools for patients and caregivers:
Staying On Top of Early Detection
Screenings increase the chances of detecting certain cancers early, which is when they are likely to be most curable. By using the resources below, you can learn which screening tests are recommended by the American Cancer Society so that you know exactly when and how to look for signs of disease. Also, you can use the tools and calculators provided below to keep track of your health:
HOT OFF THE PRESS
About JURISolutions
Website: jurisolutions.com
Location: 1600 Market St, 38th floor Philadelphia, PA 19103
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jurisolutions
Twitter: @JURISolutions