JD Preferred Career Quiz
By Diana LaMorie • October 02, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
You know those quizzes in glossy magazines that promise to evaluate your personality and offer a tailored solution to any given problem according to your responses? Well, this month I've created my very own 'JD Preferred Quiz' to help jumpstart your thinking on which career path suits you best in using your JD degree in a non-traditional way. Whether you are still in law school but re-thinking the law firm path, or are a post-graduate lawyer thinking of doing something different with your law degree, this quiz can help narrow your frame of reference among the myriad options. Ideally, your…
A Career Planning Primer
By Diana LaMorie • September 05, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life, Mentoring and Networking
Estate planning. Retirement planning. Trip planning. Family planning. Business planning. Anything worth doing is worth planning. Rarely is anything accomplished overnight. In fact, I don't think there's such a thing as overnight success. Behind the hit song, hit movie, or ascension to CEO (or fill-in-the-blank top of your chosen field), came a lot of hard work, sacrifice and dedication. Success in your profession doesn't happen on its own either. A little bit of deliberation can help get you where you want to go in a more organized fashion and help keep your eye on the prize when you're feeling disoriented…
A Refreshing Outlook on Compliance: An Interview with Alex Rakitin, CCO
By Diana LaMorie • August 06, 2018 •Writers in Residence
Back in January, I shared my own professional journey in compliance for financial services. Anecdotally, I’ve witnessed at least a 50% growth of compliance officer positions being filled by lawyers over the past 5 years. Given the growth of JDs joining the field, I’ve sought out a fellow industry colleague to add an additional perspective. Alexander Rakitin is Chief Compliance Officer of Perceptive Advisors, an investment adviser focusing on life sciences investments. One of the biggest professional insults one can hurl at a talented compliance professional is that they are a bureaucrat. If you are plugged into the business and adopt…
JD Skill Drill
By Diana LaMorie • June 29, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers
After a series of interviews with some seriously impressive female JDs (which you can find on this page), I wanted to do a midyear reset getting back to basics. For this month’s post, I engaged in a bit of a skill drill. I scoured a bunch of recent job descriptions looking for ‘JD Preferred’ candidates and copied the desired characteristics and qualifications sections into a word cloud generator. Here are the results: Let’s dissect a few of the main skills atop every employer’s wish list: Problem Solving As a lawyer, you are being hired to help your client solve their problems. …
The Quintessential JD Preferred Career: An Interview with Valerie Chianuri
By Diana LaMorie • May 30, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers
Hot off the heels of our 2-part interview with a high caliber legal recruiter in March and April, my list of accomplished Ms. JD interviewees grows with Valerie Chianuri (another fellow BLS alumna), Senior Director of Exusia Inc., a global technology consulting company. Valerie has had the quintessential JD Preferred career, holding cutting edge roles in the fields of entrepreneurism, privacy and payments law (and beyond). No matter what field you are in, her story is an inspiring one and makes the case for alternate uses for a JD better and more succinctly than I can in a year’s worth of blog posts. ***************** Tell…
Straight From The Source: An Interview with Meredith Cohen from Momentum Search Group (Part 2 of 2)
By Diana LaMorie • April 29, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
Last month, I sang the praises of recruiters as instrumental assets in forging your career. I also shared an enlightening info session on the JD Preferred marketplace with Meredith Cohen, Managing Director at Momentum Search Group. This month, the conversation continues about Meredith’s personal experience as a lawyer turned headhunter (a “JD Preferred” career path in its own right). Without further ado, let’s take a peek inside Meredith’s world. ***** You started out in BigLaw straight out of law school. What made you want to leave? And what drew you to recruiting as your new career path? I always knew…
Straight From The Source: An Interview with Meredith Cohen from Momentum Search Group (Part 1 of 2)
By Diana LaMorie • March 28, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
Recruiters are the unsung heroes of a JD’s career. Vastly underrated and underappreciated if you ask me. My current and prior jobs were both obtained through recruiters. I would go so far as to say that if you are not in touch with recruiters, then you are not in touch with your career. Who else can give you the immediate scoop on the marketplace, your relative position in it, your earnings potential, what roles are out there for you, etc. … for free? With a glance at your resume and a five minute chat about your work history, a recruiter…
The Big Picture
By Diana LaMorie • February 28, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
In last month’s post, I began with an introduction to my own professional journey in a ‘JD Preferred’ career in Compliance. This month, I’d like to discuss the concept in a much broader context. To lay the foundation for future posts (which will be more fun to read, I promise), I’ve got to get some dry information out of the way first here. Bear with me! JD Advantage I didn’t know this until I started doing research for this column, but apparently, this is a thing now. Starting with the law school Class of 2011, a new term of art…
My ‘JD Preferred’ Story
By Diana LaMorie • January 28, 2018 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
I suppose I should start with an introduction, though I suspect that by the end of this post it will read more like an Ode to Compliance. I consider myself one of the lucky ones who pretty much knew what they wanted to do with their career since a young age. Once I got over the ‘I want to be a librarian because I like books’ and ‘chef because I like food’ aspirations of second grade, I became drawn towards law because of the endless debates I’d undertake with friends and family. (As it turns out lawyers do debate endlessly, and…