West Legal Outplacement

A Closer Look at Our Outplacement Services

• Seasoned legal career counselors (who themselves are attorneys), with over 50 years of collective experience
• Extensive knowledge of all legal markets and trends nationwide and abroad
• specialized knowledge of legal markets unique to Washington, DC
• Access to daily flow of information about specific legal employment opportunities through a network of job sources developed over the past 20 years
• Comprehensive and continuously updated online database of legal and law-related job opportunities
• Extensive employment resources library and nationwide job-searching capability
• On-going monitoring of over 600 law-related career fields of interest to attorneys seeking alternatives to "mainstream"
• Proven ability to move clients rapidly into legal and law-related positions

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES
West Legal Outplacment Services provides employment evaluation, employer targeting, and career counseling services for attorneys and other legal career professionals (law firm administrators, litigation managers, law librarians, etc. . As a West Legal Outplacement candidate, you have the advantage of the following services:

Evaluating Your Re-Employment Goals
The key to effective job hunting and to long-term satisfaction in your career is to know clearly what type of position and work environment you seek. Therefore, it is important to evaluate carefully your career interests and objectives, your professional temperament, your values relating to your work, and your unique talents and skills. Gaining insight to your individual attributes, career values, and work preferences permits much greater discretion in deciding whether a particular employment opportunity is right for you. In this regard, evaluating your re-employment goals encompasses:

• Career analysis and skills assessment
• Identifying your ideal position
• Defining optimal salary level/range
• Delimiting kind/size of business/organization
• determining desired organizational "culture"
• Specifying geographic preferences

Targeting Specific Employers/Industries
It is one thing to know the type of position or employment you want; it is another to know where to look to find it. Through our association with AttorneyJobs.com, we know where the jobs are and what it is like to work for different legal employers. We can help you identify employers that offer career opportunities in line with your interests, skills, and employment objectives. For your employment search to be effective, it is essential that you target the employers you want to reach in the legal market. Based upon the information gained during initial discussions with you, our employer targeting services include:

• Identifying the kinds of industries/organizations that employ individuals with your education/experience, including those in related career fields (many of which you may never have considered;
• Profiling specific companies/organizations that might be of interest to you, and assessing their prospects, encompassing:
  • Private sector employers
  • Public sector employers (Federal, state, local government
  • Contract/consultant employment opportunities
  • Acacemic (teaching/administration
  • Associations and comparable organizations
  • entrepreneurial/self-employment options
  • International opportunities

Career and Job Search Counseling
Beyond knowing what type of position you want and who and where the employers are that offer it, job-hunting success requires a positive attitude, an effective strategy, presentation of competitive credentials, organization, and persistence, in addition to skills in networking and building personal relationships, interviewing, and negotiating with prospective employers. Unfortunately, most attorneys are not familiar with the process of career planning, do not know how to craft targeted job application documents, and have not been trained in promoting themselves effectively in our highly competitive legal market. Our career management and job search counseling services address these important needs, including:

• Assessing career options and formulating sound career plans
• Maintaining focus on career goals, and planning and implementing effective search, networking, and marketing strategies
• Assisting in the preparation of competitive application documents for each kind of potential employer or specific job opportunity identified (resumes, OF- 612s, SF-171s, special application forms, cover letters, market letters, narrative statements, etc.
• Understanding application procedures for jobs offered by executive search firms
• Following-up job applications to specific employers, including appropriate recordkeeping, timing, subsequent communications, etc.
• Preparing for interviews, including general interview skills training and advice as to what tactics are best suited for specific employers, what to emphasize, what to avoid, etc.
• negotiating job offers with specific employers, including what might be possible, what could eliminate candidates from further consideration, perks that might impact salary considerations, etc.