Betsy Munnell · Career Coaching & Development Expert

2010 In Brief

Let’s face it: I went pretty much native, digitally at least, in the year 2010. In 2009, after almost 25 years as a law firm partner, I decamped to start my business providing career development coaching. I used a new Mac and assorted Geniuses to dispatch the news and build a website and I refined my training curriculum through a Ning-powered worksite.

But I truly crossed over in 2010: I renovated my presence on LinkedIn (complete with upgraded profile, membership in a few alumni groups and several rather pompous status posts), endured severe RSS burnout, adopted a dign…

First, a Warning

Many of the law firm associates I have mentored and trained during my 30-year legal career (frustrated perhaps by the abundance of my suggestions for filling their non-billable time) have challenged me to summon up a single nugget of advice for building a successful and satisfying career as a lawyer. This is my answer, uttered in urgent tones:

Do not listen to anyone who, in your first few years of practice, or at any time thereafter, warns against spending otherwise billable hours building your network and personal reputation in the community. This deeply flawed adv…

The following was first posted in The Careerist, a blog published by the AmLawDaily. Chief blogger Vivia Chen forwarded this letter from a discouraged law school graduate, and asked if I might offer some advice. Read on.

Dear Ms. Chen:

I am writing to you to get some advice. I graduated from law school in 2009. I went back to school after almost 20 years out – I had built a successful healthcare-related business before attending law school.

For various reasons, I failed the bar exam twice. Thus, I have a JD, but no license. What I would like to do is work for a law firm of any si…

In the first post in this series I held forth on my favorite topic: the critical importance of a vigorous business network:

No matter how demanding your obligations in the office, both billable and non-billable, it is essential that you protect your own future by building a strategic professional network. In a down economy, and a profession undergoing potentially radical change, all law firm associates…….must find the fastest possible track to productivity, expertise and business generation. Getting a job, keeping it and finding the next one all require a record of excellence and an…

Associate Survival Skills 101: Lesson 1- Hitting Your Billable Hours Is Not Enough

No matter how demanding your obligations in the office, both billable and non-billable, it is essential that you protect your own future by building a strategic professional network. In a down economy, and a profession undergoing potentially radical change, all law firm associates (including those claiming imminent “exit strategies”) must find the fastest possible track to productivity, expertise and business generation. Getting a job, keeping it and finding the next one all require a record of excellence…

The other day I messaged a Twitter colleague on LinkedIn. Like me, he’s been a lawyer for decades. Unlike me, he’s still practicing. I’ve never even spoken to him on the telephone, but I like how he thinks and writes and what he has to say and he’s funny. I wanted to know exactly why he was using Twitter.

Here’s his reply. It turns out that he and I enjoy and benefit from our Twitter lives (“Twives”?) in very similar ways. And his answer prompts me to hold forth just a bit on the appropriate use of this odd platform for overworked young lawyers. See my remarks below.

“Betsy – You…