Postal Letter

I am unable to find a lawyer job!?

I am a new attorney and looking for a job in Illinois. I have been unable to find any employment so far. Should I start cold mailing my resumes to various law firms via postal mail?

Public Comments

1. Take a highly skilled paralegal position to get your foot in the door.
2. Why weren't you already doing this? Sounds like you haven't been trying very hard.
3. No one in the huge city of Chicago is hiring?
4. Congrats on passing the Bar Exam, now for the problems. Illinois and the Chicago area are the worst for getting employed as an attorney. As you probably already found out unless you know someone who can get you in a city job / law firm / state job, you are going to have problems getting a job. Illinois has so many law schools that keep turning out qualified attorneys twice a year, there is very little legal work left. Sorry, but that is the way it has been since 1993 when I graduated. The law schools do not admit to that. There are a few things you can do: Of course you should be doing cold mailings, you should look up info on the firm and try to make your cover letter sound like you are really interested in the firm. Become active in your local bar association. Yes, that will require lots of admin work, but it will be worth it. CBA has opportunities to help with charity work as does the DuPage Bar assoc. Find the local bar assoc and start going to meetings. I know several people who got their first break because they worked on a charity gig that the bar assoc put on. Everything a new attorney does at a bar assoc, meetings or volunteer work, is watched by those who may want to hire you. If you do not know what area of law interests you, now is a good time to figure it out. You may want to go to court and watch how certain types of cases are handled. I attended several motion calls regarding creditors going after those who did not pay bills. I got up the courage to ask a question of one of the attorneys who did the most work in the court. He was more than willing to not only answer my question but to help me understand what that type of law was about. If you know what area of law you want to work in you may want to contact a firm that does that type of work and offer to work for them --- part time, or even free (for a short period of time). Your law school has a placement office that may actually have current jobs listed. And may help alumni. In my experience the law school placement office is worth less than zero. The jobs listed have already been filled, the good jobs were already offered to those on law review and those whose family donate big bucks to the school. As alumni you will now be inundated with begging from your law school to donate money to them -- it is like buying groceries and having the store manager ask for more money before you get the groceries in the car JMO. When I graduated I sent out many, many resumes and no one was interested. I then created a brochure and offered myself as an independent contractor to law firms. I carried my own insurance and billed by the hour. I did any task asked, including data entry, receptionist, etc. I learned lots about running a law firm and had great experiences in court. I also got job offers from those who I contracted with. Good luck