The Product of Networking

Keeping Track of it All

Now that you’ve been networking and gaining contacts, your collection of email addresses, phone numbers, and business cards is probably growing quite steadily. Now, it’s important to somehow keep track of it all. Depending on how organized you need to be to function efficiently, scanning the business cards, saving contact information, and organizing employers by practice area, sector, location, or size could save you a lot of time and prioritize certain cultivated relationships as your legal and career interests evolve. Additionally, once this contact information is organized, including a unique fact—like the topic of conversation or a mutual interest/connection—about the person or employer will be invaluable for the next step in the process.

Mastering the Follow Up

Next is the follow up. Metaphorically, this is when you harvest the fruit of the relationship you cultivated. The follow up could be as simple as sending the contact a timely email—within a week of when you met this person—thanking them for talking to you, dropping in a reference to what was talked about, and leaving your contact information. To bolster your follow up, your LinkedIn account now comes into play. Either as a standalone measure or in conjunction with a thank you email, if the contact has a LinkedIn profile, seeing your face will strengthen the already cultivated relationship.

Now that the follow up has been made, start developing the relationship. Without pestering the attorney, communication should be made when opportunities present themselves, such as information regarding an interview or if they’re currently hiring. Depending on the congeniality of the relationship, law students do have some wiggle room; but as in informational interviews, you do not want to “uproot” the relationship with unrelenting emails and phone calls.

Networking can be rewarding and can plant the seeds for the next stage of your career. I hope this series of posts provided encouragement as you begin to cultivate relationships.

If you missed any of this series, check out the post here: Part 1 & Part 2 

Chidi Madu worked as a summer intern in 2015. Chidi is a rising 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law pursuing a certificate in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Prior to Lawyers Mutual, he interned at Fortune 100 insurance companies, humanitarian aid organizations, and government legal practices.

The Tools of the Trade

The Cliché Networking Event

As a refresher to last week’s post, remember, networking is about cultivating relationships. Most commonly associated with networking in law school are the large social gatherings most commonly hosted by either your law school or a separate local/regional entity. Here is where knowing your personality will help you: extroverts will likely enjoy these events, but introverts may have a harder time. But personalities aside, you should go into these events with a plan. For example, being an extrovert myself (My Myers Briggs Type Indicator is ENFP), it is still overwhelming for me to enter one of these events without a plan. There will be dozens of employers who will probably have the same conversation over and over again and students ask them the same questions: “What do you guys do?” “What’s it like to work at X?” “How long have you worked there?” This is not how to cultivate relationships, this is not how to network. You may think this is “networking” but instead it’s just asking employers to regurgitate information which is already publicly accessible on their website.

What will separate you from the masses of students who fall into this pseudo-“networking” pitfall is having a plan. If possible, get a list of the employers who will be at these events, see which ones you’re interested in, do some light research, and tailor questions for them specifically. Consider the following questions: A) What kind of law do you practice? B) I see that you were involved in some banking antitrust litigation recently, does the firm do a lot of commercial litigation? See the difference? You are much more likely to differentiate yourself with question B rather than question A since it’s uniquely tailored to the firm you’re speaking with and more importantly, it’s uniquely tailored to you because it’s unlikely the same question will be asked again. Of course this is an extreme example, but it goes without saying that personalized inquiries rather than the overbroad questions pique one’s interest in the asker. Also at these events it’s important to think “quality over quantity.” Relationships aren’t cultivated simply by exchanging words with people, but rather by having meaningful and memorable conversations. If you prepare a plan, seek out the employers of interest, and engage them, you have successfully laid the groundwork for relationship cultivation and effective networking. But, if these large outings are not for you, there is still another option.

The Alternative: Informational Interview

Another method of networking is through informational interviews. Informational interviews, unlike networking events, require more effort from the law student but can be especially useful for those who do not enjoy the larger events seeking one-on-one conversations or small groups. Information interviews typically are held with an attorney—either entry level or experienced—where the student just has an “informational meeting” with them. The attorney is usually introduced to the student either by a connection made earlier, a mutual contact, your law school career services department or with alums. Depending on the student and attorney, these can vary in formalness and tone. However, like the larger events, you should always have a plan. A cultivated relationship can be quickly “uprooted” when a student wastes an attorney’s time with a botched informational interview. Remember, this is largely a conversation, but YOU are the interviewer here, keep the attorney’s interest to cultivate the relationship.

The Unabashed Cold Call

Sometimes an employer you’re particularly interested in is not at a career fair and there is no mutual interest between you and anyone at the employer for an informational interview. What is a law student to do?! You can cold call! Other than being a role reversal from the typical law school course, the cold call could be a useful tool for actively networking and getting your foot in the door (literally). By cold call, I’m referring to finding the number of an employer and calling them unannounced to schedule a visit or learn more about the employer. Unlike networking events and informational interviews, this should be employed as a last resort measure because of the high risk and reward. You run the risk of being remembered as “that law student who up-and-called the firm” and doesn’t get the time of day, or as the “that law student who up-and-called the firm” which showed interest, bravado, and confidence. To be in the latter category, you must be confident, without being too assertive, and humble, without being too wavering. It’s a dangerous game, but the cold call could be useful for those who do so properly.

Chidi Madu worked as a summer intern in 2015. Chidi is a rising 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law pursuing a certificate in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Prior to Lawyers Mutual, he interned at Fortune 100 insurance companies, humanitarian aid organizations, and government legal practices.

As a law student in this day and age, it’s inevitable that you have had the following word engrained in your conscience: networking. Whether it’s your family wary of the legal job market, practicing attorneys attending events at your law school, or your career advisors doing their job, you have (or will) be consistently reminded of this infamous word and how important it is. So you have probably been told the why, the where, and the when of networking, but have you learned of the what and the how?

Let’s pull back the curtain and start with the what. What is “networking”? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the exchange of information or services among individuals” and more specifically “the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business.” While this is a great definition, you’re likely unsurprised and unimpressed by reading this. Also, reading a definition won’t make it any easier for you “to network,” so allow me to conceptualize it: networking is simply “cultivating relationships.” It’s not begging partners for an interview, it’s not selling yourself in an elevator pitch so someone will look at your résumé, and it’s not soliciting strangers with emails; but rather, it’s cultivating relationships.

Start with Yourself

Know Your Personality

Before you begin your networking endeavors, start by making yourself as presentable and networkable as possible. First, if you don’t already know, it is helpful to take a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (these can be searched for online). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator consists of 16 distinct personality types which illustrate a person’s psychological preferences when interacting with others. Other than having a better understanding of yourself and your tendencies, knowing your personality type will greatly help your ability to network because it can show you which kind of events or mediums you will be most comfortable. When you’re comfortable, networking becomes easier and more effective. Most relevant, is the extrovert/introvert distinction to see which settings you prefer. For example, extroverts will likely flourish at larger social events and gathering whereas introverts will prefer one-on-one interaction. There are other personality tests available online such as DISC and StrengthFinders, to name a few.

Have a Professional Online Presence

Second, it’s very important that you have a professional online presence. This includes cleaning up your act (if it needs such cleaning) on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. But most importantly, this entails having an up-to-date, polished LinkedIn account. In the year 2015, any person who is serious about networking in the 21^st century would be foolish not to have a strong LinkedIn account. If you don’t already know, LinkedIn is a professional social network site which allows job seekers (the vast majority of law students) and employers to view each other’s credentials. Think of it as a less intrusive way of you presenting your résumé since it’s far from shameless solicitation but is just a mean to cultivate a relationship. But why use LinkedIn instead of a paper résumé? Well, for practical reasons, it can’t get lost, you don’t have to carry it around with you, and it’s readily searchable, like being part of a limitless virtual résumé book. Next, you can put as much information on your LinkedIn account as you want. The truth of the matter is that no legal employer will read your résumé if it’s more than a page long (with the exception of older, second career students). Last and most importantly for networking, your LinkedIn—and not your résumé (I hope)—has a picture of you! Imagine all the people you’ve met only once and had a short conversation with; can you readily picture their face when you see only their name? Probably not. Now imagine this scenario from the perspective of legal employers with whom you’ll network with; do you think they’ll remember you simply from seeing your name on a résumé? Of course not! LinkedIn, of its many uses, can be used to aid the memory of whom you’re networking with so you don’t become an amorphous being sending emails or making phone calls. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” An employer seeing you rather than your résumé will not only remind him or her of your credentials, but it will instantly humanize you and allow for that relationship to cultivate.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s imperative that whenever you think of the elusive, catch-all term “networking” you think more specifically about “cultivating relationships.” This series of blogposts focuses on tips and advice to law students, from a law student. I hope to encourage you to cultivate relationships and become champions of networking while I destruct the concept into more specific and tangible practices rather than the prevalent “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Chidi Madu worked as a summer intern in 2015. Chidi is a rising 2L at the University of North Carolina School of Law pursuing a certificate in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Prior to Lawyers Mutual, he interned at Fortune 100 insurance companies, humanitarian aid organizations, and government legal practices.