In which the experienced lawyer provides excuses for not being headhunted

I closed my downtown office early in 2019 and started working from home. Thirteen and one-half months later, the rest of you did this also, albeit involuntarily.

When I closed the downtown office I had a plan – a hope, anyway – at least an aspiration: Free from as much of my monthly overhead as humanly (and contractually) possible, I would be (as I put it then) more “nimble,” better “able to pivot,” and “more readily able” to “respond to any opportunities that may arise.” I would wind down my ‘retail’ practice and try to find some different work – in a bar association, perhaps, or some trade or professional group – some setting where my interest in writing, and my 41 years of litigation experience, concentrated in insurance defense and coverage, might be put to good use.

Instead, 2020 happened.

But, OK, 2020 is over, finally, and most businesses are finally starting to emerge from the shadow of last year’s COVID-19 shutdowns. I don’t think even the now-resurgent Delta variant, or the Delta Plus variant, or even the new Lambda variant is going to shut us down completely again and, besides, I have my own genuine, unforged vaccination card and a variety of face masks that I can wear... somewhere.

But where?

I’ve been on LinkedIn now for close to a decade. I have well over 500 connections, several of whom I’ve actually met. LinkedIn is quite useful for finding out about first-time judicial candidates and some of my kids have told me that they have received contacts from headhunters, finding them through their LinkedIn profiles.

Oddly enough, despite 41 years of experience, I have never found it necessary to fend off headhunters on LinkedIn.

Part of that may have been my own fault. It turns out there’s a setting on LinkedIn where you can discreetly signal your availability for a career change. (Like scent-marking by leopards or ring-tailed lemurs, only more sanitary.) You can even post your CV. I did both of these a few months back... but still no headhunters.

It seems, however, that my, um, experience level isn’t the only problem. There’s a language barrier, too.

I’ve officially been a solo practitioner now for 18 years. The vast majority of my time, before that, was spent in a small firm. As a result, I never learned to speak more than a few words of Corporate. I found the job descriptions in want ads incomprehensible long before LinkedIn came along.

Initially, I didn’t understand this to be a serious problem. But the dangers of my linguistic limitations were made clear to me a few years back when I took a deposition in an insurance coverage case.

Now you ordinarily don’t need or want depositions in coverage cases; that, for me, has always been one of the attractions of that sort of work. But, in this case, after reading the depositions of the eyewitnesses in the underlying case, it became apparent that I would need to ask some questions that had hitherto not been asked.

One of the witnesses was a 20-something with a marketing degree from DePaul. I don’t think he was yet working when he was deposed in the underlying case. So I had no idea what was coming.

While mine was a limited scope deposition, I asked, as I always ask, basic foundation questions. I do this simply to get a “feel” for how the witness handles non-controversial answers, so I can see whether, or how, the witness’s demeanor may change when we move to more contested areas of questioning. Easy stuff – usually – name, age, address, highest level of education, by whom are you employed, what do you do for them.... Every lawyer who has ever taken a deposition does something similar.

Except, in this case, a half hour into the testimony, I still hadn’t penetrated the mystery of what this young man was doing to earn his daily bread. I thought it had something to do with wine and retail stores, but that was all I could figure out. My every attempt at clarification failed utterly. It was too late to call Berlitz. I was drowning in a sea of jargon, but I had to move on.

Fast forward, then, to a few months ago when I tried to tell LinkedIn what sorts of jobs I might be looking for. I waded through the possibilities. I was disappointed that there was no specific category for Eminence Grise. Eventually, I thought that “Researcher” looked promising. Not this kind of Researcher, of course:

But I have picked up some research skills over the years. Not only have I used Westlaw and Lexis, I have even used books. Books in libraries. You can’t write appellate briefs without knowing something about research. So that seemed reasonable.

The other seemingly attractive possibility was “Consultant.” Actually, over the years, I have been asked to consult on cases for other lawyers, sometimes even getting paid for it. And the term “Consultant” implies a certain discreet distance from the stomach-churning battles of day-to-day, retail practice. As a “Consultant” maybe I could employ my experience in setting policy and general direction, perhaps in an educational context. Or so I thought.

From that day to this LinkedIn has sent me at least two emails every day, one with job listings for “Researcher,” the other with listings for “Consultant.”

“Consultant,” I now know, often means “salesman.” In fact, if the emails I’m receiving are any indication, consultant almost always means salesman. The terms are paired together so frequently that they are becoming redundant. Someone should notify the Oxford English Dictionary.

The daily LinkedIn emails have suggested still a third reason why I’ve not been contacted by headhunters, despite my ‘signaling’ availability. In addition to my, er, experience level, and my lack of fluency in Corporate, it seems headhunting firms must be terribly understaffed at the moment. This ad, for example, seeking a “Senior Sales Consultant,” turned out to be for a job as a headhunter. A brief excerpt:

We differ from other firms, by working on localized, specialized, and targeted searches for selective clients, partnering with them to headhunt the best passive talent in the industry.

I wonder whether cold-calling may be involved: Reaching out to find “passive talent” sounds suspiciously like calling people who haven’t lit the available-signal on their LinkedIn profiles....

Headhunting firms may also be looking for new headhunters by soliciting for “Researchers,” too. At least if the ad I recently received for a “User Experience Researcher” is indicative.

From the title, I thought this might be a solicitation for the person that you might talk to if you agreed to stay on the line and answer a brief survey after placing your order for a new refrigerator, or, perhaps, a sandwich (every industry seems to be doing this of late). But I was wrong again. Reading the description, I learned that this staffing (i.e., headhunting) firm was telling applicants:

You will work in the Research & Insights Team to conduct strategic and tactical research to help shape the vision for what the future of selling should be.

I’m going to have forget about looking for work as a researcher. I don’t have the first clue about the difference between “strategic” and “tactical” research.

But it’s an ill wind that blows no good.

I may have found out what that marketing major was doing back when I attempted to depose him.

One of the ads I got recently (for a “Consultant” position) was really for a liquor salesman:

As a Sales Consultant, you will cultivate and grow account relationships to maximize the sales of supplier Wine brands through effective planning, selling execution and communication resulting in the achievement of company and supplier objectives.

If you share our passion for exceeding customer expectations and being on a winning team – and have a car to drive to our customers’ locations – then come join our fun, family-based culture.

I’m not at all certain how one can be passionate about customer expectations; I’ve had clients that drove me crazy but I’m pretty sure that’s not the same thing. Even with my lack of corporate business experience, I’m pretty sure that C-suite jobs don’t generally require applicants to have their own cars to drive to sales calls. Their own yachts, maybe, or airplanes. But not cars. And the successful applicant would be well advised not to have too much “fun” sampling the wares on offer.

Anyway, a lot of the jargon in that ad reminded me of what I think that DePaul marketing major was trying to explain to me back in that coverage case. So I may have learned something from this experience. But I haven’t turned my new-found knowledge into gainful employment... yet.