legal.online
Column No. 32, October 1997
Copyright 1997 Robert J. Ambrogi
Finding A Job Using The Internet
By Robert J. Ambrogi
With summer behind us, many lawyers are gearing up to find a job. Whether just out of law school or in want of a career change, they can find help on the Internet.
This column focuses on Internet resources that list available jobs for lawyers and legal professionals. For space reasons, it skips the host of related resources that offer career counseling and advice or that list general, non-legal jobs.
We begin with sites that list legal jobs exclusively, then move on to general sites that include some legal listings.
Legal-Specific Sites
AttorneyJobs, http://www.attorneyjobs.com, is the Web site of the print monthly. The print version claims more than 500 listings each issue. The Web site offers only a dozen samples from the current issue.
Bench & Bar of Minnesota, http://www.mnbar.org/bbclass.htm, the Minnesota State Bar Association’s monthly magazine, publishes its classifieds on the Web. A recent visit found nearly 30 ads for positions in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
CalLaw, http://www.callaw.com/classified/lawad.shtml, has legal classifieds taken from The Recorder, a daily legal newspaper in San Francisco. Ads are organized by location in the San Francisco area and are updated daily. Some include links to the advertiser’s Web site.
CompLaw, http://www.complaw.com/joblist.html, a general Web site about computer law, includes a small assortment of attorney job listings. As it puts it: "We don't have many listings, but whatever job listings we get from around the country end up here."
Counsel Connect, http://www.counsel.com, has a career services page with ads from the classified sections of American Lawyer Media newspapers in Atlanta, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, San Francisco, Texas and Washington, D.C. It also has a small number of ads posted directly by CC members. To access this page, you must be a CC member, however, the ads from San Francisco and Texas are the same as those on the CalLaw and TexLaw sites described elsewhere in this column.
EmplawyerNet, http://www.emplawyernet.com, claims to be the largest online legal jobs database, boasting more than 3,000 listings. Employers can post ads free, but job seekers must pay a monthly subscription of $9.95 ($5.95 for law students), with the first month free. Subscribers can search ads by location, practice setting or area of expertise. They can also list their own credentials and resumes for employers to retrieve. If desired, EmplawyerNet will list candidates anonymously and notify them of interested employers.
Finance & Commerce, http://www.finance-commerce.com/acemkt/classad.htm, a Minnesota weekly, publishes classified ads from its Courts Edition on the Web. Ads are viewed by scrolling through the page.
Hieros Gamos Employment Center, http://www.hg.org/employment.html, permits employers to advertise legal positions free and include links to their home pages. Job seekers can search listings by type of position, location and practice area. Job seekers also can list their employment interests in HG’s database, after which they will be notified by e-mail whenever a position in their area of interest is posted.
Law Bulletin Publishing Company, http://www.lawbulletin.com, publisher of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer, has classified ads for lawyer and law-related employment. Listings are extensive and current. If you are looking for a job in the Chicago area, start here.
Law Employment Center, http://www.lawjobs.com, part of Law Journal EXTRA!, contains job listings from the National Law Journal, New York Law Journal, and other sources. Search by key word, browse by category or region, or browse all listings. A recent visit found hundreds of listings, many of which were linked to a home page or more detailed display advertisement. The site also includes information on lawyer salaries, legal placement agencies, temporary agencies, and legal employment trends.
Law Forum, http://www.lawforum.net, has one directory for legal employment listings and another for resume posting. Employers must pay $100 a year to list jobs. Listings were sparse, with only three attorney jobs on a recent visit.
LawInfo.com Career Center, http://www.lawinfo.com/employment, is three services in one: a job listing service for employers, a resume bank for job seekers, and a resume creator for anyone who needs it.
Employers can list jobs for free. Listings can be searched by state or practice area. Each describes the job, identifies the employer and provides contact information, including an e-mail hyperlink, if available.
Job seekers can post their own resumes. A "resume generator" allows users to fill in a form to create a resume in a choice of formats. In fact, the Resume Maker is free for anyone to use, regardless of whether you list it on LawInfo.
Posting a resume costs a minimum of $10 a month, which includes an e-mail address on LawInfo.com, a link to your Web page, and electronic storage of a writing sample. You also get a subscription to the LawInfo JobWire, an e-mail newsletter of job openings.
Lawyers Weekly, http://www.lweekly.com, publishes a national and seven state newspapers, all of which contain employment classifieds. Unfortunately, only its Massachusetts job ads are available online. Ads are as they appear in print and do not provide for responding electronically. Also at the site is the New Lawyer Survival Guide, a collection of articles from Lawyers Weekly USA.
Legal Communications Ltd., http://www.legalcom.com/ads/adsearch.htm, publishes classified ads from two Pennsylvania legal newspapers, the daily Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly. Ads can be searched by key words or browsed by listings. They are updated daily. Some include links to the advertiser’s Web site.
LexOnLine, http://www.lexonline.com, has mostly Texas listings. Many ads bear numbers such as "1/27" which, if a date, suggests they are quite old. Also cryptic is the message that accompanies the listings: "This page contains some material that the Texas Lawyer claims it has a copyright interest in." Were the ads taken from Texas Lawyer?
Minnesota Law & Politics, http://www.lawandpolitics.com/greenpages/GPindex.asp, offers online classifieds from the magazine of the same name. A recent visit found three listings.
National Health Lawyers Association, http://www.nhla.org/Scripts/Employment.asp, lists positions in health law. Employers pay $75 a month to list here. Listings appear in summary form, with location, title and posting date. Links lead to complete job descriptions and contact information. A recent visit found 29 jobs.
Public Service JobNet, http://www.law.umich.edu/academic/opsp/jobsalert, from the University of Michigan Law School, lists public service jobs from throughout the nation. Listings can be viewed by job title or date, or searched by location, practice area, job type or eligibility criteria.
San Diego Daily Transcript, http://www.sddt.com/law/sdemployment.html, a legal and commercial newspaper, posts its employment classifieds on the Web. Ads cannot be searched, but are viewed by scrolling through the page.
TexLaw Career Resource Center, http://www.texlaw.com/mart/career.htm, lists jobs from the classified ads of Texas Lawyer newspaper. Ads are organized by city. None appeared to include e-mail or Web site links.
The Seamless Legal Job Center, http://www.seamless.com/jobs, was among the first Web sites to post legal jobs and resumes. Jobs are posted as bulletin board messages, listing the title, location, poster and date. Follow a hypertext link to the complete message, where you can either post a response or send an e-mail to the poster. Those looking for jobs can post messages or resumes.
U.S. Dept. of Justice, http://www.usdoj.gov/careers/oapm/index.html, lists its available attorney positions. A summary lists titles, location and closing dates, with hypertext links to complete job descriptions and application information.
WisBar, http://www.wisbar.org/bar/emp-menu.htm, the Web site of the Wisconsin Bar Association, posts job listings from two sources: Marquette Law School’s Career Planning Office and its own monthly magazine, Wisconsin Lawyer. Some ads include links to the employer’s e-mail or Web site.
General Sites With Law Listings
Affirmative Action Register, http://www.aar-eeo.com, lists professional, managerial and administrative positions.
America's Job Bank, http://www.ajb.dni.us, a database of jobs from state Employment Services offices, has a surprising number of attorney jobs, listed by title, location, salary, and required experience.
CareerMosaic, http://www.careermosaic.com, had several attorney listings on a recent visit.
Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.merit.edu/.ads/.links.html, had several law teaching and librarian positions.
E-Span, http://www.espan.com, had 26 law-related jobs on a recent visit, many with high-tech companies such as Intel, AOL and Compaq. Easy keyword searching.
Federal Communications Commission, http://www.fcc.gov/jobs, lists employment opportunities, some of which are for lawyers.
Federal Jobs Digest, http://www.jobsfed.com, claims to have the most extensive listings of vacancies in the federal government. A recent visit found more than 4,000. Click on "Current Vacancies," then, "Legal, Examining," for attorney listings.
FedWorld, http://www.fedworld.gov/jobs/jobsearch.html, offers a database of about 1,500 federal jobs, updated daily. Searches retrieve only abstracts that tell job title, announcement number and how to apply. Listings come from a database created by the Office of Personnel Management, whose own Web site, USAJobs (see below), uses the same data but provides more detailed information.
JobWeb, http://www.jobweb.org, includes attorney listings. All found on a recent visit were in the federal government.
Lexis-Nexis, http://www.lexis-nexis.com/lncc/about/employment/jobs.html, posts job openings here, some of which are for lawyers.
Michie, http://www.michie.com/Information/Employment.html, the legal publisher, posts job vacancies.
Monster Board, http://www.monster.com, when searched recently for "legal," revealed a large number of listings. You can apply for jobs online or research a potential employer by clicking on its name.
NationJob Network, http://www.nationjob.com, says it includes legal listings, although a recent visit found no lawyer jobs.
Online Career Center, http://209.43.20.38, when searched recently, returned several attorney listings. Some allow you to apply online.
USAJobs, http://www.usajobs.opm.gov, from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, lists federal jobs, updated daily. Searches retrieve both the abstracts found on FedWorld and the full vacancy announcements. Search by key words or scroll through alphabetical or job-category listings.
Robert J. Ambrogi, a lawyer in Rockport, Mass., is editor of legal.online, a monthly newsletter about the Internet (http://www.legalonline.com). He can be reached by e-mail at rambrogi@legaline.com or by phone at (978) 546-7898.