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 Profile of the Month
Each month the Special Committee on Lawyers in Transition will
profile an individual offering advice and resources to lawyers
transitioning back to the workforce.
This month, Lauren J. Wachtler interviewed Amy E. Gewirtz,
Esq.
I interviewed Amy Gewirtz, Associate Director of Alumni
Counseling & Relations at Pace Law School, who has spearheaded an
exciting program for lawyers returning to the practice of law called
“New Directions: Practical Skills for Returning to Law
Practice.” Amy was gracious enough to spend some time with
me describing the program and proved to me that she and Deb Volberg
Pagnotta, the program’s director, Mark Shulman, Pace’s
Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs and International Affiliations, and
the Westchester Women’s Bar Association, are true pioneers in
providing opportunities through education for lawyers in
transition
Q: Please tell me a little bit about your personal
background.
A: I graduated from Barnard College in 1978 and
Cardozo Law School in 1982. After I graduated from law school, I worked
for 3 years as an associate with an entertainment lawyer, representing
set, costume and lighting designers on and off-Broadway, among other
things. I then worked for 3 years as an anti-piracy attorney with the
Motion Picture Association of America. When my first daughter was born,
after a difficult pregnancy and her subsequent premature birth, I chose
to stay at home for a year and a half. As luck would have it, at that
time, I was just starting to think about going back to work when I got a
call from the career office at Cardozo asking me if I was interested in
filling in part-time for a career counselor who was on maternity leave.
The position was supposed to last for 3 months; I ended up staying at
Cardozo, part-time, for 10 years! 9 of those years were in the
Admissions Office. At that point, a former Cardozo colleague who had
gone to the career office at Pace told me about a position in the career
office at Pace, and the rest is history. I’ve been at Pace now for
the past six and half years, starting out part-time as a career
counselor and then becoming full-time 2 years ago as Associate Director,
Alumni Counseling & Relations.
Q: As Associate Director of Alumni Counseling &
Relations what do you do?
A: In general, I work with alumni at all stages of
their careers—from recent graduates who may be seeking their first
job, to graduates a few years out who want to make a lateral move, to
attorneys who have left the practice of law for child-rearing or other
reasons and who now want to return to law practice, to graduates
thinking about an alternative legal career. We talk about their career
goals, interests and passions, and I advise them on how they might be
pursued in particular legal practice areas and employment settings.
Whether through in-person appointments or via phone, we work on resumes,
cover letters, and interview preparation, including taped mock
interviews, I provide various career resources, including Internet
resources such as this one. In addition, I always, always emphasize the
importance of networking, and talk with them about how they can build
their personal networks.
Q: I am very intrigued by, and think our website
visitors would be particularly interested in your “New
Directions” program. Would you tell me a little bit about
“New Directions”?
A: “New Directions” is a program
designed to assist attorneys who are either transitioning back into law
practice after a period of absence, or those who have never practiced
and would like to enter the practice of law having worked in another
field.
Q: What gave you the idea for offering such a
program at Pace?
A: About a year and a half ago, I read an article in
the New York Times that described programs at Harvard Business School
and Tuck (Dartmouth’s business school) that were designed to
assist their alumni and others return to work in the business world. The
article also mentioned that UC Hastings College of Law in California was
contemplating a program for lawyers who wanted to reenter the legal
profession, but other than that, no other dedicated programs existed for
lawyers. I felt that filling this need would be something that would be
both challenging and exciting in developing such a program for attorneys
who find themselves in the same situation as business people—they
who have left the profession and are looking to get a foothold back in
after an absence.
Q: I understand that you have completed the first
two of the three parts of the “New Directions” program and I
would love to hear how it went.
A: Well, the program runs from the third week of May
until early December and is divided into three parts, the last of which
has just started. The first week was an intensive “boot
camp”, in which the participants spent the day from 9AM to 5PM
getting refresher courses in Lexis and Westlaw and other legal,
communication and technical skills. We also hold a variety of workshops
including a resume and cover letter workshop, and an interviewing
workshop, both designed to help the participants explain an absence,
highlight their strengths, etc. We also brought in an experienced
professional to administer and interpret the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
which is a personality type test that provides an indicator of what
field an individual would be best suited for. In addition, we were
fortunate to have Debbie Epstein Henry, President of Flextime Lawyers
LLC, and a member of this committee, provide our keynote speech. Salila
Yohn, from Axiom Legal, assisted us with the interviewing workshop and
Kathleen Brady, a wonderful legal consultant with extensive experience,
of Brady & Associates Career Planning LLC, conducted the resume
workshop.
Q: And after the “boot camp” did you
still have people willing to go on?
A: We did! We found that they were even more excited
about starting the second portion of the program. The participants began
to bond with, and were very supportive of, each other, and I think that
was encouraging and confidence-building.. They knew that they
weren’t doing this alone and had the support of fellow attorneys
and the New Directions program behind them.
Q: Tell me about the second portion of the
program.
A: This portion was the more substantive
“lawyering” part, which also included practical legal skills
such as client counseling. Working from one fact pattern, they addressed
a variety of substantive topics. Based on the focus groups we had held
to assist us in developing the program, we chose a family and
matrimonial law track as the first track as that was an area that many
attorneys were interested in. In addition to providing substantive
family and matrimonial law and practical skills, at the request of the
participants, we also held brown-bag lunches featuring attorneys who
practiced in a variety of other areas. Elena Kaspi, Esq., founder of
LawScope Coaching, LLC. and another member of this Committee, also
conducted a wonderful workshop focused on helping each participant set
individualized professional goals for herself/himself, and then develop
and implement a realistic action plan in connection with those
goals.
Q: Will that be the practice area for each of the
following “New Directions” programs?
A: No, it won’t. We felt that this area would
be good for the first iteration of the program in which many of the
issues and problems would or could come up in any area of practice and
an area in which the returning lawyers would be able to utilize their
skills, such as interviewing clients, drafting pleadings, and the like.
We just held a planning meeting for the next iteration of the program,
and are pleased to announce that the next program will focus on working
in-house, which will, by its nature, cover a number of different
practice areas. We anticipate that, as with the first track, even if the
participants are not interested in working in-house, the practical legal
skills they obtain can be transferred to other practice areas. We chose
this area in part as we have been encouraged by the general counsel of
several major corporations that there is a natural fit for those
attorneys wishing to reenter, perhaps part-time, (as a number of our
current participants and those inquiring), have expressed, and the needs
of in-house legal departments.
Q: By the way, how many people did you have involved
in the program?
A: We had thirteen in all, one man and twelve women.
Although we anticipate that a number of women will participate in the
program, we very specifically did not design this program just for
women. We encourage men to enroll in the program and, in fact,
I’ve received an increasing number of inquiries about the program
from men.
Q: How did the second portion of the program work
out?
A: The substantive learning portion of the program
was offered on two days a week; between the hours of 9AM and 1PM on one
day and 5PM to 9PM on the other and included a utilization of the basic
skills learned in the “boot camp” portion. As I mentioned,
the participants were given one fact pattern with which they worked all
summer and from which they were asked to demonstrate the skills which
they had learned, including client interviews, drafting pleadings and
interaction with other attorneys in the practice. It included lectures
from practitioners and various workshops relating to the substantive
areas of the law. In addition, as noted above, we also brought in
practitioners from other practice areas for “brown bag”
lunches, based on the expressed interests of the group.
Q: What kinds of people did you have involved in the
teaching faculty in the second part of the program?
A: We were very pleased with the response from
lawyers who were willing to donate their time and resources to the
substantive part of the program, and we had a number of practitioners
who assisted in each of the workshops and lectures. Several judges
presented substantive seminars, as did a number of Pace Law School
faculty, as well as practitioners with terrific substantive and
practical skills.
Q: You indicated that you had thirteen people
involved in the program. Were all of these people returning lawyers or
from any one particular area?
A: The program is open to all attorneys who are
admitted to a bar in any state, whether they attended Pace Law School or
another law school. Our participants had a wide variety of experiences,
from those who had practiced in large law firms and were looking to
transition into another type of practice, to those who had worked in the
public sector, in art institutions, in their own practices, or who had
not practiced law since receiving their law degree, having worked in
another field altogether or had pursued other degrees. We were very
impressed with all of our participants and their prior accomplishments.
This was such an exciting group!
Q: I think perhaps the most exciting thing about the
program is the third part. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
A: The third part, the externship, is very exciting
because now our participants have a real opportunity to go out there,
test and develop their newly acquired or refreshed skills in an
employment setting. All of our participants have been placed in a
variety of externships.
Q: What do the externships involve?
A: These externships are unpaid and although the focus
of the substantive portion of this track was family and matrimonial law,
many of the externships did not involve that area of practice.
Q: What areas did they involve?
A: The externships ranged from law firms with
matrimonial/family law, immigration and legal ethics practices, to
working with a Surrogate Court/Matrimonial Part judge, to several
not-for-profit institutions, to a criminal defense organization, to
working with two major New York City theatrical institutions.
Q: How did the participants obtain their
externships?
A: We were fortunate that a number of employers,
after learning about our program, volunteered to have one of our
attorney participants do his/her externship with them. While we were not
able to place an extern with every one, we are very grateful for their
support of our program. In addition, I, and the other New Directions
team members, reached out to our contacts, several of whom now have our
participants doing their externships with them. Finally, we strongly
encouraged our participants to network with their own contacts, which
was also successful.
Q: Was there any promise of any employment
subsequent to the completion of the externship?
A: No, and we strongly emphasized that point to both
the New Directions attorneys and the employers. However, I am delighted
to report that one New Directions participant has already received and
accepted an offer of permanent employment from her externship employer.
We believe that the value of the externship lies in the practical
experience it provides, a current legal experience to put on the resume,
a current writing sample, and a mentor. We certainly hope that some of
the contacts which the externships provide will result in either a
part-time or full-time opportunity, if not at the place where our
participant worked, but perhaps in some other venue where a contact has
been made through the externship, but it is not a certainty.
Q: How long are the externships for?
A: They started in September (although one person
started earlier) and run for 10 weeks during the fall. In order to
receive the certificate, the participants must complete 150 hours with
their employers, at a minimum of 15 hours per week. They can work more
than that if mutually agreeable.
Q: Do you keep track of them during the
externships?
A: Yes. We have designed a series of workshops
during the fall that focus on issues surrounding the externship,
including how to find a mentor within the employment setting, and
navigating office politics. We held the first session last week, which
was mainly to ascertain how the participants were adjusting to and
feeling about their externships so far. We were pleased to hear that
most were very satisfied with their experience. While some issues have
arisen, most are consistent with making the transition back into the
workforce, including managing expectations on both sides. We plan to
address these in future sessions. When we met with the participants, we
were struck by how much they enjoyed seeing each other again. We
encouraged them to get together with each other as well as meeting with
us.
Q: Is there a fee for the program?
A: The tuition was $9,000, for the entire program
which included all of the lectures, workshops, substantive portion and
the externship placement. We anticipate that the tuition will go up for
the second iteration, but it has not yet been determined.
Q: What about CLE?
A: Although it’s not offered as a CLE program,
we were able to give two years of CLE to those participants who needed
it and completed the boot camp.
Q: In light of the fact that you do charge a fee and
all of your participants do work on a volunteer basis, how do they
support themselves while they are going through the program and during
the externship?
A: Some of them were working at jobs on a
remunerative basis while they were attending the program. We designed
the summer section, which provided two workshops a week – one in
the morning, one in the evening – to address a variety of
expressed concerns about work/life balance, and the externship hours can
also be done on a “flex time” schedule. Some of our
participants even had their own practice and joined the program because
they were looking for alternatives. We also had some participants who
were the primary caregiver of children and their kids had either gone
off to school or college and they now had more time to return to the
profession or to start something new.
Q: If you could identify the single most important
hurdle that you felt the participants had to overcome, what would you
say that was?
A: I would say a lack of confidence. I was amazed at
the extraordinarily excellent group of people we had and the talents and
skill with which they came to the program. The biggest impediment to all
of them, as we saw it, in returning or entering the profession, was a
lack of confidence. I was also very gratified to see that after the
completion of the first part of the program, the “boot
camp,” this lack of confidence slowly but surely dissipated until
by the time of the externship, we had a group that was generally much
more ready, willing and able to charge forth into the legal community.
We anticipate that by the end of the externship, that confidence will be
even stronger.
Q: Do you know if there are any other law schools
which provide such a program?
A: UC Hastings College of Law in California has a
reentry program. We were developing our programs at the same time, and
we were very pleased to exchange ideas about our programs and our
progress. While our programs differ from each other, I think we would
both be happy to see other law schools develop programs of their own, as
it would mean that more and more resources would be dedicated to
assisting talented and accomplished attorneys with reentering the
profession. I am very proud to have been involved in the first East
Coast law school program of this kind.
Q: Does Pace have plans to continue this
program?
A: Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, the next
iteration of the program will focus on working in-house. The program
will commence on May 19, 2008 and will proceed pretty much on a similar
schedule as the first program—with the boot camp week being held
from May 19-23, 2008; the classes twice a week during the summer of
2008, one day in the morning and one day in the afternoon, and the
externship in the fall of 2008. Of course, this is subject to change,
but for right now, these are the plans. We will be updating the program
website soon, but we would encourage interested attorneys to register on
the New Directions website at www.law.pace.edu to be placed on our
mailing list. In addition, we will be holding Open Houses at the Law
School on January 23, 2008 and March 12, 2008.
Amy, this sounds like such a wonderful program and we are delighted
that you had such success with its maiden voyage. If there’s
anything that the Lawyers in Transition Committee can do to help you,
please don’t hesitate to call on us and please keep updating us on
your program so that we can put it on our website.
If would like to share your experience, or provide advice, tips or
strategies for transitioning attorneys, please contact Lauren Wachtler
at ljwachtler@Montclarewachtler.com.
Please visit our blog at http://nysbar.com/blogs/lawyersintransition.
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Profile of the Month