This document summarizes Ian Turvill's presentation on using the GROW method to build a legal career. The GROW method involves setting goals, building relationships, acquiring new clients, and delivering high-quality work. Turvill emphasizes setting clear, written career goals and using LinkedIn to research career paths and promote yourself to potential employers. He offers to meet with students individually or in small groups to review their LinkedIn profiles and identify ways to improve their online presence.
Building Your Career Path with Clear Goals and Connections
1. Building and Growing Your Path Towards Practice
Praxis Fall Kickoff Luncheon
Presented by Ian Turvill, Chief Marketing Officer, Freeborn & Peters LLP
Praxis Fall Kickoff Luncheon
2. • Ian H. Turvill
• Chief Marketing Officer of
Freeborn & Peters LLP
• Responsible for Marketing
and BD functions
• Full-service law firm,
headquartered in Chicago
• 120 attorneys, with a
significant focus on litigation
• Not a JD! (Just like you.)
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4. Agenda
• Introduction to the GROWTM Method
• The First Step in Growing: Goals
• A Detour through LinkedIn
• An Offer
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5. 5
Goals:
Know what you want to achieve
• Creating a career strategy, including describing target clients and
preferred areas of practice
• Setting objectives for career advancement, compensation, and
work/life balance
Relationships:
Build the connections to get there
• Understanding the importance of fostering relationships with
prospective business sources
• Building trust with buyers and influencers and getting ready for the
“Ask”
Originations:
Acquire new “clients”
• Listening and consulting with prospective clients to understand their
legal and business challenges
• Presenting attorney/firm capabilities and credentials to win
business
Work:
Deliver high-quality services
• Establishing stronger relationships with clients over the course of
the engagement including and also going beyond the work delivered
• Applying techniques to build the depth and breadth of client
relationships
6. Relevant to Attorneys. Relevant to Law Students.
6
Barack Obama Greta Van Susteren
Alan Braverman
Alan Dershowitz Maurice Greenberg Loretta Lynch
7. 7
Goals:
Do you know what
you want to do after law school?
Relationships:
Do you have resources – mentors, guides,
connections – to help you get there?
Originations:
Do you know how to “pitch yourself” to
potential employers: firms, corporations,
government, not-for-profits, etc.?
Work:
Do you have the skills to be effective in your
position from Day One?
8. 8
Goals:
Do you know what
you want to do after law school?
Relationships:
Do you have resources – mentors, guides,
connections – to help you get there?
Originations:
Do you know how to “pitch yourself” to
potential employers: firms, corporations,
government, not-for-profits, etc.?
Work:
Do you have the skills to be effective in your
position from Day One?
9. 9
• In 1979, researchers asked recent graduates of the Harvard
Business School: “Have you set clear, written goals for your
future and made plans to accomplish them?”
– 84% had no specific goals at all
– 13% had goals but they were not committed to paper
– 3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them
• In 1989, interviewers again researched same graduates:
– 13% with goals earning, on average, earned twice as much
as 84% percent with no goals
– 3% with clear, written goals were earning, on average,
ten times as much as other 97%
Source: What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, by Mark McCormack)
10. Agenda
• Introduction to the GROWTM Method
• The First Step in Growing: Setting Goals
• A Detour through LinkedIn
• An Offer
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11. 11
Goals:
Know what you want to achieve
• Creating a career strategy, including describing target clients and
preferred areas of practice
• Setting objectives for career advancement, compensation, and
work/life balance
Type of Entity:
Civil
Criminal
Solo
Entrepreneur
Corporation
Law Firm
Legislative
Government
Judiciary
Military
Public Interest
Academia
Services to Legal
Type of Work:
Plaintiff
Defense
Litigation
Transactions
Counseling
Compliance
Antitrust
Intellectual Property
Labor & Employment
Product Liability
…
Type of Clients:
Banking
Chemicals
Consumer Goods
Energy
Financial Services
Health Care
High Tech
Insurance
Manufacturing
…
Strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive; and
different strategies can be reinforcing over time.
12. • In law school:
– Which classes should I need to take to achieve my goals?
– What publications, blogs, etc. should I read to learn about my target
market?
– Which conferences, seminars, etc. should I attend?
– What kinds of clerking experience should I strive for?
– What intellectual capital should I develop and publish for myself?
• Upon graduation:
– What experience will help me develop best to reach my goals?
– What organizations, locations, mentors, associations, etc., fit best?
– What level of performance should I expect of myself?
– What tradeoffs do I make in terms of career vs. lifestyle?
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Questions to ask of yourself based on your goals.
13. GROW in Action
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Jason Klinowski, Associate
Freeborn & Peters LLP:
2011 to 2014
2004 JMLS Graduate
Goals:
Foremost litigator in Perishable
Agricultural Commodities Act
Relationships:
Network of fruit/vegetable
growers/packers
Originations: $1MM+ originator!
Work:
Consistently called upon by
agricultural clients – now located
in Alabama
14.
15. Ongoing, Significant Commitment to Intellectual Capital
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White Paper: Secured Lending in the Produce Industry:
One of a number of white papers on PACA, starting at law school.
16.
17.
18. Agenda
• Introduction to the GROWTM Method
• The First Step in Growing: Goals
• A Detour through LinkedIn
• An Offer
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19. What Is LinkedIn?
• The world’s largest rolodex
• Facebook for professionals
• Your direct access is
governed by your “links”
and your network of
connections to others
• The place where you
advertise, promote,
project, and otherwise
help to realize your goals.
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21. …Especially Law Firms and Other Hiring Organizations.
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Find All Connections (of Varying
Degrees) at a Particular Firm:
All of my connections at Kirkland.
Hone In on Connections with Particular
Backgrounds and Locations:
All Rochester alumni in the “legal
function” in Chicagoland.
22. Research the Strategies and Career Paths of Attorneys
in Positions You Covet Are Aiming For.
22
What Would You Infer
Were/Are Zach’s Career Goals?
24. Also Clearly Illustrates the Ways in Which You Can Make
Yourself Self Stand Out to a Prospective Employer.
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25. Agenda
• Introduction to the GROWTM Method
• The First Step in Growing: Goals
• A Detour through LinkedIn
• An Offer: Office Hours!
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26. Directions
• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Alert me that you’re going to come
to office hours
• Tell me your goals
• I’ll inventory your profile
• I’ll identify specific opportunities to
improve your presence on LinkedIn
• Come to office hours with one or
two friends from Praxis: you can
learn from each other
• Office hours: Thursdays, 3-5PM,
October 29 – November 20
at Starbucks, 311 S. Wacker Dr.
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LinkedIn.com/in/IanTurvill