New York Lawyer
July 2, 2002

Q:
How can Capitol Hill experience, including work with constituents, drafting legislation and lobbying, translate into employment in New York City?

I'm newly-licensed in NY, NJ and DC, and I got considerable experience while in law school.

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A:
Do you want to work in a firm, or don't you care? Do you want to be denominated as a lawyer, or don't you care? Do you want to be an idea-person, a people-person, a persuader-jawboner, a crisis-junkie, a program/campaign planner? Do you want to play around with government -- or with politics?

All of these are pretty decent screening questions -- and they all represent possible career directions for you, depending on your interests and aptitudes (and whom you worked for in DC, of course).

If the lobbying part interested you, when you review lists of registered state and federal lobbyists you'll find a lot of law firms among the addresses. Some firms -- even those not based in DC -- have powerful lobbying and governmental relations practice groups, free-standing power houses that take on a variety of clients who want their lobbyists' business cards to say, "Esq." on them. In these firms, government relations is its own profit center. If you can credibly make the case that you went to law school in order to empower your lobbying credentials, and if your credentials are decent and your experience is "real," there's no reason you would not be attractive to a law firm selling lobbying services.

Ditto other lobbying firms that are not attached to a full-law firm at the hip. With such firms you'll have to work harder to describe your rationale for going to law school, but that should not be hard -- all that good stuff about situation analysis skills and analytical abilities and communication skills, etc., etc.

And there are myriad opportunities available within corporations, as well. Some of these might be legal positions within the corporate legal department. Or, some corporations maintain a separate and distinct government relations and lobbying department (be careful: some do not call it lobbying, disliking the connotation of the word). For others, all these "staff" functions are embraced within the corporate communications department. In still others, they have their own slots in the org chart under what often are called "the Rels:" GovRel (government relations), CommRel (community relationships), and EmpRel (employee relations).

Obviously, if the role that interests you in a given corporation is not formally within the legal department, be prepared to claim that you went to law school "to learn what lawyers know," and not necessarily to "be a lawyer."

Other entities that might find you interesting include advertising firms or any other consulting firm that holds itself out as providing public relations, public information, legislative affairs, crisis communications management, constituent relations, focus groups, attitude surveying or other forms of "directed communications." There's a bunch of 'em in New York.

I should emphasize that in many settings, lobbying and government relations involve quite distinct activities. Lobbying involves direct persuasion on proposed or pending legislation (and can either be quick-hit or long-program, as you may know); Gov Rel can involve providing a variety of information, programmatic support or project management assistance to local, state or federal entities, all in the name of corporate good will. These activity can general incredible clout, institutional advertising and good will.

For what it's worth, the government relations function of a major multinational is part of a communications department that also includes advertising, corporate identity and public relations. The Gov Rel staff is spread around the country, with about 40% billeted in DC. The staff is about 50 percent lawyers and 50 percent Ph.D.'s in planning, economic development, etc. The arguments, infighting and political jockeying among and between the lawyers and non-lawyers is awesome to behold (and that is in the good departments). You may want to think long and hard -- particularly in light of your NY, NJ and DC admissions -- which sweatshirt you want to wear and what role most floats your boat.

Finally, what about joining the staff of a legislator? This can be as an "issues person," a constituent relations person, a legislative affairs expert or a program/project leader. Pure politics represents a horse of a different color, but the whole process of campaigns and re-elections is very exciting to some.

You choose. You should have a good shot almost any direction you turn.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group