Selected Publications

Make the Right Career Move teaches the skills, tools, and branding to make all the right career moves, whether your focus is finding a new job, moving up to a better job, or making your current job better. It makes job search and self-promotion smarter, helping readers land their dream job and realize the benefits of a better job faster. It's a career guide that belongs in the hand of every executive, attorney or professional - or any ambitious job-seeker, from new graduates to senior executives.

While the title of this article overstates the case, it attempts to redress a major problem and imbalance that interferes with career success: namely, that many women lawyers pour everything into their jobs to the exclusion of managing their careers. I have worked with hundreds of women lawyers in virtually every specialty, level and geography, and I have personally out-placed scores of women who mistakenly assumed that keeping their heads down and working hard would be enough to assure their success and security. What follows are three simple and non-time-consuming steps to begin to rectify this imbalance and put women lawyers in active control of their careers: create a simple career plan, ask someone who does something well (that you want/need to do better), and pursue feedback, especially negative feedback.

Creating any kind of change in your career can seem daunting, but following these five easy steps can simplify the process and empower you to create the desired change: (1) Take small steps to make big(ger) changes over time; (2) use a simple three-sentence career plan to guide your activities; (3) keep an accomplishment log to record quantified accomplishments on a daily or weekly basis; (4) calendar in small steps to further your career goals; and (5) remember that this slow-but-steady approach will give you the time and confidence to create and maintain the career change you want.

This article covers six tips from women corporate executives and board members about how to get on corporate boards: (1) create a career plan; (2) seek opportunities to run anything; (3) build specialized expertise in a function, industry, or body of knowledge; (4) build financial knowledge; (5) build a strong network; and (6) serve on non-profit boards and develop relationships with board search firms, based on interviews with women corporate executives and board members, as well as board search consultants, including one male search consultant. Following these practical tips from those who have successfully earned a board seat or helped others earn one is a strong way to boost the chances of earning a board seat.

Selected Publications Index

* On Career and Leadership Development

4 steps to executive career satisfaction

20 marketing tips from women rainmakers

Associates - First-years need a road map to career success

A stylish approach to rainmaking: Assessing a client's interpersonal and legal needs.

Are you coachable?

Can't get no career satisfaction?

Career resolutions.

Communication style as a barrier: How differences affect success

Do you know me? - She knows you

Emotional intelligence: The not-so-secret career booster

Fed up with feedback? Why feedback can save your legal career

Five tips for faking confidence in a job interview

Four things you didn't know about your resume & didn't know to ask

How Jill (and Jack) got nimble

Make the right career move

Managing your career in turbulent times

No way out? Wrong! You can beat the career mistakes that box you in.

On the path to success

Practical lessons in how to manage your career, Part 1

Practical lessons in how to manage your career, Part 2

Resumes and the art of career management

Resumes that work: How to write a resume that stands out from the pile

Retaining good employees: Five things law firms can learn from corporations

Six strategies for dealing with under-performing partners

Three small steps to killer feedback

Three steps to turn career resolutions into solutions

Why does a lawyer need competitive advantages?

Women lawyers: Forget your job and focus on your career

Working it: Five tips for working your network

Your best career path (Chapter 10). The Best Lawyer You Can Be. American Bar Association, 2018.

* Meet The Rainmakers

Making It Rain: Eva Davis

Making It Rain: Allegra Lawrence-Hardy

Meet the Rainmaker: Sally Abel

Meet the Rainmaker: Martha Fay Africa

Meet the Rainmaker: Joan B. Tucker Fife

Meet the Rainmaker: Karen Green

Meet the Rainmaker: Margaret Kavaleris

Meet the Rainmaker: Charisse Lillie

Meet the Rainmaker: Paula Litt

Meet the Rainmaker: Joan Lukey

Meet the Rainmaker: Jami Wintz McKeon

Meet the Rainmaker: Retta A. Miller

Meet the Rainmaker: Stephanie A. Scharf

Meet the Rainmaker: Amy Weinfeld Schulman

Meet the Rainmaker: Debbie Thoren-Peden

Meet the Rainmaker: Rosemary Turner

Meet the Rainmaker: Katheryne L. (Kathy) Zelenock, J.D.

* On Organizational Development

Building a diverse and profitable law firm

Four things law firm leaders can do about diversity

Getting women on board(s): 6 tips on board selection from those who know how

Hiring a full-time legal editor

How to get true performance from feedback

If you want to build a diverse and profitable law firm: Part 1

If you want to build a diverse and profitable law firm: Part 2

Turnover: What can you do to keep good lawyers?

* Audio/RSS Feeds