Signing Up With the Newer Agencies
I try to increase my contract attorney leads by registering with as many agencies as I find reasonable. I’m currently registered with more than 15 different places, but the thing I’m finding is that only about half regularly contact me and provide me with valuable job leads. The others might call or e-mail me once every few months, which is far too infrequent for me to have and maintain an on-going working relationship with them.
There are several newer agencies that have just recently popped up that I haven’t gotten around to visiting yet. I probably won’t get to them immediately until they have established themselves for a while first. There’s no point in taking time out to hand over your professional and personal information including social security number until you can reasonably expect employment leads as a result of your efforts.
I have noticed that a few of the newer staffing agencies have been regularly posting contract attorney leads on the various listservs, which is a good indicator that they are getting a steady stream of job orders to fill. If they can keep it up for a few more months I will likely pay them a visit to register.
However, there’s been a few startups that I haven’t heard from in a long time. I suspect either business has dried up or perhaps they’ve already established a small in-house list of dedicated temps that they regularly call on for projects, and I’m not one of them. It’s okay. I will eventually develop a relationship with all of them when the time is right. At the moment I am fairly comfortable with the 6 primary agencies that I regularly work with. However, since the market’s been drying up recently, I may soon increase my list of preferred agencies. I know of at least one new agency that entered the staffing business having already developed a solid prior relationship with one of the major law firms. It may be time to take advantage of their connections.
