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job-blog
07/03/2018

job Blog - VB Attorneys

Job Tennant

07/03/2018

When I graduated from law school and started looking for a job, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I had had my sights set on “big law” because that’s what everyone tells you to do in law school. But, having just missed that cut I needed to find a place to work that fit my high expectations.

I started googling random law firms in Houston and trying to decipher which ones I thought would be worthwhile, but that process was long and random. It is hard to tell if a firm is a good firm based on the website because they all kind of look the same and it is even harder to determine what the culture of the firm is like.

After going through hundreds of websites to try to determine where I might be happy I came across a couple core ideas that helped me define my search: I needed a mentor and I needed a friend.

Those are both pretty abstract concepts that are hard to find on a website, but at least I had a direction that I could pursue. I decided that the best path forward for me was to try and find a firm through my network of friends and colleagues. People that I could trust to tell me if the firm was somewhere where I would want to be.

Luckily, I texted Lena Laurenzo. I had known her older brothers from third grade and Lena had taken me under her wing at the very beginning of law school. I was just hoping that she would know someone who was hiring, but when she said that there was a chance that her firm was hiring I was ecstatic. That would nail down one of my two goals right off the bat.

Next, I needed to make sure that I would have a mentor. As much as you learn in law school, you also walk across the stage knowing almost nothing and I had just enough experience to know that to be true.

I started researching the other attorneys at the firm and from what I could tell they seemed to have a good track record, but no one’s profile says “I’m lazy and lose most of my cases.” So, I started to ask around and found that other people that had been practicing for 20 or more years knew and respected both Vuk and Brian (VB Attorneys).

However, it wasn’t until I met them that I was really sold. The mentoring that I was searching for started in my very first interview and it hasn’t stopped.

This blog will keep you updated on the things that I’m doing at work, but since most people I know aren’t lawyers (and even of the lawyers I know almost all of them are in different practice areas) I’ll try to spend more time talking about the more generally applicable lessons that I learn and the mentoring that I receive. Besides, if you’ve made it this far in the blog you are probably someone who actually knows me and cares about me as a person and not just someone you might need to contact if you get injured.

Finally, one of the lessons I have learned already is that everyone will remember that you are a lawyer, but no one will remember what you actually do. I work for a firm that does personal injury claims for plaintiffs.

That means generally if someone is responsible for you getting hurt I can help you (and because you are my friend I will), but more specifically we work with people who have been hurt by a company when that company doesn’t do what they should be doing and that results in a person getting injured.

That differs from a random car accident because the individual who hit you is probably not going to become a significantly better driver if they get sued, but a company that gets sued can (and hopefully will) change their policies so that everyone that works there in the future will be safer. In its own small way, I hope that this does make the world a better place for all of you.