Brainstorm my Euro-Job

January 16, 2012 4:36 PM

I'm a lawyer looking to move to Europe within the next three years. I know my ideal path, but I need help brainstorming alternate plans. How can I best identify opportunities in Europe that require, or will allow me to leverage, my skills?

My partner is French, and we would like to settle in Europe (preferably France) within the next three years or so. I've spent the past three years working as a transactional (non-courtroom) intellectual property attorney working for a well-respected firm in New York. I'd prefer to continue my career (or at least leverage my experience) in Europe. I'm conversational in French, but won't be fluent or nearly proficient enough to get my French degree (let alone practice law in French) until after I've been there for a couple years.

My ideal job would be with an English-speaking company who wants an attorney with American IP expertise and will want/permit me to work in France. These jobs exist, but they are not common, and with Europe's economic uncertainty, I am not expecting to find one quickly (though I keep looking).

If I don't find one of these jobs within the next 2-3 years, I'm still going to be moving. I'll have saved up a bit of money by then, so I will have some flexibility and won't absolutely need to get paid work right away.

The wall I'm running into is imagining what I would do if I don't find the job I'm looking for. My firm doesn't have European offices; I don't want to work for another firm in Europe. I know someone who made a similar move; he's a litigator and clerked for a judge in an international court in the Netherlands (this type of opportunity doesn't match my transactional background).

How can I best identify opportunities in Europe that require, or will allow me to leverage, my skills?

posted by benbenson to work & money (6 answers total)

My firm doesn't have European offices; I don't want to work for another firm in Europe.

Right there you've probably eliminated the easiest way of finding a job. You're a lawyer. The vast majority of lawyers work for law firms. Alsoyou may not even really be eligible for many non-firm positions, as most corporations are looking for pretty senior attorneys for their legal departments most of the time, particularly in corporations big enough to have need for international legal services. Three years isn't probably going to cut it. We're talking at least seven if not ten to fifteen.

Also, not speaking French is really going to kill your prospects here. I think your first task is to learn it, quickly and fluently. Having looked at this sort of thing, I'm aware of approximately zero positions in Europe outside the UK that don't require proficiency in the native language. It just goes with the territory, *cough*.
posted by valkyryn at 4:57 PM on January 16

Right. Given those constraints, which I understand are quite significant, I'm trying to figure out what's left.
posted by benbenson at 5:42 PM on January 16

If I understand correctly, it doesn't sound like you want to work for a law firm in Europe. Can you identify companies with European offices and get experience with one of those in the U.S. with the hope or plan to transfer when the time comes?
posted by odeon at 8:13 PM on January 16

Grad school in France? One path is B school at INSEAD or HEC. You'll have access to recruiters through the school at least. But you could talk to some recruiters now, see what's in demand, and plan to acquire it.
posted by jetsetlag at 4:15 AM on January 17

Would your skills be of interest to banking, publishing or insurance companies? You might find more international opportunities in those areas, and they tend to be pretty crisis-resistant. The mix of nationalities involved might mean your ability to speak French becomes secondary to your ability to conduct business for English-speaking clients in France.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:19 AM on January 17

odeon, that is a good idea and one that I am considering. To give a little more detail to my thought process, the biggest obstacle of my working upon entry to Europe will be the fact that I won't be permitted to practice law in that country. To that end, I'm also trying to identify "quasi-legal jobs"--jobs that encourage/reward legal experience, but don't require the ability to practice.

One example of this type of job is found in Google's AdWords policy group; they identify legal/policy/regulatory issues in AdWords sales and work to resolve the issues.
posted by benbenson at 5:33 AM on January 17