Interview on Networking with John Fortin, L'19

John Fortin graduated from Richmond Law in 2019. Following graduation, he clerked for Chief Justice James Hardesty on the Supreme Court of Nevada and then joined the law firm Pisanelli Bice, PLLC in Las Vegas, Nevada. He specializes in complex commercial litigation as well as data privacy, cybersecurity, and technology. Before law school, he worked for more than a decade in the United States Navy as a Cryptologist and Information Warfare Specialist, and he continues to serve in the Naval Reserves.

“Mentoring and networking are two very important aspects of lawyering and are integral for a young lawyer to find their place in the Bar. Everyone will tell you to network and find a mentor but rarely can they quantify how to do it properly. The reason why it is such an ambiguous topic is because rarely is there a straight line or a standard operating procedure to accomplish those tasks. I by no means have all the answers, but I will attempt to provide the foundation that I set for myself and how I think I have been successful at finding mentors and networking.

The first and probably most important piece of advice I can offer is to seek out people that do interesting things that you can relate with and get them in your corner.  Put another way, don’t just look for mentors who can hire you. Look for and connect with people who are interesting and who will support you, whether or not they will hire you. You will likely gain a larger network and a larger mentor base by simply wanting to connect with interesting people that you can talk to not just about the law, but other things like sports, politics, or whatever else that interests you. If you only look for individual value, the people you try to connect with are less likely to assist you in your success if you are only interested in obtaining some financial or employment benefit from them rather than adding value to the other person.

The second piece of advice I can offer is to join national organizations and participate in them. During law school I applied for and served as the ABA Law Student Division Liaison to the Section of Litigation. The Litigation Section is one of the largest in the ABA and has somewhere between 30-40,000 attorneys from all over the country. I was expected to (and the ABA offset the cost) to attend conferences all over the country (I went to Nashville, Louisville, San Diego, Laguna, and even to Canada) during the two years I served in this position. While at these conferences, I networked with Judges and lawyers who did all kinds of things. Some were commercial and business litigators, others were public servants in federal agencies, and still others worked for state government. The Section and the leadership are comprised of lawyers who are in the top of their profession in the law. While I was serving in this position I also interacted with and met with several present and past ABA Presidents (and got the current ABA President to come speak at Richmond), met with several partners at the largest law firms in the world, and met with and got to know federal and state court judges from around the country. I remain engaged in the Section and continue to engage with so many of the members to this day. I am hoping that this upcoming bar year I can actually attend some of the in-person conferences as the pandemic subsides.

My third piece of advice is what has helped me the most. I cannot stress that a clerkship for a Judge as a way to gain a mentor and network. By way of background, I graduated from Richmond in May 2019 and immediately (literally the day after graduation) my wife and I moved across the country to Reno, Nevada so I could begin studying for the Nevada bar and then, in August 2019, to begin my clerkship with Chief Justice James Hardesty of the Nevada Supreme Court. Following the completion of my clerkship, I moved down to Las Vegas where I continue to live and work today.

As far as I know, I am the only Richmond graduate in Las Vegas (or possibly in Nevada) so I have had to rely on other sources than the alumni network for both networking and mentors.  My first and best resource, is Chief Justice Hardesty. The Justice is a fantastic mentor and his network of law clerks are all over the State. Every year, the Justice gets us together for a luncheon to see each other and catch up.  Moreover, Justice Hardesty is a leader in the State’s legal community and he is a highly respected in the bar and on the bench.  

For a law student moving across the country to a new location, with no alumni around, clerking is one of the best ways to accomplish both goals of finding a mentor and networking. I realize that it is easy to say “go find a clerkship” when in fact it is incredibly difficult to accomplish.  Grades matter, being on journal matters, and having good writing samples matter.  All of those things were discussed in my interview with the Justice. There are also the intangibles like knowing as much you can about the Justice and what matters he recently worked on.  For example, he authored the opinion in Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt, the State Sovereign Immunity case that was before the U.S. Supreme Court at the time I interviewed with him, so we discussed the doctrine, my thoughts on the case, and ways in which advocates can rely on State constitutions rather than always looking to the Federal constitution for support.  The interview itself took hours to prepare for but it was time well spent.

In addition to the work done in preparation for an interview, obtaining a clerkship likewise takes a lot of hard work to do the research about the Judge, to create unique cover letters that speaks directly to the Judge, and to send very polished writing samples that are of interest to the Judge to even get the opportunity to interview. But I cannot stress enough how many more doors will open for you with a clerkship as you seek both mentors and networking.

For example, during my clerkship, I looked towards the next step in my career almost immediately. While I discussed options with Justice Hardesty, I also made it a point to research and find lawyers and law firms that did the things that sounded interesting to me. I coupled the advice I received with my research and tailored my networking outreach to the three areas of law that I found most interesting while I was in law school: (1) procedural and practical litigation courses (CivPro, Conflicts of Law, Pre-trial litigation skills, Fed Courts, and Civil Rights Litigation), (2) business oriented courses (B.A., Antitrust, SecReg, M&A, Intro to Business), and (3) anything appellate related (I interned my 1L summer at the Colorado Supreme Court and I participated in moot court).  With that information in hand, I found Partners and senior associates at law firms that did those things and I emailed them directly—out of the blue.  Again this was more about meeting other attorneys than about obtaining an associate position.

I also know that it sounds scary and intimidating to just email someone (especially a partner at a law firm) out of the blue. But I cannot stress enough that this is such a low risk/high reward operation. The worst that will happen is you won’t get a response while the best thing that will happen is they respond, speak to you, and possible gain another person in your networking/mentoring corner.  My emails were simple and something to the effect “Hi I’m John. [brief background about me]  You do really interesting work [business, litigation, and appellate].  Would you be willing to speak with me (on the phone, or go get coffee, or lunch or dinner) sometime.  I attach my resume for your review.”

If my memory serves me, every single one of these emails got a reply. Which when you think of it, is not that strange.  I was sending messages to lawyers saying they sounded interesting and that I wanted them to talk about themselves to me so I could network with them.  If you have gotten this far in the message, you should understand that when lawyers get asked questions about themselves, we like to answer the question and talk about ourselves. 

More importantly, several of these email exchanges led to phone calls, which in turn led to interviews.  Even the interviews and phone calls that did not turn into a job opportunity, the attorneys I connected with are still in my network and we still communicate.  This was by no means a zero sum endeavor.   One of these emails led to several conversations with a Partner at Pisanelli Bice, an invitation to meet the other Partners and interview at the firm, and eventually I was offered a position where I work now.

PB does incredibly fascinating litigation and appellate work in the areas of business, commercial, gaming and constitutional law. We are consistently in the news (both local and national) because of the cases we take on and I can say without a doubt that being part of the team that accomplishes the litigation goals for our clients is really amazing. It is hard work but it is incredibly rewarding work.  I also knew a lot about what PB does, what they would expect of me, and what my day to day work life would be, because of all of the above work I did leading up to accepting the offer.

I know this was long (Professor Erickson asked for one to two paragraphs) but I wanted to be honest and tell you that this is a process. It is never too late to start, it is never too late to try, and no single method is “the right method.”  It also never ends.”