Q&A With Karen Vladeck & Katy Robinette

How did you two meet?

Karen: We met the way all good relationships do: online in the spring of 2020, when the world shut down. We both joined a Facebook group called Peloton Law Moms, and it was basically exactly as it sounds — a lawyer mom group for people who rode Pelotons. It became a social outlet for a group of ambitious lawyer moms who were all of a sudden at home. People quickly became real life friends. There was an offshoot for a type of Peloton ride called PowerZone, and that’s when we really started talking. We realized we were both on the team and started DMing. That was truly how we met. We did not know each other before at all. 

Katy: The Facebook group was such a lifeline for this particular group of people because we all had kids. So that was a unique challenge during the pandemic. We also all were female lawyers, which also presents a unique challenge. We were responding to discovery requests and getting online arguing motions, while some people were at home baking bread. So I felt like some of my friendships took a back seat. I was like, we are so not similarly situated right now. And people like Karen and I bonded really quickly because we have spouses who work and also have demanding jobs, and we have these kids who needed a lot from us. It was very organic and now here we are 4 years later! 

Karen, why did you choose to stop being a lawyer to become a recruiter, and Katy, why are you choosing to start recruiting now?

Karen: I think a characteristic that Katy and I both share is we have always been connectors. Whether it was in the legal field or if somebody was moving to Austin, they would say, “Hey, call Karen. She knows everybody. She knows the dentist, she knows the doctor.” So I’m just that personality type who likes to be at the center of connecting people. And the benefit of that in the legal profession is that I've always connected people to get jobs. Probably four or five years ago, after I helped one of her law clerks get a job, a friend of mine said, “You should be a legal recruiter and get paid to do this for a job.”

That conversation planted this seed in my mind that made me think, huh, that would be an interesting career. At the time, I was a partner in a great litigation boutique in Austin. By all accounts I had “made it” in the legal profession but I looked around at my partners who were probably about 10 years older than me, and I thought, this is not what I want to be doing for the next 10 years. I really feel like I am supposed to be doing something different. And so when I started talking to different legal recruiters and started to get the vibe and feel of it, I thought, wow, I really could do this. That’s when I met my former boss, Sean Burke at Whistler Partners. He basically said, “You have the perfect personality for recruiting. You have a huge network, give it a shot.” I took a leap of faith and started. Within the first week, I knew I was doing exactly what I was meant to do within the legal profession. I love talking to lawyers and understanding what their practice is like and really understanding sophisticated niche practices with the combination of just loving the human connection piece of it, which you don't get as much when you're a practicing attorney. 

Katy: I am totally a people person. I love getting to know people, and I like figuring people out. I, like Karen, have helped a lot of people get jobs just because I was able to put them in touch with someone, and it is so fulfilling. At some point Karen was just like, “You spend a lot of your day doing this and you should get paid to do that.” But I think I had to really fully live out my life in the law before I could start thinking about things in terms of bringing my natural instinct and skillset to a different profession. 

So when I knew that Karen was going to start out on her own, I was like, I definitely want to be a part of that. A big piece of this for me is the gratification of supporting a woman starting her own venture.

Karen: I just know that Katy's going to love this and she's going to be so good at it. I'm so excited.

Karen, what do you find so fulfilling about this work?

Karen: I sometimes post screenshots of text exchanges (with permission!) with candidates on LinkedIn. They are 100 percent real texts that I get from candidates all the time saying, you have helped change my life. In 13 years of practice as a lawyer, I never once got anything remotely close to that from a client! And I give the credit to the candidates — they really are the ones doing the hard work, but the truth is that good recruiters can fundamentally change somebody's life and change the trajectory of a candidate’s career. How many people get to say that they're personally involved in changing the trajectory of somebody's life? That is such an unbelievably gratifying thing to do. Just a few weeks ago I had a candidate who was at a middle market firm where he was not making a lot, and he's now in true big law making over 50 percent more. And I've had a number of moves like that, where people are either making significantly more, are far more valued, or have changed practice areas or geographic regions completely. We spend so much time at work that these upgrades make a big, big change in candidates’ lives.

What do you think Risepoint brings to the table that is special or different in terms of recruiting? 

Karen: Foremost, it is a dedication to candidates that we're working with that we're not just trying to put you into any job. I had another recent candidate who got a huge job upgrade, and I had been working with that candidate for about a year and a half before we finally placed him. I think that a lot of recruiters would have just given up and said, “Oh, that first batch of firms that we submitted you to, those didn't work out, so goodbye.” I try to maintain long-term relationships with the candidates that I work with, which means always monitoring the market and bringing them opportunities when things might not initially work. On the other hand, I've had candidates who have gotten a job in two weeks, and it's a short but impactful time together. But some candidates you're working with for a long, long time. 

Now, I do not place every single person that I work with. I wish I could, but sometimes the marker conditions just don’t allow it. There are candidates who we mutually decide that we shouldn't be working together because it's more fruitful for them to go on their own. But a lot of candidates, I just stay very, very loyal to them. So I think that is something that does distinguish me from other recruiters. 

I think another way that Risepoint really distinguishes itself is we're two female former lawyers who worked really, really hard and developed enormous networks before we went into recruiting. So what you're getting with us is the experience of that deep connection with firms where I think a lot of recruiters really are just going by what jobs are posted and submitting people without having that deep connection. The best recruiters have that deep connection. 

Katy: I grew up in a small town in Podunk, Arkansas, and I went to college where I knew no one in the Hudson Valley. And I was ambitious. I wanted to be a fancy lawyer. And I learned very quickly that there was only so far my academic achievement and go-getter attitude was going to get me if I didn't connect with people. I hustled for every job that I ever got. I was on a clerkship interview with a fancy federal judge, and he asked me, “What do you think sets you apart from all these people that I'm interviewing?” And I said, “I hustle for everything and if one path isn't working, I'm going to try a hundred others until I make it where I want to go.”

I do a lot of mentoring for young women of color, and you have to sell yourself. You have to market yourself, and make connections with people. For people of certain backgrounds, this feels unnatural because of societal expectations and barriers, and I look forward to working with people who I can inspire and motivate to believe in themselves, see their worth, and present that to the legal market.

How is being a mom brought to bear on your work?

Katy: That falls into the bucket of things that I thought I had to hide from an employer in an interview. In law school, I asked one of the family law professors and noted trailblazing feminists if I should take off my ring when I go and interview with these big law firms. And she was like, different people will tell you different things, but you have to be authentic to yourself. From that point on, I really tried to own myself and where I was in life. I went to law school when I was a little older, and was pregnant during my 3L year. I had my first child three weeks after I took the bar exam. I had a baby when I started my clerkship. My whole legal career, I’ve been a mom. And I think frankly, it's made for a much more enriching career because I’ve had no choice but to be up front and bring my whole self to the workplace. 

Karen: Becoming a parent has made me so much more empathetic to different personality traits and types. I think when the only person you've ever had to really manage expectations for is yourself, you think, oh, everyone kind of thinks this way. And then when you have kids you realize that that's really not true, and people have personalities that are very ingrained in them. And having two kids has made me really open my eyes to understanding other people more. At its core, this job is about understanding and connecting with other people. It is about understanding your candidate and your client and figuring out how to marry those two needs. 

What is something that you think people don't know about legal recruiting or a misconception about legal recruiting?

Karen: I think a misconception is that every recruiter is just money hungry and will place an attorney into any job for a fee. Part of that stems from the fact that there is no barrier to entry for legal recruiting. There is not a certification, there's not a bar exam, there's not a degree. So there's a huge divide between those who are really at the top of their game and everyone else. The best recruiters are ones who have a deep understanding of the market and are willing to put in the work to build relationships, both with candidates and clients. Also, some people are amazing at this and some people are basically AI recreated, and so you really do have to be discerning about who you work with. I always tell people when they're on a call with me for the first time, whoever you work with, whether it's me or someone else, you should be 100 percent comfortable with the person that you're talking to. If we hang up the phone and you don't feel like I'm that person, I fully support you finding somebody who is going to be that person for you because this is such an art, not a science, of a career. So I think one of the misconceptions is that all legal recruiters are created equal, and that is certainly not true.

What advice would you give an attorney who wants to switch jobs?

Karen: Go into it with a very open mind. I think a lot of people that I place are like, oh, I've never heard of that firm. Oh, I never really considered that. Something Katy and I have talked about is that it is ingrained in you in law school that there is some sort of level that you're supposed to keep climbing and climbing to get to the next job title. Letting go of that and being willing to think a little bit outside of the box and maybe not just move on to the next checkbox thing can make for really successful job searches. 

Katy: Inevitably you get to a point in life where you're like, “What was all this for?” At the end of the day, it's about how you spend those hours during the workday, not what you're projecting out on your LinkedIn profile, that's going to help you sleep at night.

Want to work with Karen and Katy or just get to know them even better? Reach out.