Monday Mentors with Austin Real Estate Lawyer Kara Batey

Kara Batey of the Austin-based full-service law firm Branscomb, P.C., joins us on today's show. Kara talks about remote working post-COVID, the emergence of water law, and how to show sincere interest in a job interview.

COVID-19 Update

• Everyone working from home since March
• Being an oil/gas lawyer she doesn't have to worry about court, etc. Working on docs and making calls can continue mostly like normal
• Important to have a dedicated area to work from
• Can access the Austin office if she needs to
• Able to offer clients new technology like Zoom, etc., but they haven't needed/wanted it
• Using Microsoft Teams within the office for video meetings
  • Good to check in with colleagues and those you work closely with
• The use of tech and work from home will likely lead to law firms reducing their real estate footprint going forward
  • From a budgeting standpoint, this is a fixed cost that you can't change, and Austin real estate is expensive
• Force Majeure has become a major issue, both figuring how how it applies in current contracts, and drafting them in current/future agreements to specifically address pandemics
  • Is it even economic to litigate it, or better to just come together and work something out

Her firm and practice

• Firm has practice groups intended to meet their clients' business and personal legal needs
  • corporate
  • tax
  • labor/employment
  • oil/gas/real estate/water
  • estate planning/probate
  • litigation
• She does transactional real property matters
  • focused mostly on commercial real estate and water
  • legal concepts are similar throughout these areas
  • water law is tracking oil/gas law
• Oil/Gas law gave her great experience and understanding that translates and is applicable across lots of real estate practice areas. Ex. writing title opinions.

Advice to lawyers in practice

• It is helpful to specialize in something, but even more so to choose a specialty that can be applied to broader/tangential areas
  • Clients will often have related issues. So if you can handle those too you can expand your business.

Advice to lawyers searching for a job

• Always include you GPA on your resume; if you don't people assume you have a bad one
  • If you can show a history of success in your practice area of some number of years, then this probably doesn't matter quite as much
• Proofread all materials; typos, incomplete sentences, address cover letters to the right person
• Express sincere interest in your cover letter for the position you are applying for
  • emphasize relevant experience and/or coursework
  • don't overestimate yourself; take a humble approach; if you are a new or young lawyer, you don't really know much yet.
• If the job is posted, apply for THAT job. Don't try to apply for another one that you want. Ex. The job is posted in Corpus Christi but you apply for their Austin office.
• In the interview, be sure to show that sincere interest in the area of law/practice

Rapid Fire Questions

• Trait/characteristic you most want to see in an associate: make new mistakes / i.e. don't keep making the same mistakes
• Habit that is key to your success: Persistence
• Favorite app/productivity tool: Zillow
• Favorite social distancing activity: backyard happy hours
• Favorite legal movie: Legally Blonde

Thanks again to Kara Batey for joining us on today's show!