Working on outreach — as a student or lateral candidate? Book a free 15-minute consultation to walk through your strategy.

Most law students are terrible at cold outreach — not because they can’t write, but because they’ve been told to be so careful and deferential that the email sounds like it was generated by a committee. Nobody responds to a committee. Most associates exploring a lateral move are just as bad at it, for the same reason. Here is how to write one that gets a reply.

Build the List First

Before writing a single email, build a spreadsheet. For each firm you are targeting, find five to ten attorneys who share a connection with you — same undergrad, same law school, same hometown, same practice area. Record: name, email, practice group, graduation year, and one specific detail about their background that is genuinely interesting. That last column is the whole game.

The Formula — Five Sentences or Fewer

• Sentence 1: Who you are and the connection. “I’m a 1L at [school] and noticed you graduated from [shared school] in [year].” For laterals: “I’m a [year] at [current firm] and noticed we share an alma mater.”
• Sentence 2: The specific observation. Something real about their work, their group, or their path.
• Sentence 3: One clear ask. “I’d love to ask you a few questions — would a fifteen-minute phone call work?”
• Sentence 4 (optional): Acknowledge their time. “Happy to make it work around your schedule.”
• Sentence 5: Thank them.

What to Do When They Say Yes

Confirm immediately. Prepare five or six real questions — not things you could have googled. After the call, send a thank you that references something specific from the conversation. When you get an offer from their firm, let them know. When you start, they will remember you.

The attorney on the other end of that email was a 1L once. They remember how hard it was to reach out. Most of them want to help — you just have to make it easy to respond.

If you want to build the list and workshop your email together, the first 15 minutes are free. More here.