Hello, and welcome to today's webinar, a
part of our series "Advice and
Perspective from Friends of UConn", where
UConn Center for Career Development will
bring guests to you to talk about their
career journey in these tumultuous times.
We're presenting a mix of alums and
experts on starting, restarting, and
surviving, career-wise, in this economy. My
name is Lisa McGuire, and I'm with the
UConn Center for Career Development.
Before we get started, I'd like to go
over a few items so that you know how to
participate in today's event. You should
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the dial-in information will be
displayed. Today's webinar is designed to
be interactive, with a Q&A format. I'll
ask Mike some prepared questions, but the
value of this session is to have your
questions answered. You'll have
the opportunities to submit them to us
by typing into the questions pane of the
control panel. We encourage you to send
in your questions at any time during the
presentation, and we'll address them
throughout. Note that today's
presentation is being recorded and will
be provided to you within 48 hours. With
that out of the way, let's get to the
reason we're all here. Please let me
introduce our guest, Mike Barbarula,
Associate Attorney at Ryan Ryan Deluca.
Mike received a Bachelor of Arts degree
in Political Science from UConn
in 2009. While at UConn, he
was a member of the baseball team and
was named a Big East Conference Academic All-Star. He was also inducted into the
National Political Science Honor Society,
Pi Sigma Alpha. Mike received his J.D. from
Penn State in 2012 and was inducted into
the Order of Barristers for his
achievements and trial advocacy. Mike is
currently active in several legal
organizations in Connecticut and serves
on the Board of Directors of the
Fairfield County Bar Association. Welcome
Mike. Good to be here. So, first of all, we
are glad to have you here with us, but
can you take a few minutes to share with
us a little bit about your career
journey beyond the basic bio info that I
just gave? Sure, so like you said, I went
to UConn, graduated in 2009.
I'm born and raised in Connecticut, and
it feels like, other than the three years
I went to law school, I never really left.
I graduated with a degree in Political
Science, although it was my third major
while I was at UConn. I came in as a
Journalism major, thinking I wanted to be
a sports writer, but then ended up
changing. Went into the ACES program for
a little while. Hopefully it's still
called ACES, I don't know.
Yep. Yep, and then I found that I really
liked Political Science classes,
changed my major, and decided I wanted to
go to law school and become an attorney.
I wanted to be a trial lawyer and had
wanted to be a prosecutor, so that was
kind of what I took my classes going to
Penn State for. Graduated from law school
in 2012, took the bar in July and passed,
and unfortunately, there were no jobs
available in 2012 because the legal
market hadn't recovered from the last
recession in 2008, so I worked as a clerk
for a little while, and then started at
the firm I'm currently at, Ryan Ryan
Deluca in Stamford in January 2013.
I mostly practice in the area of
Insurance Defense. I represent people who
have insurance policies who've been
involved in motor vehicle accidents, or
we've had people get injured on their
properties, construction companies who
have product defects and stuff like that,
and I've been there now for 7 and a
half years. Well, that's great, so can you
tell us a little bit about - so you
sort of had a plan, but you actually
crafted it while at UConn, which is kind
of cool because a lot of our students
and alums do change majors, and it's
heartening to hear that you can navigate
through and get your degree and sort of,
so around it looks like maybe junior
year, you decided you wanted to be
a prosecutor? Yeah, it was around the end
of sophomore, start of junior year. I was
trying to decide what I wanted to do, and
you know, I have long been, you know, I
played baseball growing up, and I walked
onto the UConn baseball team, and one of
the thoughts I had was to coach and
to teach, and unfortunately I think, sort
of what I realized was that I really
wanted to coach, and I really didn't have
that much of an interest in teaching, so
that sort of fell by the wayside, you
know, and I really do love Political
Science and thought I maybe would go get
a PhD and be a college professor or
something like that,
but you know, I found I didn't like to
write, you know, journal articles as much
as - as much as that would have entailed,
so you know, I like talking to
people, I like helping people, and so that
that led me to the law. It's not like you
don't have to write a lot for law school
or the law, but - right, exactly. It's a
different kind of writing though, it's
persuasive writing, it's a little
different than the journal writing that
that I thought you would do as a PhD.
Sure, I understand. So around that time,
you decided that litigator/
prosecutor, and can you tell us then -
so you graduated in '09, and you'd
already decided you want to go to law
school, so I suspect the economy didn't
have a huge play in your decision to go
to law school, but would you say that
there is a difference in applications
for, or ability to get into law school
because of the economy? Do you think
others maybe decided to go because of
the economy? What did you see around you?
Yeah I do, I do think - I remember
hearing people say, you know, one of the
ways to try and wait out the recession
that we had in 2008 was to go to
graduate school, and I don't know whether
that's the best advice, and I'm not sure
I would recommend that to anyone, but it
was certainly something that people were
thinking about back in 2008, and I think
now, looking back on it 10 years out, I
think my advice to graduates would be,
you know, to take a look and see what you
really want - really want to do with your
career, and you know, if going to graduate
school is something that would help
further you in your career, and you think
it's worth the investment, then I think
it's a good idea,
but I think, you know, especially in light
of a recession that we're in right now,
it's a good opportunity to sort of
reflect and to think about what it is
you want to do and how it is that you
can go about getting yourself there. Sure,
so some of the things you might weigh
are the cost, right, of the graduate
education, versus what you make when you
get out, and so tell us a little bit
about when you - so you graduated from law school, had the economy
rebounded by 2012? I don't think so, and
certainly not in the legal market, it hadn't.
There were still - jobs were still sort of
constricted. Law firms, at least that I
know of, were still deferring people for
a year. If you worked at one of the big
law firms, what would happen is - you might get a job offer after your second year
of law school, but then, sometime in your
third year of law school, they might ask
you to defer for a year, and I heard
that was happening quite a bit. I
remember when I - after I graduated, the state of Connecticut had
a budget freeze and a hiring freeze, and
so they weren't hiring anybody, not just
for legal jobs, but for any jobs, so I
think it's pretty fair to say that, yeah,
that the economy had not recovered, at
least by the mid- to late-2012 area. So
what did you do? Okay, you went
to law school, now there's hiring
freezes all over the place, there's just
deferrals, etc. Now you've got this big
bill for law school, what did you do? So,
I heard that there was a job opening
to be a what, they call a "temporary
assistant clerk" in the courthouse, and
what we essentially do in that job is we
sit in the courtroom and assist the
judge as his courtroom clerk. We process
motions for the courts, and it's a pretty
good way to be in court, especially for
me who wanted to be a litigator, to start
to meet people, to try and build my
network, you know, to talk to other
lawyers about what they did because we had a lot of interactions with the attorneys
who were appearing in front of the
judges, and you know, it was not a - it was
a "part-time, full-time job" I guess I would
call it. It was full-time hours, but not
necessarily a full-time job, hence it was
a temporary position, you know. It didn't
have any benefits, didn't have any
sick-time, anything like that, but it was -
it was a means to get, you know, in the
system. It was a means to get myself in
front of the people who I wanted to work
for so that I could meet them, and you
know, it ended up working out well
because one of the attorneys that I - that
tried a case in front of the judge I was
working for ended up being a lawyer at
the firm that I now work for, and it was
the partner that I actually have now
worked for, for seven and a half years. So
let's explore that a little bit
because I know that I've talked to
a lot of students and recent grads about
that whole - basically networking - right so,
how did you, first of all, sounds like
that clerkship, does somebody have to
have a law degree to do that, or - ? Yeah, it actually can be
anyone. They generally prefer them to be
recent law grads, but no, anybody -
anybody who's interested in maybe being
a lawyer can, you know, apply to those -
those jobs and talk to the Chief Clerk
and see if there's any openings. And so
then, how would you broach that
networking with people who you're seeing
across the court room but not
necessarily meeting, what do you
suggest for that networking piece? Yeah
so, it's a delicate balance because
you're in the court room, and you
have a judge who's ruling on the motions,
but you know, so what I found was the
best way to do it was to just keep your
eyes on the job boards because these
firms that are hiring are, you know, will
post their job openings, and when they do,
then you could file - you send in a
cover letter and say that you, you know,
were in court when so-and-so tried a
case at the firm, and then, maybe they'll
remember you, you know. There's sometimes
some scuttlebutt in the hallways, and you
can hear about jobs that way, but you
know, just by being there and being in
that area,
you start - you learn about things, and you
learn about people who might actually
know of other openings or might be able
to tell you about openings that aren't
necessarily posted, you know, so I think,
you know, my advice would be - if you're, if
you're interested in something, whether
it's the law or whether it's something
else, and you can get yourself in maybe
even at a lower - even at a lower level
than maybe you want to work at, it can at
least get your foot in the door, and get
you in front of the people who you, you
know, want to be at, you want to be with
if you want to apply for that job, and I
think, you know, as the economy shrinks
and more people will be applying
to the jobs that are open, and I
think the companies and people who are
hiring tend to hire the people that they
know, or tend to hire the people
who've been recommended to them, so if
you can put yourself in front of those
people, or know those people, or know the
people that know those people, I think
that's pretty helpful. That's right,
networking, networking, networking. As
awkward as that feels for a lot of
people, it's just talking to people,
right, it's communicating. Yeah, it's really
just interpersonal relationships, you
know. I called it "leveraging your
contacts", but yeah, it's really just
person-to-person relationships, and
that's, you know, when somebody
knows somebody, they may take them over
somebody they don't know if, you know, if all things are equal. Exactly, so a
question, which I think you've partly
answered, at least partly, what did you do
exactly after you graduated from law
school, and between - was there a time
period between graduation and getting
that clerk job? Yes, so the bar is
actually at the - the bar exam occurs at
the end of July, and I graduated from law
school right around Mother's Day, so from
those two months, that
two-month time frame, I essentially
full-time studied for the bar, and then I
applied for and heard about this clerk
job a couple of weeks after I took the
bar, and then started the last week of
August.
So you - how did you pay your bills, you
know, did you move home, did you - ? Yes, I
lived at home, you know, while I studied
for the bar, and while I worked as a
clerk, and you know, moved out of the
house after I got my job at the firm I'm
currently at, but you know, it was
helpful to have, you know, parents who
lived in the area where I
was working, so you know. So, you
got this job doing - it's insurance work, right? Yeah, so it's -
it's a private law firm, but we are
retained by insurance companies to
represent their insurance, so for example,
if you were involved in a motor vehicle
accident, and the person who you were in
the accident with claims that they were
injured in that accident, they'll file a
lawsuit against you. You turn your claim
over to your insurance company, your
insurance company hires a firm like mine
to represent you, pursuant to that
insurance policy. So, that's a little bit
different from what you were - what your
dream was, so walk us through a little
bit of how that - you pivoted, and did
you now find, do you now find that you
still want to go in that other direction,
or what did you find about yourself, and
about the role, and sort of give us a
little bit of background on that. Sure,
like I said, there was a hiring
freeze in the state of Connecticut, and
really, the only way to get a job doing
criminal law is, you know, you can either
be a criminal defense attorney at a
private law firm, or you can work for the
state as either a prosecutor or a public
defender, and so, you know, most of those
jobs weren't available at the 2012 time
frame, so you know, I got a job, and you
know, what I liked about it was that I
was going to be in court all the time,
you know, it's a little different because
it's civil as opposed to criminal, but it
still let me try - you know, still
gave me the opportunity to try cases and
still gave me the opportunity to take
depositions, I still got to
argue motions, so for me, it was similar
to what I had wanted to do, and you know,
if we're being honest, I was a little
naive and didn't really know that this
sort of field even existed when I was in college and in law school, you know. I
didn't really know about it at least
until I started working as a clerk in
the courthouse that there were - this
is how the personal injury system
worked, and so you know, they hired me, and I've been there about seven and a half
years. I work with a bunch of great, great
people, and great attorneys. We have a
great staff, they've been good to me, and
I see no reason, you know, so long as
they'll have me, I don't see myself going
anywhere else. So this is sort of an
unexpected surprise - not surprise.
Unexpected is a surprise by nature, vice
versa, so you didn't know it existed. So
along those lines, maybe a suggestion to
the audience about pursuing things
that maybe you don't know a whole lot
about. Yeah, I think it's important to be open to opportunities, you know,
especially in an economy where there
aren't as many jobs. If you can get
yourself into the industry that you want
to be in, it may not be, like I said
before, it may not be the job you want,
but it may get you on the path to the
end of the job you want, and even if it
doesn't, you know, you might find that you
like it. You might find that, you know,
it's less that the job that you want is
great, but you might also really like the
people that you're working with. You
might really like the work that you're
doing, and you might find that that's
okay, too, you know. I don't think that there's
a be-all, end-all in this. Yeah, I think you're right. So let's
shift a little bit to a little
broader, you know, you were active on
campus, obviously, when you were an
undergrad, and again, this is
like in lawyer speak, hearsay, but your friends, what did they -
what did you see in the economy? Did
you - do you feel like more of your
friends went to graduate school? What did
they face? Was it - did you feel like they're
colleagues in your Poli Sci classes who
were thinking of going to law school
changed their path, or the ones who
were going to go into something else changed
what - what are they doing now? So, a lot of
the people who were Political Science
majors did end up going to law school,
although I do know that there's at least
a percentage of people that I went to
school with that I then would take
classes - you take the LSAT if you want to
go to law school, or at least you did. Now
I think they're starting to accept the
GRE - if that. If that, exactly, but you know, so
I would, I would - I took classes to
prepare for the LSAT, and even some of
the people I took the LSAT prep
course with didn't end up going to law
school, so what did they do? I don't know,
but I can tell you at least from my
friends, I think I - it was - I had two
roommates most of my college, most of my
time at UConn, and one of them, you know,
got a job working in IT. He was an
Economics major, got a job working at IT,
a company that his sister worked at in
Sales. He stayed there for five or six
years and actually transitioned recently
and is now a life insurance agent,
so something that's not totally related
to what he was doing, but also not not
related to what he was doing. My other
roommate was a Coaching major, wanted to work in sports, and I'm sure you know how
hard those jobs are to get, and
especially in 2009. He ended up - he had an
aunt who was a producer, and he got
referred to a job at MLB Network right
when they started in the 2008-2009
timeframe, so he actually worked as a
receptionist, he answered phones because
he thought that was his way in, and now,
he moved - he's moved out of the New York areas, back living in
Boston. He works for non-profits, but he
found that, you know, those were the kind
of things that he liked doing. One of my
other friends is a teacher, always wanted
to be a teacher, got a degree in Biology
and then went on to grad school, and you
know, I have another friend who's on his
fifth or sixth different career since
2009, and I - you know, I'd be lying if I
told you that the economy didn't have
something to do with it, but you know, but
he's happy, and that's really, you know, at
the end of the day, I think happiness
is more important than any of it, so. Yeah,
I think that's it. I think that's the
point, you know, we might think we know
where we want to go at this point, but
life throws all kinds of curveballs, no pun - or
pun intended, all kinds of curveballs in
some time - and it always works out, right,
sometimes it takes longer than we
expect.
I'm going to go back to the law firm, the
law area, because we're getting a couple of
questions more specifically about the
field, which is great. So one person is
asking, how do you plan to grow within
the firm or don't really want to suggest
that you would leave the firm from a job
perspective, but if you're settled in
the job, how does one grow in a law firm,
I guess, some folks, just share that with
some folks who may not be familiar with
the way law firms operate. Sure, so every
law firm works a little bit differently,
so I can only sort of speak for what we
do at my firm, but when you're a younger
lawyer, one of the things that they start
you out with is doing legal research, and
doing discovery, and ask - answering
questions, asking questions, doing that
kind of, sort of initial, well, sort of
what we think of as the initial
litigation stuff. As you get more
experience, they start to take
depositions, where you put people under
oath and ask them questions about what
happened, and in my field, we ask them
about their medical treatment, and how
they're doing, and those kinds of things,
and then, you know, as you get a little
more experienced, they start to let you
go to settlement conferences and mediate
cases where you try and resolve them. Not
every case ends up at trial.
In fact, I tell people 99% of cases
resolve in one way or another before
they actually ever get to a trial, but
sometimes they resolve with an
arbitration, which is a trial-like
process, and you know, it took me five or
six years, but I did my first arbitration
a couple of years ago where it's
essentially a full-dress trial but in
front of another lawyer who writes a
written decision on the case, and that's
the binding decision, and so, as you get
older, they give you a little more
responsibility, so those are the kind of things - the ways that you can grow,
and you can also grow in the size of
your practice. I mean, when I started, I
was doing car accident cases, I did slip and
fall cases where just, you know, these are
tort cases where the only issue is, who
was at fault? Now I do a little bit of
everything. Not only - I still do car
accident cases, I still do slip and falls,
but I do construction litigation.
Somebody builds a house and there's
water in the basement, and why is there
water in the basement, and you have to
get to the bottom of it because it can
be complicated, and there's
subcontractors and general contractors
and architects and design drawings, and
you have to figure out exactly which of
these people, you know, caused the problem
that's there? I do some product liability
cases where you have like a toaster that
malfunctions and causes a fire, and so
that's kind of how I've grown. I've gone
from doing one sort of discrete area to
try and broaden it a little to do a
little bit of everything, and I do - I mean, I do
some commercial litigation with, you know,
I'm working on right now a fraud
involving 50 or 60 million dollars right
now. I don't think people are as aware of
the different types of law and
different types of jobs and tasks, if you
will, that are involved in sort of some
of these lawsuits, so that was great
to sort of give - give a little bit more
information. I have a question on, what
should I do if I want to specialize in a
certain type of law, which is, you know,
you wanted to and you pivoted a little
bit, so I guess part of your answer is
going to be - be open, right, because you don't
really know, but this person is looking
for, you know, what if they want to
specialize, do you have any suggestions?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with
specialization, and in fact, I
think that, you know, my wife is an
attorney, and she did more of a
general, sort of a general practice, and I
think that, you know, I think there's
something to be said for specialization,
but you know, if you want to do that, I
think and you're thinking about going to
law school, I assume that that's - it's
probably a question in terms of, I want
to be a lawyer and I'm thinking of
specializing, but you know, take those
classes that will get you, you know,
that sort of baseline understanding,
but also take - go a little broader, you
know. You can take - you can take classes
that are sort of still specialized, you
can take classes that are a little more,
you know, you want to do like
environmental litigation, but you still
have to know Civil Procedure, you still
have to know property law, you still have to
know all of these other fields that
build into it, you know. I do, for example,
I do product - I do some product liability
litigation. Well that's torts, and that's
Civil Procedure, and that's evidence, and
that's trial practice, and that's, you
know, so just be - think about what it is
that you want to do, and then think about
all of the things that you need to be
able to do that well, and I don't think
there's anything wrong with
specialization. I think it's good, but it
also narrows your field a little bit, and
it narrows the places that you may
work, and you know, so I just think that
specialization may be great, but you may
also, you know, want to take - look a little
broader as well. So if you were
talking to a student who is just -
has just graduated, and he or she is
looking to go to law school, but in this
economy, they just don't have the
finances, you know. Things have happened
within their family or whatever, so
they're probably going to maybe take -
thinking about taking a gap year. Sure. What
kinds of things would you - what kinds of
skills should they develop that
are going to help them in the law field? So what kinds of jobs
should they maybe consider taking for a
part-time or temporary basis before
maybe going to law school, or is there
any advice you have for just sort of
that gap year period, so before they
go to law school, because law school is
no longer an immediate ability? Sure, you
know, you could - if you want to be
actually in the legal field, you could
try and get a job as like a legal
assistant or a paralegal, and especially
now that everybody's sort of working
remotely, you can see I'm here in my
house where I've been for the last two
months, and we're doing everything
remotely now, and there is - there is an
advantage if you're a younger person who
has the technological savvy to be able
to work remotely, you know. I think I
mentioned before we went on the air
here that I've transitioned from going,
you know, having all of this paper to
having no paper, and I think that
there's something to be said if you're
technologically savvy and working as a
paralegal because I think law firms
would be open to that kind of experience.
Outside of the law, I think you need to
be a good writer, so if you could get a
job, you know, in any sort of a writing
field, whether it's writing ad copy, or
working for a newspaper, or you know,
doing something like that. When I was on
campus, I was a tour guide, and that was
really great because it gave me
experience public speaking in front of
people, and I, you know, we try cases
now, and my job is to argue things to a
group of people and help them see things
my way, so you know, I think it, you know,
you could think about what it is that
you want to do in any field, whether it's
law or whether it's something else, and
think about the skills that you need to
do it, and then think about jobs you can
get to help you develop those skills, and
so that's - those are the kinds of
things that I would be - I would be
looking to do if I was in that
position. That's great, thank you. So I
need you to take your crystal ball out
here a little bit, and because we've got
a great question about,
what areas - are there areas of law that
you see as being better situated after
this economy lightens up or gets
better than others, so you know, are there
some areas of law that are maybe going to
slow down or there's some that are going to
start booming, what do you - what do you
think? Well I, you know, I think there
could be, you know, maybe a rise in
employment law claims as people, you know,
may lose their jobs or, you know, have
claims with various unemployment and
stuff like that. I think there could be
some sort of discrete increase in
employment, I think insurance. If you're
doing, you know, first party litigation
and what I mean by that is like, if you
are a policyholder, and you're trying to
get insurance coverage, I mean, I know
we've already seen the first - the first
business interruption lawsuits have been
filed. For those people who don't know,
for companies that have insurance
policies, they usually come with business
interruption insurance, and that protects
you in the event that you're unable to
operate your business, but there's a
general exclusion for pandemics.
However, some lawsuits have started
to be filed that said - well, the
insurance policy should still cover it
anyway, and so there's definitely going
to be some insurance litigation arising
out of that, and you know, what could drop,
at least in the short term, I think, is
like housing litigation, real estate
foreclosure litigation. Those have all
been postponed in light of the pandemic,
and rightfully so. You know, so those are
going to take a little time to recover, I
would imagine, but those are, yeah, I think
those are some of the things I at least
can see right now. Yeah, that makes a lot
of sense, although maybe the foreclosures
now that they're beyond - they're on hold,
maybe there will be a huge, hopefully not,
surge at some point down the road. You
just - like I said, you need a
crystal ball, but - Exactly, yeah, this is -
these are uncertain times, and
so, you know, it's changing by the week.
For those considering law school, what
are the parts of being a lawyer that you
love, and maybe the parts that you don't
necessarily love, and this would
get to, you know, I'm the kind of person
just, as you said, I'm the kind of person
that likes to talk to people and work
with people versus in the back room, or
vice versa, so for you personally, what
kinds of things do you most enjoy
and least enjoy in the law field? So I
think the thing that I most enjoy is
putting a plan together and executing it.
Being a lawyer, at least doing what I do,
is all about preparing for the
potential that you're going to have to
try a case, and it's about putting
together a compelling story, and so what
I really like is putting that story
together over the time from when I first
get the case to the time that it
ultimately resolves, whether that's at a
mediation, at a settlement conference,
through a motion, however - however that is, I like - I like being able to put that plan
in action that I developed - that I
developed to try and be successful.
What don't I like? I mean, I would love it
if lawyers would be a little less - how do
I want to say this - you know, lawyers, we
are by our nature adversarial, and, but I
don't think it has to always be that way,
you know. I think at the end of the day,
we're both trying to see justice done, we
just maybe have different views of how
it should be done,
and so maybe, I think there a little
more collegiality would probably be good,
and my guess is that most people who
are lawyers would say the same thing.
Yeah, I think that's societal, too, so it's
not just in your field. So I'm going to go back out away from the legal
specific field for a couple of
questions on just because - just more
generally and change, and so, you know,
this is a normal time of change for
graduates, right. They graduate, they
transition from college
to career, but to layer that on to
that transition, they're living in a
virtual world, and arguably, you know,
this generation is used to technology,
but not so much, not like this, so can
you share with us the impact on the
virtual environment of your life? I mean,
you've been home, you've just said you've
been home for two months, maybe
compare a day in your life now versus a
year ago. Did you ever think that
it - who thought that we would be this
virtual? But really, what do you
see the changes, and long-term like,
how will it affect next - what do
you think will be like next year, being a
lawyer trying to practice law?
Well, you know, we've been talking about
it a lot at my firm because we're trying
to anticipate some of the changes that
we think are coming,
you know. There's a question as to whether
we're going to try any more cases the rest
of the year in the courts, whether
they're going to be able to with, you know,
the current social distancing, to be able
to put 12 jurors in a room together. I
don't know whether that's going to be, you
know, whether there's going to be any -
whether anybody's going to want to do it,
whether anybody's going to be able to do
it, so I think, you know, there's going to be
a question as to can we try cases
virtually? I think Texas tried their
first case virtually last week, and I
don't know how I feel about that, you
know. There's still something to be said
about being in a room with somebody to
try and argue your case, you know. We've moved - our depositions have now
moved virtually. Just like I'm talking to
you right now, I sometimes, you know, last
week, I took a deposition like this, and I
don't like it as much, you know, because
you don't get as good of a read as you
get when you're sitting across the table
from someone, but I do think that this is -
this is probably, you know, the technology
is probably here to stay, and that's
probably, you know, in some respects a
good thing. In my field, what we have
is, you know, we have mediations, and the
insurance company sends a Claims
Adjuster who's the one with the
authority to settle the case, and usually
they have to come in-person for those,
but now, we can do these all virtually
where I can stay in my house or
stay in my office and do them there,
and that's good because it cuts
down on costs, which means that ultimately, that cost gets passed on to the consumer,
you know. What was it like a year ago?
Well, I might have a conference in the
morning in court, and then a conference
in the afternoon, and then a deposition,
or you know, if I'm in the office, you
know, I'm talking to my colleagues, and
we're bouncing ideas off each other - that
that stuff has all essentially stopped,
you know, and you know, we've all been
inside in our houses for the last two
months, apart from each other, and you
know, the most we're talking to each
other is over email and by text, so you
know, there's a lot of human
interaction that has gone away in all of
this. Right, a lot of - some of our audience
are also not recent grads, but maybe
they're people who have recently lost
their jobs, so do you have any
suggestions on how to stay positive and
maybe pivot - we did get a question on how - do you have any suggestions on how to
network with somebody outside of your
regular field in a field that maybe
you'd be interested in pursuing? To our
point earlier of, you know, try something.
You never know if - you don't know what
you don't know, right, so do you have any
recommendations of how to - somebody
who has lost their job recently and
might want to pursue a career in the
legal area, or how to stay positive? Yeah,
you know, that's definitely a good
question. I think, you know, as I just
mentioned, there's not a lot of
human interaction, so I actually think if
you want - if you're interested in a field
and you can find somebody who's doing
the job that you want to do, ask them to
talk, you know. Ask them for 15 minutes of
their time and go on Zoom and talk to
them about their career. My guess is
that they'd be willing to do it, you know, it gives them somebody else to
look at, somebody else to talk to for, you
know, ten minutes, instead of staring at
my computer screen at the, you know, the
same paper I've written for the last
four hours, so you know, I mean, I know
I'd do it, you know. If somebody asked me for
15 minutes, I would say absolutely,
and you know, how to stay positive? I mean, just, you know, this is - this is tough,
there's no doubt about it, but if you can
get through this, you know, my guess is
you can get through most anything, so, and
and you're not alone, you're certainly
not alone, you know. This is a tough time
for everybody. Right, that's great, if you
can get through this, you can get through
anything. I think many of us feel that
way, feel that way right now. It's
tough, so to that end, you'd be willing to
talk to anybody for 15 minutes, so
would you be willing, if any in our
audience are interested in following up
with you and chatting with you, maybe
through LinkedIn or through the Husky
Mentor Network, how could they reach out
to you if you'd be willing to do that?
Yeah, sure, you can certainly reach out to
me on LinkedIn, you can reach out to me - I
think if you Google my law firm, Ryan
Ryan Deluca, my page is on there, and you
can see my email address. You can
certainly reach out by email, and I'm, you
know, I think I'm registered in the Husky
Mentor Network, so if anybody has any
questions, I think they can get in touch
with Career Development, and they can put
them in touch with me, but yeah, certainly
happy to talk to anybody. Huskies helping Huskies, right. That's
right, so we appreciate that.
Is there anything else that you wanted
to share with our group? You know,
it's a tough time for everybody, but I
think you've given us some good insight to the field of law and
sort of pivoting a little bit, having
your heart set on one area, but then
discovering really by, not
necessarily by choice, more by
accident that actually, there are other
areas that are very fulfilling and
make your life very happy and are enjoyable, which I think is great.
I really appreciate that. Are there any other things that you
wish I'd asked you, or that you'd like to
share with the audience? Yeah, I just
think that now is the time, whether you
have something lined up or you don't,
now is a good time to sort of consider
the path that you're on and the path
that you've decided, and if you haven't,
that's okay. Now is a good time to think
about it, you know. Just try and think
about the things that you like to do,
whether it's something that you've found
you like doing on campus, or some job you
had in the summer that you really liked, or something you think you
might want to do, and start thinking
about putting a plan together, or how to
get yourself to that - to that end point,
and you know, so that's the advice I
think I would give to somebody right now.
That's terrific.
Well, we really appreciate your time Mike,
and I don't see any other questions, just
do a quick check. I don't see any other
questions, but I thank everyone for
their comments and questions we had. One of the comments was when you were
talking about doing depositions and
doing things all virtually, that
communication, a good percentage of
communication is non-verbal, and that's
exactly right, so that makes the job
of an attorney a little bit harder, I
would think, and a number of other
occupations, but yours in particular I'm
sure makes it harder to do, but seeing no
other questions, I want to wrap this up. I
want to thank you again Mike, and I want
to thank everybody else for attending
today's webinar, which is, as you know, a
part of the "Advice and Perspective
series". I encourage you to follow up on Mike's offer, and if you're interested
in further conversation directly with
him, please go to Husky Mentor Network,
which can be found on the career.uconn.edu, or reach out to Mike directly
through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a valuable,
very valuable networking tool that maybe
we don't think of as - as a LinkedIn -
as a networking tool. Reach out to UConn
alums. Everybody will talk for 10 or 15
minutes about what they do and how they
got there. Are they going to give you a
job? Not necessarily, but learning
more, those sort of informational
conversations are all helpful, so I
highly encourage that. As mentioned, this
webinar is a part of the ongoing webinar series
on careers and issues in the pandemic
environment, produced by the UConn Center
for Career Development. Next week, we'll
host Dr. Tatiana Melendez-Rhodes. She's
an Assistant Professor and
Clinical Coordinator at Central
Connecticut State University who teaches
future therapists how to help others
with coping skills, so that ought to be
interesting. Dr. Melendez-Rhodes has
overcome many hurdles herself as an
international graduate and post-graduate
student in the U.S. Tune in to hear how
she's personally succeeded in a down
economy, and how she's helping others to
make a difference today.
Please check the Center for Career
Development's Events Calendar at
career.uconn.edu for more
information about upcoming webinars and
more resources for your job search. Once
you leave today's webinar, you'll receive
a survey on the presentation, and we'd
appreciate it if you would complete that,
and provide your feedback. It'll include
a link to register for next week's event
as well. You'll also receive a follow-up
email within 48 hours, with a link to
view a recording of today's webinar to
share with any friends who may have
missed it. In addition, a recording of
today's session will be available on
the UConn Center for Career Development's
website.
We're exciting about sharing - excited
about sharing more career advice and
perspectives from alums and other UConn
friends. On behalf of the UConn Center
for Career Development and our guest,
alum Mike Barbarula - I'm
sorry about that. Thank you for joining
us, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care. You too.
