Ann Israel is the legal profession's Dear Abby. A New York legal recruiter since 1979, Ann is a past president of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants. Advice for the Lawlorn is updated every week.

Q: Thank you so much for all of your informative responses to so many questions before me.

I have not practiced law for 15 years, although I was formerly at a top New York City firm.

I would like to contact a partner I worked for at that firm to see if there is an opportunity at that firm or another appropriate opportunity he knows of.

A legal recruiter told me not to call and ask to have lunch, but to send a sort of casual e-mail, like "Hi. Came across your profile ... . Hope all is well with you and your family ... . By the way, I am looking to get back into practicing law ... ."

This feels too casual to me. I would really appreciate your advice. Thank you.

Dear Appropriate: This is an interesting question because I am not certain there is really a right or wrong way to approach the partner you once worked for without knowing more information about your relationship with him or her.

Have you spoken with him/her since you left the 15 years ago? I sense that you have not just based on the way your question is worded and so I am going to base my answer on that assumption. I will tell you that if you had an ongoing relationship with this individual over the last 15 years, my answer to you would be different from the one I am about to give to you.

I do agree with your gut reaction to the advice that you were given. Having not had any contact with someone for fifteen years, I do believe that it is not only "sort of casual" to send an out-of-the-blue e-mail hoping that all is well with this person and the family and BTW, I want to come back to work, but it is also inappropriate.

Do you have any sense of what has been going on in this person's life over the past decade and a half? Does the family still exist? Perhaps it is a completely different family by now. Dramatic changes can happen over short periods, and 15 years can represent a lifetime in some families. Do you even know what level of status this person is enjoying at the firm? Is his/her book of business stable? These are rough times for certain practice areas.

And of course, then we get into the area of sending e-mail, which I have discussed in many previous columns. If you have not had e-mail communications with this partner before, you really do not know if your message will go directly into a spam folder rather than an inbox. Unless you hear a response to your e-mail from this partner, you may never know if your message was received. Again, 15 years is a long, long time. What was your relationship all about back then? You worked for this partner but are you certain that s/he remembers you? How long did you work together? Were you a very junior associate working as part of a large team?

I believe a phone call is not out of order at all. As you may know from reading my column, I firmly believe in networking and that the best way to do it is to pick up the phone and call your contacts. However, if s/he is not really a contact -- keeping in mind that 15 years represent a long span of time -- that call may not get picked up and your message may not get returned. Frankly, I wouldn't leave a message. If s/he isn't available, don't leave a message; ask when a good time would be to call back and then do so.

I don't know if it is necessary to ask the partner out for lunch. That would really depend on the reception you receive during the phone call and upon your previous relationship. You might want to simply say that you are going to be in the neighborhood next week and would like to stop by and say hello ...what would be a good time to meet? However, if the reception is truly warm and welcoming, go ahead and let him/her know that you would really like to get together and have lunch and let's set up a date. Play it by ear ... listen for the tones on the phone.

The bottom line here is that this partner may or may not have a job or a job lead for you at this time. However, if you want to get back into the practice of law after being gone for 15 years, I do hope that this is not the only lead that you are following up on. If you are serious about this, you are going to have to get out there and network with a lot of other contacts, law school career office people, bar association events, etc. But this partner is a great place to start and I hope you will pick up the phone right now and make that call! Please let us know the end result. Good luck!

Sincerely,
Ann Israel
President, Ann Israel & Associates