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 Tuesday.

Q:I am a junior associate, and I just got laid off from my firm due to low volume of work in my department.

I've been offered a severance package and an assurance that the firm will assist in helping me find a job, including the use of my office for three months, and that most people at the firm will not know that I did not leave voluntarily.

I have begun to work on my resume and have started to talk to some headhunters.

Should I tell any headhunters that I end up using that I have been laid off, and should I reveal the real reason for my departure from my firm to the other firms?

To tell the truth, I have been thinking of lateraling anyway, as I have felt that this was not the right place for me. This is what I've been thinking of telling the other firms and headhunters, but wonder if I am ethically obliged to tell the entire story.

Dear Obligated: There are some interesting issues at work here, and I suppose, depending on how you define things, you can look at these issues several different ways.

My thinking here is that you need to be completely truthful with your recruiter and let him or her decide how to handle this situation when s/he is marketing you.

It is no surprise to me that the partners would like other people at the firm to think your departure is voluntary rather than a product of being laid off due to a low volume of work in your department; that really makes things look better for the firm, doesn't it? However, you should not be ashamed or embarrassed by the cause of your termination. These things happen and, unfortunately, seem to be happening more frequently, as of late.

It seems your firm is allowing you to remain "employed" there for the next three months while you mount a job search. Your headhunter can decide whether or not it is ethical to market you during that time as still being employed at the firm. The real question you will face in interviews is why you are looking to leave this firm and lateral over to a new employer. Obviously, one answer -- and a true answer -- is that your department is very slow, and there is not enough work to keep you busy. That is the truth, right?

Once the three-month period is over and you are no longer at the firm at all, there is no escaping the entire story, and even your resume will have to reflect your actual date of termination. Instead of saying that you are employed there through the present, it will indicate your last date of employment. Obviously, this puts a good deal of pressure on you and your headhunter to try to find a new place of employment for you before you have to change the dates of employment on your resume. As I have stated many times before, you are much more marketable while you are employed than you will be unemployed.

But in the final analysis, layoffs are becoming commonplace happenings these days, and in a way, that is the good news for you because should you not find a new job by the time you have to indicate on your resume that you are no longer employed, you won't have to do that much explaining.

The bottom line here is if you want to have a good relationship with your recruiter, you need to be completely honest and open. If you hide the fact that you have been asked to leave and the recruiter finds out from another source (and s/he inevitably will), it could cause a disastrous rift in your relationship. Your recruiter will decide the right time to disclose this information to any potential employer, and probably it will be early on, because withholding this information might cause a disastrous end to your candidacy with that employer. As always, honesty is the best policy.

With your good references and a little luck on your side, chances are you will be able to find the right opportunity. Fingers crossed!

Best wishes!

Sincerely,
Ann Israel
President, Ann Israel & Associates