At Pillsbury, brains and talent are a given. What sets us apart is our chemistry—that appealing combination of teamwork, drive, and mutual respect that’s hard to define, but easy to recognize. It’s built into our culture. It’s often noted by our clients. And if you’re a person who thrives on collaboration, Pillsbury is where you want to be.
Emphasis on Collaboration
Here, we don’t pay lip-service to teamwork. We live it every day. Yes, we are all strong individuals, driven to excel, and we all take great pride in our personal accomplishments. But we often do so in the context of collaborative groups, bringing together partners and associates from all levels, and from multiple disciplines.
Our formal client teams are charged with pursuing the highest levels of service—anticipating needs, solving problems, striving for results. We also have industry teams to stay abreast of issues important to our clients. Focus teams are formed in response to emerging legal issues—climate change, data privacy, disaster planning, cloud computing, etc.
In addition, we assemble task forces and ad hoc teams that leverage the many talents of our lawyers and staff. All of these teams are supported by the technology of collaboration—systems developed specifically to support group effort.
This team approach lets us bring a broad spectrum of talents and experiences to bear on every matter. It lets our clients draw from a wide range of resources and perspectives. And it gives all of us the benefit of good chemistry—of people who genuinely like working together. This culture of sharing the knowledge—both legal and industry—keeps us well ahead of the curve in rapidly changing fields. We try to know what our clients need even before they know it themselves.
As your Pillsbury career evolves, you will find all the tools you need to thrive. The whole firm is built to assure it.
Integration
When you join Pillsbury, we assume the whole concept of multidisciplinary teams appeals to you—that the chemistry, in other words, is already there.
With that in mind, we’ve given a great deal of thought to integrating new people—to making them feel welcome and immediately effective.
As an incoming associate, we want you to be as comfortable as possible, as quickly as possible. A week of orientation will familiarize you with our approach, our procedures, and the technology you will be using on a day-to-day basis.
But the integration process does not stop there.
Making the Most of Your Talents
The ongoing training and professional development of our lawyers and staff is of paramount importance to us. A great deal of thought and leadership has gone into defining career benchmarks and outlining specific competencies for each area of focus.
To keep your career on track, we offer a wide range of career-building programs—many tailored to your goals and ambitions. It starts with our firm-wide mentoring program.
Everyone Is Mentored
At Pillsbury, lawyers and staff alike benefit from organized mentoring—both group and one-to-one.
Every practice group has a partner to structure the mentoring within that group, making sure lawyers are able to develop and refine the skills—both global and practice-specific—they need to succeed.
There are many types of mentoring—formal and informal—available at Pillsbury. Our women mentor other women through our Women Attorneys Network. Our affinity groups—African-American, Latino, Asian, and LGBT—regularly mentor inside, and outside, their own groups.
These programs have been instrumental in the firm’s success. Our people develop skills of the highest caliber—with standards to match.
Business Development
We recognize that business development abilities need to be developed and refined over the course of your entire career. For that reason, we have made a serious investment in ongoing training and coaching.
As an associate, you can participate in our in-house business development workshops. For more senior associates and newly promoted partners, we offer our Accelerated Business Development Training Program, a six-week coaching program that includes a series of training techniques, together with highly customized one-on-one coaching activities.
Our goal is to help you position yourself in the marketplace. We work with you to find your own style—your own approach to success—developing a targeted plan and creating a disciplined approach to executing that plan. Our business development staff are there to support your efforts with proposals, networking events and media relations opportunities.
The Technology of Collaboration
As a firm serving the pioneering entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, we realized early on that technology could serve as a competitive advantage for a law firm prepared to commit the necessary resources to leveraging it.
We are constantly upping our investment in what we see as the tools of collaboration. All our lawyers are supported by an array of systems and processes that lets them do their jobs effectively any time, from anywhere. We get our information faster, we are able to share it seamlessly, and we use what we learn to deliver exceptional service to our clients.