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Nonexistence posted:Oof, D&D groups are for anyone but coworkers That's the thing about public interest law. Your coworkers are good people and your allies. Watching the dynamic between our public defender office vs. the prosecutors' office is really interesting. The prosecutors never help each other out because they're all in numbers-game competition with each other for advancement. Everyone in our office always helps everyone else because we're all desperate together.
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Mar 15, 2021 15:06
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Soylent Pudding posted:I haven't been an attorney for six years now. My partner's mom died in a car crash last week. When my partner was telling me about the accident my brain reflexively issue spotted the story to identify who the family could sue. It took a conscious act of will power but I was able to stop thinking like a lawyer and instead be the empathetic listener my partner actually needed. Why are you still trying to suck up to the partners if you’re not in law anymore
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Mar 15, 2021 15:17
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Declan MacManus posted:it doesn’t sound bad at the end of the day it sounds like you're in a dead-end career you hate; you're 30 or so without skills that would be easily transferable to a different career that you would hate less. getting out of that rut does seem like a pretty necessary thing to do. if you can actually nail the lsat like you think you can, it might not be the worst idea in the world but you need to be disciplined about your lsat score - if you don't crush the lsat, you're not getting into anywhere that has even an ok shot at this working out for you. you're getting into somewhere that will put you $100k in debt and make any job prospects you have much worse. so you need to have a clear-eyed view of what schools you will/will not go to, and if you don't get into those you don't go (not that you reluctantly accept an awful school because you've sunk all this time into it) i assume a lot of the appeal right now is that the career track to switching to law is well-defined and easy to see how you do it (go to law school; interview at lawyer jobs) while other career shifts don't really have an easy to understand view of how you do it. i've got no idea what else you might want to do, or how to do it. just bear in mind: you are paying a lot for the path to a career change being that defined (tuition for three years; lost earnings for three years, likely all funded by debt that will put you worse off than you are today if you don't succeed). so before you blow $100k on this as your path out of your current career it would be a very good idea to take a few days and really think about what other career changes you might want to consider, and researching how you would go about doing them. remember - they might be hard and long-shots, but they (probably) won't cost you $100k before you know if you've made it or not. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 15:17
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Discendo Vox posted:Why are you still trying to suck up to the partners if you’re not in law anymore Because law school breaks your brain.
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Mar 15, 2021 15:21
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Declan MacManus posted:it doesn’t sound bad
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Mar 15, 2021 15:28
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Also the, "I'm looking for a full ride" is the gateway sales pitch equivalent of, "Sure, you said you wanted the base model toyota, but have you seen the features on this lexus?" where you are so deep in the sales job that you start to make little concessions, "Well if I ONLY eat rice and beans, and get even a SMALL scholarship or fed grant, then I'll ONLY be $65k in debt when I graduate and I can make that in a year or two if I live VERY Frugally" and before you know it you owe the equivalent of a mortgage at 6.9% that you'll never pay off and will reliably siphon off 30% of your income for the rest of your life and you'll be taking home the same amount of money as if you had just taken a job as an assistant manager at Khols, except you'll be working ten times as hard, and twice as long, and every day will be stress stress stress and then your latent mental problems will silently twist themselves into knots of mild addiction as you slowly begin to self-medicate and then
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Mar 15, 2021 15:33
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Declan MacManus posted:my dream job would be in-house for a union or working for the aclu or afl-cio, but i know i probably won't get to do that stuff without some extremely lucky breaks. I dunno how it works in the US, but in my considerable experience* I'd suggest trying to get work as a union organiser instead. Just as stressful and low paid, but you won't necessarily even have to go to college to do it. You get to go and represent workers and negotiate settlements with lovely employers, but not be a lawyer. Like I said though YMMV, gently caress if I know how it works in the US hellscape. *in Australia, a country with actual workers rights so YMMV
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Mar 15, 2021 15:35
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Unless you had a parent who is an attorney that you actually worked with, or interned somewhere for a substantial amount of time, "I want to go to law school because ____________" is the equivalent of saying, "I want to work in high rise construction because I like heights" - from the outside looking in, you just have no concept of all the functional activity going on inside the frame of the building, all the lifting and hauling, and climbing stairs, etc. You just see the guys walking around on the I-beam. Its just a product of the work that all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes (95% of the actual job and what its like) just isn't available for perusal or assessment without a ticket inside the building.
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Mar 15, 2021 15:39
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just saw this and loving 
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Mar 15, 2021 15:43
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This is a magical thread full of truth, and it exists for the benefit of all humankind.
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Mar 15, 2021 15:47
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Declan MacManus posted:i read the op and through the toona saga because i'm a messy bitch who lives for drama. you can laugh and i'll probably regret my decisions, but hopefully i swung it to where i'm debt free lol
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Mar 15, 2021 15:54
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Watching the dynamic between our public defender office vs. the prosecutors' office is really interesting. The prosecutors never help each other out because they're all in numbers-game competition with each other for advancement. Everyone in our office always helps everyone else because we're all desperate together. This is so weird because the prosecutors in my city help each other constantly and are always covering each others' cases. Probably because they are understaffed so they're all drowning in work instead of fighting with each other for numbers. And because it's a small enough office that they don't have to fight over numbers and can just work cases instead.
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Mar 15, 2021 16:33
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Arcturas posted:This is so weird because the prosecutors in my city help each other constantly and are always covering each others' cases. Probably because they are understaffed so they're all drowning in work instead of fighting with each other for numbers. And because it's a small enough office that they don't have to fight over numbers and can just work cases instead. Yeah I think it's an office culture thing, not so much a "prosecutors lawyer like this" deal -- after all, prosecutors are *also* public service attorneys and aren't competing for partner slots or billable hours. Overall I've always had good office environments though. Being a government lawyer is a good gig. At some point my hope is a job where I'm a government lawyer who doesn't actively litigate. That's the dream. Just sit in the office and think and talk. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 16:37
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Declan MacManus posted:it doesn’t sound bad 4 years ago I was exactly where you are now, same circumstances essentially except since I'm not a US citizen, public interest jobs are essentially not an option.
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Mar 15, 2021 17:19
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Lol how’s your house search going throatwarbler
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Mar 15, 2021 17:25
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Oh, new poster, you should also know that there are two types of public interest/legal aid jobs: those that are available and those that pay a livable salary. Working in legal aid and trying to stop landlords from evicting tenants is the first category. You'll get the warm and fuzzies about keeping a tenant in the apartment for another two months before the slumlord kicks them out and continues gentrifying a complex, but then you'll be glad because it means there's finally an opening in this lovely place where you've been dreaming of living.
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Mar 15, 2021 17:26
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Lol how’s your house search going throatwarbler Finished up all the inspections today actually, no major issues, now just waiting for financing to come through.
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Mar 15, 2021 17:30
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Throatwarbler posted:Finished up all the inspections today actually, no major issues, now just waiting for financing to come through. Post the emails
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Mar 15, 2021 17:52
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Throatwarbler posted:4 years ago I was exactly where you are now, same circumstances essentially except since I'm not a US citizen, public interest jobs are essentially not an option. The JCC near me is hir....oh.
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Mar 15, 2021 18:03
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Toona the Cat posted:The JCC near me is hir....oh. whomp
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Mar 15, 2021 19:14
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Arcturas posted:Oh, new poster, you should also know that there are two types of public interest/legal aid jobs: those that are available and those that pay a livable salary. Working in legal aid and trying to stop landlords from evicting tenants is the first category. You'll get the warm and fuzzies about keeping a tenant in the apartment for another two months before the slumlord kicks them out and continues gentrifying a complex, but then you'll be glad because it means there's finally an opening in this lovely place where you've been dreaming of living. One friend of mine who worked in legal aid kept running into his clients in the plasma donation line. "Mr. [Name], what are you doing here?" "Same thing you are man." The best way to do legal aid is probably at the tail end of your career. Make the money first then double back. The problem is most people who go that route forget to double back. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 19:21
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Yeah cause they're not loving stupid
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Mar 15, 2021 19:29
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Nice piece of fish posted:Yeah cause they're not loving stupid zing 
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Mar 15, 2021 19:30
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Declan I want to suggest the federal jobs thread as an alternative. You may be able to find a possible career path in federal service that doesn't involve the horrors or costs of law school.
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Mar 15, 2021 19:54
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evilweasel posted:thanks, we’ve all been waiting on tenterhooks for five months I should loving hope so. Three weeks ago one of my Legal Aid clients went to bench warrant because he didn't show and I hadn't heard from him in... like 3 months. On Friday night he was arrested and said terrible things to me over his phone call from cells. On Saturday morning I told the Crown to dump that poo poo because the file was garbage and 12 months old. Miracle of miracles he listened. Boom. Saturday morning stay of proeedings. Go to bill that sucker, Non Trial Resolution is a weekday service; Plese select a valid day. What the poo poo kind of garbage billing system is this
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Mar 15, 2021 20:45
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Are there any litigators in here who've successfully transitioned to an in-house counsel role? I'm pretty ready for a change. I've been litigating contract and employment cases for 8.5 years now, and am burning out. I told myself I'd stick with it for at least ten years before making a change, but I've paid off my student loans and my house early and am now reconsidering that promise in favor of something I might actually enjoy. I'm tired of the huge billable requirements, the billable hour more generally, and bearing the laboring oar on all my cases while my bosses are golfing in Florida before they swoop in and sign my briefs for me, but mostly I'm tired of fighting all day every day. My firm has offered me a non-equity partnership position, which would more or less be the exact same job with a slightly flashier title. I've done the math and the slight increase in pay under their formula isn't a relevant factor for me. In some ways I'd almost rather just be a straight salaried employee like I am now. I don't have the client base I'd need to be an equity partner somewhere and turn my book into an annuity for me so I can run the same scam on other young attorneys. I think I've put too much time and money into getting this degree to give up on getting some sort of gig that requires me to have it. I have three buddies from Law Review who all transitioned to in-house counsel roles around the five year mark and never looked back, but all of them were transactional attorneys doing their old "outside counsel" jobs in house with their former clients. I've been fantasizing about trying to make a similar jump, but I'm not sure how unusual it'd be for a litigator to go in-house like that. It seems like the experience I've gained with litigating contract and employment cases would be useful to some big company in some capacity. I've also represented two Fortune 500 companies regularly in employment matters over the years, and worked with their in-house counsel (my "babysitters") on coordinating those defenses, so coordinating litigation efforts with law firms also seems like something I could take a shot at. Is this a horrible idea? What's an acceptable reason to tell a large company you're giving up on the only career you've had to date and want to move in-house instead?
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Mar 15, 2021 22:06
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Transitioning from lit to in house is tougher than transactional/tax. I know two lawyers who did it and one did it through personal connections, as an admiralty lawyer into a shipping company. The other was an equity partner with no clients who was 50 and decided he’d rather make $350k in house with an energy company. in this thread I think a couple people made the in-house jump (ulmont, HiddenReplaced) and others are also in house but I’m not sure how many of them were litigation. Do you have any client contacts you can use for references?
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Mar 15, 2021 22:26
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Transitioning from lit to in house is tougher than transactional/tax. Easier in some industries or backgrounds where you’re expecting to be constantly sued (like malpractice at a hospital, etc.) but expect a massive pay cut to go in-house regardless of where and when.
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Mar 15, 2021 22:32
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I can only speak for healthcare in-house, but there's plenty of demand. My company has departments for straight litigation and specifically labor-related litigation. Litigators are also marketable for operations positions if you're okay with doing some compliance work. It's probably easier if you're coming from employment law and the company has specialized in-house lawyers for that. Otherwise you will want some experience with qui tams. For non-healthcare, if you wanted to be in-house at a bank or something, you'd probably want to be experienced with securities litigation or whatever. Malpractice is actually not a big issue in-house, at least where I am. All the lawyering is done by outside counsel managed by insurance claim managers (who are typically lawyers in background, but not in-house counsel. So it's legal-adjacent.). Other than healthcare, try to work somewhere that's one of your firm's clients. Firms are usually happy to embed one of their own in-house. Look Sir Droids fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Mar 16, 2021 |
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Mar 16, 2021 02:21
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Declan MacManus posted:i read the op and through the toona saga because i'm a messy bitch who lives for drama. you can laugh and i'll probably regret my decisions, but hopefully i swung it to where i'm debt free I miraculously got one of those magic union-side law firm jobs out of law school (these firms used to employ all sorts of folks but now they mostly take kids from Yale or Stanford; I think I basically got that offer because the judge I externed for did me a favor). The downsides are pretty extreme: bad pay (they tried to start me at $60k in one of the most expensive cities on earth, with law school debt mind you) and it turned out my job included (in large part) subrogating union employees on behalf of the union Taft-Hartley welfare plans (taking the money they won in claims because the plan contract says we can) and also helping those same plans deny medical claim appeals. The same union plans also employed corporate firms to do much of that same work and paid them more for it. I did get to help out on one (1) cool case but it was overall pretty miserable. Basically, you need to temper your expectations on everything. If you do well, the doors that open mostly involve working for enormous, faceless corporations. If you do poorly at a "mid-tier" law school, you're probably hosed. But at least you're starting from a place of being hosed. Even doc review probably beats working in food service. Given your current circumstances, maybe you should just do it. That 2.45 GPA is brutal, though. Law schools really care about their overall averages, so you basically need to offer them a scintillating LSAT and/or a scintillating URM add for their glossy advertising materials (URM for these purposes = Native American, African American, or Latino).
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Mar 16, 2021 03:20
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Declan MacManus posted:I have family, but I don’t speak the language well enough to practice there I don’t think, definitely not enough for a classroom environment I strongly recommend being fluent in Spanish if you actually want to commit to the type of work you've mentioned. It could easily be the difference between grinding out 60 brutal hours a week at an insurance defense sweatshop that pays almost nothing and grinding out 60 brutal hours a week at a cool public interest firm that pays almost nothing.
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Mar 16, 2021 03:35
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Vox Nihili posted:I strongly recommend being fluent in Spanish if you actually want to commit to the type of work you've mentioned. I have seen a couple dozen job postings that really want proficiency in a language other than English. They usually specify the language, but do not always.
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Mar 16, 2021 03:58
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Yeah I cannot reiterate how much better you look with a second language like Spanish for legal aid. My org has been hunting for a bilingual attorney for a minute but we can't match the rates they command in private practice. I'm probably going to look into taking classes soon to get my basic Spanish skills back up to fluency tbh.
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Mar 16, 2021 04:46
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homullus posted:I have seen a couple dozen job postings that really want proficiency in a language other than English. They usually specify the language, but do not always. poo poo half our legal assistants speak a second language and it's usually the first thing the boss mentions when they're hired. Just being fluent in another language and getting certified to do legal translation can make you plenty of money. Declan, have you considered becoming a paralegal that knows a language? You'll probably spend less time in the classroom, come out with less debt, and will be in a better position to call your own shot helping out the little guy.
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Mar 16, 2021 04:46
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blarzgh posted:Also the, "I'm looking for a full ride" is the gateway sales pitch equivalent of, "Sure, you said you wanted the base model toyota, but have you seen the features on this lexus?" where you are so deep in the sales job that you start to make little concessions, "Well if I ONLY eat rice and beans, and get even a SMALL scholarship or fed grant, then I'll ONLY be $65k in debt when I graduate and I can make that in a year or two if I live VERY Frugally" and before you know it you owe the equivalent of a mortgage at 6.9% that you'll never pay off and will reliably siphon off 30% of your income for the rest of your life and you'll be taking home the same amount of money as if you had just taken a job as an assistant manager at Khols, except you'll be working ten times as hard, and twice as long, and every day will be stress stress stress and then your latent mental problems will silently twist themselves into knots of mild addiction as you slowly begin to self-medicate and then Lol Mild
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Mar 16, 2021 05:36
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Vox Nihili posted:But at least you're starting from a place of being hosed. Even doc review probably beats working in food service. Having now worked for a decade doing doc review for a single firm with a great work environment, I make myself feel better by reminding myself that many people I know would kill to have my job. My student loans are paid off, I can afford to travel and take vacations, and I can save for retirement. I'm able to live a much more financially secure life than my friends and family members stuck in the low paying hells of retail, security, delivery, and auto repair jobs. You gotta be able to handle the incredibly menial nature of the work though. Most people can't. The attrition rate in my department for new hires is very high. I'm lucky(?) to have been born with a brain that can deal with it. It helps that only 40 hours of work in a typical week means I have plenty of time to use my brain for other things. That being said, I absolutely wouldn't recommend anyone go to school for three years and take on a massive amount of debt just to get trapped in a comfortable but intensely boring middle class job that gives you no meaningful transferable skills. Especially a job that's steadily being automated. Yeah there are specialized discovery review and trial prep projects that probably(?) can't be automated, but those are going to senior doc review staff who are stuck in their jobs until they retire (or die). To be clear, I didn't bomb out of law school or anything. I got above average grades at a T1 school central to my home market, but I didn't have the people/networking skills and passion needed to convert that into a "real" legal job. I developed a serious interest in public defense after working in a public defense clinic during school, but the PDs were barely hiring when I graduated in 2010. Probably for the best, since I don't think I could have handled the stress of a PD position for the long term. And it's not like it would have made me more money than what I do now. I'm not actually sure what completely bombing out of law school looks like. Total unemployability with the giant albatross of a JD around your neck? Working constant overtime to maybe earn $30k a year in shitlaw? Returning to work in food service, except now you have high five figures in student loan debt? In any case, there are much worse law school outcomes to be worried about than a steady and boring job in doc review.
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Mar 16, 2021 05:50
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i do wanna thank all of y’all for some legitimately very good career advicePook Good Mook posted:poo poo half our legal assistants speak a second language and it's usually the first thing the boss mentions when they're hired. Just being fluent in another language and getting certified to do legal translation can make you plenty of money. i had considered being a paralegal before the pandemic started but had no idea how to really get a foothold in the profession; i graduated in 2013 with the aforementioned piss-poor gpa and a degree in english and i needed a job so i’ve been working food service and manual labor since then. one of the (many) reasons i’ve gravitated towards law for a second degree is that my gpa disqualifies me from a lot of masters programs on their face, and the relative weight of the lsat in the law school admissions process would grant me access to an education that would otherwise be out of reach to me is the value of that education relative? for sure. but an undergrad degree with a bad gpa in a non stem field? pee pee doo doo garbage, as it were. the most economical choice to a better life would be to learn a trade, get hvac certified or something like that, but i’m tired of physical labor as a way to make a living. so that’s where i’m at. i’m not going to drown myself in piles of debt for anything other than a t14 offer (and if i’m looking at that then i might have a better more economical option elsewhere). (also honestly i should learn spanish anyways because it would help me talk to my grandpa better) god drat i loving talk a lot
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Mar 16, 2021 13:09
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Law Megathread: But at least you're starting from a place of being hosed.
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Mar 16, 2021 13:53
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Declan MacManus posted:the most economical choice to a better life would be to learn a trade Also economical would be a reputable coding boot camp program, if you are on board in general with drudgery that pays well and occasionally rewards creative thought. You could also look at a second degree. The second undergrad degree is an unusual path and would likely require you to pursue either a non-liberal arts degree or at least a non-B.A., depending on your local schools' curricula. Normal government financial aid would probably not be an option. On the other hand, you would need fewer credits, because your previous undergrad degree would fulfill many/all liberal education ("general") requirements. If what you actually really want is a master's degree, talk to your nearby graduate school about taking graduate classes as a non-degree-seeking student. As far as I know, all schools have this mechanism, though it is seldom used. The classes wouldn't count towards a hypothetical subsequent master's degree unless somebody high up deeply loved you, but you can show them (and any other schools, via your new set of good grades) that you are capable of the work in that discipline.You also get to find out relatively cheaply whether grad school is right for you. Having done both, I will tell you that academic graduate work is much harder than law school. Professional master's degrees (e.g. an MBA) are different still and vary a lot. Executive MBAs, at least, let you in based far more on your professional success than your GPA. A law degree would also establish a new GPA, but because of the curves in law school classes (especially with your competition in a T14 school!), yours is likely to be unspectacular. Also, advanced academic programs really care most about academic (rather than pre professional) grades, and care about grades in their specific discipline far above all else, so a law degree won't open that door much.
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Mar 16, 2021 14:24
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i mean i’m also trying to go to law school because i’m specifically interested in a career in law 
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Mar 16, 2021 14:37
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