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My old public defender's office was virtually always hiring. It wasn't quite anybody with a pulse and a law degree but if you told me it was anyone with a pulse, a law degree, and a willingness to talk about prison abolition in the interview, it wouldn't surprise me. Salary was decent in the abstract but the county had a policy of matching PD and prosecutor's salaries (though it wasn't actually followed strictly). I say decent "in the abstract" because during COVID I had 500 cases; then they moved me to a different caseload and used a special COVID grant they got to reassignall 500, 100 cases each, to five private independent contract attorneys, at (I'm told) a flat fee of 1k per case (though that # may be exaggerrated). I was not being paid on remotely anything like that scale. I've seen the house one of those five attorneys bought a month or three later. I ain't livin' in no house like that. The work was good (I did misdemeanor and drug cases mostly) but the workload was absurdly high and the turnover rate in the office was also, largely because after a couple of years of experience you could almost always land a better gig and most people did. The exceptions were the best people in the office, whose idealism the whole system was basically set up to exploit. Mr. Nice! posted:I will admit that prosecutor salaries are up in FL from last I checked. In 2018 they were still around $40k/yr. They're between $60-70k/yr now depending on the location. There was a period right after COVID where we literally could not hire any new attorneys, there just . .. weren't any who applied for the job. Salaries went up after that. By the time I left we had all our positions filled though, at least for the moment.
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Dec 19, 2023 00:22
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One annoying thing about all this is the criminal punishment system is so hosed with backlogs that there could actually be an increase in judges, prosecutors, and pds to actually deal with this more fairly but good luck convincing politicians to fund that poo poo.
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Dec 19, 2023 00:48
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Meatbag Esq. posted:One annoying thing about all this is the criminal punishment system is so hosed with backlogs that there could actually be an increase in judges, prosecutors, and pds to actually deal with this more fairly but good luck convincing politicians to fund that poo poo. My PD exit interview was basically "you could pay me twice as much for half the workload and it would be entirely reasonable and fair." But the idealism of public defenders is the cartilage that is worn away to keep the system functional.
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Dec 19, 2023 00:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:My PD exit interview was basically "you could pay me twice as much for half the workload and it would be entirely reasonable and fair." But the idealism of public defenders is the cartilage that is worn away to keep the system functional. 100%. The tragic irony of indigent defense is that if it wasn't for an entire generation of idealistic young public defenders who thought that working 10x as hard as they should for what they were getting paid was doing the right thing this system would have collapsed years ago.
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Dec 19, 2023 01:08
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Meatbag Esq. posted:One annoying thing about all this is the criminal punishment system is so hosed with backlogs that there could actually be an increase in judges, prosecutors, and pds to actually deal with this more fairly but good luck convincing politicians to fund that poo poo. Same here, although it finally got through to the politicians to fund that poo poo. First there was the polite complaining through backchannels about the workload, then less polite through the media, then cases were dismissed in bulk because they were on the shelf for too long and lastly about half a year ago the judge union announced they started preparing for a strike. Things moved fast after that last one. One of the problems our judiciary has is that it takes a couple of year to train junior judges and because the program is setup in such a way that you need a mentor to train you during that time that it's quite difficult to scale the training program. Also, it may surprise some, but we have a boomer retirement wave incoming that needs replacements. edit: prosecution is still hosed though. I know a lot of people who work in the prosecution office and the workload is stupid. Glad I never pursued that path. Edit: PD is not prosecution. I blame posting after just waking up for that one. We don’t have a PD, we have subsidized legal assistance, but good luck getting paid. Draadnagel fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 07:29
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Draadnagel posted:~Snip~ Oh wow! The judiciary striking seems like the kind of big deal that would be noted as an historical spark, years down the road. I bet that got some attention.
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Dec 19, 2023 09:01
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B33rChiller posted:Oh wow! The judiciary striking seems like the kind of big deal that would be noted as an historical spark, years down the road. It is and it did. Got picked up by every media outlet and the government was quick to resume negotiations and make concessions. Unprecedented and nobody knows how a strike would look like in practice but the will to strike was there. After dismissing thousands of cases and nothing happening to remedy the lack of funding that caused that, it all escalated quite quickly. I must admit I am proud of our judiciary.
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Dec 19, 2023 09:14
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ulmont posted:2nd-5th year associate during 2008-2011 was, uh, not great. But yeah. gently caress we’re exactly the same vintage. I kept going till 2013 and STILL missed the good times. OTOH I got to be Not A Lawyer after that so it all worked out.
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Dec 19, 2023 11:57
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Sab0921 posted:Go to law school if you want. It's fun, What? Hieronymous Alloy posted:My old public defender's office was virtually always hiring. It wasn't quite anybody with a pulse and a law degree but if you told me it was anyone with a pulse, a law degree, and a willingness to talk about prison abolition in the interview, it wouldn't surprise me. Huh. I graduated during the GWB years and hiring had really contracted, so I remember PD gigs being very competitive. (I totally believe the low pay and burnout though.) When did you graduate? Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 20:57
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Eric Cantonese posted:
My career has been nontraditional. I got out of law school in 2005, did a clerkship till 2007, got a gig with a civil rights nonprofit in 2007 and stayed with it till 2019, when I realized it was a career dead end (all my buddies were starting to hit partner . . . . Wait nonprofits dont have partners! Perhaps i should have considered this!) and went over to being a public defender to reboot my career. Then the pandemic hit . . .so I spent 4 years as a PD and then recently got fed up with that and got serendipitously recruited for a gig doing administrative law. PD offices can be very competitive for applicants yes and we were sometimes, but other times were just operating at 2/3rds staff and just needed any competent bodies we could hire. Anybody who *stayed* for more than about six months got real goddame good real fast or got out, though. The workload was too heavy for anybody who didn't have their poo poo absolutely together to survive long. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 21:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:got serendipitously recruited for a gig doing administrative law. Just in time for the Supreme Court to abolish it!
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Dec 19, 2023 23:02
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Muir posted:Just in time for the Supreme Court to abolish it! Look, when something / comes along / gonna give you your lunch breaks and weekends, I say / get it / while you caaaaaan . . .
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Dec 20, 2023 03:57
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Eric Cantonese posted:What? Law school was a lot of fun! I had a great time. Being a practicing lawyer is less fun.
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Dec 22, 2023 16:45
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Merry Christmas. Go to law school.
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Dec 25, 2023 13:52
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And a happy new year. If you don't.
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Dec 25, 2023 14:25
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I hope you bill pigs are getting some hours in today.
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Dec 25, 2023 15:49
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Mr. Nice! posted:I hope you bill pigs are getting some hours in today. Baby Jesus' Softies ain't gonna buy themselves!
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Dec 25, 2023 16:04
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I’m not working today, but I will be tomorrow
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Dec 26, 2023 03:04
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Are there any law professors here? I just received an interesting opportunity for a tenure track gig (teaching Contracts primarily) at my alma mater (by no means a highly ranked law school, but a decent regional one and I wouldn't have to move). Currently a partner and in management at a mid-sized (for my town, would be small in a big city) law firm. It'd be a pay cut but it seems like the quality of life improvements would be significant. From the outside looking in it looks like being a law professor is a sweet gig, but maybe that's just grass is greener syndrome?
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Jan 8, 2024 17:02
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I'm not a law professor, but I'd point out that the real job of tenure-track faculty is publishing articles & being on university committees, not teaching. So if you're confident in your ability to routinely get articles published and you don't mind playing petty politics, it can be a sweet job. (Two things - first, the politics are way more petty than firm compensation politics, and accordingly far more vicious, because you don't have the cushion of unexpectedly good billing/realization years to smooth over minor insults from years prior, and second I had no idea that tenure track jobs still existed.)
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Jan 8, 2024 17:17
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Not a professor, but the institution wants faculty to make them look as good as possible, normally by publication, but also on rare occasions by doing something else notable that still allows them to claim you as affiliated with the institution (e.g. some project that a student of yours does gets notice and prompts donations to the school, or you get a significant grant that pays part of your salary for a while, or you end up on a Supreme Court somewhere). You can, however, have students help you with your publications, especially if it's a book, because they will typically be paying for the credits they receive, and all you have to do is grade them and (ideally) acknowledge them in the book. You have to deal with anxious 1Ls students worrying and whining about grades, equally-anxious gunners who direct anxiety into currying favor and sad showmanship, and bizarre office politics with other faculty -- and you won't be at the top of the food chain anymore, even after you get tenure. Longer vacations, if you take any now, can't be during the fall or spring semesters. Every new course you teach requires significant preparation. A third of your job or more is committee work, as Arcturas said. When a new dean comes in, they always want to make their own mark on the school after "spending the first year doing a lot of listening" and often that means change for its own sake. However, you get a lot of time returned to your calendar, especially after you've taught the courses you've prepped a time or two. If you are willing to do certain tasks that are "undesirable" at your institution (e.g. committees that have more difficult & more frequent deliverables, or taking a role in academic affairs), you can sometimes use that as leverage for other things. You get to (or "get to") have reporters and writers ask you for perspective on your areas of expertise. You eventually get to teach subjects of your own devising (which you have to prep of course, but it should be halfway fun). You get a steady paycheck even in years that you kinda phone it in because you are dealing with something in your life. You get to do even more of what you want after you get tenure. For many it is in fact a sweet gig. If it's a bad fit, you'll probably see that pretty quickly.
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Jan 8, 2024 17:59
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The law professors at my old law school generally had side gigs working extremely high end cases either as "associated counsel professor [name]" or as legal experts.
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Jan 8, 2024 18:04
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Thanks for the input. I have been somewhat unhappy with the private practice of law (surprise surprise) for years now, but have stayed due to inertia and the money. I can deal with petty politics (I think) - having just gone through bonus season in law firm management I think I have some sense of my ability to deal with that stuff. The school is specifically looking for a non-traditional candidate (i.e. someone without a publication history) due to frustrations with how the usual process went this year - not sure I'd have this opportunity otherwise or perhaps ever again in the future.
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Jan 8, 2024 19:55
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Worst case you go back into private practice a few years from now with some additional academic credentials on your firm website. I guess? I dunno how biglaw firm politics works.
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Jan 8, 2024 20:03
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schwein11 posted:Are there any law professors here? I just received an interesting opportunity for a tenure track gig (teaching Contracts primarily) at my alma mater (by no means a highly ranked law school, but a decent regional one and I wouldn't have to move). Currently a partner and in management at a mid-sized (for my town, would be small in a big city) law firm. It'd be a pay cut but it seems like the quality of life improvements would be significant. From the outside looking in it looks like being a law professor is a sweet gig, but maybe that's just grass is greener syndrome? I’ve taught as an adjunct, and I’ll say that I enjoyed it a lot and that it’s a shitton of work even without the tenure side obligations like service and writing. But. It is genuinely enjoyable in a way practicing law frequently is not. (At least until grading season.)
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Jan 8, 2024 22:34
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Have you ever taught a class ? Maybe you said this and I missed it
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Jan 8, 2024 22:45
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schwein11 posted:Thanks for the input. I have been somewhat unhappy with the private practice of law (surprise surprise) for years now, but have stayed due to inertia and the money. I can deal with petty politics (I think) - having just gone through bonus season in law firm management I think I have some sense of my ability to deal with that stuff. The school is specifically looking for a non-traditional candidate (i.e. someone without a publication history) due to frustrations with how the usual process went this year - not sure I'd have this opportunity otherwise or perhaps ever again in the future. Find out the details of that hiring frustration, or you may be putting yourself in place to be someone’s immediate target for political reasons you know nothing about.
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Jan 8, 2024 23:20
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euphronius posted:Have you ever taught a class ? Maybe you said this and I missed it I’ve come in a few times to teach a class or two a year for the past few years as a guest for a law professor friend of mine in a topic area I’m very familiar with from my practice. Enjoyed it a lot, but I recognize that’s night and day from planning a whole course (my wife is a grade school teacher - I definitely respect the amount of work that goes into teaching). Edit: plus a bunch of CLE presentations, but I know that’s different too.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:13
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Discendo Vox posted:Find out the details of that hiring frustration, or you may be putting yourself in place to be someone’s immediate target for political reasons you know nothing about. I have a general understanding of it - the favored candidate they thought would work out well decided our town was not a good fit for them and their family and declined late in the game. I think others in the running went elsewhere while that was going on.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:15
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One of my law school professors has been failing upwards for a few decades now and law school professor was just another step on that career path. He had told me that law school professor was the easiest job he had, although that might have changed now that he's got an even posher sinecure.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:18
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You should definitely take it if you feel you can swing the pay cut, are sick of practicing, and you value time.
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Jan 9, 2024 16:07
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Phil Moscowitz posted:You should definitely take it if you feel you can swing the pay cut, are sick of practicing, and you value time. That's pretty much where I'm at. We'll see how it goes. Meeting with the appointment committee chair hopefully later this week to talk about it.
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Jan 9, 2024 18:13
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Is this a tenure track position or are you getting vested tenure immediately?
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Jan 9, 2024 20:40
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Is this a tenure track position or are you getting vested tenure immediately? Tenure track.
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Jan 9, 2024 22:37
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Do you know how much you would have to publish to get tenure? I don't know how academia works that well, so I've always wondered if there were actual metrics.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:48
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Eric Cantonese posted:Do you know how much you would have to publish to get tenure? I don't know how academia works that well, so I've always wondered if there were actual metrics. I'm waiting until I meet with the chair of appointments committee this weekend to nail stuff like this down - the faculty is unionized (state university) and the CBA doesn't specify a number or a range - just says "quality scholarship" during the pre-tenure period.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:37
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From what I understand the criteria will be made known to you and there are tenure review meetings before you are tenured or flushed
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Jan 10, 2024 20:39
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To me writing* bull poo poo law review articles would be the worst part of the job * putting your name on articles written by grad students
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Jan 10, 2024 20:40
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At most universities the publication requirements for tenure vary by department and often by subject area within department, and that's one of the places where departmental politics gets super ugly. Like how many papers is a book worth? Is it enough to have a book or article accepted for publication? Is a paper in one subject area worth as much as a paper in a different area? What about if you can put out ten small papers doing different statistical analyses of the same data set? What about doing a single large paper on a years-long field study? What does counting this paper for this candidate mean about the future of the department and how we see the field progressing? If I vote to count this paper as sufficient and move this candidate along the tenure track, does that mean that I have to publish a paper instead of writing a book? How many papers are book chapters worth? Etc. etc.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:46
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euphronius posted:To me writing* bull poo poo law review articles would be the worst part of the job Absolutely 100% this. The second-worst part would be trying to fool yourself into thinking anyone will read it. I felt like I accomplished more working at a shoe store in undergrad than I ever did working on law review.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:19
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