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In the loosest sense of the word, I am a lawyer. I am licesned to practice law, but I do not have a job as an attorney and probably never will. As the Law thread in A/T proper has noted, bar membership and law school admissions grow much much faster than the need for legal services. At my swearing in ceremony, a speaker (proudly) told us that bar membership was up 30% over the last 5 years. https://www.bls.gov tells us that legal services will grow at 16% over the next decade. I preface with this because the legal job market is not broken just because of the recession. The recession made things worse, but when the recession ends, the job market for lawyers will remain very, very poor. So, I need a new profession. I'd like the accountants out there to tell me their views of that profession. I've applied to a well regarded state school. What is the job market like? bls says that it is good, and very good for a CPA, but I want to hear from real people. I expect hiring is poor right now, but is accounting a field that is as broken as law and BLS just didn't catch it? The jobs that left - are they expected to come back? Beyond the threshold employment issue, what is an actual day as an accountant like? Do you enjoy it? I expect my math skills are poor from lack of practice, but I'm sure I can get them back. I got a 670 on the math portion of the SAT. I imagine that's enough innate ability to learn the necessary math skills for accounting? Is there any "crossover" between law and accounting such that having the law degree would be beneficial in an accounting career? I've spoken to a few people about this and want to get more input.
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Nov 13, 2009 21:41
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I should not that I've taken Financial I and Managerial I in college. My undergraduate degree is in business. I have forgotten everything about it, though, so I imagine I'd need to start over or at least do some self study before getting into the upper level courses. Technically, I don't even need an accounting degree. I just need 36 credits of upper level accounting.
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Nov 13, 2009 23:20
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Is it very difficult to get that public accounting job necessary to get the license? I imagine you take all the classes and pass the test first, right? Does volunteer work count? part time work? If I could work part time or volunteer while I'm in school, I'd get licensed that much faster.
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Nov 16, 2009 18:29
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I did 4 internships in law school and have zero job prospects. So if one good non-gently caress up internship in accounting gives a really good shot at a job, that's a vast improvement.
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Nov 17, 2009 00:01
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are internships ever paid? Or are they ever part time? I'm unemployed right now, but if I ever got a paid job I'd have a hard time giving it up for an unpaid full time internship.
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Nov 20, 2009 17:07
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Good news everyone, just got accepted at the university I applied to. I'll see an advisor on Tuesday to find out what classes I'm going to take. I took financial I and managerial I in college, but I don't really remember them that well. They were Saturday morning classes and I skipped a lot. I only got about a C+/B- too. It might be wise for me to re-take those if I can do so for credit. (I assume they wouldn't count as CPA credits, but in school credits to defer on my law school loans are important too)
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Dec 5, 2009 01:19
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I got a D- in calculus the first time around (my midterm was on 9/11. I didn't study for it but that was a great excuse). So I have to re-take that. Anyone got any websites that can help me learn algebra in a month?
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Dec 15, 2009 23:00
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scribe jones posted:who the heck has midterms the second week of september? My math professor? Maybe it wasn't a mid term but a run of the mill test? I don't remember it was 8 years ago. I just thought it was funny we still had to do it that day. I really got a D- in calculus because I was a lovely 18 year old and didn't give a poo poo and do my math problems like a big boy.
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Dec 16, 2009 00:22
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Nipple Drainage posted:Learning algebra is going to be the least of your problems in CALCULUS. I don't need to know algebra to be able to do calculus? I thought it built on algebra. It's been a while.
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Dec 21, 2009 21:41
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Cicero posted:I think what he's saying is that if you don't remember algebra, calculus will destroy you. edit: rephrased to sound like less of an rear end in a top hat, I'm very confident I can re-learn everything I need by the middle of January. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Dec 21, 2009 |
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Dec 21, 2009 23:38
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Nipple Drainage posted:Seriously? Good luck hellblazer187, you're going to need it. Thanks for the help!
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Dec 22, 2009 03:49
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Arcaeris posted:See the lawyer megathread in A/T, and then throw away any dreams of success as a lawyer. I'm already a lawyer. It sucks, there's no jobs. So that's why I'm back in undergrad getting re-trained.
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Jan 16, 2010 16:14
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My career plan is to get this CPA thing and work for big 4 for a little while if I can get in, and if I get sick of accounting or get let go or get burned out, I might apply to the good LLm schools. It's always an option and it becomes a better option if I've been an accountant for 5-10 years. Hopefully, though, I just enjoy accounting enough to not have to do that. edit: other possible career path would be to go solo as an accountant who can also provide some legal services (wills, trusts, etc.) although I'd have to be careful with the bar combining the two services. Mostly I just want to work for a company and make a salary though.
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Jan 18, 2010 02:09
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I'm a licensed attorney and I (sort of) work as an attorney right now. If I went solo as a CPA I could offer some legal services as well, such as wills.(although technically I'd have to set it up as a separate business, but I could work out of the same office location.) I have no idea what AbbitheDog is talking about. He also forgot that there is something called malpractice insurance. edit: He's right that I don't really WANT to do legal work though.
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Jan 18, 2010 23:37
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Would it be terribly difficult for an American CPA to get work in Canada? I don't really have any serious plans to do that but I was just sort of curious if anyone knew about CPAs/CAs crossing borders.
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Jan 27, 2010 00:25
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BelgianSandwich posted:Hellblazer you might want to look at Ryan and Company. They are a tax consulting firm, not a CPA firm, and they hired the two accounting students I know in my program that had law degrees. Thanks for the heads up. They've got an office in my city too.
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Jan 29, 2010 13:50
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So, it seems like I'm on my way to an A in calculus. I guess third time's the charm! To answer a question from before, bar rules are very strict about having a partnership with a non-lawyer. If I wanted to have my own solo law/cpa practice, I'd technically have to structure it as two businesses.
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Mar 21, 2010 15:44
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Hey, this thread is still around! I'm still plugging away at my accounting degree, in my third semester now. I got my prereqs out of the way and now I'm in the thick of it. Got a B+ in Cost I this summer, and got an A on my first exam in Intermediate Financial I. Got a B- on my first Tax test. Right now I'm putting off studying for my second Tax test. With the worst of the recession seemingly (oh god hopefully) over, does the employment market seem to be better in this field? (I'm sure it's much much better than law)
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Oct 25, 2010 23:09
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I probably won't be able to do any kind of internship. I'm employed full time as an attorney and I have a mortgage to pay. This is my biggest fear with regards to employment. I can't just give up my real job for an internship that may or may not come through with a full time offer. I really wish I had done this my first go round with college. My academic advisor said that internships are more important for people coming right out of school. When I get my degree I'll have 3 years as a lawyer under my belt, and he said that will be enough for some firms to take me seriously even without an internship. My goal is public accounting, at least to start. Ideally I'd like a job with state or local government or a qualifying non-profit to take advantage of the 10 year repayment on my student loans (90+% of which are due to my law school mistake) edit: my hope is to have very good grades and pass the test before graduation. I don't know how hard the CPA exam is vs the bar exam, but I do have experience with a giant test like that so that should be helpful. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Oct 27, 2010 |
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Oct 27, 2010 02:28
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gmilo posted:This is purely anecdotal but the only thing I've heard from tax lawyers or people who know tax lawyers is that the CPA is way worse than the bar exam. That being said, you can take it in parts which makes things significantly easier. I read a small study on it and it seemed like the answer was that whatever test was taken first was harder. For 90+% of people who have two licenses, the CPA exam came first. But, IIRC, the study said the sample size of people like me (bar first, then CPA exam) is so small no real conclusion could be drawn. That said, I'm operating under the assumption that the CPA exam is more difficult. My bar exam experience should be helpful in knowing how to prepare for a 12 hour test and in that my nerves will probably be much lower than many other test takers because I've been in a similar situation before. The bar exam seemed hard at the time, but my score was really high. You need to wait 2 months to get your bar results which is agonizing. The CPA doesn't do that, right? The bar is also only offered twice a year. As I understand it you can take the CPA exam more frequently.
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Oct 28, 2010 13:28
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I think I might apply for a job as an accounting clerk in the new year. Looking on indeed.com, about half of posting with that title pay as much as I currently earn as an attorney and it would help me get experience in the field I actually want to go into. I wonder if work as an "accounting clerk" could possibly satisfy the 1 year work experience requirement for the CPA. I guess there's also the possibility of internal advancement if I can get such a job. Has anyone here worked as an accounting clerk or an a/r or a/p clerk? Was it helpful in becoming a full on "accountant"?
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Nov 22, 2010 23:46
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It would have to be a good move for me. The pay couldn't be much lower, unless there was a better (existent) benefits package too. I make about 30k as a lawyer, no benefits. Searching on indeed it looks like there are some a/p or a/r jobs that have a similar salary range. It would also have to be a place where promotion to "accountant" was possible upon graduation. Really, I'd like to be an "accountant" before I graduate, as I know at least two people who hold such a title without much education in the area. One is in my Intermediate I class, the other has only taken a single accounting class. edit: sigh, sometimes I feel like I'll never have a good job. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Nov 23, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 01:38
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So, I forgot I made this thread 100 years ago. I'm a CPA now as of like two weeks ago. Looking for a new job though because I live overseas right now and I want my good old US and A back. Edit: I'm also still technically a lawyer but laffo at that. I'm about as informed on the law these days as an average facebook post. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 18:40
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Dislike button posted:Congrats, as a dual license holder are you planning on doing anything interesting? Sounds like you are pretty much focused on the accounting side. Thanks! Right now, I'm focused on getting into a CPA firm. From there, I have a few potential paths. Stay in public, move to law after a while, or move into industry and try to get into upper management. Another thing I've thought about is getting into the litigation support side of CPA practice. I think before I do anything else, I need to grind out a few years in an honest to goodness CPA firm. I'll stay up to date on bar dues in my home state, and if necessary take the bar in whatever state I land in a few years later. I've definitely thought about white collar criminal work. Actually, what I had really wanted to do when I got out of law school was criminal defense. It wasn't in the cards due to the economy at the time, the status of the legal market in general, and just where I was personally coming out of school. So maybe I could circle back there someday.
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Dec 3, 2015 22:55
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Sigh. My CPA is worthless. My wife has refused to move to the US since Donald Trump got elected. I have an online job I could have had without a CPA. Maybe someday. I'll keep the cert active but it's hugely depressing that I worked really hard to get there and then whoops I'm stuck never getting to use it because I live in the 3rd world.
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Jun 6, 2017 23:15
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Kitchner posted:I mean I can't blame your wife really, particularly if she's not white. Half european, half latin. She's light skinned, but uh, yeah. I don't blame her either. But boy do I get depressed by it!
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Jun 7, 2017 00:19
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Kitchner posted:Does the country that you live in not recognise your CPA or something? Like I know in the UK an American accountant with an accounting degree and a CPA would be considered the same as a Chartered Accountant. It's a Spanish speaking country and I don't have any sort of legal work permit here. I'm basically valueless in this market.
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Jun 7, 2017 00:31
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Pryor on Fire posted:lol yeah right I wish I could have used the "Trump" excuse to stall my shitshow of a first marriage too hahahaha that's a classic Second one for me! Also, besides this one issue of me throwing my entire life down the drain, things are pretty perfect between us.
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Jun 7, 2017 00:37
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Nipple Drainage posted:Seriously? Good luck hellblazer187, you're going to need it. Hey, so I know this is eight years later, and my career is super terrible still, but I was doing a search of my own name looking for something else and I just wanna reply to this I got an A- in calc. I didn't need luck I just needed to do the homework.
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Sep 2, 2017 17:50
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Oh, EA chat. I'm an EA. I don't usually mention it because I'm an attorney and a CPA and adding EA on top of those just seems like overkill when I talk about it but yeah I'd say it's worth getting because it literally takes like 1-3 months of study and you'll know more about taxes than most CPAs. In my work we've got a mix of EAs and CPAs and usually tbh the EAs are better. I used this to study and pass: https://www.amazon.com/PassKey-Revi...ords=ea+passkey Well, the 2011-2012 version but that series. It's not free but it's cheaper than CPA study. It's not super hard. The CPA exam is much harder. But you will have a leg up on REG if you get the EA out of the way first. There's more to REG than tax, but the tax stuff will be well and truly in your long term memory by then. I was confident enough in REG that I booked it for the same week as the other 3 hour one (which I don't remember the name of any more. BEC?). The other thing is portability. Decide you wanna move to another state? You're credentialed nationally with an EA, so while you figure out turning your Delaware CPA into a New Mexico license (or whatever the gently caress) you've got something in your pocket that lets you set up shop or sign returns or sign PoAs or whatever. Edit: Oh, and yeah, the CPA might take you longer than you plan for. Lots of people fail sections. I respect the hell out of people who do but then keep going with it - if I'd failed anything I know I'd have quit pretty much right away. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 17:53
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Covok posted:I've been looking broadly and been giving a lot of things a try. I haven't pigeon-holed myself. It's more just who is responding which is not that many people. Also, turns out the CT thing won't work out since the company decided to go "wait, we want someone with more experience, forget the interview" this morning. What areas of the country are you looking in? There are a lot of spots where smaller public firms would be happy to give you a shot, I think. Do you have the CPA all the way done?
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Sep 2, 2017 18:08
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So, I had a slightly more difficult path with the CPA exam because I was (and am) living abroad. I had to schedule sections way far in advance, buy plane tickets for me and my wife, and if I failed it was $1,000 wasted per section. That's also why I took all three EA parts in a single week. I took the CPA exam 3 years after getting the EA, which was 3 years after working in tax and 3+ years since taking an "accounting" course. I knew the biggest beast was going to be FAR, so I took that first. I took FAR. Then I booked AUD to coincide with a friend's wedding since I had to go to the US anyways. Then a few months later I took REG and BEC in the same week. I knew I already had half of REG pretty cold and BEC is relatively easy. If you're working in tax and you're getting an EA, REG should be your easiest section. So the question is, do you want to slay the biggest dragon first, or do you want to build confidence with easier ones? I don't think I'd combine EA study with REG study. If you want the EA before the CPA, just get that done and out of the way, then plan to start taking the sections of the CPA. Your order of attack is exactly opposite of what I did / what I would do but either approach is completely valid. In fact I've heard the "take your easiest section first" advice is what's most commonly recommended now. Since I knew I wouldn't really get a second chance at FAR, I felt I had to go that way. I really recommend the A71 products if you're paying yourself. I think now that they have comprehensive videos, even better. I had found a way to buy old becker videos without the software for like $80 and I used those with "The Ninja Method" - which was basically watch the videos all the way through once, then do a shitload of Ninja MCQ forever, then copy the notes by hand. Since I cheated by copying the notes at work, I for all except FAR I copied via typing. To make up for the fact that copying via typing is less beneficial, I did it twice. I think Ninja has this 10 point package or whatever, and that's what I used (before they bought out the Roger videos) and it worked. I got above 85 on all sections first try. As far as time per section it's really pretty individual. IIRC the recommendation is 70-150 hours of study per section. I think the Ninja method is really efficient and if you're kinda smart you might be able to pare that down a bit. I woke up early to study before work for the almost year this took me.
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Sep 6, 2017 00:49
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I went and checked my score notifications, I'd remembered wrong! I did FAR first, then AUD and BEC in the same week. Then a few months later I did REG. Season is a thing at my old job, but not the same as a US firm. One, there's the automatic 6/15 extension, and then since most of the clients owed nothing they were pretty nonchalant about getting things in time. I probably had about 100ish hours of study time for each section other than REG which was a lot smaller. I typically did 1 - 2 hours every morning then 2-3 each weekend day. I didn't kill myself over it - it was actually fairly manageable. My scores were 91, 89, 94, and 90, so I did pretty well. I put that success more on Jeff developing a good study system than on Hb187 being a super genius or something. In reality I'm pretty dumb. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 02:24
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Hey I've got a client with a sort of complicated corporate/investment structure, and I'd really like to draw out a diagram of what entity owns what entity so I can wrap my head around all of it. Anyone have software recommendations for something like that? Edit: I guess if it's just for me I can use pen and paper. Hellblazer187 fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Sep 8, 2017 |
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Sep 8, 2017 18:47
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I didn't realize PMs were a paid feature. Maybe because my reg date is a decade before yours (holy mother of Christ) I got them free and grandfathered in. Anyways all I wanted to say is that while this is my sixth tax season, this was my first season working 8am to midnight for two weeks straight. So that was pretty fun and miserable. Did you have any crypto clients this year?
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May 3, 2018 21:23
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The problem with Crypto is that each coin to coin transaction is a sale, so if someone has a sheet that says they traded some btc for some eth, you need to have the USD values of both for that exact date and time to figure out the sales price/basis in the new coin. There are SaaS sites that make this relatively easy (https://www.bitcoin.tax is the best one) but depending on what they have going on it can take hours just to get the data in a format where the SaaS can read it. I'm actually the other way around. I'd so much rather work a Saturday or even the whole weekend than to stay that late. The last two weeks were 14 hour days straight, weekends included. Yeah I'm pretty sure the dude just used you, which loving sucks. I had a similar situation at the beginning/end of my legal career (it didn't last long!). I had been working for a guy when I was in law school, and he had a big trial coming up right as I was about to enter bar study. Most people do not work during bar study, but he said I had a full time gig waiting for me after I got my results, and he could really use my help getting prepped for trial. So imagine my surprise, working for this guy while studying - which everyone says not to do - I arrive the Monday after my exam and I'm told I'm still part time hourly help until I get my results. I pass, top five percent of test takers (not that it matters but it's my one victory from this time period), guess what, still hourly help. Oh, and we don't need that much help anymore. Well that guy's always going to be a small time lawyer and your guy is always going to be a small time accountant. You can get away with using people in most industries but I don't think it works in white collar/professional fields. At least that's what I'll tell myself.
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May 3, 2018 21:59
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Moneyball posted:This is more of a E/N post, but drat I can't even seem to get hired for low level A/R jobs anymore. Leave the grad date off your resume, remove the work experience. Make sure you moisturize and stuff so you look young. There you go, fresh grad! And yeah, pass the dang test if you haven't already.
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May 3, 2018 22:00
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Covok posted:Oh, they had a spreadsheet that told me the capital gains of every transaction he did. Oh gently caress, was I not supposed to use the summary at the bottom? He had a spreadsheet that recorded all that data, but did a summary of everything. They were all short-term, not reported so I thought I could do them all in a summary. No one else in the firm knew and basically said "your guess is as good as mine." If the client figured his own gains (hopefully using one of those softwares and hopefully using FIFO) yeah, fine to do a summary. Covok posted:Also, that's rough. That's worse than what I got. I was just doing it as a full time job. I mean, I'm bitter because I did the thing of staying late, skipping lunches, coming in on Sundays, etc. etc. to try to keep my job. But having to do study and work to get a job that the lawyer was lying about is major bad. That really sucks, dude. I take sollace in the fact I did the company's taxes and bookkeeping and, well, this guy is not rockerfeller and I think I legitimately made more at KPMG than this guy makes in his salary. 2009 was like the worst year of my life. My mom died from some pills like a week before I finished school, then the bar exam and this rear end in a top hat giving me the runaround on the job thing. With the stress and grief I gained 90 lbs that year. Do you have an EA at least? Do you ever do expat stuff?
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May 3, 2018 22:26
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That's.... a lot of loving clients. I didn't do half that much. I think people focusing on expat work probably do fewer returns overall - this was my busiest season to date and I've been doing this for 6 years now. But holy gently caress that's a lot of returns.
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May 3, 2018 23:07
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Covok posted:Well, a lot were 1040-EZ. But, like, every day, there'd be like 10-20 returns in the drop-off box. I'm probably overselling it. But there were a ton in the drop-off box every day, usualy 10 or so. Then the corporate clients. The the box of 20-30 returns I'd get from the other office. I've never done a 1040-EZ. How long does one take, out of curiosity? What does a CPA firm in the US charge for an EZ? I have to admit I'm a bit surprised anyone with an EZ would pay someone to help with it, but then again I've seen a bunch of dumb poo poo on self prepared returns. A good day for me is 5 to 7 returns. I've had 10+ return days but I don't think I've ever done 20 in a single day. I do a lot of consultation calls as well. But still, seems like a lot of returns. Maybe I shouldn't be on SA so much. Oh, and just to swing back to the other thing, and without spoilers - I've never been much of a Thor fan, either Odinson or Jane, but I did enjoy the last arc including the conclusion.
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May 3, 2018 23:36
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