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Muir
Sep 27, 2005

that's Doctor Brain to you

JamesKPolk posted:

Honestly, pretty great? Maybe not (b). But I see (c) holding steady in most states that have it already and (a) increasing a lot. That's the motivation. But again this is all from a very limited perspective inside the industry, which is why I'm asking in the first place, and if it's not guaranteed I'm even going to end up working in that area then it seems very not worth rolling the dice on.

And even if the work still needs to be done then, what are the odds that you as a fresh graduate from some random law school gets to be involved the way you hope?

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JamesKPolk
Apr 9, 2009

Muir posted:

And even if the work still needs to be done then, what are the odds that you as a fresh graduate from some random law school gets to be involved the way you hope?

Consider me well-convinced that for me, anyway, pretty low.

But I'm wondering now, do y'all just not get to choose what you do for a living? What's the dynamic there? That sounds miserable lol

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

JamesKPolk posted:

Consider me well-convinced that for me, anyway, pretty low.

But I'm wondering now, do y'all just not get to choose what you do for a living? What's the dynamic there? That sounds miserable lol

Not really, no. I bounced around a bit at first through various things, some better, some not, and wound up lucking into my current role which is perfect for me, but there are also a grand total of like 5 people who do it (and aren’t on the pharma payroll), so it was very much luck.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

I enjoyed family for the years I did it. There was a lot of interesting issues and you felt like you were helping people sometimes. Getting paid was harder.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

JamesKPolk posted:

Consider me well-convinced that for me, anyway, pretty low.

But I'm wondering now, do y'all just not get to choose what you do for a living? What's the dynamic there? That sounds miserable lol

Sortof.

You get out of law school and then it's somewhat of a crapshoot where you take that first job depending on what the job market happens to be like at the time. Then you have experience doing that so it usually makes more sense to continue doing that rather than switch to something else you don't know as well.

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






Also if you join a large firm you’ll be sorted into a practice area without necessarily having much choice over which one it is. Oh you wanted to be an IP attorney? Tough poo poo we need warm bodies in the IPO mines.

Jean-Paul Shartre
Jan 16, 2015

this sentence no verb


JamesKPolk posted:

Consider me well-convinced that for me, anyway, pretty low.

But I'm wondering now, do y'all just not get to choose what you do for a living? What's the dynamic there? That sounds miserable lol

I’m in my fourth different “entry level” legal job and I’m near a decade out of law school. I got a job with the Feds my 2L summer, (entry level job 1) but they were gonna bring me back in immigration enforcement and I didn’t want to do immigration enforcement. So I did 3L recruiting, which meant I went to a firm a buddy had summered at that was looking to grow their class (EL job 2), which meant I became a transactional attorney because that’s one of the slots they were adding. Then when I didn’t like that after a few years I started looking, ended up clerking with a judge another buddy was clerking for (EL job 3). When that ended I became a litigator at another big firm, and my current public interest gig was another career restart and the organisation placed me in my post (EL job 4).

And I graduated top quarter of my class at a T14 school. Four jobs, two of which I got through networking, three different times (feds, firm, current gig ) where the hiring organisation, not I, picked the specific post I’d be at. And I’m a success story as far as legal jobs go. Unless your uncle works at your dream job and can bring you in, you do not have enough agency at any point of the process to ensure you’re going to end up doing what you wanted at the start of law school at the end of law school.

Draadnagel
Jul 16, 2011

..zoekend naar draadnagels bij laag tij.
I graduated around 10 years ago and bounced around for a bit, couple of years here and there, figuring out what i like and what i really dislike. I got lucky in that i got to work in the field i graduated in, even if it wasn't what i wanted initially. My summer job turned in college into a fulltime job after college, moved on after a couple of years because it was utter poo poo. If you are working in the legal field, even if it is not what you want, you will learn you a lot of useful skills that transfer well. One time I took a entry level job after already working a couple of years and that is a mistake i will never make again. If you start at the bottom people will treat you like you are starting at the bottom and it's rough moving up from there. In my experience it's easier to change jobs and move up.
Now I'm starting my dream job which will have me work crushing hours and give me a lot of responsibility. We'll see how I feel in like 5 years.

Abugadu
Jul 12, 2004

1st Sgt. Matthews and the men have Procured for me a cummerbund from a traveling gypsy, who screeched Victory shall come at a Terrible price. i am Honored.
No matter what branch of law you’re in, being a lawyer is just different flavors of Temporarily Making Other People’s Problems Your Problems. Starting out is brutal because there’s minimal actual training but 100% accountability. Also the job market can go from healthy to utter poo poo in a heartbeat.

The only way to do exactly what you want coming out of school is to hang your own shingle, which, while doable, requires a giant leap of faith, investment, and effort.

I’ve touched one case in 21 years that dealt with what I went to law school for, but seeing the nuts and bolts of it took off a lot of the shine and attraction. I’m content now doing 8-5 gov work where I get a decent salary and benefits, and I can utterly shut out work the second I walk out the door.

Emily Spinach
Oct 21, 2010

:)
It’s 🌿Garland🌿!😯😯😯 No…🙅 I am become😤 😈CHAOS👿! MMMMH😋 GHAAA😫
I think also there's a factor of unless you have specific relevant experience before going into law school, you don't even necessarily have an idea if what you think you want to do is what you really want to do. Admittedly I went to law school because I didn't know what else to do with a history degree, but figured I'd do some flavor of litigation. Got into tax, so when I didn't have a job after my JD I went for an LLM. I still thought I'd prefer to do controversy work but after the LLM transactional work was more available so that's most of what I do, and honestly, it's been a way better fit for me. Also about a decade out, and I spent a few years in a non practicing role (by choice) which was its own kind of bullshit.

I don't think law is particularly unique in the fact that your ability to shape your career specifics at the beginning is going to depend a lot on your connections and/or, for certain niche practice areas, your willingness to stomach additional years of education either pre or post JD. You just get more people going into law school (or thinking about it) wanting to be an international human rights weed lawyer straight out of school or whatever. Also it's very expensive (in the US) and we're all bitter assholes.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

I see law school as training to pass the bar (broad knowledge of many topics including ethics plus legal writing ). I don’t know if it really helped beyond that besides legal research which isn’t on the bar (that I remember)

Pook Good Mook
Aug 6, 2013


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To add to job search things, the geographic proximity of where your school is matters FAR more than it does for undergrad career placement. I'm reasonably happy and content with where I am, but I work in the same town as where I went to law school. This was a "tier 1" law school where I finished in the top 15%.

Where you want to be generally matters for more than what you want to do, unless your goal is biglaw firm work in which case just go to a top 14 and hope you have a good first semester.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
The obscene big law salaries also break people’s brains.

I have a friend right now going through weekly nervous breakdowns but “starting over” (at 100k+ a year) somehow isn’t an option.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

I would not recommend working for a biglaw firm to anyone

If you are really smart, driven and able to fit in culturally, I would do plaintiffs work and retire 40

The Tesla plaintiffs firms are entitled to 6 billion arguably for example

euphronius fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Mar 3, 2024

Mr. Nice!
Oct 13, 2005

c-spam cannot afford



I made $22.50/hr 1099 in my last job as a lawyer. I make more than 2x my annual take home as a grad student than I did in my last three years as a lawyer. Note, I did not work full time at that job because I was helping an old greedy piece of poo poo close his office and wrap up cases.

B33rChiller
Aug 18, 2011




Kalman posted:

Not really, no. I bounced around a bit at first through various things, some better, some not, and wound up lucking into my current role which is perfect for me, but there are also a grand total of like 5 people who do it (and aren’t on the pharma payroll), so it was very much luck.
Please don't doxx yourself, but do you mind sharing what the weird niche is that you found?

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

euphronius posted:

I would not recommend working for a biglaw firm to anyone

If you are really smart, driven and able to fit in culturally, I would do plaintiffs work and retire 40

The Tesla plaintiffs firms are entitled to 6 billion arguably for example

the stress of big law is overrated as long as you're not at, like, kirkland

plaintiff firms CAN make obscene money but they can also go like ten years making nothing and that's a lot more common. the chances of getting a big money case are small, you have to invest a ton of money into it, and another firm can always muscle you out.

when plaintiff firms have bad years the partners lose their houses

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

JamesKPolk posted:

Consider me well-convinced that for me, anyway, pretty low.

But I'm wondering now, do y'all just not get to choose what you do for a living? What's the dynamic there? That sounds miserable lol

When you pass the bar you are useless as a lawyer. You need to be trained. You remain useless for years, but get better at what it is you're doing.

If you land the job and practice area you wanted, great. But for the most part you are at the mercy of who needs an untrained pair of hands and has the work for it when you're getting your first job. You can, if you want, try to move practice areas. But it's not easy if it's not similar to what you are doing because you basically go back several years in knowledge and usefulness.

Like in a bankruptcy lawyer largely because my first firm got a big bankruptcy case my first year and needed so many extra hands people got pulled in from other departments, including me. Had no plan of being one but four years later it was what I knew well and either I needed to transfer and do it or sorta start over (fortunately, I liked it a lot).

The better a candidate you are on paper (it is insanely difficult to tell who is going to be a good lawyer so it tends to default to "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" style of relying on credentials despite that GPA/school is not strongly predictive) the more of a chance you have to get the first job you want or to transfer into what you decide you'd rather do. If you do not have that luxury, you had better get used to doing the work put in front of you because that's by far your best career move.

Shageletic
Jul 25, 2007

euphronius posted:

I see law school as training to pass the bar (broad knowledge of many topics including ethics plus legal writing ). I don’t know if it really helped beyond that besides legal research which isn’t on the bar (that I remember)

Law school didn't help there either. I had a more hosed route than most here I'd wager, actually taught my first two years after law school then that job evaporated and ended up taking the bar 4 years after law school. And what worked there was taking practice test after practice test.

Then I was a loving contract attorney for two years before basically being a paralegal contractor for the federal govt for four years, and only did lawyer poo poo after a friend of mine hooked me up with a guy starting his own transactional law firm. Did a ton of privacy policies and other contracts got some credentials and then got hired by the city in my real first happy and stress free job.

Only took 16 years but lol there you go.

E: T14 school if it matters. It doesnt.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

B33rChiller posted:

Please don't doxx yourself, but do you mind sharing what the weird niche is that you found?

A particular area of IP policy at a trade association. (Most trades don’t have IP specialists, much less ones that specialize in sub-areas of IP, minus PhRMA et al.)

B33rChiller
Aug 18, 2011




Neat! Thanks.

trevorreznik
Apr 22, 2023
One thing I'll note is that I've never seen a bleaker contract attorney market, at least in Chicago. I passed the bar in 08, couldn't find work, and did doc review for a few years making 28-30/hr. Sometimes with time and a half, often without, and hours varied. Worked at a firm for a while for less money, then went back. Eventually got plugged in with a firm that paid 35, then 37/hr in 2020. Of course, the old timers would say they were hitting 45-50/hr in the 00s.

I'm back with a firm now (more money+more stress), but see constant ads for contract attorneys. And it's all 27/hr. In 2020 that was fine because of the savings of WFH, but inflation adjusted 27/hr now is the same as the non legal, no college degree needed US census work I was doing in 2009- $18.50/hr.

A lot of people I knew did that work when scraping by as solos, or as a flexible low stress job, or just one you could trust to pay what they said instead of dangling future raises that never come. It looks like it's mostly gone now, which is surprising considering how low unemployment is overall.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Probably outsourced or replaced by AI.

Nice piece of fish
Jan 29, 2008

Ultra Carp

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Probably outsourced or replaced by AI.

I would never trust an AI reviewed contract. Not with current tech.

Emily Spinach
Oct 21, 2010

:)
It’s 🌿Garland🌿!😯😯😯 No…🙅 I am become😤 😈CHAOS👿! MMMMH😋 GHAAA😫

Nice piece of fish posted:

I would never trust an AI reviewed contract. Not with current tech.

Yeah, we've got a pilot on some legal specific generative AI going right now but even the vendor was like, this might replace a very junior attorney's first pass.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Nice piece of fish posted:

I would never trust an AI reviewed contract. Not with current tech.

Oh I didn't say such was a good idea

AI in thr current incarnation seems mostly designed to scam executives into diverting hiring budgets to AI grifters.

Nice piece of fish
Jan 29, 2008

Ultra Carp

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Oh I didn't say such was a good idea

AI in thr current incarnation seems mostly designed to scam executives into diverting hiring budgets to AI grifters.

It's really loving effective too.

Like, administrative code is not settled on whether an AI is empowered to make official decisions for the government, which makes it a question of what exactly it can do. Tempt case workers with insufficient preparatory work? Because "an AI told me so" is gonna fly exactly 0% of the time.

Never mind the courts, lmao

The Dagda
Nov 22, 2005

I think only a couple of guys here work in big law but figured I'd ask this embarrassing question on this obscure corner of the internet: what are the prospects for someone to lateral into a big firm from public interest, with 10 years of experience as an attorney in nonprofits only? I went to a T5 law school but chose touchy feely law. My current job title is "legal director," I run a small nonprofit legal program.

I know a couple of people personally who have made this transition with similar credentials and I'll talk to them, but I get the sense they had really strong personal connections or something at the firms they went to. I do not have that. Some of my concerns are:
- I have zero subject matter knowledge in any area of litigation relevant to a large corporate client, though I have litigated at both the district court and circuit court level in addition to admin hearings (immigration court) and some minor state court stuff. I don't even know whether those skills are transferable. The only discovery I have ever done in my life was during FOIA litigation.
- As a 10th year associate I assume I'd be too expensive to the firm - is that right? They'd rather have a partner who can bring business or a cheaper associate.
- I don't know how to fake being interested and literally don't know what you guys say in interviews; I just need money.

Is this even remotely something I should spend time looking into? My situation is between the pressure of my elderly parents and young kid, it is probably untenable for me to keep working the nonprofit life.

BigHead
Jul 25, 2003
Huh?


Nap Ghost
Administrative law judge, local city attorney, and / or the AG's office all sound like more close matches to your circumstances.

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

The Dagda posted:

- As a 10th year associate I assume I'd be too expensive to the firm - is that right? They'd rather have a partner who can bring business or a cheaper associate.

They can choose to have you come in at whatever year they and you feel like.

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

anyway I mean I think you could get an interview at a decent but not too-tier big law firm, actual trial lawyers are hard to come by and it would mostly be a matter of figuring out where to slot you in that would make sense. But you do need to figure out a pitch about how your skills transfer to paying work, but they should. You just need to figure out how.

question is: what, exactly, have you been doing for the past 10 years?

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

The Dagda posted:

from public interest, with 10 years of experience as an attorney in nonprofits only? . . .; I just need money.


I was facing a similar dilemma about five years ago. I decided my best available strat at the time was becoming a public defender. It doubled my salary at the time but only because nonprofits pay poo poo. My plan was to just get as much direct courtroom time as I could because at least that would be a marketable skill when niche nonprofit law had not been for me.

I'm glad I did it but I ended up getting recruited after a few years . . .
Into a government job based on my old nonprofit experience more than anything else. So now I'm doing that.

Only real advice I have is try to make sure all the other lawyers you deal with remember that you aren't any more of an rear end in a top hat than you have to be. Some of them end up in hiring positions and attorneys who are both competent and pleasant to work with are rare enough to be a hiring commodity.

The Dagda
Nov 22, 2005

Thanks all, this is helpful!

evilweasel posted:


question is: what, exactly, have you been doing for the past 10 years?

Immigrants' rights and immigration defense work. Specifically, federal habeas litigation, mandamus/APA litigation, detainee conditions litigation under the Rehab Act, immigration appellate work, and also immigration defense in immigration court (that's admin, not an Art. III court, it's effectively a bench trial). All injunctive relief, no damages. The state court stuff is a very small part of my experience, it was post-conviction relief and some family court stuff both related to immigration relief - that's motion practice and short bench trials. I feel like I may know more than average about Chevron deference since it's extremely relevant for immigration appellate work, but it seems like SCOTUS is doing away with it soon anyway.

Jean-Paul Shartre
Jan 16, 2015

this sentence no verb


It’s going to be a tough post to find, since there’s generally only one per firm, but with your experience you’d be a great hire as a pro bono partner/counsel at a firm that wants immigrant defence to be a heavy part of their pro bono practice, which a number of the big lit shops do because it’s one of the few ways they can get associates up and talking in front of actual judges.

Otherwise would you consider becoming an IJ? I know some people at the immigrant defence bar would never consider that, but if you would there’s always openings, and frankly, the IC bench could use more folks on it that aren’t ex-DHS for the love of god.

Meatbag Esq.
May 3, 2006

Hmm which internet meme should go here again?
Big corporate in house departments also often have immigration teams that are more on the administrative side but that involves lots of time justifying h1b visas.

gvibes
Jan 18, 2010

Leading us to the promised land (i.e., one tournament win in five years)

The Dagda posted:

Thanks all, this is helpful!

Immigrants' rights and immigration defense work. Specifically, federal habeas litigation, mandamus/APA litigation, detainee conditions litigation under the Rehab Act, immigration appellate work, and also immigration defense in immigration court (that's admin, not an Art. III court, it's effectively a bench trial). All injunctive relief, no damages. The state court stuff is a very small part of my experience, it was post-conviction relief and some family court stuff both related to immigration relief - that's motion practice and short bench trials. I feel like I may know more than average about Chevron deference since it's extremely relevant for immigration appellate work, but it seems like SCOTUS is doing away with it soon anyway.
I like the ALJ idea

Green Crayons
Apr 2, 2009

The Dagda posted:

Thanks all, this is helpful!

Immigrants' rights and immigration defense work. Specifically, federal habeas litigation, mandamus/APA litigation, detainee conditions litigation under the Rehab Act, immigration appellate work, and also immigration defense in immigration court (that's admin, not an Art. III court, it's effectively a bench trial). All injunctive relief, no damages. The state court stuff is a very small part of my experience, it was post-conviction relief and some family court stuff both related to immigration relief - that's motion practice and short bench trials. I feel like I may know more than average about Chevron deference since it's extremely relevant for immigration appellate work, but it seems like SCOTUS is doing away with it soon anyway.

Your actual skills (drafting pleadings, managing other attorneys, doing the blocking and tackling of discovery , honest-to-god trial work) can be very attractive to a big law team even if your subject matter experience is not directly transferable. Especially if the group is hurting for mid-level associates.

Since your subject matter lane has been anti-government, I would say targeting white collar/government investigations defense makes sense in terms of what big law groups are a cousin to what you've been doing. You can get even more specific in those types of groups (specific industries that are subject to investigations, such as health care or retail) if you think there is a hook to what you've done before. Look up various big law websites "industries" or similar pages to see what's out there.

Emily Spinach
Oct 21, 2010

:)
It’s 🌿Garland🌿!😯😯😯 No…🙅 I am become😤 😈CHAOS👿! MMMMH😋 GHAAA😫
If you don't mind helping rich people buy citizenship, you may also have some luck with a firm that does a lot of EB-5 work or immigration consulting. I don't actually know how much overlap there would be in the knowledge base, but it might be something to consider.

trevorreznik
Apr 22, 2023
Anyone have much experience with small estates that aren't in probate in Illinois? I would like to chat on a quick phone call because I feel like I'm missing something obvious and am getting really frustrated. The estate pdf from IICLE is great but not covering this exact issue.

I've talked with a few other lawyers including some family ones and am kind of hitting a wall on this.

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Eric Cantonese
Dec 21, 2004

You should hear my accent.

evilweasel posted:

the stress of big law is overrated as long as you're not at, like, kirkland

I don't know if it's "overrated" as much as a certain kind of stress. It's very competitive to get into big law and once people get that brass ring, they realize it can easily turn into a gilded cage. The work hours are bad, the partnership chances are low, but the prestige of the work and the (usual) quality of the mentors and colleagues can help you pave the way to other things a lot more easily than a non-biglaw firm. You don't even necessarily need to be in biglaw that long.

It beats having to hang out your own shingle super early and take on dubious contingency fee or working at a low tier sweatshop and clawing your way out that way, but even though I wasn't at the nicest firm right after graduation, I also wasn't expected to work enough to get 2100-2300 undisputed billable hours either.

The Dagda posted:

I think only a couple of guys here work in big law but figured I'd ask this embarrassing question on this obscure corner of the internet: what are the prospects for someone to lateral into a big firm from public interest, with 10 years of experience as an attorney in nonprofits only? I went to a T5 law school but chose touchy feely law. My current job title is "legal director," I run a small nonprofit legal program.

I know a couple of people personally who have made this transition with similar credentials and I'll talk to them, but I get the sense they had really strong personal connections or something at the firms they went to. I do not have that. Some of my concerns are:
- I have zero subject matter knowledge in any area of litigation relevant to a large corporate client, though I have litigated at both the district court and circuit court level in addition to admin hearings (immigration court) and some minor state court stuff. I don't even know whether those skills are transferable. The only discovery I have ever done in my life was during FOIA litigation.
- As a 10th year associate I assume I'd be too expensive to the firm - is that right? They'd rather have a partner who can bring business or a cheaper associate.
- I don't know how to fake being interested and literally don't know what you guys say in interviews; I just need money.

Is this even remotely something I should spend time looking into? My situation is between the pressure of my elderly parents and young kid, it is probably untenable for me to keep working the nonprofit life.

What kind of non-profit law do you do? I was just talking to someone who runs a family/divorce law firm for wealthy clients. Unfortunately for their clients (although fortunately for the firm), business is booming and she was talking about how challenging it was to find associates from suitable backgrounds. A lot of the usual law firm associates aren't really cut out for the work.

Overall, I think you need to find a story you can relate with confidence about yourself. In my own path to a non-firm life, that was the main challenge. Everybody gets that people need better pay or better hours, but they don't want that to be the only reason you're around.

Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Mar 25, 2024

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