Did You Take the Bar Exam to Earn $10 an Hour?

Then this is the job for you! It is a full time entry-level position for recent law school graduates who just spent $5,000 to study and take the bar exam. You'll work in the Chicago Loop so no one will ever guess that you are getting paid slightly more than a fast food worker to practice law. Who cares about rent for a Chicago apartment, food, or those pesky student loan payments? Considering that U.S. Attorneys' offices across the country are hiring entry level prosecutors to work for $0, this is an opportunity you CANNOT pass up. Apply now!

Did you just take the Bar Exam? (Loop)

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Date: 2010-08-05, 6:32PM CDT
Reply to: job-ebupe-1882954368@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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We are looking for a recent law school graduate to assist in our busy litigation practice.
The position allows you to work with and learn from experienced litigators but also requires a great deal of administrative and clerical work.
The successful candidate will work directly with an attorney and be intimately involved with every aspect of the day to day litigation process.
This is an excellent opportunity to acquire a great deal of marketable experience in a short period of time.
The position is full time and pays $10.00 per hour.
Please forward a resume if interested.

• Location: Loop
• Compensation: $10.00 per hour
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

From Aspiring Video Game Designer to Stripper

This is what a $70,000 college degree from a for-profit/Goldman Sachs college will get you. It's good to know that $12.9 billion in bailouts went to such an honest and wholesome company, don't you think?

Carrianne Howard dreamed of designing video games, so she enrolled in a program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, a for-profit college part-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered.

These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma: by stripping at the Lido Cabaret, a topless club in Cocoa Beach, Florida. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ve got a worthless degree. It’s like I didn’t attend school at all."

ShitLaw Primer: My Life and Your Experiences

Have you ever felt really alone?  I'm not talking about the loneliness you feel when you're in a room by yourself.  No, I'm talking about the loneliness you feel when no one understands how bad you have it at your job.  Part of why I endeavored--with Hardknocks--to publicize the law school scam, was to show people they are not alone in being unsatisfied with their lack of job prospects and the amount of money that they owe.  I'm trying to reach out to a different crowd now.  I'm reaching out to the shitlaw associates. You know who you are.

You graduated from law school during a recession, much like myself.  I graduated during the dot.com bubble burst.  But you managed to find a job.  It's a small firm. You won't be earning much money.  You're not going to have health care.  But your mother is beaming because you are going to be a real attorney.  You know the job isn't forever, but you're happy to have an opportunity to gain experience under the wing of a talented and experienced solo practitioner.  You are one of the lucky ones and you're not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  

This is how I felt when I got my first job out of law school (post-clerkship).  I was earning $50K, which was not horrid at the time, but not terrific.  My boss hired me because we clicked and I was a good student from a good school and a "go-getter."  I am notorious for ignoring my initial gut feelings and trying to think with my head.  I had a bad feeling when my future boss said, "You must be in the office by 8:30 and you can leave the office at 7:30 p.m. and to go to court during the day, but not for lunch."  Hmmm. I thought.  That's weird. I thought I was a professional that was paid to accomplish tasks, not work by the hour.  But, I thought, this would be a nice place to work.  He said he would never ask me to work weekend, so long as I put in my 11 hours a day during the week.

The Ceiling is Dropping: Deferred BigLaw Associates Offered Discovery Positions!?

What ever happened to those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deferred associates from 2009?  Are they all gainfully employed at this point?  Does anyone care?  Well, we should.  The final outcome for the industry's best and brightest is a good measure of the health of the legal industry as a whole.  McDermott Will & Emery  "extended offers to 54 members of the class; of those, 37 first years started last fall; 17 were deferred or seconded to clients; and 3 offers were rescinded."  But those 3 weren't rescinded altogether. Instead, they were offered positions as discovery attorneys (or permanent contract attorneys) at a rate of $77,500 plus bonuses and benefits.  Yes, I realize that this is a sweet deal for most of our readers.  But, this is not what these elite associates signed up. I can only guess, but I'm assuming that these associates were T14 and law review, moot court, etc.  There is no hope for partnership in this new fangled position as a "discovery" attorney.  Also, since they will only be dealing with discovery, there is little chance that they will gain enough experience in any field of substantive law to become an associate at another firm.  And partnership, forget it!  It's not option.

To be fair, McDermott Will has been perfectly open that it has two classes of associates. In 2007 it created a staff attorney track, according to The Recorder:

The idea is that the new hires--the firm is looking into starting with a pilot group of 15--will be lawyers 'with good pedigrees' who have practiced for a few years but don't want to deal with big-firm hours, said McDermott Will partner Robert Mallory said. Instead, they'll put in more like 30 to 40 hours and be paid something like 25 percent less, though an exact pay range hasn't been decided.

At that time, Mallory explained that economics was behind the decision: "In a market where high compensation for lateral partners, lateral associates, and associates [is] creating pressures, we're trying to bring the best-quality service at the lowest price to our clients."

Okay, so let's recap.  These non-partnership positions have been available to many lawyers in the past--not only at McDermott.  But these were positions that were easily attainable by T50 graduates.  Now that associates at BigLaw are being put on non-partnership tracks, you don't need a T50 for a non-partnership track attorney.  You can get a Stanford, Yale, Georgetown graduate to do the very same thing--forcing scores of T50 into the market with TT and TTT and TTTT schools.  So, you can see the impact of this type of move now?   The market for everyday normal attorneys is being inundated by the scores of graduates coming in from the bottom (40K+ annually) and then from the T14 at the top.  So, you should care about the deferred associates from the class of 2009, chances are you'll be seeing them in jobs that you could have gotten in 2008, before the meltdown.

Yahoo HotJobs: Legal, Advertising, Writing??

Yahoo should do their homework before posting another article like this one on the front page of their website. Unsurprisingly, the article which includes law, online journalism, and advertising as future hot careers is written by Gina Pogol who works for Find the Right School, another scam-like website that takes your email address and spams you with junk mail from University of Phoenix, Devry University, American Intercontinental University, and Kaplan University. I looked up this "journalist" and discovered that her past job before she became an editor was loan officer at CTX Mortgage Company. This is what the former loan officer turned third tier toilet shill had to say:

Not hot: data entry, customer service, and collections
As companies look for ways to save on labor costs, more of them are off-shoring entry-level "knowledge worker" jobs such as customer service, collections, and data entry. Many of these jobs can be handled remotely from countries like India, where English is widely spoken and the educational system is good. The trend is for English-speaking countries with low labor costs to pull these formerly lucrative jobs out of North America.

The writer doesn't seem to realize that a lot of our legal jobs are being outsourced to India too.

Prepare for top careers
The top careers of the future are not entry-level positions. They require career training in the form of an on-campus or online degree to get started. Here are five careers that are most likely to offer interesting work, loads of opportunity, nice paychecks, and job security.

Anyone who tells you that an online degree could lead to a six-figure legal job or online journalism career is clearly a scam artist. Guess what, Ms. Pogol? Most of us here have professional or graduate degrees from top schools and even a few years of work experience and we're still considered to be "overqualified" entry-level candidates. I don't think legal temping for $12/hour or doing freelance writing for $20/hour part-time in Manhattan with no benefits qualifies as interesting work with loads of opportunity and job security.

Writing
Most working writers have bachelor's degrees in English, journalism, or communications, but other degrees are acceptable in many industries if applicants demonstrate good writing skills. Many work on marketing, instructional, and technical materials; online journalism is popular, too. (Only a few writers pen bestsellers and award-winning screenplays.) Many writers work as freelancers, so business courses can come in handy as well. In-demand professional writers and editors can earn six-figure incomes. There are many opportunities, but competition is keen because many people want to enjoy this career.

Yes, an editor or regular columnist at the New York Times or Newsweek makes a six-figure salary. But for every Paul Krugman or Fareed Zakaria, there are millions of unemployed journalists making pennies a day on their personal blog hoping to be the next Julie Powell. Newspapers and magazines are shutting down all over the country and the online journalism market is as saturated as the legal profession. Most freelancers and online writers live at the poverty level. The luckier ones who work for reputable online newswires make around $40k a year in New York City and DC.

Legal careers
Legal careers can allow you to work in any area that interests you, including environmental law, estate planning, personal injury, and politics. And there is a career for every education level--from legal-assistant certificate programs to bachelor's degrees in paralegal studies to Juris Doctor (JD) degrees for attorneys. Despite excellent growth in these professions, the BLS states that competition will be tough, and you'll need formal training to grab the best jobs. Earning potential for top-level pros ranges from about $60,000 for legal secretaries and assistants to about $75,000 for paralegals, to hefty six-figure salaries for lawyers.

Do I really need to go into this one? The legal profession is shrinking, not expanding. Most lawyers do not make a six-figure salary outside of BigLaw. Thousands have been forced to make a career out of temping for $20/hour and no benefits. The author also forgets to mention the six-figure debt to get a JD.

Advertising
Advertising is a sexy profession and a "highly coveted" one, according to the BLS. So of course there's a lot of competition. Advertising, marketing, public-relations, and sales managers are responsible for their companies' market research; marketing strategies; public image; print, online, and TV ads; and more. This job allows a lot of creativity but also brings pressure, long hours, and frequently a lot of travel. Most employers prefer candidates with a bachelor's degree in business, an MBA, or a degree in communications, public relations, or journalism. If you can take the heat, you can pull in a cool salary--top dogs earn over $120,000 a year.

I don't know a ton about the advertising biz, but several of my friends who have worked in advertising say it is anything but glamorous. Starting salaries are around $30k and this is in cities like Los Angeles and New York. Just look at any big city's craigslist under marketing and pr and you'll see internships that require a college degree that are unpaid or offer $20 a day for lunch and travel expenses.

Job Announcement! Washington D.C. Lawyers, come one, come all!

Especially those who went to law school for free and live with a rich spouse and/or parents!

Entry-level attorney (Washington DC)

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Date: 2010-03-13, 9:06PM EST
Reply to: job-dumpp-1643110562@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

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Small civil litigation firm in Washington D.C. is seeking a young, intelligent, newly-admitted attorney to join and learn from the experienced attorneys at our firm. We will provide training and the opportunity to grow with our firm. Requirements include excellent academic credentials from a top law school, with law journal and/or clinical experience preferred. Please forward your resume, cover letter, and writing sample. This is an excellent opportunity to break into the Washington D.C. legal world and our attorneys are eager to share their knowledge with a new member of the firm so contact us today!

• Location: Washington DC
• Compensation: $30k
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Thanks for the tip, Esq. Never!