See Jane Get Rich

Life and law school has officially started getting very crazy.  This time last semester I stopped blogging but  I am going to continue blogging at least once a week since I don’t have as many exams this semester. 

I have listed my apartment on craigslist so I can sublease it.  I want to sublease it for part of April until July.  I have listed the apartment and got several responses.  I gave a skype tour to one interested party who was located in Boston.  I had three people who wanted to come and visit the place.  The first person came to visit on time.  The second person discovered upon plugging in the address to Google Maps that its awfully close to her ex and would rather not be that close.  The third person never showed up at the time he said and when I called him he was still visiting another place and just didn’t want to come up.  So, that’s one out of three for actual show up.  The first person however, wants to move in like now and they seem a little strange.  I told her than she can stay but she would have to share the apartment with me for the next few weeks and we can split the rent.  I am waiting to hear back from her about that.  

I have asked for a security deposit equal to a month’s rent and I have emailed her a sublease agreement.  This is the first time subleasing and I really hope I don’t get burned.

Spring 2010 Financial Goals

2. Roll over 401(k) from my holiday job to a Roth or transfer it to my brokerage

One of my Spring financial goals included rolling over the 401(k) I contributed to during my holiday job this past Christmas break.  I contributed 50% of my paycheck which was a grand whopping total of $527.00!   I was planning to do a direct rollover but since I was no longer an employee and my funds were less than $1k the Big Box Retailer, my former employer, closed out my 401(k) and cut me the check in February.  

Since the check was in my name, I could no longer do a  direct roll over and opted to do an indirect roll over.  This constituted of me opening a traditional IRA account with my broker/dealer and depositing the check with them within 60 days.  So, I opened an account on Friday and this morning I went over and deposited  my whopping $527 in the IRA.  The IRA had a minimum of $500 and I was so glad to have had enough to meet the minimum and continue to put that money towards retirement.  Although it is a very tiny amount, I am sure my $527 will grow mighty in 30+ years!

The Interviewer will see you now

By far the most fun and excruciating part of my externship is the fact that I get to play a significant role in hiring my replacement.  It is fun because I get to look at resumes of other students and conduct interview.  It is very different being on the opposite side of the table.  It is also excruciating because there are so many to choose from and they all seem very qualified.  I am getting a lot of resumes from law students and MBA’s.  Some students are very easy to eliminate and it’s usually the MBA students.   Law students are more likely to do targeted cover letters and be explicit about why they are interested in the position whereas MBA students tend to have poor writing skills and one even had a misspelling in an email response to me.   I wish I could take back the interview invitation.  This experience has given me a first-hand look at what it’s like to be the interviewer.  It is a good review for me and has reminded me of the importance of paying close attention to detail and being truthful on my resume. 

I went through all the resumes and ranked the candidates.  Today happened to be the day I interviewed the #1 candidate with significant financial regulatory work experience and an alphabet soup of degrees that included an MBA and JD as well as being close to completing an LLM in securities regulation.  The #1 candidate’s resume listed him as being fluent in three languages and claimed to have the ability to speak four other languages.  It was unlucky for him that I happen to be able to speak one of them.  At the end of our interview when we were having casual conversation I told him that I admired his repertoire of language skills and switched over to one of his claimed languages and asked him “how well do you speak the language?”  He responded in English by saying that “I” speak it well except I asked him how well “he” spoke the language not how well I speak it and his response was in English.  I thought maybe the abrupt switch to another language may have confused him so I asked him one more time and he, again, in English, talked about how he picked up so many various languages.  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Have you ever exaggerated on our resume and gotten caught?

I am almost done with law school. 

For the past couple of days, I have been focusing on getting as much work done as possible so that I can free up some time to focus on my path after law school.  I have been working hard to finish all the work that I have control over.   So far, I have done all the reading for corporate taxation, securities regulation II and broker/dealer.  I have finished doing accept/reject forms for law review articles that I had to read.  If I can finish my final paper for my externship class then I am done with all law school work that I can control.  I am aiming to finish everything that I have control over by tomorrow so Friday, March 19th.   

Now, the things I can’t control. 

I have a group project for broker/dealer.  I have reached out to my group about finishing the project earlier and we are targeting April 9th.  I am waiting to get two major assignments for corporate taxation.  I can’t make the assignments come any faster.   I will have several article submissions from the team I am supervising for law review.  Thankfully, I don’t need to do individual article feedback anymore and can focus on giving team feedback which will be less time consuming.  I also need to finish up my externship.  I am going to speak to my boss about finishing up a little earlier.   

I want to be completely done with law school by Friday, April 9th.

I have been putting this post off for a few days, but its time to get on with it. 

This past weekend I got in my car and drove a couple hundred miles to go see Bum.  I needed to have a face to face conversation.  I have been dropping hints since early September.  In December, when I was home I broached the subject lightly but left it alone.  Then in January and February, I tried four times over the phone to tell Bum my decision.  But, Bum wasn’t having it.   

The first time I tried to tell Bum there was a long silence at the other end of the phone.   When Bum finally said something, the shock, disappointment and anxiousness in Bum’s voice made me back off and my tone changed from certainness to tentativeness.  “Oh, I am still thinking about it.  Um, eventually I would want to leave.”   I understood that telling your parent that you no longer want to do what you wanted to do since you were 13 years old was a conversation that I needed to have face to face.   

I envisioned the conversation would take place in the dining room table at a fixed time with both of us sitting down and facing each other.  I would have my arguments outlined and I would go by them one to one.  But, it didn’t happen that way.  The conversation took place right after Bum and I pulled into the driveway after a grocery store run.  It was dark all around us and we were both staring straight ahead at the garage.   After thinking long and hard for six months I was ready.   I said,  “Bum, I don’t want to be a lawyer. ” 

Bum cut off the engine and we sat there.  It was one of the hardest things to tell Bum and one of the hardest things to admit to myself.

 Recap

In January, I made the decision to lend my parent Bum (who is no Bum!) $15k to pay off some credit card debt.  I believe that since I asked and accepted financial assistance from Bum for my 1L and 2L year for some living expenses I contributed to the debt.  But, the biggest culprit was my older sibling the Other Child who refuses to get a real world job and is going after his entrepreneurial dreams while Bum picks up the check.  I tried conditioning the loan on Bum cutting out the Other Child financially but Bum was having none of that so the $15k was a no-strings-attached unsecured interest free personal loan.

The only drawback to the loan was that I was not willing to wait around for my $15k to be repaid.  I wanted an aggressive repayment plan since Bum wasn’t willing to cut the Other Child out.  I lend the money this January.  I specified that I wanted my first payment of $5k on March 31, next $5k on June 31, and the next $5k on October 31 and oh maybe a nice little “gratuity” in December for being so so considerate. 

At the end of my post I asked my readers whether now that I have paid off the $15k in credit card debt, whether Bum will save the money to repay me or whether the increased cash flow means more money will end up going to the Other Child.   Guess what happened?  Bum is doing both.  Yes, both! 

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I logged into my bank account to find that my account balance jumped by $4,000.   “Whoa!  What happened?!” I asked myself.  As I quickly scanned my bank account transactions I saw a refund from my law school in the amount of $4,000.  I then quickly logged into my student account to review account charges for Spring 2010 and under credits there is a credit under “outside scholarship $4,000.”   

 I had an outside scholarship that paid for $4k of my tuition for Spring 2009 and I used another $4k for my Fall 2009 tuition.  I found the terms of the scholarship and it states:

 The $4,000.00 scholarship is renewable for the third year of law school (except in the event of unusual circumstances, determined in the discretion of the firm, that may involve the Scholar’s academic performance or conduct subsequent to the award….)

 It seems I was wrong in my interpretation in thinking $4k was just for the third year as a whole.  The scholarship must have renewed again for the Spring semester since I still meet the requirements.  I paid my tuition somewhat early before the scholarship was applied to my tuition and I believe this triggered the refund.  

This brings down my total all time out-of-pocket law school tuition expenses from $29,377.50 to $25,377.50 and my Spring 2010 tuition from $8,777.50 to $4,777.50.   

 An unexpected $4,000 is the best way to start off the week!

Come spring 44,000 law students will graduate with their JD and what will the overwhelming majority have in common?  Debt to the tune of $76,563.  That is the estimated average law school debt.  Actually, those figures were for 2004-2005 and Forbes puts that number at $100,000.   Mint puts it at $92,937 in their interactive Student Loans by the Numbers guide.  Of course, this is in addition to any debt accrued from undergrad and graduate school. 

According to the American Bar Association, the average tuition and fees for a private law school rose from $16,798 in 1995 to $26,952 in 2004, including a 5 percent jump from the $25,574 tuition average in 2003. To help pay for that education, students attending private law school borrowed an average of $76,563 in 2004-2005, according to the ABA.

I always stayed away from debt because I wanted to know that after Law School where and what I decided to do would be my own choice.  That choice should only be dictated by my personal preference (and the job market) and not how much I must make to meet my monthly debt payments. 

Having such a huge debt means that students will not only forego an ideal job for one that pays the most, but research shows that student loans will cause 44% to delay buying a house while 28% will delay having children per Mint’s data.   

I don’t believe in the concept of good debt versus bad debt because I think all debt is debt.  Debt for education is not necessarily good because it is for education.  It will only be financially benficial if it will increase your earning power in a significant manner for the amount your paid for the education plus the amount of money you lost by staying out of the job market while pursuing the education.  I think the term ”good debt” causes people to skip the careful analysis that they should be doing whenever they take on any kind of debt. 

Do you agree with the concept of good debt and bad debt?

Hmm…networking or animal sacrifice?  What a tough choice to make!  The sample size is small so, “Emailing resumes, 300th time’s a charm!” is most definitely still in the running.   

 There is a very honest article  titled Unemployed law student will work for $160k plus benefits from a third-year Harvard Law student who was “no-offered” by his/her summer firm similar to me.   The author did forget to mention a crucial piece of information.  Harvard Law is taking close to half a million from their endowment and creating jobs for their graduates in the form of public interest fellowships.   Now, that’s an unexpected benefit of going to a top law school.  The law school will actually create jobs for its unemployed students.  

The poll did give me a good laugh.

Over budget by $63.63

February expenses were much better when compared with last month.   My gas use was very low because I was stuck inside for a whole week due to the snow storm. 

My food expenses have gone up because (1) I am eating out a whole lot more with friends and (2) I am feeling down about my legal career prospects and haven’t really had the energy nor the desire to cook.