See Jane Get Rich

I am back from my “blogcation”!

Job

What the heck am I doing?

I am working for the site that I interned for this past spring.  My boss called me up while I was studying for the bar and offered me a 90-day position because they needed some assistance while they are implementing a case management system.  I am in no way qualified for this technical position except that I am familiar with the department’s work flow.  One-third of the way through and thankfully I have yet to actually do what I was hired to do and am dealing with a lot of cases because a senior person in the office took an unexpected early retirement.   I am learning a whole lot and for the most part is content with the work. 

How much dough am I making?

When we first spoke and I asked about compensation I was told it wasn’t set yet but would be in the $28-$36 range.  When we later spoke to solidify things the boss offered me $25 per hour stating the they didn’t know how the budget would be then and that was what they could offer me.  I responded that $25 was way outside the range and asked for a $3 increase to $28 so the figure will at least fit the parameters first quoted me.  I didn’t hear anything about whether it was $25 or $28 until I started and found out it will be $28.  I also requested flexibility with my hours.  I have been going in everyday for the most part but I am planning to work one day from home.  Also, some days I will work six hours and then another day I will work 11 hours.   I need this flexibility because I am taking classes…science classes. Yuck! Which brings us to why I am spending more than what I am earning. 

So, let’s do the math real quick.  

• $28/per hour X 35 hours/per week = $980 and after takes we are looking at $734 /per week
• $734 X 4 pay periods for August = approximately $3k.

August 2010 = $2.936    (budget breaker – tuition)

September 2010 = $2.936     (budget breaker – ticket for Christmas abroad; trip to visit friend)

October 2010 = $3,690  (no budget breaker expected)

My first month in the “real world” and I am going to be spending more than I am earning.  The real culprit is, once again, education to the tune of $2,700-ish for two science classes.  I ended up renting the lecture texts and buying the lab manuals.  I haven’t bought a parking permit and I am trying to do without it for now.

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.

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.

I had lunch with an attorney from the General Counsel’s office at my internship site and I ran over some of my plans with her.  The current plan is to get a non-legal regulatory job and then use that experience to get a legal job.  I told her I knew going the non-legal path first would make everything a little bit more difficult but if I wanted to avoid gaps in my resume, I should take a non-legal job for 1-2 years. 

 The attorney told me that going the non-legal route is not only makes obtaining a legal position down the road difficult but it is also a highly risky path to take.  She said she had seen too many lawyers get stuck in non-legal positions and advised me to proceed with caution.  Also, my legal skills would get shoddy from disuse.  According to her, a law school graduate becomes a lawyer by doing legal work and getting feedback from other lawyers.  It took her three years to feel competent in her skills as a junior lawyer.  Integral to that transformation from law student to lawyer was doing legal work and having feedback from lawyers. 

 I also discussed with her another problem with pursuing a non-legal job.  Your colleagues can feel intimidated by you.  I am already experiencing this at my internship site. 

 A lot of things she said was hard to swallow and the only consolation at the end of the meal was that she picked up the check.

I met an attorney and I told her about how I was on Plan C and she tooked at me and said “you don’t really want a job!” 

“What do you mean?  I want a job.” 

“No, you don’t.  If you really wanted a job then you would have also applied for state clerkships and you would have…”

Jane: “But, I don’t want to do state clerkships.”

“See, you don’t want a job.”

Jane: “No, I don’t want ANY job.”

“I would much rather you be in a position to turn down a job than have nothing.  You are working on plan A, then on plan B, now plan C.  By working on things consecutively, you are setting yourself up for failure.  You gotta have Plan’s A through Z and work on as many of them as possible.  You have to stagger your approach.  You have to do a full force job search none of this oh, I think I will like this.  I need you to spend at least 2 hours a day looking for a job.” 

Jane: “Two hours a day?!”

 ”There’s 168 hours in a week.  What?  You don’t have two hours to spent searching for jobs?” 

Jane: “I can try to find two hours.”

“And, you can’t be egotistical.  This is not the job market for that.  I graduated from a top law school and worked at some of the best firms.  I applied for 150 jobs last month.  Guess how many calls I got?  I got 4 interviews.  In any other market, my resume would have been snatched up but not in this market.” 

And…

I met this attorney on Friday.  Before then, I didn’t think this consecutive job searching was a bad thing although I knew it wasn’t the best way to go about it.  In some ways she is right about the fact that I don’t want a job.  I don’t want any job just to say that I have a job.  I would much rather leave the legal field behind and jump into something else rather than trying to make my way through a dead end profession where even a former Skadden associate like this attorney can’t find a job based on her superb qualifications.   But, I am thankful for this encounter because it did force me to sit down and make a list of A through Z options to pursue after graduation.  And, it did make me start spending 2 hours each day starting yesterday.

I am currently on Plan C.

Plan A was to get a job at the firm that I worked as a summer associate at.  The attorney in charge of the summer program told me that I was getting an offer, so I didn’t look at alternatives.  Towards mid to late August, I found out that I was no-offered.

Plan B was to apply for a federal clerkship position.  I was behind in the application process because I abandoned it as soon as I was told about the offer, but somehow I got my applicated together and applied.  I got one invitation to interview from a judge.  He said that he had 600 applications for his one position and of that 600 he was interviewing 20.    I wasn’t the one person out of twenty who ultimately ended up with the position. 

Plan C  I decided to go with my current internship site because I believed I was more likely to obtain an entry level position with this organization than the internship offer from the more prestigious governmental agency.  I applied for two positions with this organization.  I reached out to a recruiter and she informed me competition was stiff these days with each position getting 300 to 600 applications.   If a position with this prospective employer doesn’t work work out then I need to consider alternatives. 

Readers: What, if any, mistakes am I making with my job search?  

Destination:  Millionairehood

Departure: 2008 – Age 24 

Arrival: 2028 – Age 44

Speed: Aggressive.

 My blogging friend Don and I decided to buddy-up and join J. Money’s Millionaire’s Club.  It is an e-club for prospective millionaires.  The only requirement is that you make the committment and list the steps you will take to achieve your goal. Right now, since I haven’t landed a job yet I have no idea about my earning power but I am going to estimate conservatively and give myself 18 more years to achieve my goal.  I plan to become a millionaire by doing the following things:

1. Develop multiple income streams.
2. Diversify my career.   
3. Invest wisely for retirement.
4. Live below my means.
5. Give back to the community.  

Read the rest of this entry »

Update on the Externship

My externship work is going well.  See my post Getting in the Game for more details about my externship site choice.  I am learning a lot and I am in the process of reworking my resume and cover letter to apply for a regulatory position within the organization.  My boss told that me that managers hate to hire lawyers because after getting one or two years of experience they leave the position quickly in pursuit of better things.  

I went straight through undergrad to grad school and then to law school.  I have no professional experience other than working for Big Law firms during the summer.  For the first time, I am working outside of a law firm context with non-attorneys.  It is a whole new world for me.   Here, are a few things that stood out to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post, I pointed out that I made a difficult yet strategic decision.  The difficult decision was between two externship choices.  Internship 1 was a regulatory externship where I would get to do legal work.  Internship #2 was also with a regulatory body but the internship would not be legal but it would be more related to my Master’s degree.   I was hoping to do both internships but I was told that I could do only one because to do both would be a conflict of interest. 

I had to make a decision about which internship to go with.  If I am only thinking about the short-term then the best choice would be internship #1 because it is a legal internship that would relate to the kind of courses I am taking right now.  Internship #1 is a highly desirable experience for a law student.   Internship #2 offeres regulatory work which isn’t strictly legal.  It also offered a smaller department to work in and a director who seemed eager to mentor incoming externs. 

I chose internship #2 and here’s why. 

 Mentoring – I felt that internship #2 had a director who was more focused on mentoring.  As a recipient of really good mentoring from many of my current and former mentors I strongly believe in it.  I need to have an ally or a “true fan” on my corner.   Having a mentor can smooth the road to attaining many goals.   I need to be very careful about that crucial “first job” of my career and I can see myself being part of this organization and growing within in it.    My director knows that I turned down a very sweet legal offer for the chance to work with her.  Coming in to an organization with a favorable impression is golden. 

I mentioned in my last post that I needed to get in the game.   By getting an externship I am on the sidelines watching the game closely.  My goal now is to make a move from the sidelines to the actual field and get in the game.  In other words, I need to land a job here. 

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