Is it all a lie?
Everyone likes to say, “Don’t worry, you’ll get a job when you’re done with school,” but the people who say that all graduated very high in their classes and got great jobs. They seem to assume I’ll do well. Since that hasn’t happened after this last semester brought my grades way down, what now? At what point do I start to worry? What kinds of things do I do to make it more likely that I really will have gainful employment pain at or more than what I currently make? Sure, I’d love to be able to say I could take a large hit and take one of the many $40k public interest or government positions, but the reality is that not only will I still have a mortgage to pay a few years from now, but also student loans that will hit the instant I stop attending school. I need to face reality and plan accordingly. I see smart people like Certifiable who graduated from a top 50-ranked school with honors and a local clerkship and still didn’t find work until after she passed the bar, even then only on a contract basis. So what tips the scales? How do you not panic completely? Is it worth it when you aren’t in the top 10% (or, to be blunt, even the top 50% at this point)?
EDITED TO ADD: I don’t mean to be a whiny-pants here. My question is really for those of you out there (are you out there?!?) who weren’t at the top of your class, how did you make up for it? What did you do to distinguish yourselves?
January 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I know money is important, But it is worth so much more than just money. Keep your eye on the prize.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Well actually it *is* somewhat about the money. What exactly would you say the prize is if not at least the same amount of money I make now. I don’t need a six-figure salary — not even close! But I do need to be able to actually work as an attorney and still be able to pay my student loans. I’m the main breadwinner and my salary, health insurance, etc., are essential to our ability to cover our monthly expenses. I don’t see that changing, especially as I take on more debt for school and have paid $3-5k on average the past two years out of pocket (not including premiums) for healthcare.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Mine your contacts as much as possible. When it comes time to interview, send out personalized cover letters or emails with your resume attached to people you know in law firms. Mention a person you know well in the cover letter to the recruiting coordinators of a firm. Look up alumni at firms you’re interested in and contact them- send an email or call, ask them about their job, the firm, etc. All it takes in interviews is to get someone to bat for you- someone who will say, hey- this person is great, let’s keep them in our pile of callbacks, offers, etc. I was amazed at how many interview offers I got from cocktail hours, holiday socials, and just generally keeping up with people I had met in the past. And don’t be afraid to follow-up with people you’ve interviewed with or sent a resume to. I’m terrible about doing that sometimes, but I think it makes a difference.
Good luck! I’m sorry about this semester, but what matters are your grades overall, so if you show improvement, it’ll be okay.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Although not in law school yet
, I certainly understand your what your saying. I share the same concern as a prospective law student that has a family to support.
Is it worth it if your not attending a Tier 3 or 4 school and not in the top percentile of your class. And for me I already make a fairly hefty salary and what that means for me after law school. I am looking to be a part-time student like you, do you feel that working contributed to your ability to do well or as well as you wanted?
Not really knowing how this all works I think you will do fine. Your smart, experienced, helpful and personable. I’m sure employers will agree, and I’ll be watching for inspiration. Hang in there!
January 9th, 2008 at 2:55 am
I’m not going to sugar coat it — it’s hard. And you will be floored by how much those loans really cost each month.
Having not tried for a typical firm job out of school, all I can say is that I had friends who had a very hard time of it - the jobs weren’t there locally. I’m looking now, post-baby, but it’s slightly different with 2+years experience, and I haven’t started truly searching in earnest (day care waiting list — any day now). My advice would be to narrow where you spend your energy looking — go in there and be specific. And use your lawyer bosses to do networking for you, too, as much as possible!!!
January 9th, 2008 at 4:29 am
That’s the one thing you have over others; you know people in the field.
The downside is, I imagine it’ll be hard to get them to stop seeing you in your current role. I don’t know how to handle that.
Guerrilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams. Its a good book — somewhat common-sense-y (network! join the local bar association!) — but frankly, with no exposure to the field in my personal life, I needed common-sense-y. And she talks a lot about how to deal with low grades (don’t apologize for them, emphasize upward trends, how to deal with special circumstances, etc.).
I am terrified I won’t have a job when this is done. But the book made it seem do-able. Hard work, terrifying, but do-able.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I wish I could give you better news. It’s definitely difficult these days, especially if you go to a non Top Tier school and didn’t quite break into the top half of your class (which is my case). I was extremely naive and didn’t think I needed to worry much about jobs until I graduated, figuring something would come up between graduation and passing the bar. But you can still learn from our examples. Definitely get “real law” experience, working for firms instead of as a research assistant or intern, cultivate a good batch of writing samples, and start talking to real lawyers no matter how scary or unpalatable that may seem.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I think I’ll go get the Guerilla book. I used to date a Guerilla back before I knew that wasn’t a good thing. Wicked sexy guy… Anyway, couldn’t hurt to get some practical, hands-on advice. I have no problem approaching attorneys. Heck, I even met with a judge twice while applying to law school who, between our two meetings, was appointed to a federal judgeship!!! Now I just need to follow up on the awesome contacts she handed me. It’s just been a bit rough being sick and stressed. The problem is getting anything extra done while I’m actually in law school. That and finding the right contacts. My husband’s current sucky immigration attorney is one of the ones I had reached out to and look how that went! Argh.
Thank you all for the advice and reassurance.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It’s nice to see so many honest opinions here. I’ll be the first to admit that I only got my job because of my husband’s connections. When I did the job search in LS, I had almost no luck. I finally found a weird job with a mortgage company, but decided to forego it to spend time time with my newborn. But on the other hand, now that I am a few years out, and gainfully employed, I find that many of my friends who were unemployed upon leaving LS, are now in jobs they like or see potential (some outside the law field). So, there is HOPE.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
This topic is really close to my heart, so please excuse me if this is a really, really long reply to your question. I’ve gone a completely unorthodox route with my career (doing research overseas and currently pursuing research grants for after graduation), however, I spent a great deal of time trying to break into the New York City law firm market. (No, I’m not masochistic, NYC is my hometown and I wanted to return there.)
As I think I mentioned to you before, the fall semester of my 2L year my mom was diagnosed with cancer a week before finals, and I ended up with a D+ and a C. This was enough to bring my already-tenuous class ranking to well below the 50% mark. Overcoming this has been a huge struggle because, honestly, most employers don’t give a shit about anything but your grades. In fact, my ten years of work experience were more of a handicap to me than anything (firms say they like prior work experience, but in reality they prefer maleable people they can mold into uber-uptight associates ala “The Firm”).
That said, I believe there are things you can do to overcome a bad ranking. First, just to make yourself feel better, go to US News & World Report and get the stats for your school. There should be something that says what percentage of students from your school are employed nine months after graduation. Most schools are above 90%. When you look at these numbers you might be tempted to think, “Well most of them probably make less than $40k per year.” However, US News also keeps stats on how much grads from your school earn, although they may want to charge you for that info. Your career services office may be able to give it to you for free. But also keep in mind that many low paying law jobs can be EXTREMELY hard to get (i.e., clerkships, DA jobs and public defender jobs) and often go to the people at the top of the class, which can negatively skew your perception of how much you can expect to earn.
My second, and probably best, piece of advice is to be flexible. Even though you have a family and it’s really hard to move, you may want to be prepared to take a job in a different geographic area. If you don’t rule this possibility out, a whole world of lucrative jobs may open up for you.
Also, be flexible in the area of law you want to practice. Be willing to work in any field, but make sure employers think your ultimate goal is to work in whatever field their firm happens to specialize in or they’re currently interviewing for. Make up convincing reasons why you want to practice T&E, or adoption law, or tax law, or freaking circus law if that’s what they’re looking for. Look for things in your life that you can use to convince them you’re serious (”Uh, my uncle had six toes on his left foot and he joined the circus, and then got sued cause one of the toes was fake, and I’ve been interested in circus law ever since.”)
In your cover letters, give them a specific reason why you want to work in that area of law, and at their firm. Have your career services office edit the letter before you send it out.
Many people will disagree with this next piece of advice, but it worked for me. Storm-bomb the firms. If you send out 400 resumes, I guarantee you’ll get a job. If you think you don’t have time to carefully customize 400 cover letters, remember that getting a job is your top priority and is more important than, say, doing your class readings at the beginning of the semester. Also, after the first 50 or so letters, it gets really easy.
Finally, there are some things you can do to help your law school career. First, getting on a journal is really important and you seem to be on the right track with that. However, getting published is even better than getting on a journal. If you get on a journal, work your ass off on your article and do whatever you can to get it published. If your journal won’t publish it, submit it to every other freaking law journal in the country. This can be done electronically and is pretty easy. Also, submitting your journal article or class papers to legal writing contests is helpful. If employers see that you’ve been published or won a legal writing contest, they automatically (if erroneously) think that a) you’re a good writer, b) you’re smart, and c) you specialize in whatever topic you happened to get published in. One way or another, getting published or winning a contest helps you stand out from the crowd.
My final piece of advice is about your schedule. Law firms SAY they’re interested in the classes you took, but they’re MORE interested in your GPA and class ranking. You can take corporate tax, business organizations, ten contracts classes and international transactions, but if you end up in the bottom 20% of your class they’re not going to give a rat’s ass. However, if your law school offers underwater basket weaving and you take it and end up at the top of your class, I guarantee you’ll get a job. Employers glance at your class selection, but carefully scrutinize your GPA and ranking. What’s more important? Be prepared to answer in an interview why you took the classes you did, but it’s not a make-or-break point. Make something up.
As far as finding law school classes that boost your GPA, I recommend looking for classes that are cross-listed with other schools (such as the med school or public policy school), or that allow undergrads in the class. These are not well-advertised but exist at almost every school. Also, talk to people in the upper classes at your law school, especially 3L’s, who might have advice about classes they got an “easy A” in. Finally, look at the requirements for the class. Is the final worth 100% of your grade? DON’T TAKE THAT CLASS. They’re always the hardest ones. Do you have to write something called a “reaction paper”? This is a good sign that the class might be, um, kind of easy.
Again, I’m sorry this post is so long, but I’ve had to work really, really hard to overcome my class ranking and my heart goes out to other people in the same predicament. Feel free to e-mail me if there’s anything I can do to help!
January 9th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Seriously you’re going to kill me for posting so much, but I have two more quickies. First, I agree with LL about the connections. They’re really important and probably how you’ll end up with your job. However, my old firm connections hurt me more than they helped me. Theiry mentality was “Once a secretary, always a secretary.” But other, random, connections did help me a great deal.
Second, some low paying jobs are gateways to ENORMOUSLY high paying jobs. If you want to work in trial law, spending the first two years out of law school in a DA or public defender’s office makes you extremely valuable to employers. People with a couple years of trial experience are very highly sought-after in the legal job market. If you want to work in immigration, spending two years with ICE will basically guarantee a position in a private law firm. Sure the jobs don’t pay worth crap, but if you use the LRAP and the government’s new provisions for reducing loans for people who work in public interest, you’ve basically broken even. Then you transition to massively-lucrative firm job. End of story.
I’m totally going to shut up now.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
As we mentioned by others above, your contacts are really important. I suggest networking as much as possible. One avenue of networking that I think is really untapped by law students is your local bar association. For example, in Illinois our state bar association (we are a voluntary bar) has student memberships for relatively inexpensive sums. It also has great benefits allowing you to attend many functions for free or at a greatly reduced cost.
This is a great way to meet practitioners. I have met some great people by serving on bar association committees and attending events. I wished that I had started doing this when I was in law school.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Those stats about employment nine months after graduation are bunk. They’ve found out that most schools treat a non-response to those surveys as being in the employed category (why I don’t know… it makes no statistic sense). Additionally the $140K salaries of the top 10-20% will throw off the median salary. There are plenty of people making $40K per year with a law degree. These are harsh truths, but I wish I knew them in 1L instead of post-graduation.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:20 am
I’m having the same fears about finding employment. I think most law students, like myself, are used to getting all A’s and some B’s in their undergrad school. It’s been so hard for me to get used to C’s!
I think the most helpful thing I am doing right now for my career goals is working as an intern at a small law firm. The firm has only two attorneys and I kind of knew one of them from my previous job. No one I talk to has ever heard of the firm, but since it is small, I get hands-on involvement in almost everything. I’m just going to hang onto this job and hope building my skills will get me a job that I like.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I recently posted about this subject on my website as well. One thing you must remember is that for every 1 person in the top 10% of the class there are 9 people in the other 90%
To say that only 1 out of 9 lawyers in this country do well is absurd. It is equally absurd to think that there will not be an abundance of clients for the 90% of lawyers in America that did NOT graduate in the top 10% of the class.
People sometimes confuse being in the top 10% of your class at law school with being a great lawyer. This is simply not true. While some of the top 10% may be great lawyers, it is not solely because of their class rank. All being in the top 10% signifies is that you are a great *law student*. There is much more than academia to being a great lawyer.
So if your only goal is to be a great law student then by all means rest on you laurels if you are in the top 10%. But if your main goal is to be a great lawyer then continue striving to do your best in school, because this will prepare you to really shine when you are finally practicing. If you are good with people and have a nice personality clients will not care what your rank was. Of course they will care if you have no idea what you are doing
January 11th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I must respectfully disagree with Larry. While the legal profession is not the hellhole that some online forums would have us all believe, it is certainly not easy by a long shot to get an entry-level attorney job after you graduate (if you don’t already have one lined up) - and that includes those that pay less than $40K/year. I live in a city where temp jobs are plentiful, but the work is boring and doesn’t enhance your skill set at all. If you are outside this city (and New York, I believe), the chances of finding meaningful employment as a long-term temp work are hundreds of times worse. Of course, no one ever went to law school thinking they’d make a living off doing document review, but some do indeed. The frightening part is that some people who work with me went to much higher ranked schools than mine, and in the area (George Washington, American, Washington and Lee, etc), and are still having as much trouble as I am finding full-time, meaningful employment.
The good news is this: you are still in school, and while in school, employers will adore you. This is for several reasons, but most often it’s because students are willing to work for cheaper wages than licensed attorneys (we do have to pay our loans, after all). So look for internships and fellowships and volunteer positions if you have to at firms where you can see yourself working after law school. You want to do immigration law, so send your resume to every immigration law firm you can find. A part-time student in my class (graduated after me by a semester) ended up working one summer at a law firm downtown and now has a firm offer there after graduation, and I know her grades weren’t the best. I had two offers of employment post-graduation from the two places I clerked for, but chose to turn them down to move back to the city I loved. But my school’s reputation was largely regional (85% of graduates stay in the city and suburbs), so I don’t have the opportunity to network with alumni here as well. I’m struggling with the alumni network of my graduate program, because it wasn’t law related, and I will likely end up taking a non-lawyer position in my first graduate school field.
Long story short: if you are at a lower-ranked school and fall below the median class rank, you can start your own practice (a viable and respectable option, but it will take years to become profitable), or you can network your butt off while in law school and make connections to people who know your work so well that they will offer you a job after graduation. It’s not easy, but at least you are aware of the reality of the situation now, and not post-graduation. Good luck!
January 14th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Best advice ever: By the time you need a network, it will be too late to develop one. Develop that network NOW while you are in school. I know you are stressed, I know you have work to do, but when you are out of school and not working you will be stressed and have job hunting to do. I am a licensed attorney who thought once I got out of school and took the bar, I could focus my attention on finding a job then. I did pass the bar, and it is January and I am still looking for work. I have been networking since September, and my efforts did not really bear fruit until December or so. (i.e. I had finally met the people in positions that could actually help me). If I had been networking in my last year, I may have seen fruitful efforts paying off back in September or even have a job lined up. Just because you meet one person who doesn’t work out well does not mean your other networking contacts won’t work out well either. While I find the “Guerilla” book slightly annoying, it does have practical, useful advice. She hammers home the point the most important thing you can do is networking because when it comes right down to it, people hire people they like.
Hope this helps
January 14th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
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January 15th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I just came in on this post… but are you in larger city? Probably have better luck in a small town, but my method was to clerk at firms with less requirements gradewise but well connected partners. That way I met a lot of people, did a lot of networking, went to a lot of functions. Join some clubs, keep your resume circulating…. that type of thing. Concentrate on your high points and let the rest follow.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Thanks PTLAWMOM for posting this question, and to all who have responded. Great advice for those of us still in school. I am happy to say I started networking in my first year, and while my list is not as impressive as some, it exists. I have even received one call to ask me if I wanted to apply for a job my contact thought I’d like. (Pay was too low so I couldn’t accept, but still nice to be asked.) We have to believe we can do this…..others before us have and other that follow us will….but all the advice on how to do it right is wonderful!
February 7th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hi all, I just came upon this site and felt the urge to respond. I’m not only the mother of three, I am the grandmother of two. I decided to go back to school when my youngest was in 10th grade. I had to start at the bottom, meaning I didn’t graduate with my BA until May 2005. I was able to maintain a decent GPA in undergrad and I went to a really great University on full scholarship.
I’m a 3L in an “ok” NY law school. However, due to a series of family traumas, my GPA is pretty low. But on the upside of things have managed to land some pretty impressive internships with NGOs in Manhattan and in Asia. I got those jobs by sending my resume, not hearing anything, resending the resume with a flowery cover letter, calling to make sure they received my resume, etc. Finally, I got an interview and because they were impressed with my tenacity, personality, resume (the whole package) I was hired. I also received a fellowship with that low GPA and was selected to represent my school for a semester abroad in a new international program. (I was one of only two students chosen). I have also worked for an NGO during the school year. I have been able to beef up my resume and collect some awesome recommendations. I would continue to work for the NGO I am with now but there is just no funding in their budget for another staff attorney. So great things can be accomplished with a lower GPA.
I’m not really dismayed about employment prospects. I have many attorney friends who have graduated from top schools, bottom school, within the to 10% and the bottom 10%. All are currently gainfully employed. (However a couple of them aren’t completely satisfied with the type of law they are practicing). Some started their own firms with classmates, other are in small, medium, and large firms while others are in government or NGO positions.
Coming out of school with lower grades sucks but you will have your JD and you will get a job. Networking is certainly the way to go. Everyone cannot be at the top of their class. You would be surprised how many attorneys I know who had fantastic large firm jobs out of school but who only lasted in that atmosphere about a year. It’s not for everyone. I don’t know where I will end up (hopefully in the arena of human rights) but the job will come.
Good luck to all of us!