When I graduated from law school, I was burned out. And I’d learned a bit about the law firm part of the legal profession, but in short order, was about to learn how totally messed up it is so much more. For you see, Dear Reader, I did not go to a Top 15 (T15) law school, from which graduates essentially have a host of job options — high-paying and otherwise.
My law school was about in the middle of the pack in a sham major national “ranking.” And as I came to fully appreciate, unless you are a T15 grad, or near the top of your class (which I, ummmm, was not) at some, but not all, of the other law schools, you will compete with the sea of law school graduate humanity to get a job. Any job.
A firm “no”
So I sought me one of those scant jobs. I quickly discovered that not only was I in an over-saturated market, but that the salaries for a great many of these coveted jobs offered the princely sum of $25,000–$35,000/year. All you’d have to do for this only-in-your-dreams remuneration was sell your soul take on stressful job, doing low-end personal injury, commercial, or insurance defense litigation. And work long hours. And come in on weekends. Some more transparent law firms even put all this information in their job posting.
Between the burnout and dismal prospects, and the fact that I wasn’t blind to the fact that the majority of lawyers are unhappy in their jobs, I was not, shall we say, overly eager to get a job as a practicing attorney. Luckily for me, a law school friend got a nonpracticing job in the legal industry and told me about a temp position at her employer. As my choices were to either take the job or keep burrowing down a rabbit hole with the good chance of no enviable end, I jumped at the opportunity took the job.
The temp job wasn’t bad and allowed me to barely and painfully pay my bills. Notably, the wage was within the range of what I’d likely have made as a practicing attorney. It had the added benefit of allowing me to see job postings within the organization as soon as they were posted, and to play the insider’s game of getting more information on them and to informally network and lay the groundwork for getting one of the posted positions. And that’s what I did. Several months later, I secured a full-time position.
A workingman’s game
While I recognized the achievement as significant at the time, I have a greater appreciation for it in retrospect. First, I got a job. No small feat. Second, the job had a decent salary (it paid more than I made as a temp, and I got benefits). I later learned that many of my friends who were practicing law were making less than me. Third, it was a job in the legal field, which allowed me to avoid being tainted with the outsider label, which, in this industry, can be especially disqualifying. And fourth, it was through this job that I found my next job, which offered a significant pay bump.
So, Dear Reader, look at any opportunity for what it is: an opportunity. I don’t know if many of my friends would have taken a temp job. But it worked out well for me, and it launched a pretty good career as an ancillary worker in the legal industry.
