When I first started seriously looking for a
non-legal job, I reached out to a learned friend who I thought could
offer some guidance. I was generally wrong. One of the things he advised
me to do was look at “The Ladders” job search site. At the time, the
site promised to connect prospective employees with only employers
looking to hire candidates for positions that paid $100k or more.
The fallacy that led my friend to offer this errant advice was that he was under the impression that by virtue of my education, I “deserved” a job that paid such a princely sum. Don’t let this also cloud your thinking. Yes, Biglaw hires fresh faced law grads at well over a hundred large. Of course, once these young associate lateral to other positions after washing out of the big firm circuit, their salaries tend to fall considerably.
Biglaw pays big bucks because they’re competing over a relatively small pool of elite law students that will help maintain their prestigious image. Additionally, they work these students well beyond the normal work week and give them tedious, unpleasant tasks to complete. Few other companies have much interest in anyone with such credentials, and they therefore won’t pay such handsome wages for law school graduates.
In fact, as we’ve discussed, they usually don’t even want law school graduates at all – at least those without significant, recent non-legal experience.
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The fallacy that led my friend to offer this errant advice was that he was under the impression that by virtue of my education, I “deserved” a job that paid such a princely sum. Don’t let this also cloud your thinking. Yes, Biglaw hires fresh faced law grads at well over a hundred large. Of course, once these young associate lateral to other positions after washing out of the big firm circuit, their salaries tend to fall considerably.
Biglaw pays big bucks because they’re competing over a relatively small pool of elite law students that will help maintain their prestigious image. Additionally, they work these students well beyond the normal work week and give them tedious, unpleasant tasks to complete. Few other companies have much interest in anyone with such credentials, and they therefore won’t pay such handsome wages for law school graduates.
In fact, as we’ve discussed, they usually don’t even want law school graduates at all – at least those without significant, recent non-legal experience.
Keep Reading
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Thanks for some excellent advice, Esq. Never, although I wish you would take it a little bit farther. I always hear "go the internship route - you need to get experience on your resume." Given that the majority of grads I know have done about 5 unpaid internships by the time they have taken the bar (I myself did 3), I think the more pertinent info. is: how do I make something of my unpaid internships - how do I turn them into a job? I have interned at several places that I knew beforehand didn't have the capacity to hire me afterwards (they were public interest agencies with hiring freezes), but I took the internships to gain the valuable experience. I was hoping they would 'spruce up my resume.' Now, I am applying to places where I want to work, who have basically indicated they won't hire me unless I do yet another unpaid internship - this time with them.
ReplyDeleteI can't afford to do another unpaid internship! I seriously suffered financially during my last two internships and really hurt my credit rating. I work a minimum wage job and my priority is finding something that pays more. I just can't keep working from unpaid internship to unpaid internship.
So my question is: how do you turn all that internship experience into helping you get a paid job? It would be helpful if people understood that we don't need to be told to do internships - we are already doing several of those. All advice should take into consideration that most people reading are already doing that and need to be told how to get all that unpaid experience to work in their favor.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI have a question about your blog, do you think you could email me?
David