Those of you who don’t work in the legal field may not be familiar with AboveTheLaw, a law gossip website. (I know! Dorkitude at its finest! I also read a Supreme Court watch blog! I am too cool for words!)
Anyway, ATL used to be largely a place where lawyer-on-lawyer weddings were reported, and where law firm sex scandals first broke, or where you could hear the best stories about summer associates getting wasted and doing stupid things. These days, though, ATL is widely-read by people looking for news of the latest round of lawyer layoffs. While there are doubtless many people who take some pleasure in watching pompous BigLaw associates tumble, I derive no joy from this news. These are my friends (some of them), and losing your job sucks no matter what your industry.
But it’s not just layoffs. Many firms are delaying start dates for their incoming class of associates, and this has led to some interesting new developments. As this story and others explain, many firms are offering their incoming associates substantial sums of money – $5000 a month from some firms, others $75,000 a year – to go work for a non-profit. It’s not quite the $160,000 they’d have made as first year BigLaw associates, but it’s nothing to scoff at.
On the one hand, I think this is great. Non-profit legal agencies are chronically underfunded, and in times like these the need for their services is even greater. Programs like this essentially give these agencies much-needed help for free. Win-win.
On the other hand, and I don’t want to be a total grouch about this, I feel a little miffed. Getting a non-profit legal job out of law school in ordinary times is hard, often way harder than getting a firm job. In tough economic times its even harder. I worked my ass off to get my job, and I know several excellent public service-minded lawyers who struggled even harder than I did in the job market. It’s hard not to feel a little grumpy that these BigLaw associates, some of whom initially turned up their noses at doing poverty work, are now getting paid (literally) twice as much as I am to do it while they wait for their firm position to open up.
But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to provide a very few quick tips for any laid-off or deferred law firm associate types who may suddenly find themselves on the public interest job market. I’ve seen a couple of these resumes already, I will doubtless see more, and I can already identify some mistakes that I’ve seen multiple people make.
Pseudo’s hot tips for lawyers who suddenly find themselves on the non-profit job market:
1. You should probably be able to say why you want to work here beyond “my firm is paying me if I can find some non-profit work.” We like free labor, we do, but we’d like to see some indication that you are actually at least kinda sorta interested in the work we do. You don’t need to have lots of experience in public interest (though that’s a huge plus), but you do need to show that you’re interested in learning and doing a good job with the kind of work we do. If you aren’t, it’s not really worth it for us to bring you on board, free or not.
2. Don’t tell us the name of the fancypants designer who made your suit. And probably leave the Tiffany cufflinks at home.
3. Actually, there is no 3.
Really, that’s it! Seriously! Not many tips, but you’d be amazed how many people blow it on #1. Please think about the story you want to tell us before you send us your stuff! Find a way to explain how the corporate for-profit work you’ve done has given you skills that will help us and our clients. Please don’t just assume that we’ll be grateful to have such a stellar former BigLaw candidate as yourself offering to help out. Non-profits are often small, people skills matter, and we want to believe you’re not going to be a total pain in the ass to work with.
Good luck out there.
I kind of think you shouldn’t have shared these tips, because if somebody can’t figure that out on their own, you probably don’t want to hire them. You know?
We get people who apply to our firm who are like this too. Like the fact that they go to YLS should be enough, and they shouldn’t actually have to try in the interview. Then they don’t get hired and think it’s because they didn’t have the right connections. Barf.
It always surprises me when relatively smart people (let’s make the assumption that if you’ve made your way through law school, you are smarter than the average citizen) show such lethargy when it comes to their first job. It’s kind of like stories I’ve heard of recent undergrad graduates (well, before the latest “worst” we’ve seen in the market). These kids are make pretty grand assumptions about role, responsibility and pay. Too big for their britches, I might say. Sounds like the resumes you’re coming across are from people who really don’t get the whole non-profit sector at all. They think you’re all underfunded and sorely in need of help. Any help. No matter what the cost. When, in fact, sometimes free help just isn’t worth the time you’re organization would have to invest in getting them up to speed!
Ugh, I just said you’re instead of your. Shoot me.
TaxGirl asked on twitter how is this good for firms to pay $60K for associates to do public interest work? My gut instinct was WAH WAH, I work really f’ing hard in public interest and don’t make that much. These folks can waltz in and take the work and make so much more? But if I really consider, how does this help firms, I can think of at least one thing. My work is high volume, about 350 cases per six months. I am learning to handle cases the least amount of times necessary and to work very quickly. I think that is a skill that would be very handy in private practice. I find gov’t attorneys want to get work DONE and off their pend list, while private attorneys often “churn” the file, asking for status hearing after status hearing. The downside is of course, good enough for gov’t work. My outcomes don’t have to be perfect, just good enough. And on that note I better hop in the shower so I can drive 2 hours and 10 minutes to Southern Illinois for my 9:00 court call.
You know, as a 1L, this kind of warms my heart (not the layoffs part, my boyfriend is one of those bigfirm lawyers who was laid off this year, luckily he rebounded to another firm in less than a month but still, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone). Rather, it is nice to hear that other public interest people get miffed at this whole attitude that public interest work is a nice time-filler while you wait for your real job to open up. I came to law school after already working in the nonprofit sector, my resume clearly id’s me as a public interest kid, and I got my dream job for this summer working for a domestic violence/sexual assault nonprofit. Everyone else’s reaction? “Oh yeah, I heard it was going to be hard to get a firm job this summer.” No! I want to do this! This is my first choice! So aggravating.
I wasn’t burned by it this interview season personally, but I know several other public interest-minded kids who are left jobless because people who would have taken firm jobs are turning to public interest jobs since firms aren’t hiring, and because their grades are higher they are getting the job, despite not having any experience or passion for the work they will be doing. That seems…wrong somehow. Every nonprofit I’ve ever worked for has always needed help, and cheap help is even better, but apathetic help never seemed to really work out in the long run.
After going to a granola law school to do public interest, and taking almost another three years to pass the bar, I have interviewed and been rejected by both the civil legal services agency and the public defender office where I live. So when I read about these kinds of trends among big-firm types, it does bad things for my blood pressure.