Go to law school?

[Anonymous]

Good god, NO. Kids from the top schools aren't getting jobs. No one's going to hire a 38-year old grad from American.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i find it hard to believe any lawyer in this area hasn't heard of miles, ober, or saul ewing. they are all full-service regional firms (couple hundred attys apiece). granted, they are much more maryland than they are DC, but i know ober and miles have DC offices (not sure about saul ewing).

NP and I have no offing clue what you're talking about. I'm pretty familiar with law firms in this (and other) areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OOOOOOOOOOH you are impressive! A FUCKING CLERKSHIP? NO WAY! Of course you haven't heard of those lousy ass Maryland firms. You were busy, like, CLERKING and working at an ACTUAL large firm.

This is why i have zero friends who are lawyers and still hang out with my friends from high school. You sound like such a fucking douche. When you are hanging around with your buddies (this is a hypothetical, so bear with me), do you constantly try to one-up them or point out when they are wrong about something? Do you have a license plate that says some shit like FNRTHGS (because, you know, you "enjoy the finer things in life")?

OP? lol. NP here but whoever this PP is has some major issues. I think the other PP was just pointing out that he/she has varied experience. Yikes you have a lot of anger issues. Scary

not PP here and the reply was over the top, but that poster did not seem like s/he was just pointing out his/her "varied experience." mentioning a clerkship and "actual large firm" were pretty clearly bragging points. not the kind of person i'd want to know.

That's not how I read it at all. The poster wasn't bragging. The nutjob "ooooh you are so impressive" poster had pre-emptively claimed that anyone who practiced actual law would have heard of this firm, so the reply poster listed indications that he or she really was an attorney with actual experience. That's where the "actual" law firm language came from; it wasn't bragging, it was a caveat that followed from the nutjob's post.

The reason "why" that person has "zero friends who are lawyers" is because he or she is putting the worst possible spin on what other people with law degrees say. That's not the other lawyers' fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OOOOOOOOOOH you are impressive! A FUCKING CLERKSHIP? NO WAY! Of course you haven't heard of those lousy ass Maryland firms. You were busy, like, CLERKING and working at an ACTUAL large firm.

This is why i have zero friends who are lawyers and still hang out with my friends from high school. You sound like such a fucking douche. When you are hanging around with your buddies (this is a hypothetical, so bear with me), do you constantly try to one-up them or point out when they are wrong about something? Do you have a license plate that says some shit like FNRTHGS (because, you know, you "enjoy the finer things in life")?

OP? lol. NP here but whoever this PP is has some major issues. I think the other PP was just pointing out that he/she has varied experience. Yikes you have a lot of anger issues. Scary

That was the point. The clerkship was a long time ago, not generally mentionable even in work settings. The point was that pp didnt believe it was possible to not have heard of these firms, but i have not. I did not hear of them when I was in law school, when I was working at a court, when I was working at a firm, nor when I was working in government. My practice has been fully DC based though. In the DC market, University of Maryland is not a player, and that is way more so now as schools are digging deeper than the pools to get people to pay the tuition.

I do know a couple old school Maryland grads who are pretty good government attorneys, so I'm not trying to knock the school as much as warn of the projectory of future grads before they get themselves in deep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i find it hard to believe any lawyer in this area hasn't heard of miles, ober, or saul ewing. they are all full-service regional firms (couple hundred attys apiece). granted, they are much more maryland than they are DC, but i know ober and miles have DC offices (not sure about saul ewing).

NP and I have no offing clue what you're talking about. I'm pretty familiar with law firms in this (and other) areas.

Haven't heard of them either. That's not a knock on them. I'm sure they're a good firm, I've jusy never come across them. Before I went to law school, I hadn't heard of Covington & Burling or WilmerHale either. I think we tend to run in smaller social circles than we think, so its easy to assume that everything that is a big part of our life must be known by anyone else with similar credentials.

[Anonymous]

OP isn't getting into UMD, so all the discussion is a moot point. she is a definite contender for UDC or Baltimore. Maybe Catholic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i find it hard to believe any lawyer in this area hasn't heard of miles, ober, or saul ewing. they are all full-service regional firms (couple hundred attys apiece). granted, they are much more maryland than they are DC, but i know ober and miles have DC offices (not sure about saul ewing).

Grew up in the DC area with a Big Law father and worked in DC at a Big Law firm for over a decade. I'm familiar with Miles & Stockbridge. Well regarded firm. Not familiar with the other two. However, my practice area didn't tend to overlap with local/regional firms, so it's simply a matter of the business worlds not intersecting.

[Anonymous]

the fact that many here have never heard of those very good firms just shows the BigLaw blinders they have on. You can have a great career, very rewarding, making a lot of money without killing yourself, working at local regional firms. I'd much rather (and by "much", I mean MUCH MUCH MUCH) be an equity partner at a regional firm, making $400K and billing 1,400 hours a year for good local clients, then be killing myself as a senior counsel in BigLaw billing 2,200 hours with zero job security. There are jobs other than BigLaw. You just need to be business generator and a self-starter.

[Anonymous]

No, I think the reason I've never heard of them is because I don't happen to do any work they are involved in, and not because of some insecurity you're projecting on to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP isn't getting into UMD, so all the discussion is a moot point. she is a definite contender for UDC or Baltimore. Maybe Catholic?

The last UDC grad I met, we hired as a temporary, hourly paralegal (maybe making 40k?, we paid the temp agency 60k, so it depends how much they took off of the top). The other (non-JD) paralegals ran circles around her. We terminated her contract within a few months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the fact that many here have never heard of those very good firms just shows the BigLaw blinders they have on. You can have a great career, very rewarding, making a lot of money without killing yourself, working at local regional firms. I'd much rather (and by "much", I mean MUCH MUCH MUCH) be an equity partner at a regional firm, making $400K and billing 1,400 hours a year for good local clients, then be killing myself as a senior counsel in BigLaw billing 2,200 hours with zero job security. There are jobs other than BigLaw. You just need to be business generator and a self-starter.

Is that you again??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a large local firm (so not as impressive as the DC office of a national form) and the rules for recruiting from local schools was that we did not look at any resumes from AU, Catholic or Maryland. We did on campus recruiting at GW, GT and Mason, with the rules that up to 5 people could be invited for a full interview from GT, 5 from GW and 1 from Mason. Typically they wanted people who had GPAs that were close to 4.0 as possible (thought I think GT had some unusual grading system). Bottom line, prior work experience was not a factor in getting an interview.

your firm is dumb. UMaryland Law is first tier.

The school that has the largest representation at the firm is Harvard. The four schools always represented in a typical summer associate class are: Harvard, Georgetown, GW, and UVa. After that you generally have a mix - Yale, Chicago, University of Michigan, Howard, NYU, Duke, William and Mary, Cornell, Mason.

The firm is full of snobs when it comes to recruiting. While they don't recruit at "lower tier" schools many of us ended up at the firm (post clerkship or lateral hires) and being elected to partnership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the fact that many here have never heard of those very good firms just shows the BigLaw blinders they have on. You can have a great career, very rewarding, making a lot of money without killing yourself, working at local regional firms. I'd much rather (and by "much", I mean MUCH MUCH MUCH) be an equity partner at a regional firm, making $400K and billing 1,400 hours a year for good local clients, then be killing myself as a senior counsel in BigLaw billing 2,200 hours with zero job security. There are jobs other than BigLaw. You just need to be business generator and a self-starter.

Agreed -- which is why I suggested she look at a school in the midwest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the fact that many here have never heard of those very good firms just shows the BigLaw blinders they have on. You can have a great career, very rewarding, making a lot of money without killing yourself, working at local regional firms. I'd much rather (and by "much", I mean MUCH MUCH MUCH) be an equity partner at a regional firm, making $400K and billing 1,400 hours a year for good local clients, then be killing myself as a senior counsel in BigLaw billing 2,200 hours with zero job security. There are jobs other than BigLaw. You just need to be business generator and a self-starter.

Agreed -- which is why I suggested she look at a school in the midwest.

Check out the employment rates!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you try to get a paralegal position in an employment law practice group. Your experience is relevant and you will get a taste of the more "legal" side of what you already do.

OP here. Ideally, I would aim at getting a job at one of the national employment firms -- Jackson Lewis, Seyfarth Shaw, Littler Mendolsohn are some of the ones I am aware of. I think my work experience is relevant and should outweigh any issues with the rank of my school or how I do in law school. I just have to get an interview. You have all given me something to think about, though. Even when I get hired at a big firm I may hate it and it doesn't look like I will get any money from a school to attend so I will owe a lot... #decisionsdecisions

Littler has a reputation of aggressively pushing associates out. Many of them land in good in-house positions, but if your goal is a law firm life, that's probably not a place to make a long-term career. On the upside, I hear the work is good.