Attorney Moms-I need your help to see if I'm underpaid-from another JD Mom
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Anonymous
| Here's my story, I have a JD, LLM with 5 years experience, 3 of those in government. Haven't found an "attorney" job per say, but I'm a GS 14 at $106,000 and happy because I get to work from home. I truly believe that I can make more money and willing to make the move to another agency, to a private law firm or anything else as long as there's at least the flexibility of being able to work from home if not all the time, at least some of the time. I know some of you may have a job like this or may know certain agencies that are more "telecommute friendly" than others. Since I'm asking for help, I'd also like to share what I've recently found, I was recently told that the US Patent office lets their attorneys work not only from home, but from any state they choose from. This would be my dream scenario! I would love to have this type of job, but I'm not a Patent attorney, that is probably the only area that I wouldn't be able to practice since you need very specific experience. Anyway, please help me moms, if you know of any other government agencies or firms that let you telecommute, please share your experience. Or share with me what your currently salary and experience is so I can determine if I'm truly underpaid or not. I have a feeling that I am and would love to really make what I'm worth. |
Anonymous
| What is your area of law? |
Anonymous
| I recall having a conference call with a member of our OGC who called in from home. I'm at NIH. |
Anonymous
|
Telecommuting for more than GS14 as a lawyer just doesn't exist. Don't you think more
women would do it if that were the case? |
Anonymous
|
Typically the flex options available to attorneys in the government are either: (1) work from home one day per week (often after you've been at the agency for a year or two); or (2) increase to 9-10 hours per day four days a week and take a day entirely off.
That being said, at a lot of agencies, your supervisor doesn't care where you are or what you're doing as long as your assigned work gets done at the end of the day. Also, I know at least a dozen cases where an attorney wanted to move away from the agency's home office and the agency said "Stay on and just work from home at your new location." This is a feasible and not-at-all-rare outcome if you are a good employee. The major caveat to this is that those people were all with their current agencies for several years making themselves indispensable. I wouldn't expect the agency to agree to this deal for an attorney whose been there only 1-3 years. |
Anonymous
| You are paid just right for working at home. I have 12 years of experience, including many in Big Law, and I know many many people in various legal positions in DC. I work from home 3 days a week as a gs-14. There are very, very few higher paid positions that are that much working from home in the legal field, and the few that are often involve a lot of travelling. If you enjoy your job and need to work from home, stop second guessing. |
Anonymous
|
You could try to be a trademarks attorney at the PTO but you would have to start as a gs 11, or at most a twelve.
Sounds like you have a pretty good deal. Gs 15 s are hard to come by. Just keep applying to them if u want one. |
Anonymous
| A friend of mine works at the Patent office and he said it is pure grind and toil on the patents side because it is a production environment. The agency had to offer additional benefits such as work from home and flexible schedules because of retention problems, which was also bad for diversity. Even if you qualified, you would not be working as an attorney for those work from home positions because those are for the non-attorney examiners with technical backgrounds. |
Anonymous
| OP keep dreaming. You have it good, much better than most govt attorneys. |
Anonymous
Why do you "truly believe" this? Many attorney positions at government agencies top out at a GS 14, which is what you are now. Many of the ones that are 15s (DOJ etc) do not offer much telecommuting (1 day per week some sections, none at all others). |
Anonymous
| I think you are very fortunate to be making this amount working from home. I am not an attorney though. |
Anonymous
| OP here, thanks for sharing your experiences. I know a lot of people from my graduating class that make a lot more than I do, some almost triple and that's what makes me think... they do work long hours, but then so do I but they don't all have the flexibility I'm looking for and none of them are in DC, which is one of the most expensive cities to live in. My agency lets anyone work from home after about a year, if you don't perform, that privilege is taken away. I work all day and probably do the work of two, but I know I have a good situation and do love my job. |
Anonymous
| What agency? R they hiring? |
Anonymous
|
Lawyer mom here. You are not underpaid. If you want to make a lot more than what you make now, you will have to make major sacrifices.
I echo what others have said about the government. If you want to work from home more than 2 days a week, then you shouldn't expect much higher than a GS-14. I do have friends who are paid as GS-15s, but none of them work from home more than 1-2 days per week. I work at a firm and work from home a couple of days a week and make significantly more than you do. However, I earned this by staying at my firm for nearly 10 years and working incredibly hard and making partner. Now I can work from home on many days, but I still go in at least three days a week. It took a long time to get where I am; I don't know any women who started out working from home. I can't imagine a woman getting hired at my firm if asking up-front to work from home. Right now it sounds like you have a pretty sweet deal, even though I am sure you'd like to make more money. I assume you can get raises over the years and perhaps even work yourself up to a GS-15 level. If you really want to get paid the big bucks as a private lawyer, you are not going to do so working a whole lot from home, EXCEPT if you put in years of face time and made yourself indispensable prior to asking for the work from home benefit. It sounds to me like you do not want to do this at the point in your life, which makes complete sense to me. I think you should appreciate what you have. |
Anonymous
THIS. OP is delusional. Yes, you can earn much, much more -- but at a much greater cost. Meaning, no cush government job (and, yes, they are cush jobs because you never have thr threat of a gauntlet hanging over your head like you do in biglaw. Big $$ comes with big stress. Please leave your job, OP. I am sure the next person will appreciate how good you have it ($100k work from home with tenure!!!). Geez. |