GS-12 for attorney one year out of law school

[Anonymous]

With promotion to GS-15. Does this seem correct? Most of the GS13 jobs I see require additional experience. Just want to make sure that I am on target. Ive heard from others that I should be applying for GS-11 jobs, but that seems low!

[Anonymous]

GS-11 wouldn't be unusually low, but try for the 12 if you want. You can usually apply to both.

[Anonymous]

If you have a year of relevant work experience, a GS12 is possible.

[Anonymous]

GS-12 with a ladder to 15 is entry level for litigation positions (so mostly DOJ). Everything is else generally GS-11 with a ladder to 14, though there are plenty of exceptions. Avoid anything that doesn't ladder past 12. That usually signals a deadend job.

[Anonymous]

9:13 is 100% correct. The saving grace of litigating for the government is that you can become a non-supervisory GS-15 in just a few years.

It is extremely difficult for most new attorneys to make headway on their student loan debt on the GS-11 salary. Fed.gov needs to fix that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:13 is 100% correct. The saving grace of litigating for the government is that you can become a non-supervisory GS-15 in just a few years.

It is extremely difficult for most new attorneys to make headway on their student loan debt on the GS-11 salary. Fed.gov needs to fix that.

Please explain why it falls upon the taxpayer to fix someone's student debt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:13 is 100% correct. The saving grace of litigating for the government is that you can become a non-supervisory GS-15 in just a few years.

It is extremely difficult for most new attorneys to make headway on their student loan debt on the GS-11 salary. Fed.gov needs to fix that.

Please explain why it falls upon the taxpayer to fix someone's student debt?

It has nothing to do with the taxpayer fixing other peoples' debt any more than it does for any other professional in government. If salaries do not make sense balanced out against the qualifications those jobs require, there is no way to attract and retain qualified professionals. As a taxpayer, I'd much rather have someone who is motivated and qualified, as opposed to have government jobs be full of people who didn't have any better options. If you don't want to increase salaries than you should get involved in the movement to make tuition more affordable. And before you say it--no, law students are not merely paying for the cost of their education. The justification behind law school tuition has historically been that laws made a lot of money so law school students were milked for money that went to subsidize other parts of universities, especially research programs. This is still the case for most law schools, even though the salary correlation isn't true. It seems vastly unfair to me that a lawyer should make the same or less than a researcher in the sciences, when that lawyer paid through the nose for law school and delayed their lives because their tuition was going to provide a stipend (however small), labs, and health insurance for a student (and often their family) who was in a PhD program. If we continue to treat law students the way we do, we're going to end up with a lot of morons as lawyers. We may not need the quantity of lawyers we've historically had, but it's important to retain the good ones. Right now, smarter people are turning away from pursuing the profession but TTT schools (as Justice Thomas referred to them) are still going strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:13 is 100% correct. The saving grace of litigating for the government is that you can become a non-supervisory GS-15 in just a few years.

It is extremely difficult for most new attorneys to make headway on their student loan debt on the GS-11 salary. Fed.gov needs to fix that.

Please explain why it falls upon the taxpayer to fix someone's student debt?

It has nothing to do with the taxpayer fixing other peoples' debt any more than it does for any other professional in government. If salaries do not make sense balanced out against the qualifications those jobs require, there is no way to attract and retain qualified professionals. As a taxpayer, I'd much rather have someone who is motivated and qualified, as opposed to have government jobs be full of people who didn't have any better options. If you don't want to increase salaries than you should get involved in the movement to make tuition more affordable. And before you say it--no, law students are not merely paying for the cost of their education. The justification behind law school tuition has historically been that lawyers made a lot of money so law school students were milked for money that went to subsidize other parts of universities, especially research programs. This is still the case for most law schools, even though the salary correlation isn't true. It seems vastly unfair to me that a lawyer should make the same or less than a researcher in the sciences, when that lawyer paid through the nose for law school and delayed their lives because their tuition was going to provide a stipend (however small), labs, and health insurance for a student (and often their family) who was in a PhD program. If we continue to treat law students the way we do, we're going to end up with a lot of morons as lawyers. We may not need the quantity of lawyers we've historically had, but it's important to retain the good ones. Right now, smarter people are turning away from pursuing the profession but TTT schools (as Justice Thomas referred to them) are still going strong.

Fixed typo above.

[Anonymous]

Moreover, whenever a student defaults on her student loan debt, the federal taxpayer pays the tab; student loans are guaranteed by the federal government. THAT's when we all pay.

Better to start lawyers off at GS-12 to keep with the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moreover, whenever a student defaults on her student loan debt, the federal taxpayer pays the tab; student loans are guaranteed by the federal government. THAT's when we all pay.

Better to start lawyers off at GS-12 to keep with the market.

You see to not understand how the market works. There is an oversupply of attorneys that are new graduates. The government has found that there are plenty of quality applicants at GS-11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moreover, whenever a student defaults on her student loan debt, the federal taxpayer pays the tab; student loans are guaranteed by the federal government. THAT's when we all pay.

Better to start lawyers off at GS-12 to keep with the market.

You see to not understand how the market works. There is an oversupply of attorneys that are new graduates. The government has found that there are plenty of quality applicants at GS-11.

Applicants is not the same as quality applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:13 is 100% correct. The saving grace of litigating for the government is that you can become a non-supervisory GS-15 in just a few years.

It is extremely difficult for most new attorneys to make headway on their student loan debt on the GS-11 salary. Fed.gov needs to fix that.

Please explain why it falls upon the taxpayer to fix someone's student debt?

It has nothing to do with the taxpayer fixing other peoples' debt any more than it does for any other professional in government. If salaries do not make sense balanced out against the qualifications those jobs require, there is no way to attract and retain qualified professionals. As a taxpayer, I'd much rather have someone who is motivated and qualified, as opposed to have government jobs be full of people who didn't have any better options. If you don't want to increase salaries than you should get involved in the movement to make tuition more affordable. And before you say it--no, law students are not merely paying for the cost of their education. The justification behind law school tuition has historically been that laws made a lot of money so law school students were milked for money that went to subsidize other parts of universities, especially research programs. This is still the case for most law schools, even though the salary correlation isn't true. It seems vastly unfair to me that a lawyer should make the same or less than a researcher in the sciences, when that lawyer paid through the nose for law school and delayed their lives because their tuition was going to provide a stipend (however small), labs, and health insurance for a student (and often their family) who was in a PhD program. If we continue to treat law students the way we do, we're going to end up with a lot of morons as lawyers. We may not need the quantity of lawyers we've historically had, but it's important to retain the good ones. Right now, smarter people are turning away from pursuing the profession but TTT schools (as Justice Thomas referred to them) are still going strong.

Excuse me??? You think it's vastly unfair that a lawyer makes the same or less as a PhD? DH went to school for his masters (3 years, same as a JD. A lot of STEM masters aren't 2 year programs) THEN he got his PhD. No stipend because he went to night school after work. He is a GS-13 with no hope of ever being promoted to a GS14/15 because only managers can get the 14/15 slots and he doesn't want to manage (he actually wants to do the work that he got his PhD in). He's in a critical, hard to fill position. Pretty sure most people would think that his work is more important than the Solicitors who are reviewing my contracts at work.

It really bothers me when lawyers think they're more intelligent than everyone else around them. Just stop.

[Anonymous]

As a related question, does anyone know the salary range for a GS 15 government lawyer working in Washington DC? At DOJ? At the SEC? I have seen the scale charts, but don't know how locality increases and the like work. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: As a related question, does anyone know the salary range for a GS 15 government lawyer working in Washington DC? At DOJ? At the SEC? I have seen the scale charts, but don't know how locality increases and the like work. Thank you.

Well, beyond the scales you get the increase that congress gives you which recently have been around 1% although this year it looks like it'll be 1.6%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: As a related question, does anyone know the salary range for a GS 15 government lawyer working in Washington DC? At DOJ? At the SEC? I have seen the scale charts, but don't know how locality increases and the like work. Thank you.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2016/DCB.pdf

I believe SEC is different though.