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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Options:

1. Start volunteering at legal aid pro bono to get some lawyering experience under supervision. They have training programs specific to the advice you will be giving.  Here is a link to training if you are in DC: https://www.dcbar.org/pro-bono/resources-and-training

2. HR certification: Get an entry level job in HR, do it for one year and then start the process to become certified. Once you do that you can move up the ranks in HR and your law degree will be of value. https://www.shrm.org/certification/about/Pages/Not-Sure-Where-To-Begin.aspx

3. Start attending every and any training sessions available at your bar association. This is about training and networking.

4. Invest in your next step: get a masters degree in legal studies in a compliance area that interests you. Health care  is an excellent and extremely marketable choice, and you can do it on line: https://www.online.drexel.edu/online-degrees/law-degrees/cert-hc-comp/index.aspx

Take control and take action. Also consider seeing your doctor for depression.[/quote]

Good thoughts.

OP, I worked in e-discovery when I first moved to DC (over a decade ago). I was pregnant at the time and wasn't getting hired elsewhere (surprise!), though I had 1-2 years prior experience in my field. E-discovery was easy and flexible and paid well given the language bump. However, the flexibility allowed me to simultaneously open a sole proprietorship that admittedly made peanuts initially. I kept e-discovery as a steady paycheck until the side gig started to gain traction. Though e-discovery I did meet folks, passed my name around in my niche area, and made 1 really good connection (of the dozens of feelers that I put out). I finally opted to quit e-discovery to be hired as a FREAKING asst/paralegal in my field of choice because the small firm needed someone virtual and was willing to train. I worked with them doing the grunt work but more importantly getting valuable experience and learning the ropes so that I would feel more comfortably going out on my own. That ended after about a year because as the gods would have it, my managing atty wanted to leave that field and do something new. She passed off one of her corp clients to me for my budding practice after we negotiated a reasonable fee between us. Since I'd simultaneously been working on my own business it was enough to get me moving. That was about 10 years ago and I now do well enough to support my solo practice. I don't make a ton by DCUM standards but I bring home between 300-350k. That is really all that I need, though I do hope to keep growing.

I share this because, honestly, if you humble yourself and start at zero you can build up. You also have to really want to make it work badly enough. I know that lots of people will say that it may not be financially feasible for all, and they are 100% correct. I do offer the story, however, because I did drudge it out in e-discovery for a few years and backtracked to a paralegal position. I cried about that for a year but it was a great classroom for me. This may be helpful to OP to push her to something new. [/quote]

What kind of niche is this?  300k is awesome particularly for a solo practitioner.[/quote]

I worked for a summer in college for an ambulance chaser that did several million in a great year and broke even in a bad year. [/quote]

I have a friend who left corp to do personal injury. She said it was embarrassing but didn't care. She put up billboards on the highway and is now making ridiculous bank. Don't know that I could ever do that but man do those people make ridiculous money.[/quote]

It's the having to represent the slip and falls or neck and back pain car crashes to pay the bills that's embarrassing. The MBA student paralyzed while working constriction part time or the young family killed by a drunk diver with assets come along once every few years (and yes it is awful and morbid to have to think like that) [/quote]

That is true, but my understanding that those cases are few and far between. She said that the vast majority of their cases were "template" work so motions and pleadings drafting are sent overseas to Indian contract workers for cheap cut/paste from templates and then shipped back to US for paralegals to file. It's factory work where they make $$$. From what I gathered, the large PI offices work this way to minimize overhead. [/quote]

It's all a pretty well oiled machine, and in most cases you never have to file anything in court. You send a form letter to the adjuster with the final medical bills and then hammer out a settlement over a 20 minute phone call [/quote]

Man, maybe I'm in the wrong field after all. Feel like I'm doing too much work for too little. But at least I have a soul...[/quote]

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