Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say you want to be a lawyer. What type of law do you want to practice? What especially interests you about the law? The job market may not have recovered by the time that you graduate - if you do this, it needs to be because you are passionate about the work, not because you don't know what else to do, want to earn a decent living etc.

This.

OP, I’m usually the very last person to crush someone, especially if it involves a dream - it’s just I don’t see your dream? You write nothing about what type of law, why was your path what it was, so far? Otherwise it looks like you are not honest with yourself; you did not do great in college, you didn’t get into a law adjacent or paralegal field, you are not in HR in a law firm? You bombed the LSAT!! Why? And why do you think with all of that you would get a scholarship?!

Anonymous wrote:You say you want to be a lawyer. What type of law do you want to practice? What especially interests you about the law? The job market may not have recovered by the time that you graduate - if you do this, it needs to be because you are passionate about the work, not because you don't know what else to do, want to earn a decent living etc.

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A firm is going to just throw my resume in the garbage because I didn't go to the right school, even though I have actual experience in the area they practice in?

YES. Your HR experience is not going to be the same sort of asset as, say, an advanced science degree would be for an aspiring patent attorney or Wall Street experience for an aspiring securities attorney. Please listen to the folks on here -- it is extremely difficult for a graduate of a lower-tier law school to get any job, much less one at a firm. In this market, even graduates of top schools cannot find jobs, and experienced attorneys are having difficulty moving into new jobs, even with on-point experience.

I wholeheartedly agree with PPs that you should work as a paralegal before considering law school. After you have done several major document reviews, witnessed the personalities involved, and viewed the work first hand, then you can decide whether you really want to be an attorney, or whether you are simply feeling stuck in your current job and practicing law sounds like a good solution.

I'm the PP who suggested finding work as a paralegal in an employment law practice group. I was also a Big Law recruiter when times were good and candidates hard to come by, and yes, we would have thrown your resume in the trash. We used a "grade book" to determine which class rank was acceptable from which top tier schools. The only exceptions were 1. patent attorneys with Ph.D's, someone with highly specialized experience and or government experience and partners with large books of business.

There are a lot of practicing attorneys, giving you great advice and you are refusing to listen. Good luck with law school.

All the paralegal jobs are being taken by the lawyers who went to lower-tier schools...

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I do not think equity partners at Miles are billing 1400. In my department, it was more like 2000+. Could vary by department, though. There seems to be this "midlaw" myth where partners coast along making a few hundred grand and work 9-5. I would like to see this if it exists.

The bigger myth on these boards at the moment seems to be "Since there are reasons to think biglaw is facing serious challenges, it is safer to be at midlaw." Its like some posters read Abovethelaw and their takeaway was that justifying your rates is something only large law firms have to do.

I haven't read ATL in literally years, but I know when I left BigLaw, my rate went from $550 to $400 and my clients came with me, and my salary went up while my hours went down.

At my regional firm, partners bill about 1,500 hours and make about $400K. Not a bad life.

At smaller firms (truly boutiques) where my friends ended up, they bill maybe 1,200 hours and make about $300K. Perhaps an even better life.

I don't doubt you. My issue is last time this came up and a few people attempted to explain why they were happy not fleeing big law, there was a slew of "apparently you haven't read any legal news recently" comments. I don't think what's happening in the legal market is a reason to choose mid-size over large (though there may well be other good reasons to do so).

NP here. Of course, this doesn't account for time written off because the time required to finish a project exceeds cost limitations. Also, you have to factor in non-billable time for business development (writing, networking, speaking engagements, etc. Probably still better than Biglaw but it's not as simple as 1500 billables / 50 weeks = 30 hrs per week.

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Anonymous wrote:
I do not think equity partners at Miles are billing 1400. In my department, it was more like 2000+. Could vary by department, though. There seems to be this "midlaw" myth where partners coast along making a few hundred grand and work 9-5. I would like to see this if it exists.

The bigger myth on these boards at the moment seems to be "Since there are reasons to think biglaw is facing serious challenges, it is safer to be at midlaw." Its like some posters read Abovethelaw and their takeaway was that justifying your rates is something only large law firms have to do.

I haven't read ATL in literally years, but I know when I left BigLaw, my rate went from $550 to $400 and my clients came with me, and my salary went up while my hours went down.

At my regional firm, partners bill about 1,500 hours and make about $400K. Not a bad life.

At smaller firms (truly boutiques) where my friends ended up, they bill maybe 1,200 hours and make about $300K. Perhaps an even better life.

I don't doubt you. My issue is last time this came up and a few people attempted to explain why they were happy not fleeing big law, there was a slew of "apparently you haven't read any legal news recently" comments. I don't think what's happening in the legal market is a reason to choose mid-size over large (though there may well be other good reasons to do so).

Anonymous wrote:

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

Have you done any research OP? First of all, American is still in the first tier and both UMD and American are very competitive. Secondly, Littler doesn't hire any associates out of law school. Their model is that they only hire laterals. Those are pretty good firms. You will spend $200K to make $100K a year if you are really lucky.

Anonymous wrote:I think the issue with biglaw going down the tubes is practice area specific. I work at one of the national L&E firms. Most of the partners in my office defected from biglaw firms. The reason they did so was the billing rates -- clients don't want to pay $650 an hour for someone to handle unfair labor practice charges or discrimination lawsuits, and the firms uniformly refused to allow these partners to lower their rates. I think L&E practices at biglaw firms are going to go the way of the dinosaur before too long. It really makes no sense to pay M&A rates for someone to defend an FLSA or Title VII lawsuit.