Postby JCougar » Sat Apr 04, 2015 3:07 pm
The hardest part about applying for secretary positions with a JD from a Top 20 school is convincing HR that you are serious, and you are not just doing so out of cynical anger at the entry-level legal job market. I got a call from a place where I applied to be a secretary yesterday, and it was more of a screener to see if I was really actually serious about wanting this secretary job. It pays about $40K, which is more money than about half the class from my school is making right now. Plus, it is a government job, which means loan forgiveness and good healthcare, which is way more than most others can say.
The tone of the person that called me was more one of offense--they fully expected me to be some punk kid applying as a joke of sorts. I could tell that they didn't even want to make this call, but some other manager probably told them they had to. I really had to try hard to explain to this lady that $40K is a fantastic salary for a new lawyer, and that no--this absolutely wasn't a joke, and I would even work there for $30K if it meant proper healthcare. See, I don't make above the Medicaid income line where Obamacare kicks in--and I also live where state Republicans refused to close the Medicaid gap to spite Obama. Since I don't have kids, I don't qualify for Medicaid here no matter how little I make. So I'm SOL on healthcare. The only bright side is that if I get sick enough, maybe it will create a sympathetic enough case for the bankruptcy judge to flush my student loan debt down the toilet along with my medical bills under the "extreme hardship" exception to student loan debt discharge.
I don't think I have a good chance at getting this job, though. The harder and harder I tried to explain it to this HR lady--that yes, if you went to a law school ranked in the top 10% of all law schools in the nation (but one that falls short of the top 5%), that $30K/year with government benefits would be an unbelievable windfall for most of us--the more angry she became with me and the more convinced she was that this was some sort of joke.
This sort of predicament perfectly exemplifies the disconnect between the public's (and 0Ls', for that mater) perception of the average career option for a JD grad--and the harsh, depressing, and hopeless realities most of us face. That gulf may as well be the Grand Canyon, and contained within this wide abyss exists the difficulty in getting just any old non-law job if you strike out at OCI.
God help me when I apply at that factory where that guy I represented as a volunteer was working. He had GED and three DWIs, but he was making $20/hour, which is more than most lawyers I know. I told him he shouldn't take his job for granted, and that I would be applying soon. He didn't take me seriously, so I'll be excited to see his face if/when I show up at his building with a lunch pail and a pair of work boots--boots that I picked up second-hand at the Salvation Army, of course, because God knows I don't have enough money to buy new ones. But on top of that, whatever stuff he's putting together on the assembly line is very likely more interesting than most legal work anyhow. And you can cuss and swear at work and come in hungover and it doesn't matter. How lucky some of us have it.