Are staff attorney jobs that bad? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So I have a shit gpa. Luckily, I've made some connections that are very willing to help me out. Unfortunately, a lot of these connections are at top law firms, so they only know similar people, not the kind of mid/small law I'd be more confident about sneaking into.

There are positions for staff attorneys that may be possible to snag at these firms. I'd want to do SA for the money, but also because i've heard that SOME of the time, the work is similar to first year associate work, for less money and no partner-track glory. Ideally, I'd try to lateral into midlaw with that experience. Who wants to pop my mental balloon now? Thanks.

[Anonymous User]

It's not the worst thing in the world (i.e. being a temp / contract attorney), but it is a far cry from being a regular associate. If you end up taking it, you'd want your full attention to be networking/applying to get out of that SA designation if you want to end up becoming anything more than that.

You are doing first year associate work in the sense that probably the vast majority of your work will be doc review related (maybe a little bit research + writing). However, whereas first years move up and get more training/experience/ work on different kinds of projects in various roles, you'll still be doing that doc review work.
So when you go to apply to mid/small law, you're not bringing much to the table in comparison to actual associates. Hence why you want to push yourself to leave that role if you really want to be more involved in legal work. Plus, you don't really get an reputation bonus coming from a biglaw firm since you are a SA not a regular associate.

So yeah, it definitely isn't the worst thing in the world. Biglaw SA's still get paid decently for hours worked, and work is probably steady vs. contract/temp work, but you just don't build your skills and become marketable, and it can be very easy to get stuck with that designation forever.

[Anonymous User]

What is a shit gpa? To some on here, a 3.3 or lower is shit. I'm on the other extreme, if you can not fail out and graduate with a 2.3 and you have a 2.32, you are trying 0.02 too hard!

[Anonymous User]

I graduated law school without a job (and without having summered at a firm) but managed to get hired as a staff attorney at a V100 firm after close to a year of job searching. My trick was to pretend I was an associate from the first day and hustle for as much substantive work as possible. The partners did not care about my technical designation and once they saw I was doing the same work and billing the same hours as the regular associates, they agreed that I should be promoted to associate a little more than a year after I started (after I lobbied for it). I have since lateralled to a V50 and my stint as a staff attorney has been a non-issue. While my path may have been atypical (and very lucky), the moral of the story is to hustle like hell. The likelihood of this working could also very much vary from firm to firm.

[El Pollito]

It depends if you're treated as an in-house K attorney or cheap associate labor with potential for promotion to regular associate. Either way, better than nothing.