Please Look At This Before You Go To Law School Forum

[hume85]

This project is funny- paras get 23 an hour and admitted JD's get 27 an hour:

Hudson Legal is currently staffing the following position:
Paralegals or Non-admitted Law School Graduates for legal data entry

Start date: Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Rate: $23 (for paralegals); $27 per hour (for JDs)
Duration: approximately 1 week
Hours: regular business hours – 40 hours per week
Location: Ronkonkama (Long Island), New York
Requirements: Excellent data entry skills with attention to detail

Thus, the current market value of a JD vs. a para is $4 an hour. Show me the doctors making $4 an hour more than nurses, or the dentists making $4 an hour more than the hygenists, or the chefs making $4 an hour more than the dishwashers.

Only in law are the educated "professionals" paid virtually the same (or sometimes less) than the support staff. What a lovely industry.

So much fail in just one post.

+1

[XxSpyKEx]

The problem is that the job posting isn't looking for a better "thinker." It's looking for someone to do basic data entry. The posting even makes it clear that the job does not require a JD (it says they are looking to hire a paralegal OR a recent law school grad for short term work). The quoted is like saying Starbucks should pay you more solely because you have a JD, and if they don't, it's a "tacit admission that the 'skills' taught to you in law school aren't worth crap." With respect to the recent law school grad, it's pretty clear that this is job is set up as short term work while awaiting bar results for someone who just needs a little extra cash prior to finding full time legal employment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that what they teach you in law school is worth $250k, or that you learn much in law school at all. It's just pointing out that sadsituationjd's and your arguments are illogical.

Except it isn't Starbucks, it's actually legal work that they want done, even though it's base-level legal work.

Not really. "Legal data entry" is not "actual legal work" or "base-level legal work." Most attorneys do not do legal data entry at any point in their careers. Data entry is the type of administrative work that is typically done by someone with a high school education. It's not very difficult, and does not require much thinking. (I'm going to guess that the job involves doing things like typing names into a complaint, creating headings, copying case numbers, etc. This is not the type of stuff that a legal education helps you to do.)

But I don't think many of these people's opportunities are going to get much better once they do pass the bar.

Not saying that it is, but the fact that specific job does not pay law school grads much more than a paralegal for data entry doesn't show that. Frankly, I'm surprised that it pays law school grads anything more to do the exact same work. The only reason I can think of as to why it does is perhaps because they believe there are some efficiency/speed gains (or something) by hiring a law school grad to do legal data entry.