What is the sweetest law job? Forum

[Danger Zone]

Fed gov that doesn't involve litigation

Can you expand on this

[feralinfant]

I think clinical professor would be better. Still get to be a lawyer to the extent you want to be.

Is my job. Can confirm, is a pretty awesome job.

How did you get it?

also interested in this. ive been increasingly thinking this is my dream job. can you talk about job security/compensation at all?

[whats an updog]

don't clinic professors have to be fairly well established in their field first or is that not necessarily the case?

[BlueLotus]

All of the civil legal aid places I've worked have been strictly 9-5 type gigs. It's interesting, personally fulfilling work and it's PSLF-eligible too. Pretty much my dream.

[XxSpyKEx]

All of the civil legal aid places I've worked have been strictly 9-5 type gigs. It's interesting, personally fulfilling work and it's PSLF-eligible too. Pretty much my dream.

Most pay too terribly to be the sweetest law job out there though.

[mu13ski]

Retired/Senior Status Judge

[BlueLotus]

All of the civil legal aid places I've worked have been strictly 9-5 type gigs. It's interesting, personally fulfilling work and it's PSLF-eligible too. Pretty much my dream.

Most pay too terribly to be the sweetest law job out there though.

Supervisory/managing attorney positions in major cities can get into the 60s/70s. Of course in the boonies it can be terrible (Last fall I got an interview for a FTLT legal aid position on a Native American reservation for $32,500).

[whats an updog]

60s/70s as an endgame salary is not sweet, but more power to those who have the fortitude for legal aid

[XxSpyKEx]

60s/70s as an endgame salary is not sweet

Yup. I mean I recognize that people don't work in legal aid for the money, but at that low of a salary for the top employees, it's not exactly the sweetest job in law (especially when you consider things like law profs who pull in $300k /year for working something like 10 hours a week).

[worldtraveler]

60s/70s as an endgame salary is not sweet

Yup. I mean I recognize that people don't work in legal aid for the money, but at that low of a salary for the top employees, it's not exactly the sweetest job in law (especially when you consider things like law profs who pull in $300k /year for working something like 10 hours a week).

Where do people get this idea that law profs work that little?

[UnamSanctam]

Yeah I get the feeling law profs work way more than we think. Prepping for a class takes time, too.

[cookiejar1]

That's why being a Legal Writing & Research professor is the sweetest job.

You get a class of, what, 20+ students who already are competent writers by virtue of them being at a top law school. Then you borrow prompts from other LRW professors and arbitrarily correct submissions at a leisurely pace.

When challenged on your grading you can just wax lyrical about how—back when you were practicing at a V20 (the "GLORY DAYS")—partners themselves can be arbitrary and it's all about adopting your writing style to fit the circumstances.

[Anonymous User]

I think clinical professor would be better. Still get to be a lawyer to the extent you want to be.

Is my job. Can confirm, is a pretty awesome job.

How did you get it?

also interested in this. ive been increasingly thinking this is my dream job. can you talk about job security/compensation at all?

I got it because I saw a job opening on psjd and I applied. Nailed the interview. That's really all I can say for it because I think I just got kind of lucky.

I'm not tenured but my job is fairly secure for at least the next couple years. I do have to do some grant writing and fundraising though, which is a fairly significant amount of time. Compensation is not that good; clinical profs make far less on average than other law profs. We don't have pressure to publish though.

Practice experience is necessary but I'm not sure there is a minimum number of years. Teaching experience also helps. The most important experience is probably supervising groups because you have to oversee students working in groups and that can be very difficult if you don't know how to do it.

Really this is a tough job to get though. Most clinical professors love their jobs and don't leave very often. There are fellowships and occasionally a school will open a new clinic, and those are probably the best options to break into the field.

[A. Nony Mouse]

That's why being a Legal Writing & Research professor is the sweetest job.

You get a class of, what, 20+ students who already are competent writers by virtue of them being at a top law school. Then you borrow prompts from other LRW professors and arbitrarily correct submissions at a leisurely pace.

When challenged on your grading you can just wax lyrical about how—back when you were practicing at a V20 (the "GLORY DAYS")—partners themselves can be arbitrary and it's all about adopting your writing style to fit the circumstances.

Lol. LRW profs often work harder than doctrinal profs - they have to grade materials throughout the semester rather than at the end (you've never graded writing, have you?), they have to give comments and deal with complaints about grades throughout the semester, they do all the moot court stuff, they coordinate so everything is consistent across LRW sections, and hand hold 1Ls who are freaking out about being in law school and too scared to talk to their doctrinal profs.

Sorry you just had crappy LRW profs.

(If you had "legal fellow" aspiring academics for LRW, I take it back in that they're really there to publish and get a "real" academic job, not actually teach, so it's sweet in that respect, but not sweet in that it's not permanent and you're still trying to break into the field.)

[Mal Reynolds]

I would rather do insurance defense than be an LRW professor.

[whats an updog]

Our LRW profs have 2Ls and 3Ls who "grade"/give notes on everything but the final briefs afaik, don't know if that's what goes on at most schools. That said, it still did seem like they were somewhat busy as far as professors go. Maybe "occupied" is a better word than busy.

[84651846190]

I would rather do insurance defense than be an LRW professor.

whoa, let's not get fucking crazy here

[Yukos]

You get paid the least and you have the most contact with 1Ls. No way LRW "prof" is the sweetest job.

[hiima3L]

You get a class of, what, 20+ students who already are competent writers by virtue of them being at a top law school.

LJL at this.

[bruinfan10]

You get a class of, what, 20+ students who already are competent writers by virtue of them being at a top law school.

LJL at this.

I TA'd legal writing at a T14. Almost half of the 1Ls were laughably bad by the low-bar standard of lawyer writing; they would without a doubt have finished bottom of the pack in my top-10 undergrad English program, which itself wasn't particularly rigorous. A high percentage of the students came from Ivy's or fancy east coast liberal arts schools, but they were in majors like History or Poli Sci that don't focus on the mechanics of good writing whatsoever. Most lawyers are terrible writers for a reason.

Yeah I get the feeling law profs work way more than we think. Prepping for a class takes time, too.

lol maybe the first time you teach a course. i literally had transcriptions of most profs' lecture notes, they deviated so little from their scripts. one prof, who thankfully has gone to teach at a different T14 now, literally just posed torts hypos straight out of the E&E. to the extent law professors work anything close to tough hours, it's on their (incredibly poorly researched by the standard of other academic disciplines) articles during the limited time period when they're up for tenure.

[FSK]

To be fair to law professors, at some point other duties start taking up time. Advising LLM(haha)/SJD (HAHAHA)/Independent research, sitting on committees, getting involved in fund raising, managing a department/program, etc.

[worldtraveler]

To be fair to law professors, at some point other duties start taking up time. Advising LLM(haha)/SJD (HAHAHA)/Independent research, sitting on committees, getting involved in fund raising, managing a department/program, etc.

Yeah I'm not sure people are realizing how much bullshit work there is in academia. Half your time is spent on committees and stuff that isn't directly related to teaching and research. The time might be more flexible than other jobs but it's certainly not a part-time job.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes to the above. A lot of what profs do may look pointless to practicing lawyers, but they still do a lot.

Teaching does get easier once you have the lectures down, but it's hugely time consuming to work them up in the first place.

Also, keep in mind that the people who get into academia are generally people who've been collecting brass rings their whole life. Even if it's possible to get into the job and coast, prof types are frequently temperamentally unable to do so.

[XxSpyKEx]

Yes to the above. A lot of what profs do may look pointless to practicing lawyers, but they still do a lot.

Teaching does get easier once you have the lectures down, but it's hugely time consuming to work them up in the first place.

Also, keep in mind that the people who get into academia are generally people who've been collecting brass rings their whole life. Even if it's possible to get into the job and coast, prof types are frequently temperamentally unable to do so.

True for most. Although, there are def profs who get tenure and altogether stop doing anything besides half-ass teaching their classes lol. I'd probably fall into that category. $300k /year to work 10 hours a week sounds alright to me

To be fair to law professors, at some point other duties start taking up time. Advising LLM(haha)/SJD (HAHAHA)/Independent research, sitting on committees, getting involved in fund raising, managing a department/program, etc.

Yeah I'm not sure people are realizing how much bullshit work there is in academia. Half your time is spent on committees and stuff that isn't directly related to teaching and research. The time might be more flexible than other jobs but it's certainly not a part-time job.

In all fairness, most successful attorneys also do a bunch of bullshit (publishing bar articles, taking leadership roles in bar committees, networking, pro bono work, etc.) in addition to billing/working a shitload of hours. Only difference I see is that law profs do that within a typical work week, unlike practitioners. Moreover, after you get tenure, you can get away with doing very little while still collecting a very large salary.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I think there's a difference between saying that law profs don't work and that they don't work as hard as people in biglaw do.

The deadwood tenured prof happens, but it's mostly a remnant of an earlier time. The people who turn into deadwood after tenure are the kind of people who got hired in a completely different era.