Salary Reporting? Forum

[articulably suspect]

OK, I LOL'd, but not everyone (even those people like me, who will be in horrendous debt) is willing to take a biglaw job to pay it off, now that IBR and loan forgiveness exist. This goes double for people at schools with decent LRAPs. In the past, you guys would have been spot on, and many PI hopefuls still follow this line of thinking.

If I ever have a shot at a market paying job, and I decline to pursue it for any reason, will people think I've gone off the deep end? (Answer with the knowledge that I will owe well north of $200k by graduation.)

We're assuming LRAPs aren't going be massacred by the employment situation? A tad wishful.

Also, I don't understand why you have to be well north of $200k by graduation. You are a PT student and presumably, a lot of PT students work during the school year to minimize their debt load. No?

I've been hearing this and I'm not sure where this is coming from. I think at certain schools this could happen(the classic scam artists), but I don't think schools and the federal govt are going to slaughter LRAP because of a dramatic increase of jd's moving to the public sector. If you look at last years employment statistics, at least the schools I looked into, very few people were working in a position that would qualify for LRAP, more did for IBR(salary cap is higher.) Davis, which is suppose is considered to be more pi minded, had about 20% of their 2008 class in pi, military, govt work(many federal positions won't qualify for ls LRAPs.) UCLA at 15%. Are we expecting an increase of 10, 15, 20% in pi/govt work that qualifies for LRAP? As far as I know there hasn't been a mass increase in the number of pi jobs, or enough of one to make cutting back LRAP a necessity. If all of a sudden there were a shit load of govt and pi jobs created right now, I could maybe see this LRAP scenario people on TLS describe happening.

If Davis is any indication of what's to come of LRAP, they just beefed up their LRAP a couple months ago.

This is pretty much what I noted. The number of government jobs does seem to be increasing, but since our LRAP doesn't cover them yet, people headed for nonprofits which do qualify should be in decent shape here. It's those jobs themselves that will be damn near impossible to get.

Oops, yeah you pretty much said the same thing, many apologies for redundancy. Well, technically, the # of certain govt. jobs is always increasing. Most pretty much hire on a continuous basis from what I've observed, with the obvious exception of hiring freezes. The larger a county gets, can lead to more crime, need more pds/das, that type of thing is also why certain govt positions are increasing. I also think you often see attorney jobs open up when leadership decides to create a new unit, task force, etc. Out of curiosity, what have you heard about govt hiring increases, what level, depts, etc.

I'm surprised your school doesn't cover govt. work. Every school I've looked into covers all govt work, including US Attorney, however, US Attorney's have a starting salary that's above most LRAP salary cap. You can still get IBR if your school's LRAP doesn't include govt right?

On another note, all these TLSers who think that people who strike out at OCI can break into pi or govt are a bit off base IMO. School rank matters a lot less in govt and pi, with the exception of ACLU, SPLC, and USAO, than it does in Biglaw. They prefer people that exhibit an interest or working knowledge of the field, so a middle ranked T14 with no background(WE/clinics/internships/volunteer work/moot court/related course work) relevant to a particular govt/pi position won't be able to simply snatch it up from under the T30s, lower T1s and T2s. As always, based on my experience and research in these fields.

[OperaSoprano]

Oops, yeah you pretty much said the same thing, many apologies for redundancy. Well, technically, the # of certain govt. jobs is always increasing. Most pretty much hire on a continuous basis from what I've observed, with the obvious exception of hiring freezes. The larger a county gets, can lead to more crime, need more pds/das, that type of thing is also why certain govt positions are increasing. I also think you often see attorney jobs open up when leadership decides to create a new unit, task force, etc. Out of curiosity, what have you heard about govt hiring increases, what level, depts, etc.

I'm surprised your school doesn't cover govt. work. Every school I've looked into covers all govt work, including US Attorney, however, US Attorney's have a starting salary that's above most LRAP salary cap. You can still get IBR if your school's LRAP doesn't include govt right?

On another note, all these TLSers who think that people who strike out at OCI can break into pi or govt are a bit off base IMO. School rank matters a lot less in govt and pi, with the exception of ACLU, SPLC, and USAO, than it does in Biglaw. They prefer people that exhibit an interest or working knowledge of the field, so a middle ranked T14 with no background(WE/clinics/internships/volunteer work/moot court/related course work) relevant to a particular govt/pi position won't be able to simply snatch it up from under the T30s, lower T1s and T2s. As always, based on my experience and research in these fields.

No apologies needed, and I agree on all points. Nonprofits care a lot about commitment and dedication. A couple of B-s will not take someone out of the running (excluding the super prestigious orgs), though a JD from Cooley might. There is a baseline somewhere.

As to the point about our LRAP: we haven't the money. This is also why we can't buy people away from CLS and NYU. I know a couple of people who might have taken a guaranteed full ride at Fordham over a T14 or two, and if we could do it, we'd be higher than #30. Our dean is working on it, though, and Fordham's profile is rising. We will never have Columbia's budget, or its prestige, but we'll have what we need.

[articulably suspect]

Oops, yeah you pretty much said the same thing, many apologies for redundancy. Well, technically, the # of certain govt. jobs is always increasing. Most pretty much hire on a continuous basis from what I've observed, with the obvious exception of hiring freezes. The larger a county gets, can lead to more crime, need more pds/das, that type of thing is also why certain govt positions are increasing. I also think you often see attorney jobs open up when leadership decides to create a new unit, task force, etc. Out of curiosity, what have you heard about govt hiring increases, what level, depts, etc.

I'm surprised your school doesn't cover govt. work. Every school I've looked into covers all govt work, including US Attorney, however, US Attorney's have a starting salary that's above most LRAP salary cap. You can still get IBR if your school's LRAP doesn't include govt right?

On another note, all these TLSers who think that people who strike out at OCI can break into pi or govt are a bit off base IMO. School rank matters a lot less in govt and pi, with the exception of ACLU, SPLC, and USAO, than it does in Biglaw. They prefer people that exhibit an interest or working knowledge of the field, so a middle ranked T14 with no background(WE/clinics/internships/volunteer work/moot court/related course work) relevant to a particular govt/pi position won't be able to simply snatch it up from under the T30s, lower T1s and T2s. As always, based on my experience and research in these fields.

No apologies needed, and I agree on all points. Nonprofits care a lot about commitment and dedication. A couple of B-s will not take someone out of the running (excluding the super prestigious orgs), though a JD from Cooley might. There is a baseline somewhere.
As to the point about our LRAP: we haven't the money. This is also why we can't buy people away from CLS and NYU. I know a couple of people who might have taken a guaranteed full ride at Fordham over a T14 or two, and if we could do it, we'd be higher than #30. Our dean is working on it, though, and Fordham's profile is rising. We will never have Columbia's budget, or its prestige, but we'll have what we need.

Very true. I just don't think it's at T2 or even T3(depending on the region and how saturated with JDs it is), as many on TLS would have you believe.

[reasonable_man]

#throwbackthursday

Ah the good old days before everyone knew that law schools lied through their teeth about reported salaries.