My salary

I saw a post today talking about median and average salary's for attorneys in my area. I knew my salary was low, I had no idea how low. I'm currently making 32% of the median salary and 28% of the average salary for my area. Sucks all the more since we have a pay freeze and lay offs are right around the corner. I'm honestly hitting the point were I'm ready to jump ship and join the private sector. If congress goes forward with the proposed budget cuts to LSC, we are doomed.

A common complaint among legal aid attorneys involves family law clients and their frequent phone calls. Because we are free they will call with the most mundane/obnoxious of issues. If each phone call cost them money, there is no way they would call with their questions and complaints. They no their is almost no consequence to call to deal with the "emergency" that has developed. If I were charging $150 an hour and my family law clients called with the same frequency, I'd only need 4 clients to make an excellent living. For $150 an hour I'd be happy to discuss with you what it means if your soon to be exhusband calls your child pre-school (hint it means he cares about your child) Hell for $150 an hour I'm happy to debate what it means that he has a new girlfriend (hint it means he's moved on, you should try it).

Also I'm announcing some new life rules.

1. If I get you a restraining order against your abuse spouse who harasses you and then file divorce paperwork on your behalf, you aren't allowed to reconcile. You are required to get divorced.

2. If you are on a dating website and you have kids, you must list that fact in your profile.

Lastly, good luck with your trial mellancollyeyes

Been far too long

Got an email asking me to allow a comment someone made on my post about being the rebound guy. Honestly before seeing that email I'd all but forgotten about this website. (Well actually that's a lie, I remembered every time I read notforthemonosyllabic) Here's an update on my life for the 94 of you who read my blog this past year.

I'm still in legal aid and can't say that I love it. I'm in a very small office and turnover has been very high. It is very frustrating seeing everyone around you leave. I understand why they are leaving, I envy them at times even, but it still disrupts office life for quite awhile.

I never realized as an intern how much the practice of law is just slogging through mundane crap day after day. It was all new and exciting as an intern. Writing a letter to a client letting them know that you will not accept their case no longer has any appeal to me. I also miss the good old days at the PD office when I didn't have to worry if I'd chosen the right person to help, I just helped whoever was assigned to me. Lastly, to end my rant sooner rather than later, I did not foresee how much I would dislike all the paperwork required for grants. Just give me money and tell me to help people. I'll help more people that way. Having me fill out 4 forms that no one every reads does not help anyone.

Onto my dating life. It's going about as well as my career. Dated a couple people over the last year. First one wasn't very serious. Second one got way too serious too quickly. Entirely my fault. Learned a valuable lesson. I thought I could get over any demons in someones past, I was wrong.

It has taken a long time to make friends and build a support system in a new community. I still have no idea how to meet people outside of school and the internet. My office is too small and my coworkers too married for anything to happen there. My social life consists of sitting alone at a bar having a couple beers and engaging in some idle chit chat with whoever sits next to me. You'd think that I'd meet someone this way sooner or later, but instead I swear I always sit next to a businessman from out of town. One guy was pretty cool, but he lived 3 states away.

Onto the positives. I was right about being a big fish in a small pond. I'm quickly getting a lot of experience, I'm well respected in the community and local bar, and I can afford to eat at any restaurant in town. I have a 4 minute commute to work. I almost never have to work weekends.

Maybe I'll start posting on here some more. Don't hold your breathe.

E-Mail and I'm a winner

I won a case. Sure it was only a social security hearing, and sure I didn't even get to ask a single question, but it was my argument that the ALJ read and I'm the one who prepared my client for the ALJ's questions. It was an awesome feeling. When I got back to the office a different client yelled at me on the phone for 15 minutes. It was not an awesome feeling.

I almost never check the email associated with this website. Mostly because no one has ever emailed me, until now. Turns out in November my blog was ranked the 106th top blog in the field of criminal law by attorney.org While I certainly don't think my blog should be ranked anywhere near that high, especially considering I'm only an honorary criminal law blogger, I'm honored nonetheless. Not that attorney.org actually provided a link to my site, or any of the other 151 sites the mentioned. I was happy to see that the #1 spot went to Gideon.

In October I was offered a free copy of a book about law school in exchange for reviewing it on my blog. If that offer is still available you'll be seeing my review soon.

Lastly I was invited join the Bob Loblaw Attorney & Law student Web Ring. You should see a link to it down below now.

Poverty

In four months I've come to realize how little I actually understood what it must be like to live in poverty. I always knew that being evicted would suck, but I just thought, well they'll just have to get a new place. Somehow it never occurred to me that if one is being evicted for not paying rent, they almost surely aren't going to have enough money to put down a security deposit on a new place. I also didn't fully appreciate how awful a money judgment can be for someone. Should our clients ever get a good paying job or come into some money it doesn't really help because they owe so many people money.

I did a lot of complaining about the job market and my struggles finding a job, but it really was nothing when compared against what my clients' go through on a regular basis. For one I had food and shelter during the time I was looking for a job. I had family I could live with for free if I couldn't find a job. And any job I found, no matter how much I complain about my low public interest salary, pays far beyond what my clients could hope to make.

I got all this because of my privileged upbringing. Sure I worked hard in school and I like to think I'm pretty smart, but without my family there is no way I'd be here. No way I would have worked multiple part time jobs to put myself through school. No way I would have been able to handle raising a child while going to school. I'm not only privileged, I'm weak.

As 2010 starts I'm trying to get a better understanding of what life must be like for my clients. I've decided to see if I can go an entire month without buying anything but food and necessities (i.e. toilet paper). Should be easy, but I love to shop, have a new house to decorate and have been reading books and magazines like crazy. Now I don't think this will give me any real insight into what my clients go through (after all I'm still going to be buying fresh local food and organic products whenever possible), but it will hopefully make me think more about the things I buy and the money I spend. Maybe make me appreciate how much I have.

Let's see if I remember how to do this

The whole work/life balance thing has been kind of hard for me with the long ass commute. As that is now a thing of the past I will hopefully have more time for blogging (or more likely sleeping).


This is just awesome! I remain jealous as all hell.

I have been admitted to practice law finally. I also have business cards now. I've been handing those out to anyone and everyone who looks at me. Why yes it does say "Attorney" on there ma'am. Yes that is a reference to my position.

Moving along to the bread and butter of this blog (sadly), it's time to gripe about clients.

Dear Client,

I'm sorry if I have a little trouble caring about your case when you: 1. Don't care about custody or visitation if a DNA test proves the children you've been raising for 5 years are yours. 2. Do nothing after allegations that your child was raped.

(And to clarify, yes I was judging you during our interview.)

-Petition

Dear Client,

No I don't think you are going to get Social Security. Your "condition" doesn't meet a listing. I agree that your condition is "severe" (I'm not sure how you ever managed to keep an appointment with our office) but that isn't going to fly with the ALJ.

-Petition

Dear Client,

No I don't think you are going to get Social Security. You HAVEN'T EVEN APPLIED YET. Why are you bothering an attorney? The questions aren't exactly hard, they ask for information about you, no one other than you knows it.

-Petition

I passed

In all honestly I was about 99% sure I passed the exam. I refused to admit this though as etiquette seems to require saying that you think you passed the exam. I was also afraid to admit it to myself for fear of jinxing it. Seeing my name on the list of those who passed was the biggest relief ever. If I can do that I can do anything.

In other news, I bought a house. I have a house, a pension and a career. Wife and kids still missing. Current prognosis for wife, not good.

Getting used to actually lawyering. Working for 8 hours straight is not as difficult anymore as I've become accustomed to it. I have one area of law down to the point where I can answer most questions that a client might have in a typical case. In other areas I know a lot less. Being better in one area is improving my confidence though. It just takes time to learn and time is not something that legal aid lawyers have an abundance of. At least I don't have to work on Saturday's or meet billable hour requirements. Firm life just sounds awful.

I'm a horrible person

Date with the internet girl went pretty well. For various reasons I don't see a lot of long term potential with her, but we'll be able to have some fun for awhile. After dating law school girls for the past 3 years I forgot what normal people are like. In some ways this is nice as non law people are much nicer. In other ways it kind of sucks as non law people can be very stupid and care about inane things. I had some people I didn't like in law school and a couple people who's intelligence I genuinely questioned, but for the most part everyone was very smart, even if we disagreed on things. In the real world not everyone is smart enough to get over the 85 percentile on the LSAT. I forgot that.

I also forgot what a privileged life I've led. Despite having dirt poor clients at both my internships and now at my job, I somehow managed to miss that. I think in all my whining and complaining about my public interest salary I somehow remained oblivious to the fact that not everyone can afford gas to drive to work, or groceries to eat for an entire week, or to pay off all their bills every month. Yeah my salary sucks when compared to my friends working at firms, but compared to those working hourly jobs, my salary is awesome. And beyond that I have health insurance so getting sick doesn't financially ruin me. And if I don't make my loan payments it's not like they are going to turn off the power to my house, repo my car, or evict me from my house.

Now for why I'm a horrible person. Part of the reason why I don't think there is much of a future is that her financial situation made her one legal problem away from becoming a client. (And after drinks with dinner, her driving was one cop away from becoming a PD's client.) I defend myself by saying that 1. This wasn't a deal breaker, this was more a part of the totality of the circumstances and 2. I deal with these problems enough on a day to day basis with my clients, I don't need my relationships to have them as well.

Awesome news, kind of

My job is a fellowship that is only funded for a year. At the end of the year I will no longer have a job unless the office likes me and can secure funding to hire me. Well that was the case until things changed. An attorney has chosen to leave the office and his position has been offered to me. This is awesome because it comes with a substantial pay increase (as in over $10k a year), removing "fellow" from my title, and a better office. This is bad because the job is in the state I vowed to leave three years ago, requires a minimum of a two year commitment (which I know they can't enforce, but I'm not such a jackass that I'd screw over a non-profit), would require me to take another bar exam and spend at least another two years away from my friends and family.

I was pretty sure I'd get an offer after a year, or 6 months, but did not expect it in less than a month. My brain hurts from thinking about it all day and probably the rest of the week.

This post totally gives me identity away to my employer but I only have said good things about them so far, so I'm not that concerned and I don't think they are looking for me anyway.

In other happy news I have another date with internet girl this weekend.

I'm an idiot with women, the saga continues

Went on a date last night with a girl I met online. During the date I went to send a friend a text letting him know that I thought the date was going well. Instead of sending that text to my friend I sent it to my date. She showed me. I'm pretty sure I turned red. Other stellar performances on my part during the date include spilling half my beer on the table and nearly crying after tasting the hot sauce (which of course was preceded by bragging about how I can handle really hot food).
We also went to the gay bar and watched the talent show. Shockingly the date went really well and we will go out again.

At work on Friday my boss informed me that I had an hour to prepare for an intake meeting that I would be doing. I forgot to ask some important questions, failed to introduce myself at first and had no idea what to say after about 15 minutes. I'll get there, at least I realize what mistakes I've made. I have 3 hearings scheduled for next week. So far I'm liking it almost as much as PD work. If I could cross exam cops I think it would be equal.

I've got a client

I get to help an old lady get a divorce. Hooray.

Working in legal aid has made me hate Reagan and Newt Gingrich more than a did before. Instead of just getting money from LSC like back in the day, we now have to get money from a variety of different grants. So in addition to keeping track of my billing hours for each client I have to keep track of the funding source for each client.

An intern came in for one day last week. I made him shred something for me just so I could feel powerful. According to my boss he's dumber than dirt, so I can't make him do anything important.

I get the sense that I'm helping people like I did at the PD's office, but with a lot less pressure. I think this may have been the perfect way to start my legal career. I can build my trial skills in a more relaxed environment and then once I'm even more awesome in court I can move on to the high pressure PD world.

The most important news is that I get to have my name on the letterhead and get business cards. I love working in a small office.

100th post/work is awesome

100 posts and most of them are rants. This one will be no different.

The clients in legal aid might be dumber than my PD clients. This might be because we have to delve a lot more into the issues I previously refused/was unable to answer. This seems likely since many of the clients have pending criminal charges.

Client's in divorce cases that are nasty are even more unpleasant than all of my PD clients. Yeah the court doesn't care that he has your "antique" curio cabinet. You make no money and allegedly have "no" assets so what do you need a cabinet with which to keep curios?

I'm pretty sure 90% of the clients have mental problems. The question on the intake form entitled "citizenship" is not a trick question, nor is it a hard question.

Everyone who works for the Social Security office is either incompetent or has given up at life. I don't blame them for giving up, their job sounds awful.

Mellancollyeyes made a comment about not being too dandy or esle I might alienate the clients. This makes sense as the most poorly dressed attorney at the office (who is self proclaimed as sloven) is probably the best with clients. I'm not sure I can help it though because I need my clothes to reflect the seriousness with which I'm devoting to a certain activity. Even as a 1L intern I wore suits to watch court. This is for two reasons: 1. while in court you will either be mistaken for a defendant or an attorney, I prefer attorney. 2. court deserves respect. So I don't care if my clients show up for court in sweatpants that say Juicy on the ass and a football jersey. I'm going to wear my pocket square and my tie bar and cufflinks. Besides, clients thinking I can't relate to their life is probably accurate. I've been spoiled all my life, I have no idea what it is like to be poor and uneducated.

From now on when I saw "lawyered" to someone it will be an accurate statement

(Assuming I passed the bar)

I start work soon. I'm excited. I've got my suit prepared and an outfit selected. I really want to go with a skinny tie, tie bar and pocket square but I haven't met anyone besides my boss in the office yet and I don't want to start out with them realizing what a dandy I am. I think it's better if I slowly build up to that. I'm still going to wear a skinny tie, but I'll pair it with a plain white shirt. I'll keep the pink shirt, blue tie and blue pocket square for the day after my first paycheck. I'm striving to be the best dressed lawyer for people who make 125% or less of the federal poverty level.

Statistically I'm probably a lawyer now

I feel good about most of the questions, bad about 20% of them.

I have a question for the collective wisdom of the Internet. There was a fact given in the criminal law question that I couldn't figure out the relevance of. The hypo involved Abe who was just released from jail after finishing his sentence for a felony. He goes into a bar and has an altercation with Bill. After Bill threatens to kill him (and attempts to murder him), Abe assaults him (but has a valid defense of self defense) and gets the gun (which makes him a felon in possession of a firearm). With the gun he threatens to kill Bill (assault) and forces him into a supply closet at gun point (kidnapping) where he steals his cocaine (violation of the uniformed controlled substances act) and locks the door (unlawful imprisonment). He also makes him remove his pants.

My question. What significance does the removal of his pants have? I can't figure it out. It doesn't seem to be attempted rape. I guess it is a theft, but that seems to simple. Anyone have any ideas?

half a day to go

No computer problems today, just not understanding the questions problems. Bar examiners felt the need to throw us off by not including Civ Pro, giving us a confusing as hell con law question, three very strange torts questions, two hard as hell contracts questions and two terrible terrible property questions. Two crim pro questions though and a criminal law question (which hopefully I rocked otherwise maybe my inability to get a PD job is fortuitous).

Everyone who is just a temporary employee and proctoring or doing tech support for the software has been very pleasant an nice. Everyone who works for the bar association has been a total asshole and rude beyond belief. I'm sorry I was trying to leave the room, I'm just doing it because THE PROCTOR TOLD ME TO! So giving me attitude about "breaking the rule" is a little misplaced when I was follow the proctor's instructions. How about you go yell at the guy who has a larger than quart sized bag, or the guy who wore a hate into the room?

Turns out I'm the bitch

Laptop decided that I wanted to handwrite some of my answers today. Otherwise I think things went really well. 1.5 days to go.

BRING IT ON BAR EXAM

I'm prepared to make the bar exam my bitch. That is all.

And I thought I was nervous before my first trial

Dear Bar Examiners,

Can you say anything of importance in under 400 words? I can barely introduce myself in such a short amount of space. IRAC becomes IR and maybe some A, but no room for a C. Look I understand you don't want to read a lot of crap, but I don't want to write a lot of crap. The time limit is a more than effective means of preventing me from writing too much. Giving me a character limit just frustrates my ability to spot all of the issues and say anything intelligent about them. I realize judges will impose page limits on me in the real world, but judges won't give me 45 minutes and NO NOTES with which to prepare my pleadings.

Is figuring out whether I can learn a bare minimum about twenty some subjects of the law for a couple days really a good way of determining whether I will be a good lawyer? Because I haven't learned the law, I've learned what to say when I encounter certain subjects so I can pass. I don't really have any understanding of what a negotiable instrument is. I just know that if I see a check I should put down the requirements of an NI and then try and figure out if someone is a holder in due course. Or secured transactions, I know to talk about a purchase money security interests or when something attaches, not sure why, just know I need to do it. (For Secured Transactions the lecture said, here is what you need to know to get the minimum score to pass and then move on to easier subjects, he didn't even try and pretend like we could learn it well enough for the bar exam.)

Sincerely,

Petition

Currently I'm supposed to be reviewing criminal procedure. I'm skipping this review (two classes in law school, plus two internships applying criminal procedure leaves me over confident). Instead I'm going to focus on corporations because that subject makes no sense to me.

The final piece of advice from my bar review schedule is to get to bed by 9:30 p.m. He goes on to say "If you feel restless and cannot sleep soundly, this is normal and caused by nervousness, but you should still stay in bed and relax as best you can all night long." That is some thorough exam prep.

New rules of the universe

#1: After you indorse a check you are now required to deposit it at your bank or cash it, none of this transfer crap that makes me figure out whether it is now a bearer paper and if any of the indorsers are liable. No. Actually you know what no one is allowed to use negotiable instruments any more. Use cash so I don't have to figure all this crap out. (Also note to the UCC: it is now spelled endorse, like on the back of my check where it says ENDORSE here.)

#2: Once you get married you get half your partners crap whether its a gift, inheritance, purchased with money your spouse had before you got married, I don't care. Don't like that rule? Don't get married. Also no more denying marriage to same-sex couples, that is just stupid.

#3: No more LLCs, LPs, LLPs, or General Partnerships. There will be a vote and society gets to choose one. I don't care which one you chose, but chose one and that is all.

#4: No more adverse possession or easements by prescription. Land NOT YOURS!

#5: There shall be no more than two forms of any one crime. In no world does there need to be 10 different forms of homicide. Punish people differently sure, but there doesn't need to be Murder 1, Murder 2, Manslaughter 1, Manslaughter 2, Vehicular Homicide, and Controlled substances homicide.

#6: Microsoft Word shall be required to understand legal phrases. No Word I do not mean "joined" I mean "JOINDER" just like I typed 10 times. JOINDER. And seriously word "mens rea" confuses you, even non lawyers know that one. (Although word gets a pass on indorse because that is a stupid way of spelling it.)

#7: A contract shall be abbreviated as C, not K. K makes no sense as the letter "K" does not appear in the word contract. Π and Δ won't be used anymore as well. Instead P shall be used for plaintiff and D shall be used for defendant.

#8: A § key shall be added to all keyboards so I don't have to press alt and two other keys to type it. (Go ahead and remove ^ ` and | to make space)

Thank you, and now back to studying.