http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910464115051361.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_marketplace
"Can you believe $34 an hour for an electrician, when EP Slime is paying licensed attorneys with 7 years of education $21 an hour? Face it kids, law was, and is, the biggest "education" mistake a person can make. Blue collar jobs like welding, plumbing, and electrical contracting have double-lapped law in terms of pay. Shitlaw gutter insurance defense sewers pay cesspool wages of 35-45 K, no health benefits, and zero pension/retirement. And to enter this "prestigious" gutter industry one must pay subhuman, lying scum like the Valvoline Dean and Joan King 120 K!
New York currently has one lawyer for every 125 people. By 2012, it will be more like one for every 50 people. Wages are plunging, benefits are non-existent, and law is a miserable, dead-end make work slop job. Here's to hoping that the next generation of high school grads avoid the "education" racket altogether and lead productive lives doing productive things like trades, not worthless paper-churning makework shit-jobs like law."
Any of the "hang a shingle" losers care to chime in? Hanging a shingle is the desperate, fantastical pipe dream of every 40 K a year insurance defense slob or pathetic JD shitlaw document coder. Here's a newsflash - solo attorneys are on the way out everywhere. Personal injury is fucking dead thanks to tort reform, real estate closings are long gone, and any moron with more than a 2nd grade reading level can make their own will w/ legal zoom for 1/3 what a desperate shitlaw solo would charge.
The outlook for the legal industry is so fucking grim it's comical. Even biglaw, the fucking kings of congressional bribery and reams of make work paper churning are feeling the pain. Get ready for some Ivy-league document coders and Harvard-educated no-fault shitlaw "associates" at gutter courts like King's Civil in Brooklyn!"
79 comments:
Gee, somebody's bitter.
When and where I went to high school, nobody ever marketed the Trade occupations as a viable path. It was always college, college, or the military then college. All are parents were college grads and that was your fate. Now after all that time and effort in Law school with accompanying student loans, I just want to be in the black on the balance sheet for one fucking month. I am like most of you. Do maybe 5 years in the profession to get the ins and outs of being and attorney, then find another occupation or another side occupation to supplement being a Lawyer. This has all been a bad fucking joke with no punch line!
screwtape
Hear hear to the Yuppie!
When I was a kid, I loved to build things. It didn't matter if it was an Erector set, Lincoln Logs, Legos, Tinker Toys, hell, even if it was some rope and some sticks. I was into cars. I wanted to figure out how things work. I was good with my hands. But no, everyone was like "have a better life, go to college or law school or med school." I have plenty of people in my family that are plumbers, electricians, construction workers, cops, firemen, the list goes on. And my first year out of law school I made $35k, no benefits, driving around in my high school car.
I've been in the profession for five years now. I practiced, I went to court, I dealt with pain in the ass bosses, judges, clients, clerks, you name it.
Once the loans are paid off, I'm going for teaching. Summers off, time with my kid. I guess, thanks to law, I have something to look forward to: early exit from the profession and a law-free life. If only someone told me twelve years ago...
fukin amen
Waaaaaaaaaaaaa, they made me be a lawyer. Waaaaaaaaaaaa.
Jeezus, shut the fok up. I hated law school, decided not to practice, and did something else. I make a very good living, am good at what I do, and find all this whining foking pathetic.
White, middle class, and you got screwed? Look around the city. Go check out East New York, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, etc. Trust me, you did not get the raw end of any deal, you are just losers who are sad that no one is handing you something you have absolutely no right to feel entitled to.
GET A GRIP
The plumbers who have their own little businesses make a ton. One van, tools and a cell phone. They control their time. Some of them are not that intelligent either. Many of them have two homes as well. Yet, they are the first ones to complain about legal fees when they need an attorney for DWI, child support or matimonial matters. I don't know one plumber earning under $100,000 a year.
Hold on to your hats, kids: it's Scott Bullock groaning out his "you should all've become plumbers, electricians, cops, sanitation workers" mantra, complete with gratitous references to shit! Thank you Scott for your powerful, one-note insight (as well as your odd little toliet obsession!)
Every time I read this blog it makes me want to kill myself. I know I know it's my own choice to click the link blah blah. I'm not on here every day or even every week. Usually I just check it out whenever I'm about to start a new assignment. I've been temping for a few months and I can't decide if it's a good thing- I've been making tons of money and having weeks off between assignments to just go to the beach or do what little private work I get- but on the flip side it's dead end clicking... BUT I'm not being offered any kind of job I am even remotely interested in OR can even sustain me financially (living like two steps above bag lady). I know I could have worked harder in law school and maybe I could've been big law, but do I want that anyway? It's also crazy 80 hour weeks and constant office politics. At least with temping I'm in and I'm out. So far temping hasn't been so bad for me but where will it end I guess is the question... Anyway, I never posted a comment before. So here I am TTT. Also, I'm not one of those insane bitter people but Joan King does suck because when I was deciding between law schools I had an almost full scholarship to St. Johns but took no money and went to BLS b/c the first year average salary that I thought was real "made sense". My own fault for not doing my own research... just didn't think career services at a law school would lie about something like that... Ugh pretty naive of me, huh?
All the tradesman out earn the majority of lawyers, especially the ones who are on their own. Most of them are big fat cafones too...and it doesn't matter. They can have tattoes, gold chains, halitosis and a mohawk haircut.
They also have no professional license to risk like lawyers. They get busted for DWI, drug possession and domestic violence without ever worrying the bar association is going to discipline them.
Call a tradesman and ask him to come give you an estimate to fence in your yard and see how long it takes for him to show up. I called 3 and they all failed to appear.
Call a personal injury attorney and mention you were in a car accident and he will be at your house in an hour.
Check out todays Law.com, ABA Journal headline story, and find the recent McKinsey Report on our profession. We are back to the early 1990s - remember those good ole' days post October, 1987 stock market crash. No real recovery for attorneys until @1996-1997 - the credit wave we've all been riding since then with the result of the present e.g. oh, those longed for Clinton and Greenspan years - there in lies the rub.......it is simple economics and globilization, along with the use/mis-use of the corporate bankrutpcy/reorganization codes, and sheer overbilling by law firms competing as a sheer profit making vehicle, rather than as a profession. Thank those law firm consultancy firms e.g. Hildebrand and American Lawyer glamorizing who has the most revenues per partner. Heh, it is nothing but a business, we may as well be accountants working for Deloitte...but our problem is most of us have no real world finance, business,accuntancy,corporate tax and economics training to make the JD even worth the paper it is printed on......go start a business and become an entrepreneur. Life will be far more fulfilling and you actually may make some big bucks, be able to offer your family and children true leadership and stewardship to help them carve out their futures, and then be able to fund a rather happy retirement. Afterall, life is about yourself, not the law or the law firm and/or your colleagues.
This post would have been much better without all the vulgarity. It's all true though; the rate for car repair in New Jersey is at least $85 per hour.
A language, an instrument, a sport and a trade. Things I will teach my children.
I try to talk my kid out of going to college everyday.
I could only recommend law to my worst enemy. Going to medical school, even if I had to go to Grenada, would have been better. Who would've thought looking at people's asses and feet all day would end up being more profitable and rewarding than Law.
This was an entertaining post, well written and sadly accurate.
Hi Scott Bullock.
"Hi, Joan King!"
Judging from the referenced article, the trades are seeking workers. The economy needs to reallocate shitlaw and doc review outsourced/unemployed attorneys into the trades.
Bullock was right, hopefully he is following his path into life as a tradesman. Someone should write a book about how to go from shitlaw into plumbing. The bottom line is that many of made a poor career choice and now need to be retrained be it as a plumber, teacher or sales person. The can't provide for all of the grads being dumped onto the glutted market every year.
There just isn't enough paper churning to go around.
No way not once not never.
Check out this legal lizard. http://unifiedtheorynothingmuch.blogspot.com/2008/07/not-once-not-never.html
I am to start a project with Fitzpatrick. Anyone work with them? What's the 411 on these goons?
It is very difficult to find the time and money to re-tool for another career when you have the specter of $1000 of non-dischargeable student loan debt hanging over your head every month. Let's face it, the powers that be in the legal profession are doing quite well with the current churn and burn system. We are nothing more than indentured servants working on the plantation, counting the days until we can pay massa.
I know at Sullivan and Cromwell, they give you a car home if you work until 11pm. Of course by that time your vision is distorted because your eyes are burning plus your ass and back are in pain from sitting 13 hours.
You guys have it easy: low stress and flexible hours. Try a real law practice with real clients and real problems to solve.
I know you would label my practice "Shit Law." But I made well over $200K last year taxable income and worked no more than 40 hours a week.
That is pretty good money in the deep south. Leave the concrete jungle, grow some nads, and make a semi-honest living!
With Long Dong!!! Let your JD Swing!!
It's shitlaw. One word.
I trust you have this committed to close memory little man!!
We need a Plumber!
The toilet is broken! Somebody please fix Tom the Toilet!!!
I love those slutty temps. At least they'll never be plumbers. Booooiiiiinnnnngggg! That'd be great.
What you morons doing Insurance Defense, No-Fault and plaintiff slip & trip shitlaw don't realize is that the "experience" is totally fukcing worthless. No one is ever going to pay more than 60-65 K to churn cut n' paste gutter motions and the other dreck that passes for "papers" in this industry (that's what it is, an industry. Not a "profession."
Working ID shitlaw is like getting "experience" in cooking by working at McDonalds. All the "experience" is good for is getting more shitjobs at shit-pay. A McDonald's cook might "lateral" to Wendy's or Burger King, but they sure as hell ain't gonna be head chef at the Waldorf.
Likewise, a "lawyer" wasting their life making 40 K in ID shitlaw will, after 5 years, be shopping the same pathetic toilet resume to other bottom-of-the-barrel ID dumps begging for the same shitwages to do the same gruntwork. There simply is no upward movement in law. You start in ID and you fucking die in ID. Period.
No one at anything close to prestigious or "botique" is ever going to be impressed no matter how many cases you've conferenced in Room 707 in the Bronx or CCP Brooklyn. No one at real firms cares about the comical trip/slip trials you've won. Your "experience" to them is the equivalent of burger flipping. That's how the caste system of law works, so get used to it. You'll NEVER make more than 100 K (or even 75) if you stay in sewage tank shitlaw ID.
Good luck "brining in cases!" There are 74,249 ambulance chasing theives dying to sign up any whiplash nuisance-value case.
As the above comment states, call a plumber and you'll wait for days they're so busy. Call a shitlaw lawyer and he'll run stop signs to get to you before another desperate loser beats him to it.
Think not. Do you must.
Law is a gutter profession, for all but the annointed few. They won't tell you this in the glossy law school brochures, but it's the inevitable fate that 75% of all lawyers must face.
Leave the law lemmings!
When I got fired from Biglaw I hung out a shingle for 3 years. Some income, but more outgo - and a bunch of solid-gold referrals fucked me fees. I still have to decide whether it's worth it to sue them.
Yep - should have become a plumber. Or a dermatologist. Too late now.
Sounds like being a lawyer sucks, but I still want to go to law school and move to New York. You all have an entertaining sub-culture going on up there.
Come to the force, young jedi.
" You'll NEVER make more than 100 K (or even 75) if you stay in sewage tank shitlaw ID."
Patently false. I make more than 75K/year doing no fault defense. Only licensed since 2005. A former co worker from anobther NF defense firm is pulling in 105K as a Manager for a NF department for an ins company. If you land an ins company account as a client, you can do very well for yourself. Look at the partners at Lester Scwab, L'Abatte Balken, Kral Clerkin, et al - none of them are doing badly..While you have plumbers and electricians who make 6 figures, what they dont tell you is how many side jobs they had to work on weekends and how many bad knee and back surgeries they underwent to get that far in their trade.
Nothing worth pursuing in life is given to you on a silver platter. Grow some balls and find something you are good at and something you enjoy - and the $$ usually follows.
Good luck.
im so glad i dropped out of law school.
I read this blog and understand why document review attorneys are document review attorneys. You have no idea what the real world is really about, you have no idea what real people are or what real a laborer has to go through to make their top salary. Your all a bunch of entitled whiners who I am sure are voting for Obama and a socialist agenda.
Quit whining and go out and make something of yourself. Do you really think you are entitled to make $100k just because you became an attorney? Please. If you caught a bad break, went to a bad law school, got poor grades or went to a firm that didn't appreciate you -so what. Stop whining and move on. Life isn't fair and you make your own way.
Those who whine stand still - those who do make the money. You should be embarrassed considering the plight of a lot of average people.
This blog is all about whining about the fact that you can't be a rich as you like. For all the democrats on this page crying over your lost fortune - your really republican....
Search Your Feelings.
Let's face, the law as a profession has been in decline since the 1960s. It used to have a level of decorum and sophistication. Now it's just another racket full of money grubbing slobs, just like any other job. There's nothing special about law now, literally anyone (except perhaps a convicted felon) can go to law school and eventually pass the bar. It's just not that difficult.
Because there are no standards, we now have a educational industry that is getting rich by selling the "blglaw dream" to anyone. The TTT schools know full well that 90% of their grads have no hope of making it in the law.
It's just third rate profession, full of slobs and assholes in a race to the gutter. It's more like being a used car salesman than anything else. Now, not only attorneys despised, but they're quickly being dismissed as losers.
I don't know why people like 9:54 AM keep talking trash about those who choose to review documents. At least half the people on my project used to have jobs in the private practice sector. Some were fairly successful but decided that they no longer wanted the stress or could not work the hours they worked when they were younger.
This isn't a Democrat, Republican, or Socialist issue. This is an economic issue.
If you don't like reading these comments, you are free to leave.
Look at the partners at Lester Scwab, L'Abatte Balken, Kral Clerkin, et al - none of them are doing badly.
You gotta be kiddng- Kral Clerkin? There is a total fucking loser associate there named John Ullrich who mows lawns after work to make extra $$$- he is also a total dick and treats every trip/slip conference like it was a US Supreme Court case!
Kral Clerkin is a pathetc, laughable toilet operation! Lester Slob pays 8th year associates 70 K! your info. is incorrect and patently absurd!
I pity the fool that goes to law school! Take on $125,000 in debt to practice shitlaw, what is worse than that? A shitty job + crippling debt = shitlaw misery.
Thanks law school!
You guys are losers.
If you college/lawschool potheads want to become plumbers, you'd better warm up to the idea of, um, working.
But don't you want to have a hot secretary to suck your dick before heading out for a 2pm round of golf?
I really laugh when right-wingers call Obama a socialist. Obama is a corporate stooge just like McCain. You have to be these days in order to run on either a Democrat or Republican ticket. Both parties are too beholden to big business.
There is no socialism in the USA, you pathetic, brainwashed idiots.
Socialism is doing things like putting a "windfall profits" tax on the oil companies for making too much money and using the proceeds to hand out money to Obama's consituents.
I look at my Lawschool website. Haven't done so in a long time. It had all the bright faced 1Ls. So innocent. Looking to a bright future. Going into their orientation. It made me recall the Vietnam movie "A Rumor of War," where the battle torn vetrans were boarding a transport plane out. The veterans saw the rows of new soldiers going in. "Walking corpses with temporary use of their hands and legs," the veteran said.
Looking at the 1Ls, I thought was I ever as naive as them. Now, with all this debt and poor working economy. I just look at the and think in 3 years they are going to be writing posts just like me.
to anon at 6:47:
Lester Schwab pays 2nd year associates 70K. 8th year associates are well over 100K. I know 1 current atty there who is "Counsel" and making 125K plus bonuses. You don't know your stats, so I wouldnt talk if I were you. I've actually interviewed there and at WEMED, so I know what they pay.
Also, associates who hold 2nd jobs aren't doing it because they are strapped for cash. I have a 2nd job but only because I like the PT job (its tutoring and RE closings) and the extra dough just goes into my Savings account. I make more than enough right now to cover my $1,800 monthly mortgage payment and student loans. So maybe you shouldnt be so quick to judge other peoples motivations for getting work because they want to sock away more $$ - kinda like the doc review people who work 8 extra hours on Saturday because its OT and they want more $$.
Lester Schwab pays 2nd year associates 70K. 8th year associates are well over 100K. I know 1 current atty there who is "Counsel" and making 125K plus bonuses. You don't know your stats, so I wouldnt talk if I were you. I've actually interviewed there and at WEMED, so I know what they pay.
12:10 PM
______________________________
Wow, interviews at Slob and WEMED- you must have a hell of a fender bender and trip/slip "resume!"
WEMED is a mill that grinds through scores of "associates" every six months. The "firm" (if you consider a trip/slip dump like that a firm) is in financial trouble and recently had to disgorge millions in fees. That's how you know its a sewer- real "firms" like Sullivan and Cravath NEVER have to give back fees or cut rates.
Insurance defense is a dying industry thanks to the death of soft-tissue auto garbage cases. You ID morons fought hard for your scumsucking bosses at the carriers, and now plainitffs have mostly stopped bringing these crap cases, meaning less work for you and lower legal rates. Morons.
What kind of work do you folks want? ID is shitlaw. Plaintiff's is shitlaw. Criminal is shitlaw. Family work is shitlaw.
Anything dealing with less than a Fortune 500 corp doing contract review is shitlaw.
The only thing that seems to interest you is BigLaw. But do you have the nads to handle the job?
Or vagina--as I use to kick TTT around with
Hats off to you Anita. That's what it took to get these work hating pansies to actually do something.
coming soon to an undergraduate program near you: a prelaw undergrad degree with certification in legal document review, coding
Many of us are missing the larger picture regarding this industry. If Anita didn't exist there wouldn't have been a Tom the Temp. She inspired him through her deeds to create a site like this to help others. Everything happens for a reason. In a sense, Anita's individual conduct brought attention to this entire field......she deserves gratitude. Problems are often gifts in disguise. The true sage, a real spiritual master, doesn't experience problems....he confronts them. With this notion in mind, the agencies, petty ridiculous staff attorneys and vindictive firms finally have inflicted bad karma and publicity upon themselves. Information is our best weapon to confront this trickle down industry. Sharing stories of suffering serves a larger spiritual purpose. The content of this site has steered me away from many bad projects and agencies when given the choice. The information exchanged on this blog is the best tool available to avoid the tyrants who seek to financially and spiritually crucify us. The problem all of us confront is the over supply of JD's being pumped into the market. It certainly permits exploitation. How else could personal injury firms offer 35K and agencies get away with their nonsense? The inside knowledge shared here is the only partial shield against it. In a few years, basic rules of economics will prevail. The supply of attorneys will continue to exceed demand, and the hourly rates will further decrease. It is a sin the ABA has elected to allow more law schools to open so the market place is completely flooded with JD's on the street. It established a buyer's market for temp agencies and firms. For thousands of us they have quickly managed to turn the profession into a trade. Twelve or more years ago, the American Dental Association saw there was becoming an over-supply of licensed dentists. They closed schools and stopped expansion in an effort to return the doctor/patient ratio to the 1960 level so dentists could make a decent living drilling holes in people's heads. The intention is to have less than 50 dentists for every 100,000 patients. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/dental/d7104/lecture15.html The ABA has no interest in protecting the viability of a license to practice law. It has left licensees fighting over scraps and salivating for over-time. While the degree and license may carry little value, one's dignity should not be assaulted by these indifferent greedy bastards. The information presented here is highly useful in confronting this absurd industry. It is better to be proactive. Inaction is the devil's workshop. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
9:55
Beautiful! WWForFood--TTT, perhaps. RB for the Anita reference and perspective that sees a goodness in the down-n-dirty, circus-like posts of yore? I guess I saw the big 'ole JD swingin on that comment.
Just curious.
Does anyone understand what Trollop said?
Use the Force.
I'm going to have to agree with the Captain, move out of the city. I graduated a top tier school in DC and found the market way to saturated, did doc review for about 3 months before I'd had my fill then moved south to a small town to practice in the field wanted. There is something for the big fish small pond life, I make decent money, have more offers now than ever before and the cost of living is lower. In DC it felt like a job but in smaller communities law is still a profession.
at least lawyers don't have to worry about lawyer crack and smelling like shit all day
What the hell is "lawyer crack?"
NYTimes on student loans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/business/24loans.html?em
rest of the url...
.html?em
http://www.studentloanjusticeexposed.com/
"Bullock was right, hopefully he is following his path into life as a tradesman."
He's not--he's still trying to practice law. Now: why would that be?
Anonymous said...
It is very difficult to find the time and money to re-tool for another career when you have the specter of $1000 of non-dischargeable student loan debt hanging over your head every month. Let's face it, the powers that be in the legal profession are doing quite well with the current churn and burn system. We are nothing more than indentured servants working on the plantation, counting the days until we can pay massa.
4:52 PM
Hear! Hear!
The great thing about the people on this site is that you clearly couldn't cut it in law school and can't make it in the real world. Instead of actually working hard you whine and moan. The glut of "lawyers" is great, especially for those of us who aren't at big law firms. It makes my vaule as an experienced attorney who actually performs a useful service to my clients much greater, especially when compared to the morons leaving law school.
I went to a top tier school, got a scholarship for 1/3rd tuition all 3 years, worked while in school, kept expenses low - the result 160k, but it doesn't bother me too much. I have a plan, I refinanced the loans at good rates to make the payments manageable (about 900 per month) and I make 57k in the public sector. I can pay all my bills and even save a little, but I live in a low cost of living area. All I know is that if I can make an additional 200 per month payment I will cut my payoff by 10 years, the plan - just keep working harder, get more experience, make more money and pay off the loans. It isn't impossible and the "heartburn" diminishes if you know you're working your way out of it. That said, I love my job, if I hated it I probably would have more issue with the loans.
Is that ALEX G plunging that toilet? hehehhehehhehehehe
9:54:
Your all a bunch of entitled whiners who I am sure are voting for Obama and a socialist agenda.
****************************
Given your limited grammar skills and use of the word "socialism" (without the slightest notion of what that term means) I have no doubt that you will be voting for MsFeeb and "Oh, crap! I'm a Hockey Mom" - assholes like you usually do.
Did any of you ever think that maybe you just dont have what it takes. It has to say something about a person if they went to college and law school and they are going from job to job thru temp agencies.
Alex G is once again a loser @sshole... Does Anyone like this @hole?
i would say that having a degree or skill in anything, law or otherwise, does not entitle one to anything. maybe the issue is your self of entitlement and lack of understanding on how competetive the legal market is, especially since there have always been too many lawyers. did you think it would be that easy to get paid a lot of money when all you needed to do was go to school for theree years? wow thats tough to do and you should be rewarded for learning.
I closed up the office after 20 years and moved west. The best thing I ever did.
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Insurance defense industry is going down the tubes. Even top notch "shitlaw" firms like Lester Schwab Katz & Dwyer" are going under. LSKD making everyone a "partner" or "of counsel" to increase billable rate and `have more people to share in tax liabilities. Major defections, a lease that is killing them. Managing attorney told everyone to "Give back" because they promoted so many people. This is a rat ship boys. Get your lifeboat ready to sail for Lewis Brisbois, London Fischer or Wilson Elser because LSKD is going down.
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