<p>If you’re one of the lucky tiny, tiny percent who scores a job with the ACLU, or its lobbying equivalent, then have at it. Otherwise, yes, you choose your company, and almost every one of them will take whatever client comes in the door. </p>
<p>Google “lobbying firms” and “client lists” and let me know if you, when scanning over those client lists, really think that one of those firms is just perfect for you, your opinions, and your beliefs. Of course, you might not be lobbying on the big, sexy issues; you will be paid to lobby about some arcane provision of a regulatory act that is meaningless to you but means quite a bit to a trade group.</p>
<p>Once you’ve done that, look up the last twenty bills in your state that were filed and had paid lobbyists working on them. Let me know how gosh-darn excited you are over any of those issues.</p>
<p>Other posters, please let me know if I’m being unnecessarily cynical.</p>
<p>While you’re at it, use your state’s web site to look up non-profits in your state with causes you care about. Look at how much they pay their lobbyists in a given year. (I sit on the Board of a 501(c)(4) with a six-figure operating budget, and we spend less than five grand a year on lobbyists.)</p>
<p>Yes, and you choose based on who pays the bills. If that means you’re lobbying for specific tax subsidies in farm bills, then that’s your new favorite thing. You can’t eat idealism.</p>
<p>@ariesathena: I think you’re actually sugarcoating it. You’ve left out entirely how few lobbying jobs there are and how little they’re interested in K-JDs when they can pull politicians who actually got elected to things.</p>
<p>They call it “work” for a reason. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy aspects of your job- you certainly can. But without realistic expectations you’ll inevitably be disappointed.</p>
<p>No Aries, you aren’t being overly cynical-see Demo’s post. Except for the exceptional(very)few, most people take the jobs they can find. Unrealistic expectations, as pointed out above, lead to terrible disappointment and massive job dissatisfaction.
The world of lobbyists, by and large, is filled with the connected; it’s a very rare recent law graduate who falls into the job of his/her dreams lobbying for just the right causes…</p>
Demo, I don’t disagree with you at all, but my memory of being a 0L, and of seeing other 0Ls, is that they have always been successful all their lives where others have failed. It’s really hard to explain that getting a fulfilling lobbying job is akin to being in the starting line-up in the World Series - that it functionally cannot be compared to “I did really well in high school and got good grades in college” success.</p>
<p>The reality of any client-service job is that you are paid to do what the client wants done, not to make yourself happy and fulfilled and to save the world. I also enjoy pointing out, in real life as well as online, that most do-gooder jobs pay darn near nothing because every cent that goes towards salary is not going towards helping the people that the charity is designed to help.</p>
<p>This is also true in politics: the pay is generally terrible (with few exceptions) because clients, i.e. donors and the candidate, would rather send out a mailing to ten thousand people than give you a bonus on your paycheck.</p>
<p>“First, let me explain something about the attorney/lobbyist world: you aren’t paid to advocate for what you want; you are paid to advocate for what someone else wants.”</p>
<p>You can, however, choose what clients you want to take.</p>
<p>Meaning that if you don’t believe in their case, you can fire them.</p>
<p>“i can see myself advocating for something, and devoting most of my time to it (interested in lobbying, politics). when i’m passionate about something, it’s all i can think about, anyway. i mean, i’m introverted, but i can talk endlessly if something interests me.”</p>
<p>You seem like you only know things in the hypothetical/theoretical world (as opposed to the real world). What have you been doing all your life, hiding behind English Literature? I did that growing up, and, I tell you, it leaves you in fantasy land.</p>
<p>“You seem like you only know things in the hypothetical/theoretical world (as opposed to the real world). What have you been doing all your life, hiding behind English Literature? I did that growing up, and, I tell you, it leaves you in fantasy land.”</p>
<p>I suspect that it leaves you better positioned than living behind computer games and science fiction/fantasy novels, with limited knowledge of actual reality.</p>
<p>Going from that to practicing law with billable hours was fun.</p>
<p>It was at that point, I realized that I had no actual interest in practicing law whatsoever.</p>