Lawyers Working Second Jobs to Make Ends Meet

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>The following are some exerpts from an article in the National Law Journal yesterday:</p>

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Moonlighters tackle their legal debt
Public attorneys as bartenders, tutors.

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By day, Dan Griffin conducts preliminary hearings, interviews police officers and prepares drug cases as a prosecutor for the Cook County State Attorney's Office in Chicago.</p>

<p>At 6:30 p.m., he sheds his suit and tie, dons jeans and a hard hat and heads to his night job, doing construction for Great Lakes Heating and Plumbing, where he toils until about 1:30 a.m.</p>

<p>On weekends, you'll find Griffin bartending and refereeing children's basketball games.</p>

<p>Griffin's schedule may be grueling, but the 27-year-old says it's necessary to pay off his $70,000 law school loan, save up for a house and simply make ends meet as the cost of living skyrockets. He is desperately hoping a law school student loan forgiveness bill he's been hearing about for years takes effect some time soon so he can quit one of his part-time jobs — and maybe have a social life.</p>

<p>"I never thought I'd be working this hard as a lawyer," said Griffin. "I love my job, but the guys I work with on construction, who are union, make more than I do as a lawyer. It's pretty ridiculous."

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Government lawyers have traditionally turned to teaching at their law school, tutoring or even doing a few wills or real estate closings on the side to supplement their income. That is, the ones who don't flee after a few years for lucrative private practices.

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But as the cost of living explodes, salaries are frozen, state budgets are slashed and law school tuitions continues to rise, moonlighting has become commonplace for prosecutors and assistant public defenders.

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Many are pinning their hopes on a law school loan forgiveness bill, the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act. After years of lobbying by various agencies, the bill was signed into law by President Bush earlier this month as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, H.R. 4137. The bill calls for $10,000 a year in rebates for prosecutors and assistant public defenders who stay at their jobs for three years. The law, which was sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin, D-Ill., would forgive a maximum of $60,000 in school loans.</p>

<p>But the bill is still unfunded. Similar bills have been proposed in various states. So for the time being, from Minnesota to Idaho to Florida to Illinois, young government lawyers are waiting tables, working construction, bartending, tutoring and working retail nights and weekends.</p>

<p>"I have lawyers delivering pizzas, I have another lawyer umpiring and another bartending," said Frank de la Torre, chief assistant at the Broward County Public Defender's Office. "Many of us could be making more money in private practice, but obviously those of us who make a career in the field of indigent defense do it because we love it and we believe in the Constitution."</p>

<p>The starting salary at the Broward public defender's office is about $39,000 a year, and salaries have been frozen for at least three years.</p>

<p>In Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Minnesota, public defender offices have had their budgets slashed so severely that they've had to lay off lawyers, freeze salaries and even turn away defendants due to exhaustive caseloads.

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Corey Sherman, an assistant public defender in Minneapolis, says almost everyone in her office has a second job. Sherman has two. The 29-year-old bartends at weddings about one night a week and also tutors law students at her alma mater, Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. She makes more at the other jobs than she does as an assistant public defender.</p>

<p>"I have less debt than most people, because I was on academic scholarship and I paid my way through undergrad," said Sherman. "I could defer my loans, but that's the problem with our society. I want to head this off and pay off my debt now."</p>

<p>Sherman said she had opportunities to make more money in private practice, but "I believe in this job and I want to defend the Constitution."</p>

<p>But if she has a family down the road, she may have to make that leap.

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A survey done by the Massachusetts District Attorney's Association in 2004 revealed that 15% of all assistant district attorneys in that state worked second jobs. The jobs included such diverse ventures as working at a funeral home, teaching Irish step dancing classes and driving the Zamboni machine at a local ice skating rink.</p>

<p>Four out of 12 attorneys in the Idaho appellate public defender's office teach on the side to make extra money,</p>

<p>Still, Erik Lehtinen, 34, one of those attorneys, says the extra 10 to 20 hours a week he puts in teaching is well worth it.</p>

<p>"I do it for purely financial reasons, with the cost of living as high as it is these days," he said. "But I'm going to stay. I like what I'm doing."

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2

<p>If you go into public practice law, you know what you’re getting into, so I don’t see what’s so unusual about this. </p>

<p>That is why I would never, ever, unless it was either that or unemployment, do public practice.</p>

3

<p>It is not only public lawyers who are in trouble. It is a majority of private lawyers as well. There are just too many lawyers and not enought work. If you go to law school, except for excellent students at the top of their class at elite, i.e. ivy league, law schools, except a tough time. The present economy and the outrageous overhead we are experiencing does not help.</p>

4

<p>This is what happens when you produce a ton of lawyers.</p>

5

<p>Yet the ABA just accredited several new law schools in the past 18-24 months, and students keep applying to law school in record numbers. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, with current economic conditions making it increasingly difficult for college seniors to find jobs, I think that you will see increased numbers of applicants to law school.</p>

6

<p>The ABA needs to revoke accreditations and um shouldn’t the gov’t know to provide living wages for people? The amount these gov’t lawyers make is ridiculous. An ADA fresh out of law school will make like $60k. A US Attorney will probably make no more than $125k.</p>

7

<p>Contrary to what you might think, a lot of Americans make $60,000 per year and manage to live, pay their bills and educate their children. I believe that the median annual household income in the U.S. is just over $50,000. Not even 20% of households in the U.S. make over $100,000. In fact, I believe that an income of $60,000 per year or more would place a household in the top 40% of income-earners in the U.S.</p>

<p>Remember, too, that household income includes income from all sources, including two-income families (meaning that each of the income-earners made some amount less than the threshhold specified).</p>

<p>If you can’t live on a wage of $60,000 per year, than don’t take that job. If enough attorneys refuse to work for $60,000 per year, ultimately that wage will have to rise in order to attract attorneys to take that job. Apparently, that has not occurred. If you choose to take that job, then you know what you are walking into from an income perspective.</p>

8

<p>I don’t think the median American family has $150k of student loan debt either. And the average American family certainly doesn’t live in downtown New York.</p>

<p>At $60k, you’re making about $3200/month net of taxes. Take out student loan payments of $1000, you’re down to $2,200. You can’t get a decent apartment in a large city for less than $1k, so let’s put housing at $1200. You’ve already ****ed away $2200 of your $3200 a year. You still haven’t bought clothes (say about $200-$300 a month, AVERAGED), paid utilities ($250-$350 a month) or eaten ($400+ a month). So before you sock away anything for retirement, you’re on credit card debt. And that’s BEFORE you have kids. The picture looks a lot more bleak for an ADA with kids in a large city.</p>

<p>It’s not difficult to consume $3200 a month by yourself unless you’re a traveling consultant who’s not home 48 weeks out of the year.</p>

<p>Since large cities like NYC have a MUCH higher cost of living, you need to take that into account and adjust it accordingly. $60,000 in New York is equal to about $27,000 in other places according to cost of living calculators. Therefore on $160k a year at biglaw, you’re not living THAT much better than someone who makes the median. In fact, the median adjusted for cost of living is somewhere around $125k-$135k in New York. It can be just as high if not higher in other cities too.</p>

9

<p>should we mention to some of the kiddies on board, that there are plenty of attorney’s in their prime earning years (15 + years put of law school) whose income is “only” around $125,000.<br>
If high income is a top priority to ya- the best advice I’m going to pass along is to marry someone who also works. In this economy, 2 incomes are better than one.</p>

10

<p>As someone who put herself through college and law school (and had the massive student loan debt of over $140,000 to prove it) and who then lived in NYC, I understand how tough it can be to make it on $60,000 per year in NYC. </p>

<p>That said, if you can’t make a $60,000 per year job work for you then don’t take that job. If you have student loan debt that prevents you from taking a $60,000 per year job in NYC, then go and live in a more affordable city or take a job that pays more. That’s all there is to it. </p>

<p>If your goal is to take a job that will pay $60,000 per year, then you probably have to consider going to a law school that gives you substantial merit money to attend or one that is otherwise affordable for you, like a state law school. There are trade-offs. </p>

<p>Again, if there weren’t attorneys in the NYC area willing to take jobs that pay $60,000 per year, then the salaries would have to rise in order to induce attorneys to take those jobs. If the salaries aren’t rising, then you have to assume that there are enough takers for those jobs to keep salaries where they are. </p>

<p>It’s all about the choices that you make.</p>

11

<p>I thought that this old thread from this board regarding cost of living in NYC might be interesting to revisit in light of the current conversation:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/329111-where-all-associate-money-goes.html?highlight=nyc[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/329111-where-all-associate-money-goes.html?highlight=nyc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;