Calling All Unemployed Lawyers: Recent Comments

Comment on The Birds [1]

Dvora — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:18:29 GMT

I wonder if they are hiring? I should fill out an application. lol

Comment on If a Tree Falls. . . .

Dvora — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:15:05 GMT

Thank you for your site. It is a ghost town out there. I attended law school at night while working full time as a paralegal. I graduated with over seven years legal experience. I left my job my last year of school to pursue a fellowship. My J.D. just sits in its neat little package they mailed it in. I have received one interview since May, and that didn't go well at all. I email hundreds of resumes a week to anything that is listed. I apply for dog washing jobs at this point. I am glad I am not alone in this. It is so frustrating. I feel like noone gets it. I get alot of "you aren't trying hard enough" and "apply for anything". Oh, I do. Nobody wants to hire me as a waitress or a cashier either; I apply for those jobs too. Best of luck all you new grads. I was better off before I went to school.

Comment on If a Tree Falls. . . .

Susan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:15:47 GMT

So, I was turned down for another job that I was incredibly qualified for. There were 1400 applicants, and I got an interview. That felt amazing, until the rejection letter was received. I thought I had hit a new low, by not getting this particular position. But then I got a call from a headhunter that I started working with 9 months ago. They have an interview scheduled for me. Over the past 9 months, I think I've had 5 interviews. I've looked for a new job every day; well maybe once I took a day off, but truly every day I look for a job; one that pays a livable wage.
I took a job that pays less than my unemployment was paying, so that I could get insurance benefits, and get out of that chair that has become the chair that I sit in when I'm not working. I didn't want to sit in the chair anymore, so I took a job where I learned how to draft foreclosure complaints. That is where the work is...it doesn't pay well, but it's steadily coming in the door. That's the sad part of it. What's ironic, is that I may be losing my house soon. I can't afford to pay my mortgage on these "foreclosure" wages, so I hope the interview next week will produce a real wage-earning life-sustaining salary. I've been told that this new job is probably only temporary...maybe they'll consider it to be permanent, depending on how much they like the person. Tough decision as to whether to quit the low-paying job with insurance benefits, for a higher-paying temp to perm position..... The real kicker was a comment from a "good friend" of mine yesterday. I told her how I just got turned down from the last job I applied for, and she told me to just pick up the phone and ask my old boss to call one of his friends, and have him get me a job. I told her that I have exhausted all job leads, from everyone I know, and that there simply weren't any jobs for me to get right now. She didn't believe me..

Comment on If a Tree Falls. . . .

joan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:07:25 GMT

Please tell me that you have some good news about your employment.

Comment on Mathematics

Unemployed — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:51:59 GMT

Dear Ms. Medley:

I have posted your comment requesting legal assistance, but I do not think that this site is the best place to look for what you want. I will try to point you in better directions to seek the help you need.

First, you must consider the place you live and where you are suing or being sued. You are more likely to receive effective legal help if you can work with an attorney from one place or the other.

As far as I know, every state has at least one legal aid agency that may be able to help you if you ake contact in the proper state. Legal aid agencies should be able to help with issues such as eviction, domestic abuse, and elder law, to name a few. Some agencies are devoted to specific issues and others offer more general assistance. You will have to ask questions of the agency you contact.

You may also request pro bono assistance from a lawyer or law firm in private practice. Pro bono, however, means more than “free”. Each state has a specific definition of what may be classified as pro bono work, and not everyone with a problem, but who can’t pay a lawyer, fits that definition.

If you are suffering from a personal injury (a car accident, for example), most PI attorneys will work on a contingent fee, if they like your case. In that case, you and your attorney agree beforehand that the attorney will take a specific percentage of any award you may receive if you win, but that you will not pay if you lose.

In the area of civil law, you will find it most difficult to find a free attorney if you are the defendant. In that case, you will have to seek a lawyer through legal aid or through a pro bono program.

A possible variation on legal aid may be available if your troubles arise from a civil rights violation. If, somehow, your problems are connected to your race, gender, state of health, religion, or any category or condition protected by statute or the Constitution, you may be able to find an organization dedicated to the interests of your protected group. That organization might be willing and able to help you.

If you have been charged with a criminal offense, you always have the right to an attorney. You have access to a public defender in any state. You may also ask the court to appoint an attorney for you, but such appointment is at the court’s discretion. You may also request pro bono assistance, but you have no right to it, and no guarantee that you will get it.

Again, consider the possibility of civil rights organizations and legal aid. You may not get any help, but there is no harm in asking.

I am sorry that you are in trouble. As I said in the beginning, I believe that mostly unemployed Lawyers use this site. That means uninsured lawyers, with very few legal or financial resources that would likely be needed to take on a case. I don’t think you will find much help here.

Nobody likes to see others suffer. I hope something I have written helps you. If not, please ask again and I will do what I can within my very strict limitations to think of something else. But please go to work on these suggestions first.

The Unemployed Lawyer

Comment on Mathematics

Robyn Medley — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:30:40 GMT

I need help.... Please I need an attorney to help me with a case.... It will need to be Pro Bono but the experience will be tremendous. Please help me.

Comment on Rashomon [1]

Peter — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:02:00 GMT

Perspective.

It really takes a unique convergence of weird external happenings (cheap Ben Stiller antics juxtaposed to a vulnerable but dynamic Phoenix) combined with internal wrestlings of our own lives (yeah, I guess unemployment in the legal profession will offer that), to force a new(ish) perspective.

UL, though, your conclusions frustrate me. I know they are open ended, but they're still somewhat directed. You urge your fellows, likewise unemployed, to evaluate potential offers, despite the impuse to snap at the next. I appreciate that. But what are the grounds that should give pause?

Firm culture? Personalities?

Where does the substance of the work come in?

I've been struggling with economics as an associate for half year now. The reason? The work is amazing. I've been neck deep in community fights; have argued dozens of adminstrative pleadings; community strategies with municipal leaders; and even a successful third circuit brief. Three years in and I have more experience in empassioned fights (as opposed to PI battles) than most of my law school peers.

But my pay was reduced from salary, to part-time, to independant contractor, to even less hours. Each time, I renegotiated my entire family to make it happen so I could continue doing the work. Because it was about the work.

Eventually, it was no longer sustainable. There was/is an added dimension to the wrestlings you discuss in my struggle: the pay wars against the passion. To be an unemployed lawyer who is willing to work for $40 Gs a year so long as he can work in his passion subject matter is pretty debilitating when there is no work. I simply can't go lower, I have a daughter. Imagine that, "I'm sorry, I can't take less then 40,000 a year." But then the next level of thought: am I really just a naval gazer who can live on less money? etc....

Of course, in writing this, I know I subject myself to the expected onslaught of BigLaw chatter about the whining "TTT" lawyer (not from you, I gather - I hope). For what its worth, I'm a top tier graduate, law journal member (though I despise having to even say so - it defeats the whole point).

All of this to say: the substance of your thoughts probe the boarders of the legal profession, but are hemmed in by a perspective that comes from BigLaw. Is there a way, in this unique time, to step back and think about law generally - not just the next job - but rather what we are doing and WHY we want that next job?

More to say, but I'll stop recognizing my rambling tendencies. I enjoyed this last post. The analogy was well crafted and well taken. Thank you.

Touch base soon, I'm sure.

Peter

Comment on Something Worth Publishing

Peter — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:29:30 GMT

I had the same sober and contemplative reaction to this quote when I first came across it. For the record, however, I posted it not to "put you in your place," but rather as an encouragement (which I imagine you already know)...

Keep writing.

signed:
~ A different sort of unemployed attorney

Comment on Something Worth Publishing

Unemployed Lawyer — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:03:15 GMT

I should either be quiet or say "thank you", so I will thank you from the bottom of my heart.

UL

Comment on Something Worth Publishing

Peter — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:05:40 GMT

Just happened upon your site. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and the introspection (despite your self-flagulation for your self-perceived self-indulgence). I was reminded of a quote from an old law school friend (I think he was a judge or something?)":

"No man has earned the right to intellectual ambition until he has learned to lay his course by a star which he has never seen – to dig by the divining rod for springs which he may never reach. In saying this, I point to that which will make your study heroic. For I say to you in all sadness of conviction, that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists. Only when you have worked alone – when you have felt around you a black gulf of solitude more isolating than that which surrounds a dying man, and in hope and in despair have trusted to your own unshaken will – then only will you have achieved. Then only can you gain the secret isolated joy of the thinker, who knows that, hundred years after he is dead and forgotten, men who never heard of him will be moving to the measure of his thought – the subtle rapture of post-poned power, which the world knows not because it has no external trappings, but which to his prophetic vision is more real than that which commands an army."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1886