by Kristen Pavón

Here at NALP we have a bookstore filled to the brim with incredibly helpful books on the legal market and career development. One of particular interest to us at PSLawNet is Landing a Federal Legal Job: Finding Success in the U.S. Government Job Market by Richard L. Hermann.

In addition to going into great detail about … well, almost every facet of federal legal jobs, the author lays out over 20 pros and cons of getting into the fed biz. Here are a few of the highlights:

The Pros

• The Inevitable Exodus of Retirees.

The average federal employee is 50 years old. In the next several years, the government anticipates a demand for new hires.

• Work/Life Balance

The majority of federal government attorneys enjoy 35-40 hour work weeks. Also, the government’s vacation policy and benefits are generous.

• Transferability

Once you get your foot in the door, you’re in a good position to move around laterally within your agency and even other agencies.

The Cons

• Promotion Ceilings

I like this quote on the subject; it says it all — “If you are consumed with ambition, the federal government may leave you somewhat frustrated.”

• Marketability

Oftentimes, government attorneys practice within a very narrow field, which makes it difficult to move into the private sector. However, there are exceptions.

• Drug Testing

LOL. I’ll say no more.

Also, unofficially — I’d add the ugly job market and its effect on landing government positions to the con list.

So, now I want to know — are you interested in federal jobs? Have you applied to some already? What were your considerations before applying?

By: Steve Grumm

My friend and colleague Leeor Neta, Assistant Director for Public Interest Programs at Golden Gate University School of Law, has written a nice piece about the varying – and sometimes strange – paths he’s been on during his legal career.  The article is entitled “The Most Common Path to a Public Interest Career is Also the Least Discussed.”  In it Leeor draws a distinction between the better-understood-but-quite-narrow points of entry, such as postgraduate fellowships and judicial clerkships, and the path that most grads take: shaking every tree, making connections, and staying optimistic until the right opportunity comes along. And even at that stage, the first “right” opportunity generally won’t be the last one.  So one job may lead to another and another as a graduate is 1, 5, 10 years out of law school.

The article’s intended audience is law school career services professionals, but I’ve no doubt that public-interest minded students and grads can take much from Leeor’s recounting of his experiences.  Leeor begins:

There are ultimately three avenues to a public interest legal career. The first is a postgraduate fellowship with a public interest organization. The second is a judicial clerkship; clerkships demonstrate a commitment to public service that can attract public interest employers. While these paths to a public interest career are certainly desirable, it is probably fair to say that most future public interest lawyers pursue a third avenue: taking whatever comes, maintaining a long-term perspective, and doing one’s best to exemplify a commitment to public interest in the meantime.

…

How then do we counsel the countless law students who graduate each year without either a fellowship or a clerkship but still an abiding commitment to the public interest? CDOs need to broadcast the stories of the many people who took a long-term path to a public interest career. When possible, we need to speak from our own experiences. And if you will pardon a minor indulgence, I will do just that: I came to law school with little idea of what I wanted to accomplish with a law degree. All I knew was that I wanted to serve my community, especially those who did not have the same opportunities I’d had….

From there Leeor runs is through his own winding career path.   He’s done everything from capital defense to broader indigent defense work in Illinois, to running (after founding) a juvenile diversion program in California.  Also falling in there – in fact, his first job out of law school – was a stint doing non-public-interest-but-very-educational work in insurance law.  Now, of course, Leeor’s at Golden Gate where he helps students and alum to launch public interest careers.

Leeor’s a very sharp lawyer with some hefty academic credentials (certainly heftier than mine).  My hope in sharing his story is that all 3Ls and recent grads can take some solace from the fact that a few missteps and uncertainties along the way are far more the norm than you might think.  This post is edging into “too-long-didn’t-read” territory, so for now it must suffice to say that I never envisioned that I, as someone who wanted nothing but to work on public benefits cases in a legal aid office, would not touch a public benefits case during or after law school.  But I’m thrilled with the crazy, unforseen way that things have turned out.  It happens to most of us.

By: Steve Grumm

These are oldies but goodies.  At this time last year we posted cover letter and resume-drafting tips for summer, public interest job applications.  So while we’re gearing up for our free, two-part summer job search webinars series that will take place on 1/25 and 2/1 (click for registration and details), we wanted to re-circulate last year’s posts, which retain all of their currency today:

• Public interest cover letters: tips and best practices for summer job applications;
• Public interest resumes: tips and best practices for summer job applications.

Good luck, and try to join us for both webinars to get your 2012 summer job hunt on.

Save these dates — January 25th and February 1st!

NALP and Equal Justice Works are bringing you a free two-part webinar series on the most important phases of the job application process — cover letters, resumes, interviewing and networking!

Attorneys with years of application review experience will highlight do’s and don’ts; explain how and why public interest application materials may substantively differ from law firm materials; and explore the dynamics of personal interactions in interviews and networking situations.

• Part One: Wed., 1/25/12 at 3pm Eastern – Best Practices in Drafting Cover Letters and Resumes.  Reserve your Webinar seat now!

Presenters:

• Steve Grumm, Director of Public Service Initiatives, NALP
• Stuart Smith, Director of Legal Recruitment, New York City Law Department
• Nicole Vikan, Assistant Director for Public Interest & Government Careers, Georgetown University Law Center

• Part Two: Wed., 2/1/12 at 12pm (Noon) Eastern – Best Practices in Interviewing and In-person Networking.  Reserve your Webinar seat now!

Presenters:

• Nita Mazumder, Program Manager for Law School Relations, Equal Justice Works
• Nicole Simmons, Career Counselor, The University of Texas School of Law
• David Zisser, Associate Counsel, The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Don’t keep it a secret, tell your friends!

Next Thursday, January 12 — Equal Justice Works will host another free webinar about educational loans — and you’re all invited!

Mark your calendars, peeps! Here are the deets:

Plan Before You Borrow: What You Should Know About Educational Loans BEFORE You Go to Graduate School

Thursday, Jan. 12, 1-2 p.m. EST

Interested in government or public interest work after graduating? This webinar will help you plan ahead and make sure you can take full advantage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

The webinar will teach you about:

•     Taking out the right kind of loans

•     Consolidating or reconsolidating your previous student loans

•     How the College Cost Reduction and Access Act can free you to pursue a public interest career

Register here!

By: Steve Grumm

That’s also good advice for living life outside of law school.  The Natioanl Law Journal reports on a recent study about how law students’ dispositions can affect their performance and overall levels of satisfaction:

Which new law students will perform the best academically during their first semester and be the most satisfied with their lives? Those who are realistically hopeful, according to research into the way hope and optimism affect law student performance.

A study published in the December edition of the Journal of Research in Personality, and featured last year in the Duquesne Law Review, concluded that students who came to campus with high levels of hope got better grades and were more satisfied with their lives after completing their first semester, which tends to be the most stressful.  

This distinction between optimism and hope is quite helpful, in my opinion:

The researchers distinguished hope from optimism, high levels of which boosted life satisfaction but not first semester grades.

“Optimism is the expectation that the future will be good, regardless of how this happens,” said Kevin Rand, an assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “Hope is the expectation about things you have actual control over.”

Free existential guidance from the PSLawNet Blog!  You’re welcome, people.

By: Steve Grumm

This ABA Journal piece is a must-read if you’re interested in how legal education is financed (i.e. the widespread availability of loans), the intersection of the lending system with a bleak job market, and what may happen from here.  The news ain’t all good.  Authors William Henderson and Rachel Zahorsky begin with some sobering present-day statistics…

In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require a JD nine months after commencement. Less than 51 percent found employment in private law firms.

The influx of so many law school graduates—44,258 in 2010 alone, according to the ABA—into a declining job market creates serious repercussions that will reverberate for decades to come.

…

The piece then goes on to trace the historical role of federal lending (both in backing private loans and direct lending) in funneling cash into the legal education system.  Henderson/Zahorsky identify a serious, looming problem for federal lending.  Now that Uncle Sam is doing so much direct lending he is betting that, as a lender, he’ll make money back on future interest revenues paid by law-student/attorney borrowers.  But is this realistic in light of a stagnant (and maybe in the long term, shrinking) job market?

By failing to make rigorous, realistic actuarial assumptions in deciding who to lend money to and how much to lend, the federal government avoids politically uncomfortable trade-offs. Everyone can go to college. And if you can get accepted into law school, the government will finance that, too.

But as the economist Herbert Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it won’t.” The federal government’s gamble that higher education will continue to result in higher personal incomes eerily echoes Wall Street’s risky assumption that historical patterns in real estate values would carry forward forever and enable many sliced-and-diced mortgage-backed securities to attain AAA ratings.

While it may be politic, even patriotic, to assume that the higher-education-equals-higher-income equation is fact, for investors it remains, at best, aspirational. Since 2008, private investment in nearly any market has been reluctant. The capitalists aren’t taking this education-equals-high income bet; if they did, the terms they would demand would likely change the choices that student borrowers are now making.

Unless the government’s actuarial assumptions on student loan repayments turn out to be correct, federal funding of higher education is on a collision course with the federal deficit.

Optimistic assumptions of future growth and earning power, however, are completely at odds with the financial landscape that has given rise to the so-called scamblogger movement and some recent lawsuits by graduates alleging their schools committed fraud and other deceptive practices regarding portrayals of job prospects.

I wish I had more time to go into depth on this article, but for now the above must suffice as a teaser.  It’s worth a full read.

by Kristen Pavón

Hi everyone — I hope you’ve all been enjoying the holidays with lots of friends and family, and are getting ready to take on the new year!

Today, I’m bringing you some tried and true pointers for the job search. In addition to suggesting words to avoids on your resume, Career Builder’s Jobology guide includes 5 annoying actions to steer clear of during the interview process!

1. Arriving too early.

2. Acting desperate.

3. Following up aggressively.

4. Badmouthing anyone.

5. Lacking direction. (Yes, you should be flexible in “this economy,” but always tailor application materials to the job you’ve applied for and be prepared to talk about how the job will further your professional goals.)

I have a few additional suggestions:

• Maintain eye contact with interviewers.
• Ask questions!
• Double- and triple-check that you’ve turned your phone off.

Anything else?

By: Steve Grumm

Congrats, 1Ls!  Getting the first set of finals under your belt is a rite of passage.  (If you’re not feeling good about them, don’t despair.  If I had a nickel for every law student who didn’t excel in first semester but finished with a strong academic record…)

2Ls: finals are old hat.  But as you’ve now discovered, second year is quite busy and you’re dealing with more demands on  your time.  Still, you’ve hit the legal-education midpoint.  Huzzah!

Time to kick back, yes?  No.  Well, not entirely.  For sure, take a few days to decompress.  Connect with family and friends, read fiction, go for a jog.  I also used to unwind by tipping a pint or two at various Philadelphia watering holes with my classmate Irish Dan.  But I do not offer this as formal advice as 1) it’s not always the best stress relief solution and 2) I don’t want any 1Ls getting in trouble and then suing me based upon some obscure, 18th-century liability theory from their torts casebook.

One valuable pursuit during your semester break is setting up informational interviews with lawyers who work in fields you’re interested in and/or with employer organizations you’re attracted to.  Setting up these interviews can be an intimidating prospect.  At least a job interview is a well-defined proposition with a concrete desired outcome.  The end goal of an informational interviews is not a job, but rather insight into the everyday work of public interest lawyers, the challenges and opportunities present in certain practice areas, the cultures of employer organizations, and so forth.  You’re doing reconnaissance, essentially, that will inform subsequent job-search strategies.

Informational interviewing is a form of the dreaded “networking.”  When I was a law student I loathed the concept so much that I refused on principle to use “network” as a verb.  But I find informational interviewing less stress-inducing because its more formal structure 1) allows you to prepare and 2) greatly diminishes the awkward straining-to-make-conversation feeling that can creep in when you meet someone randomly at a social event.  Not to mention, there is helpful self-selection at work. Unless you’re blackmailing them or something, the only people who will agree to meet you for an informational interview are those kinds of people who like working with aspiring public interest lawyers.

How to set up informational interviews:

1. Begin with research on your own.  Use PSLawNet and other career resources to ID practice areas/settings and employer organizations that interest you.  When you’ve put together a list…
2. Share it with a career services professional at your law school.  Explain your interests and ask if 1) they know anybody at the organizations you’ve ID’d, 2) they have other employer organizations suggestions, and 3) they know any alumni who work in the fields you’re interested in.
3. Identify specific people to contact within your ID’d organizations.  This, if you don’t have a contact already, can involve taking an educated guess.  If you want to practice family law with a civil legal services provider, I suggest reaching out to the managing/supervising attorney of an organization’s family law unit.  I would try to find someone on a management level, but below the head of the office (i.e. the executive director, district attorney, etc.).  The exception to this rule would involve a small office.  If the DA’s office consists of the DA and her two deputies, then outreach to the DA would be fine. 
4. I recommend email as a first resort.  (If you have reason to know that the attorney whom you’re reaching out is an old-fashioned type, then a letter may be best.)  A concise note explaining a) who you are, b) why you’re writing (i.e. in hopes of meeting) and 3) why you want to meet should suffice.  Close by thanking the person in advance and by requesting that if there is someone else in the office with whom you should speak, to let you know or to forward your message to that person on  your behalf.
5. Once you’ve got a meeting set up, prepare much like you would for a job interview.  Do your homework about the organization and learn what you can about the person whom you’re meeting with.  The significant difference in preparation between informational and job interviews is this: during informational interviews you’ll be asking most of the questions.  The tables have turned here, so take advantage.  Don’t interrogate the person you’re speaking with, but prepare a handful of questions that will get the answers you seek.
6. When you’re finished, say thanks in person and again via email.  If it goes well, and if you’re otherwise inclined, it’s fine for you to ask if your new contact would keep you abreast of job openings that may match your interests. 

If you want others’ takes on this topic, here are some  informational interviewing tips from Washington & Lee, from Seattle U. and from Ohio State.

Have a relaxing and joy-filled holiday season.

by Kristen Pavón

In Follow Your Passion Is bad Career Advice for Most People, the author warns readers that focusing on passion is dangerous for most people. I read the title and was a bit nervous (Eek! Us public-interest peeps are bursting from the seams with passion!), but really, what she says is not nearly as severe as the title suggests.

While she recognized that passion wins in some situations, she made it clear that passionate people need to back it up with real skills. I agree with this; it makes sense.

 How can you say you’re passionate about a job or company or industry that you know nothing about? How can you say you’re passionate about something you’ve never tried before? If you’re so passionate, why do you have to keep telling people you are (instead of just showing them)?

. . . [Y]ou have to have something tangible, actionable or measurable as evidence that your passion manifests in something real.

She gave four examples of ways to gain skills in your area of passion without having years of traditional, full-time work — and I think they fit well with public interest law!

1. Volunteer work in your passion
2. A side business in your passion
3. An encyclopedic knowledge of your passion
4. An extensive network of contacts active and influential in your passion

What else would you add?