NALP aims to be the premier resource for information on legal employment and recruiting in the United States and Canada. We produce a variety of research reports, including Jobs & JDs, our Associate Salary Survey, and our Public Service Attorney Salary Report. NALP produces the Public Service Attorney Salary Report, the piece of NALP research most relevant to PSJD’s audience, every four years. We released our most recent version of the Salary Report in 2018, when we also integrated that report into PSJD as a series of interactive visualizations and made it free to access for all PSJD jobseekers. (Actually, the 2014 report data is also free to access via PSJD as well, so that users can make comparisons and see how salaries have changed over time; the whole report is well worth a look if you haven’t already taken the time to check it out.)

But although the Salary Report is available to jobseekers on PSJD via the site’s Resource Center, the PSJD Fellow and I speak regularly with jobseekers who ask us whether NALP has any information we can share about public service salaries. So we took some time and asked ourselves whether we could do anything to make this information easier to find and easier to use. I’m writing this blog post because, as it turns out, there was!

Beginning today, all of PSJD’s users who have access to the Public Service Attorney Salary Report (school administrators, jobseekers, and employers who have purchased access to the report or who have complimentary access because they contributed to our dataset when we conducted the Salary Survey back in 2018) should begin seeing relevant data excerpted from the report alongside job announcements as they browse PSJD. (Employers cannot browse PSJD job announcements generally, but if they have access to the salary report they will see salary graphs alongside their own job announcements.)

Here are a couple of examples of how this works. This is a job with a civil legal aid organization, located in Philadelphia PA. The relevant portion of the Public Service Attorney Salary Report is the section that discusses salaries with civil legal aid organizations in the Northeast US Census Region (the introduction of the report discusses how states are divided geographically). So in the sidebar, users will see a graph of median salaries in this region for attorneys at organizations of this type, drawn from the dataset for the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Report.

If a job announcement describes a position available in multiple locations, the salary visualization may describe multiple regions. This job announcement discusses a position with a public interest nonprofit which is available in New York NY, Oakland CA, and Boston MA. Because the position is available in locations within both the Northeast US Census Region and the West US Census Region, users will see a graph including median salaries for attorneys with such organizations in both regions, drawn from the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Report.

So that’s the basic idea. When we have relevant information about salaries that might help you as you browse PSJD’s jobs database, we’ll do our best to provide it to you–no need to go hunting to find out what we have. There are a few provisos worth keeping in mind:

• Jobs that are classified as “unpaid” or “pro bono” have no relevant salary information and will not have salary graphs.
  This limitation is pretty straightforward. If a job expressly says it is unpaid, there’s no need to compare it against salary information.
• Jobs with organizations that are not covered by the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Report’s categories will not have salary graphs.
  The 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Report covers four organization types: (1) civil legal services organizations, (2) public defender offices, (3) local prosecuting attorney offices, and (4) public interest organizations with issue-specific missions. In the PSJD Jobs Database, these sections correspond to our organization types ‘Civil Legal Aid’, ‘Public Defender’s Office’, ‘Prosecutor’s Office’, and ‘Public Interest Nonprofit’. Job announcements with these employer types will include these integrated salary graphs.

We hope that all makes sense, but if you have any questions about the new feature please feel free to reach out. We’d be happy to talk about it with you.

Sam Halpert, PSJD Fellow (’14-’15)

The federal government is big and does a lot of stuff. [citation needed] Folks across the political spectrum approach this fact with various feelings, but it’s true. And with great scope comes great opportunity. Almost regardless of what your interests are as a lawyer, odds are some corner of the Fed might enable you to pursue them. If you’re in the midst of your job search and you haven’t taken a look around the government yet, you probably should. You never know what you might find.

USAJobs.gov handles so many different fields, it can be hard to find relevant information.

The problem is, the federal government is big and does a lot of stuff. That means that taking a look around is far from simple. USAJobs.gov–the federal hiring portal– handles so many job notices in so many different fields, it can be hard to find relevant information. Moreover, once you find positions you want to apply to you’ll probably learn that the federal hiring process involves different conventions than most other employers.

Without help, overcoming these challenges can be slow and painful. Luckily, there are resources out there to speed things up for you:

1. USAJobs Search/Alert Walkthrough. This winter, the PSJD Resource Center added a walkthrough to help jobseekers set up their USAJobs.gov accounts to locate positions that require or prefer candidates with legal training. (Courtesy of Georgetown Law’s Office of Public Interests Career Services) It’s your best option for getting up to speed on USAJobs and finding positions you’re interested in.
2. Tips for Writing Federal Resumes. Last Friday, Lindy Kyzer of ClearanceJobs.com (and formerly of the DoD) published a new listicle of do’s and don’ts for your federal-government-specific resume. (Yes, you need a federal-government-specific resume.)

So check out these guides, and get out there! If you find anything unexpected in the federal government, feel free to share your surprise. If you come up with additional resources you’ve found helpful, let me know and I can pass them on.

by Ashley Matthews, PSJD Fellow

Look no further – we’ve got your step-by-step instructions, including screenshots, right here!

First things first: Head over to PSJD.org’s Resource Center by clicking the link in the header of the site.

(Click the screenshot to enlarge.)

It’s a good idea to log-in now, because you’ll need access to all the fellowships later!

The new Fellowship Deadline Calendar will be the last link in the Postgraduate Fellowships section of PSJD’s Resource Center. If you really, really like our old list of deadlines and just hate calendars, you can always click the link above it to get to the previous version:

After you click the link, you will see PSJD’s new Fellowship Deadline Calendar! At first, it may look like this:

This is called a Grid View. You can change this by clicking Calendar View, right under the gray Search Fellowships bar and right above the Search Results.

Your Calendar View will look like this:

You can filter all the results you see in the grid or calendar by using the gray Search Fellowships bar:

This bar will be your command center while searching for postgraduate fellowships. You can filter results by date range, fellowship type, and deadline type. There’s also an option to limit your results by Favorites! Here’s a breakdown of what you see:

Date Range: You have two ways to filter the date range of PSJD’s postgrad fellowships – by deadline, and by the date it was posted on PSJD. This is really helpful if you’re only looking for fellowships you need to apply for right now, or if you’re only looking for fellowships that were recently posted so you can get a head start on the application.

Fellowship Type: Each fellowship is posted under a category. When filtering your results, hover over the question mark next to the name of the fellowship type to get more information on what types of opportunities are listed for each:

Deadline Type: Fellowships have different types of deadlines – some may be rolling until filled, and others may be in the spring, fall or summer. Job-seekers can also view fellowships archived on PSJD with past deadlines.

You may see an entry on your Calendar View that has a plus sign and a number next to it, like this:

Depending on how you filtered your search results, this +3 just means there are 3 other fellowships that were posted on that day, or have a deadline that falls on that day.

If you’re interested in any of the fellowships you see, just click the name for application info – it’s hyperlinked right to the PSJD posting.

Got more questions about the new PSJD Fellowship Deadline Calendar? Shoot me an email at AMatthews@nalp.org or give the PSJD office a call at (202) 296-0076. We’re happy to help you navigate this new feature!