and a boyfriend she was always breaking up with and then getting back together with again.
I went directly to my office, plopped down in my chair, turned on my computer, and started going through my mail.
The Legal Services Corporation was first established by Congress during the Nixon Administration to provide civil legal aid to the poor in areas of law that affect basic rights such as housing, welfare, disability, child custody, and domestic violence. There were three different practice groups in my office that covered all of these areas: Housing, Public Benefits, and Family/Domestic Violence. At one time there were two lawyers in the Housing Unit, but six months earlier the other attorney left to go into private practice, and so I was the only one left. Although my boss, James, the litigation director in the office, had posted a couple of job advertisements, no replacement had yet been hired. I suspected that he was waiting around to see if I could handle the workload by myself, which irritated me since it was substantial.
Back when I entered Boston College Law School, I had my sights set on getting a public interest job after graduation. Only a small percentage with similar intentions end up staying true to this cause, taking jobs as public defenders and legal services lawyers. Out of that group, only a small percentage remain in the public interest field for more than a few years. For most a change of goals occurs somewhere along the line, and they opt to take higher-paying positions in private practice. Who can blame them? The combination of law school debt and the high cost of living in metropolitan areas that appeal to young people like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles make it difficult to survive on the salary of a public interest lawyer.
During my second year of law school, I took part in the interviewing process for large law firms, even though I really wanted to be a public defender. My mother kept telling me, “Go see what they have to offer. It doesn’t hurt to go on interviews. The practice of interviewing will be good for you.” I knew what she really wanted was for me to land a high-paying job with a big firm. She was subtly trying to steer me in that direction, hoping that I’d get a job offer and she’d be able to brag about me to friends and relatives. All of my life she had pressured me to succeed: in high school it was with respect to academics, sports, and social status. When I entered law school, and ever since, her focus was on the salary and prestige of my job. It was fair to say that she was let down when I began working as a legal services attorney.
The hiring for public defender jobs was erratic, and not knowing if any positions would even be available when I graduated—or for that matter, if one would be offered to me—it seemed foolish to put all of my eggs in that basket. I ended up following my mother’s advice, rationalizing that I could always work at a big firm for a couple of years in order to pay off my loans, then become a public defender later on.
Because I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of working for a large firm, I didn’t get nervous before the interviews as some of my classmates did. That attitude was probably what enabled me to perform well at my interview with Morgan & Reilly and ultimately receive a job offer. In the final analysis, how could I say no to Morgan & Reilly? They were among the best trial lawyers in the city, and working for them would be a good apprenticeship, not to mention a financially beneficial one, since in 2001 they paid a starting salary of $125,000 plus bonus. The fact that the firm defended corporations did not register that strongly with me at the time, because I was only focusing on the long view. I figured that I could live with the job for a couple of years and then move on. But once I started working there, I found the adjustment more difficult than I had anticipated. Eventually I got
I went directly to my office, plopped down in my chair, turned on my computer, and started going through my mail.
The Legal Services Corporation was first established by Congress during the Nixon Administration to provide civil legal aid to the poor in areas of law that affect basic rights such as housing, welfare, disability, child custody, and domestic violence. There were three different practice groups in my office that covered all of these areas: Housing, Public Benefits, and Family/Domestic Violence. At one time there were two lawyers in the Housing Unit, but six months earlier the other attorney left to go into private practice, and so I was the only one left. Although my boss, James, the litigation director in the office, had posted a couple of job advertisements, no replacement had yet been hired. I suspected that he was waiting around to see if I could handle the workload by myself, which irritated me since it was substantial.
Back when I entered Boston College Law School, I had my sights set on getting a public interest job after graduation. Only a small percentage with similar intentions end up staying true to this cause, taking jobs as public defenders and legal services lawyers. Out of that group, only a small percentage remain in the public interest field for more than a few years. For most a change of goals occurs somewhere along the line, and they opt to take higher-paying positions in private practice. Who can blame them? The combination of law school debt and the high cost of living in metropolitan areas that appeal to young people like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles make it difficult to survive on the salary of a public interest lawyer.
During my second year of law school, I took part in the interviewing process for large law firms, even though I really wanted to be a public defender. My mother kept telling me, “Go see what they have to offer. It doesn’t hurt to go on interviews. The practice of interviewing will be good for you.” I knew what she really wanted was for me to land a high-paying job with a big firm. She was subtly trying to steer me in that direction, hoping that I’d get a job offer and she’d be able to brag about me to friends and relatives. All of my life she had pressured me to succeed: in high school it was with respect to academics, sports, and social status. When I entered law school, and ever since, her focus was on the salary and prestige of my job. It was fair to say that she was let down when I began working as a legal services attorney.
The hiring for public defender jobs was erratic, and not knowing if any positions would even be available when I graduated—or for that matter, if one would be offered to me—it seemed foolish to put all of my eggs in that basket. I ended up following my mother’s advice, rationalizing that I could always work at a big firm for a couple of years in order to pay off my loans, then become a public defender later on.
Because I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of working for a large firm, I didn’t get nervous before the interviews as some of my classmates did. That attitude was probably what enabled me to perform well at my interview with Morgan & Reilly and ultimately receive a job offer. In the final analysis, how could I say no to Morgan & Reilly? They were among the best trial lawyers in the city, and working for them would be a good apprenticeship, not to mention a financially beneficial one, since in 2001 they paid a starting salary of $125,000 plus bonus. The fact that the firm defended corporations did not register that strongly with me at the time, because I was only focusing on the long view. I figured that I could live with the job for a couple of years and then move on. But once I started working there, I found the adjustment more difficult than I had anticipated. Eventually I got
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