You’re from Denver

(HT to my friend George.) You know you’re from Denver when . . .

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Updates about legal temping and other angst

A recent commenter to my recent post about the world of legal temping and law school grads trying to get a foot on the career ladder, here, says:

Tom the Temp’s blog is exaggerated. Some temp assignments pay as much as $40-50/hr sometimes more depending on experience. . . . Tom the Temp just blogs about ONE firm (PW) and makes it sound like that experience is universal (not true, temping has a lot of benefits besides the cushy paycheck).

I also know the blogger from bigdebt,small law. He’s just a very bitter 2006 Seton Hall Law grad with over 100K job [Suz sez: did you mean "debt"?] who didn’t foresee that the job market for new grads is tough and that the average salary is really 45-60K nowadays. . .

Of course, this commenter is as anonymous as anybody else I’m writing about but since it could ALL be just wonderful fiction anyway, I’ll go with it too.

UPDATE on 9/1/06:  “Jean Brown” has posted another comment which reads:

TTT’s blog is NOT exaggerated. 2% of projects pay that much. MOST are document reviews that pay much less. MOST of the people stuck working in them are paying off massive student loans to the tune of 100k +. After student loan payments, these people struggle to stay within the middle class; they have to pay their own health insurance, benefits, etc. Worst of all when they finally are able to pay their debts down after several years, they have no marketable skills as lawyers. It is a vicious cycle.

Good explanation of the vicious cycle.  For years now I’ve been reacting less than warmly when someone says “my kid’s in college and she wants to go to law school.”  Not because I don’t think highly of the kid, but out of concern for just such an outcome after three years of hard study and huge student debt – a JD degree the kid may not be able to afford to frame if it depends on what he/she can earn as a new lawyer.   

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