Despite Salary Freeze, D.C. Lawyer Pockets More Money—Selling Mary Kay

Posted Jun 1, 2009 8:18 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A frustrated Washington, D.C., lawyer may not be driving a pink Cadillac, but she is pocketing an extra $400 to $500 a month selling Mary Kay cosmetics.

The unidentified lawyer owes $150,000 in law student loans, but isn’t getting a pay raise to help out from her law firm, which has frozen salaries, the Washington Post reports. "I get to work and work and work for no raise and no bonus,” she told the newspaper.

The lawyer said she has been working for Mary Kay for only three months, and keeps 50 percent of everything she sells in the form of commissions. She hopes to eventually quit her firm and may open a private law practice. Or maybe not.

"That is our ticket to changing our entire lives," she told the Post. "I now question whether I will even go back to the practice of law after I quit."

Comments

James
Jun 1, 2009 8:45 AM CST

Then don’t honey. If you don’t love practicing law, don’t do it. It’s not a career for everyone. If you go into anything for the money you’ll be disappointed.

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B. McLeod
Jun 1, 2009 10:56 AM CST

It seems most likely that the foregoing comment was actually intended to offend women attorneys everywhere. But, in case it is actually the result of prolonged, social isolation, and simply absence of knowledge of current practices, I will mention that addressing women attorneys as “honey” rather fell out of polite fashion in the 70s.

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B. McLeod
Jun 1, 2009 10:57 AM CST

By which, I mean the 1870s.

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Philip
Jun 1, 2009 1:41 PM CST

when did a sense of humor go out?

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WSJ
Jun 2, 2009 12:08 AM CST

Sounds like #2 doesn’t like that he wasn’t the first to comment. We can’t let someone else get attention here, now can we?

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B. McLeod
Jun 2, 2009 12:23 AM CST

Not everyone is infantile, # 5. I am often not “first to comment,” and on many stories, do not comment at all.