Careers
Recent Law Grads Pursuing Hard-to-Get Paralegal, Secretary Jobs at Firms
Posted Aug 6, 2009 10:54 AM CST
By Martha Neil
Jessica Sparacino was still a law student when she landed a job as a paralegal at the Jackson Lewis office in Melville, N.Y. She worked there for a year after graduating from Touro College's Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center before finding a position as a lawyer.
She's one of the lucky ones, reports the Long Island Business News. Some recent law grads and attorneys struggling to find employment in a recessionary economy that has hit the legal profession particularly hard are trying without success to get jobs as legal secretaries in the New York City area.
Sparacino, who is to start practicing this week at GerstmanSchwartz in Garden City, N.Y., is fielding calls from friends wondering if Jackson Lewis is looking for a replacement paralegal.
When his law firm recently was looking to hire a new administrative assistant, it was flooded with attorney resumes, says David Gabor of Gabor & Gabor. But the Garden City partnership went with a college graduate rather than a law graduate, out of concern that any attorney hired for the position was likely to move elsewhere as soon as an opportunity to practice arose, he tells the Business News.
Laid off in October, Denise Doty said she didn't even try to get work as a legal secretary before finally hanging out her shingle in Farmingdale, N.Y., in May after the 50 or 60 resumés she sent out in the meantime seeking another job as a lawyer got little or no response, the article recounts.
"Years ago when I got out of law school and couldn’t find a job, I did take a position as a secretary," she says, "but nobody is going to hire somebody as a secretary with 15 years of experience” in practice.
Related material:
Above the Law: "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled law school graduates, yearning to... earn $27K? For half-lawyer, half-paralegal work?"
Updated at 1:40 p.m. to link to Above the Law post.
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Comments
B. McLeod
Aug 6, 2009 1:27 PM CST
I think there are a lot of solo and small firm lawyers who would love to have a practitioner with 15 years’ experience working at secretarial scale. I hope Ms. Doty will find, though, that she actually does come out better than that as a solo. Lawyers looking at that option should think back on how they made it through law school and through their years of practice up until now. Surely some self-confidence is warranted, as well as some faith that by pressing on, they will yet come out okay.
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Michael
Aug 6, 2009 1:37 PM CST
Comment removed by moderator.
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Steve
Aug 6, 2009 2:21 PM CST
Do law school career development offices still claim a J.D. “opens door” ? ( And when did they stop being “placement offices” ?)
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abe
Aug 6, 2009 4:53 PM CST
about the only doors that a JD from tiers 2-4 open are the doors to the food stamp office.
Unless you are in the top 10 percent of your class or your father/uncle is a lawyer, you are out of luck. It has been that way for years now.
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B. McLeod
Aug 6, 2009 10:28 PM CST
I think it’s always been a good idea to work hard and try to get into the top 10% or even the top 10 in the class (top 5 if possible). It has been that way for years now.
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ALLAN
Aug 6, 2009 11:55 PM CST
it’s always a good idea to be born rich.
It is always a good idea to win the lottery.
it is always a good idea to make millions in the stock market.
The point being that only a small percentage of all law school students can finish in the top 5 percent or so.
And for most law schools, those students are the only ones who can make a living in law. At least that is the way it is now that the law school industry has cranked out hundreds of thousands of excess lawyers.
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Robert
Aug 7, 2009 2:37 AM CST
That is complete and utter B.S. Small and Medium Firms are doing well, if not thriving if they are willing to adapt to the New Economy. The large firms are suffering from bloat and are using the economy as an excuse to cut dead weight and young lawyers. There are plenty of jobs out there for those who are in all levels of their graduating class, especially if they are hard workers and have some drive.
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barbara res
Aug 7, 2009 7:06 AM CST
Stop whining -
If you want to be a lawyer, be a lawyer. Stop trying to be a millionaire. Take hard cases, work on contingency, take fee-shifting cases and break you ass to win - you’ll get paid well.
Want to make money? Become a mechanic. Or a construction worker - IF you have the talent.
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anon solo
Aug 7, 2009 7:15 AM CST
well, from what I can tell from talking to my former law school classmates, about 40 percent of my law school class from several years ago are working in non-lawyer positions, such as paralegal, clerking, insurance, retail, etc.
I went to a tier 3 school.
So even several years ago, a huge portion of law school grads cannot get in the field
About 30 percent of my classmates are soloing.
Now I do work as a solo, but I have never made more than about 25K a year. Lucky for me my wife has a job with her father’s company
The thing is that there are so many lawyers out there now that there are no jobs, and too many solo lawyers competing for the few clients.
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J.R.
Aug 7, 2009 9:29 AM CST
Robert… please point me to the thriving firms and the ample job opportunities of which you speak. I’m pretty sure the most law related opening I’ve recently found is an opening for a court clerk stamping and filing legal forms.
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B. McLeod
Aug 9, 2009 11:20 PM CST
I don’t doubt that Robert does know of some, but, like all the other posters here who don’t want to be nationally known, he won’t share the news if it would effectively identify him.
As part of the recession relief effort, ABA should set up a board where members who know of openings can anonymously post references to the same.
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