Careers
Low-Paid PDs and Prosecutors Try Moonlighting
Posted Sep 19, 2008, 08:14 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Public defenders and prosecutors struggling to pay off high student debt are increasingly turning to side jobs to make ends meet.
The National Law Journal reports on the trend, finding that lawyers are not sticking only with traditional moonlighting jobs such as doing wills on the side or teaching law courses.
"I have lawyers delivering pizzas, I have another lawyer umpiring and another bartending," said Frank de la Torre, chief assistant at the Broward County Public Defender's Office in South Florida. The starting salary there is $39,000 a year, about $8,000 less than the median starting pay for public defenders. Median starting pay for prosecutors is a little higher at $50,000, according to a survey released this week.
The National Law Journal story highlighted the plight of Dan Griffin, who has a student loan of $70,000. On weekdays, the 27-year-old Chicago prosecutor works all day, then does construction work until about 1:30 a.m. On weekends he works as a bartender and referees children’s basketball games.
President Bush signed a law this month that rebates law-school loan payments for prosecutors and public defenders who stay in their jobs for at least three years. The bill pays rebates of up to $10,000 a year up to a total of $60,000. But the law has not been funded yet.
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Comments
Posted by Not Just Public - 2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes ago
Someone needs to tell the legal journalists to stop pretending that PDs and prosecutors are the only ones having trouble.
I’m an ‘07 grad in Chicago, working in insurance defense, and I’m in the exact same boat. I know of at least 4 of my graduating class doing everything from bartending to overnight stocking at big box stores.
Except we don’t even have an unfunded law to help me. And my bosses are much less excited about me leaving at 5:30 every night to go to my second job than an ASA would be.
Posted by Ryan R. Matt, Esq. - 2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 7 hours, 13 minutes ago
I agree. It’s not just the public defenders and the prosecutors. I work for a nfp that provides legal services to poor people. I make even less than the median PD! I am still looking for a second job just to be able to live on some more than PB&J for every meal!