Lawyer can't hire his own son

My parents went to a dinner party a few weeks ago and met a attorney and his wife. They spoke about me and how I was having trouble finding any substantial legal work 18 months after graduation. The lawyer gave my parents his card and told them that I should call him anytime to ask for advise and tips. After 2 weeks or so I gave him a call and we spoke for a good 15 minutes. I must say that he is one of the nicest attorneys I have ever met.

We spoke about the job market and how terrible things are. He told me "I am extremely sympathetic to the plight of new law graduates". He was upset with the ABA for allowing so many law schools and JD's being pumped out year after year. I was dying to tell him about the scam blogs but I will probably email him instead. Where things get interesting is when he mentions to me that his son is a 2L at Western State piece of shit college of law. This is hands down the WORST law school in California that has a ABA accreditation. Just a few years back they had their accreditation pulled and recently were put back on conditional.

Mind you this attorney went to Berkeley back in the early 70's and his partner is a Harvard grad from the 60's. They specialize in construction litigation which is very niche so with the construction freeze which has taken place in the last 2 years in SOCAL its safe to say that they haven’t been very busy. What blew me away was when he told me "last summer my son wanted to work for me but there just wasn’t any work for him to do that me and partner couldn’t do on our own". So either they were literally to slow to give his son work or he didn’t want his son fucking up the motions and pleadings so bad that it would take pappa lawyer even longer trying to correct the mistakes. Its probably a combination of both.

This goes to show that even law school students with parents in the field can't guarantee their own children work. Once a firm is involved then its basically impossible unless the applicant has stellar qualifications.

Please take note oh class of 2011 as you finalize your applications and send them off. Law school is a very bad investment and the primary reason why I blog on a weekly basis is to warn you all of the pitfalls and risks of going to law school. Do you really think that I would be sitting here typing all this madness if I thought law school was worth it? If I was working in the field and making money then I would probably have a blog named AAA JD, not subprime which basically means shit default rating. I would be blogging about my experiences as a junior attorney and giving tips to future lawyers. Instead I blog the truth and tell you all how it really is out there. In the past month I have sent out over 30 job applications and STILL haven’t even had a fucking phone call back. Not that I intend to practice law out here in the states but to prove a point to you and my family which is begging me not to take off to Australia.

Australia update: things are moving very quickly now as my resume is flying all over the place. In particular, my people out there are trying to get me work as a "contract administrator" which would let me work in the energy and resource field without requiring me to get licensed in Aus. Nevertheless I recently heard back from the University of Western Australia and got accepted! I will respectfully decline as I've had enough schooling under my belt and need to get to work. I think its best for me to work for a few years in the position that I mentioned and then after a few years, if it will be worth it, go back and finish the transfer courses at UWA to get licensed in Australia. An additional requirement to taking the year long courses at UWA is a 30 week program that costs $10,000 after graduation. I'm not willing to undertake over a year of school at this time. I'm expecting some skype interviews within the week on the contract administrator position so I will keep you all informed!!