Tuesday, March 8, 2011

25k per year for debt collection attorney job in Brooklyn

Here is the job listing, provided by shitlaw jobs:

Brooklyn based Debt settlement Co seeks Attorney. Our firm deals in Mortgage Modifications, Short Sales and Credit Card debt settlements. We have both full time and part time positions.

Candidates should have the following...

Skills & Experience:
• MS Office skills, excel, Word,
• Excellent verbal communication skills for relating and rapport building with the general public, vendors and participants in company programs, courses and services
• Collaborate as a team player both initiating ideas and completing assigned activities

Qualifications & Requirements:
-Knowledge of all Microsoft Office programs (Outlook, Word, Excel, Etc.)

Compensation $25k Annually

That is fucking terrible. 25k is $2,083.33 per month. After taxes take home is 1700, or $850 every two weeks. $2083/month / 4 weeks = $520.75/week. $520.75 / 50 hours = $10.42/hour. Just the fact that such a terrible paying job exists in Brooklyn shows how terrible the job market is for attorneys. Granted this listing is on the low end of shit law jobs but there are plenty of these gems floating around out there. I have teenage cooks that flunked out of high school making more than these guys do, plus free food from the restaurant. Taking into account the daily food stipend, my guys make $12 per hour. The fact remains that spending over 100k, 3.5 yrs in law school and bar exam process to make this much starting off is an insult. And the reality is that THIS JOB WILL BE TAKEN BY SOME DESPERATE TTTT hero.

For the love of god avoid law school like the plague.

22 comments:

  1. If by TTTT you mean some desperate schmoe out of a non T14 school, I agree.

    Although half the T14 guys seem to be working on doc review now, and the other half work for free for government agencies to "build experience."

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  2. What's truly infuriating is that a lot of debt collectors - like non-JD, community college grads who yell on the phone all day - can make 30k in base at similar places to this (or ones on the opposite side - not sure from the ad) PLUS take home commission.

    We've created a monster where people are punished for their ambition and/or intellect.

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  3. No one is being punished. The ambitious intellectuals were so ambitious and intellectual that they borrowed a lot of money feed their ambitions and intellects. Now they must pay it back. Or they can not pay it back and experience the consequences. They are being held to the deal they made, not punished for their ambition and/or intellect.

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  4. I agree with 4:04.

    Also, no one seems to mention that the above job opportunity, albeit very low paying for an attorney, does not require any experience or class ranking. One could take it and quit when a better opportunity arises. A little bit of work experience goes a long way on the resume and cover letter. You could play up the public speaking, negotiating or relationship building skills on your resume while looking for another job. Also, if you did really well at the job, you could try to re-negotiate your salary after a few months.

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  5. @404:

    I wasn't talking about debt or arguing that people who borrow money shouldn't pay it back (although there's an argument that the education system is a giant fraud that targets the best and the brightest of gen. x/y, but that's for another time).

    Instead, I was talking about the discrimination one with advanced education faces when trying to compete for non-degree positions. JD holders are openly discriminated against v. people with non-JDs. I imagine the same is true in certain fields with MBAs and other degrees (i.e., that one is "overqualified"). Thus, if there are not enough jobs to go around for all people with the degree, we're saddling people with debt and throwing them into a disadvantageous situation solely because they decided to get more education for themselves. That's not just, nor is it a sane use of resources.

    @635:

    What bargaining power will this attorney have after doing really well? With so many unemployed JDs and with the legal field contracting (including credit servicing), the average worker won't have any ground to renegotiate from.

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  6. Nice Blog. By the law, if someone can not implement his own legal action because of some conditions – for example due to illness – then the other person can represent the legal interests of that person through the provision of power.

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  7. @ 7:42

    A little bit of work experience really does go a long way. The above job is very low paying and most likely there will be a high turnover in the position. So, if an employee excels in whatever skill they really need – a good public speaker for one of their courses or a good negotiator with vendors with regard to keeping prices down – that employee will add value to the firm. Any smart business owner will want to retain an employee who adds value, especially at a company with a high turnover.

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  8. "Also, if you did really well at the job, you could try to re-negotiate your salary after a few months."

    That's true. It's often possible and usually advisable to make the best of a bad situation. But still, if you can, it's better to avoid that bad situation in the first place.

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  9. What a prestigious "profession," huh?

    ReplyDelete
  10. The fallacy being promulgated by our apologist/cheerleader friends posting here is that any of this is taking place in an occupational vacuum.

    The point is--why go into law AT All when there are so many superior things to go into???? Why on earth try to "work your way up" further into a known trash heap, i.e., the legal "profession"?

    It's like aspiring to reach the top of a refuse pile, with the exception of anecdotal outliers and elite grads.

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  11. No one should go to law school if he/she thinks there are so many superior things to do. The point is that the above job is available to people who have already gone. If you are already a law school grad, why not spend your time working your way up? There are plenty of JDs/attorneys out there who are hardly elite, and they live enjoyable lives.

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  12. I thought the point was to warn anyone thinking of getting a JD that this might be their fate.

    This is on the low end, but odds are good that anyone going to law school will be looking for a job like this. Law school operates on an 80-20 principle. 80% of the students in a given school are there to fill out the bottom of the curve so 20% of the students can be in the top 20%. Similarly, 80% of law schools exist so that 20% of law schools can be in the top 20% (those 35 or so T1 schools that are never at risk of dropping out of the top 50).

    If you are thinking about law school, ask yourself if you truly think of yourself as an 80 or a 20, and ask yourself if you are going to an 80 school or a 20 school. If you do not *honestly* believe you are 20-20, you probably will be looking for a shit job when you graduate.

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  13. Just the fact that entry level lawyer jobs paying 25k a year exist should send shivers down the law school applicant's spine. 7 years of school, the bar exam, fitness and character, debt and opportunity cost for the grand opportunity to work for 2k a month?? Please. So long as law schools publish false employment statistics they are operating in a fraudulent manner.

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  14. Subprime, I absolutely agree with you. If what you have listed scares a person away, he/she should not go to law school. If you can’t look adversity in the eye, and know that you can change the situation, you should not go to law school. Lawyers need to have a “balls to the walls” mentality. If one can’t do that, he/she should look for a nice Union job and enjoy the well-entitled lunch breaks.

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  15. The sad part about making 25k a year, is that is how much I make right now and I have 2 part time jobs.

    I know many students who work full time during undergrad and make more than 25k a year. That ends up being about 12 dollars an hour if you work 40 hours a week.

    12 dollars an hour isn't terribly bad, unless you have six figures in student loans. Then it really sucks!

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  16. Absolutely the worst and most unprofessional agency I have worked with and I have worked with most all of them.

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