I vote for consulting. An MBA would be less valuable that simply cultivating a specialty. My sister turned being a lawyer into something about gender and labor law, and she gets consulting gigs where they send her to various locations for a few weeks at a time (this week: Manilla), then she comes back, writes a report, and gets a big check. If you could work out "periodically getting sent away on gigs" with the custody arrangement, it could be a sweet setup.
Ooh promising. Periodically away on gigs - or even living elsewhere as much as half the time - is fine. Fun, even.
If even-close-to-normal lawyer money is a requirement, then free to ignore this suggestion, but good litigators with experience can walk into jobs at many public interest law not-for-profits. My SO works at one focused on litigating employment-law violations, and she gets to sue bastards for misclassifying workers, not paying overtime, etc. With your background as a writer, you would probably also be well-positioned to rise within management of one, because a lot of the job is communications with sympathetic grantors and donors about strategy and mission.
I'm going to comment only on the med school/neuropsych option. I'm going to assume you would easily be admitted and that there is a med school local to you (remember, you also generally need to be a well-rounded applicant, which includes volunteer work and the dreaded "hobbies.") I'd suggest that if you don't have somewhere that's a top-ranked school, you'd need to move. You are looking at two years of prerequisite undergrad courses assuming you could go take about three technical classes per semester. Mercifully, you could do all at a community college and probably have good grades and do well on the MCAT. Then, you'd be in medical school for three years. After that, assuming you did well in coursework at a top-tier school (which is why moving might be necessary), you'd need to be matched for a residency in your preferred location. This is a mix of credentials, recommendations, and site interviews. Shifts are now limited to 36 consecutive hours, I think, and weeks are capped at 80 hours averaged over four week periods.
I don't think med school loans are worrisome, but I do think the pay for residents might be; maybe check that it's a number you could work with.
Another option if you enjoy pontificating is to skip residency/boards and do medical research or become a professor (not mutually exclusive). I suspect that with a MD and a JD, you'd be a fairly attractive candidate for a professorship. MDs are often needed to oversee clinical trials in both government (think NIH) and industry, but they deal with paperwork, not treating participants.
I think in general, med school is pretty failsafe in terms of a career option. However, if your kid is six now, you're looking at five years of school, including lab classes, and then three to five years of residency.
If you wanted to do neuropsych grad school (I'm assuming this was what you meant by that option, the barrier to entry would be lower, but I suspect (not my field, but not so far away) that the low pay for seven years (yes, plan on seven to be sure) would be hard to manage. Similar caveats as med school about location, but there if you don't go to a top tier, you'restill a doctor. Here, you'll have an uphill battle to employment. Depending on your research, sixty hour weeks are sort of a minimum for most labs. You have to be fairly independently motivated, although you'd likely have fairly frequent contact with your advisor. I'm not sure how much of a learning curve to predict, but maybe page through a textbook or two of intro graduate work online. If it is gibberish, realize you'd need to be able to understand it from the very start. I don't think your job prospects would be great here, honestly. Medical research is probably the best funded sort (which means highly competitive and still funding rates below 10%), but I'm not sure what you eventual goal would be. Professorship? Pharma?
Hope this is at least sort of helpful about the steps you'd need to take to make either of these happen. If you think the end result is worth the sacrifice, that's great.
Have you considered documentary filmmaking?
Re 3, I'm trying to keep an open mind about the $ and of course if I made less I'd pay less (or nothing if I made less than the ex) in child support and my school would cover some of my loans if I were Doing Good and I wouldn't need a dog walker as much if I had better hours etc. There were pre-kid times where I made, what, 15% of what I'm making now and I wasn't 85% less happy. If I break even each month, I'm great, but I can't do that on say, 40K. Maybe 55 if I moved in with the boyf. I feel tacky throwing around numbers so if it bothers you just pretend I didn't.
ydnew that's super helpful--if I had no other constraints, I'd go the MD route for sure, and hadn't thought about skipping residency to Profess as a possibility--which is esp interesting because Babylonian residencies are p. competitive. My big hesitation is that I do the undergrad pre-reqs and do fine but not fine enough to get into the good Babylonian schools and oh shit there go three years. I guess I could arrange that so I come out with a B.S. no matter what and set myself up for the patent bar maybe?
I'll also cop to feeling a little self-conscious about the possibility of being in school with thousands of infants while starting over in my mid thirties.
Was in a not-dissimilar situation a few years ago--in my case, didn't entirely hate fancy law firm but knew I wasn't up to partnership and didn't think counsel-limbo was a good long-term move; though unlike you I was not seriously considering leaving law or taking a pay cut.
If, as it sounds, you're not particularly anxious to get out of law, what worked for me was finally telling the people I had good relationships with at the firm that I was ready to move on, talking with them to figure out what would be a good next step, and relying heavily on their connections. If your firm/practice group isn't 100% toxic (yes a big assumption for fancy law firms but from your lack of hate I'm guessing is the case) then they will be very interested in helping you--if nothing else, it's good for the brand to have alumni in good jobs. After a year or so of poking around quietly on my own (lest I show any sign of weakness within the firm by admitting I did not intend to devote the rest of my life to it) and not getting much of anywhere, within a month of talking to a handful of people I had a clearer idea of what would be a good fit for me, and a few promising prospects that ended me up somewhere that's worked out pretty well for me (aside from being morally bankrupt, but no more so than working for a fancy firm). In my case things worked out atypically quickly (pure luck on my part) but plenty of colleagues have had similar luck over a 3-6 month time frame.
Only other suggestion, also from experience, is to cross #4 off your list.
If you're 35 or older, a natural born US citizen, and you've never used a private email server, you can run for president as a Democrat. If you're 35 or older, a natural born US citizen, and you have used a private email server, then you can run for president as a Republican.
Double down on law. Almost all of the stuff you like, and much less of the stuff you don't like, is present in plaintiffs side contingency fee litigation, either personal injury or financial/class action. If you can take a moderate pay cut (much less painful than going into government work) you can get a job, and the pay goes back up if you're good at it.
You should go with the full "Clytaemnestra Stabby." It flows better.
6: in Austin, at least, probably 60 to 70k for someone with 5-10 years litigating experience.
I have no personal experience with this, but a friend got the talk from his firm and quickly wound up as a partner at another, equally fancy, firm. Not sure that's what you want, but 8 and 10 generally seem right, especially given that you seem to like the practice of law itself; use the experience you've gained.
I suspect that with a MD and a JD, you'd be a fairly attractive candidate for a professorship.
Really? You certainly seem well-placed to know this, but I would have expected that med school professorships would mostly go to people who had done a residency and had MD/PhDs at least.
11: ok done
8: Maybe I should give more thought to full disclosure. There are definitely people who would help, or try to, and then there are people who legit get off on fucking over certain associates and how good my job is at any moment depends on which faction has the time/energy to lobby the relevant committees on my behalf. If I say I want out and it gets back to the wrong people, it will suck for me but maybe only 25% more? just too much bs and smallness to count on management taking unified stance that "getting Clytie to a good place is good for the firm."
also law talking guys, to extent it matters, I am solidly mid-level. This is not a cusp of partnership situation.
Let's all post our break-even salary numbers! I'm at mine, but not yet ready for a career change thread.
7: I suspect it wouldn't be much help in moving to patent law to have the med school prereqs. The easiest major for a BS with that grouping of classes is biology, and there are too many bio and biochem majors who didn't get into med school. I have several friends who are chemistry PhDs and work in patent law (either with or without a JD), but it seems like that would be your competition for a job.
I think that as an older applicant, you would have advantages in interviews. Average GPA and MCAT for incoming students are public. Another trick is to take coursework that is very med school relevant, like anatomy to boost your GPA and make yourself a more attractive applicant. A law degree also makes you interesting and unique among a pool of thousands of 22 year olds with BAs in biology.
14: Agree that the vast majority of profs will be MD/PhD, because they're bringing in grant money doing medical research. There are some niche specialties, though, and relatively few grads, I think. I was thinking of health policy, public health type stuff, patient privacy, law prof specializing in medicine (or med school prof specializing in legal issues like malpractice). Duke, U of Chicago and some other schools actually run JD/MD combined six-year programs. It's an unusual option but not completely nuts.
I like the same things about law that you do. Also didn't actually hate big firm life. Consulting sounds a lot like death to me. I mean, I'd do it, for the right check, but it seems to me that most of the elements I like about lawyering are absent.
My solution, small town sole practice, but taking cases all over, as they seem interesting, has worked out so far. (Six years.) There's more collaboration that I'd thought. And you can take cases with that as a secondary or tertiary goal-- there's also a bottomless demand for pro bono work, and you can find cases with smart interesting people to work with.
As for the object thing, there's lots of life beyond the job. (Speaking of which, what would your billable hour target be as a solo: divide twice your income requirement by half your current hourly rate. I just made up these numbers totally out of my ass, but what do you get for annual hours? Divide that by 48. Self-employment doesn't actually work like that, but the number is kind of attractive, no?)
I've been experimenting with board positions on non-profits over the last year. No expectation of generating work-related leads from it, just outfits that seem interesting and bring me into groups/cultures I would otherwise not be a part of.
15: yeah, impossible to know from the outside what's a safe move, but a chance of 25% temporary increased suckitude seems like a non-horrible tradeoff for real help in moving on, esp. if you think "the talk" may be coming. In my case, I kept quiet as long as I did more because I didn't want to take a chance on foreclosing the counsel-limbo option if I couldn't come up with anything better, not so much because I was worried about getting fucked over. Although it turned out I was borrowing trouble on that concern, which I think is true of a lot of that kind of firm gamesmanship.
Also, since it hasn't come up so far, might be worth thinking about in-house jobs. I keep half an eye on the market for in-house litigators and my sense is that it's not bad these days. Of course easiest way in is if a client you've personally worked for wants you, but if you're at a fancy firm odds are you'll be within a degree of separation from most decent in-house jobs. In-house litigators get a TON of opportunities to speak authoritatively out of their asses, and then they can pay someone else to back it up. Mid-level associate is a good time to go in-house if that appeals.
Obviously, the answer is for Charley to hire Clytaemnestra.
How much is appropriate to charge for consulting? Do you figure it out based on some multiple of hourly rate at a salaried job?
I bitch about my job, and my precise situation has some stressors that are driving me batshit a bit, but it's fantastically better than law-firming. Money at the NYS OAG is pathetic by BigLaw standards, but perfectly adequate by normal-human-being standards.
I'm on the defense side of the office, which is no-drama no-headlines low-status, but the various affirmative bureaus (that is, the stuff that's more akin to prosecution) is a little more glamorous.
Upsides: reasonable workload (I very rarely work weekends, and when I do, it's usually my own fault for not doing stuff that I could have gotten done earlier). The work is litigation, so if you like that, litigation is litigation. Hierarchy is generally not abusive (there's the occasional weirdo, but you get that anyplace). Public service if you're into that kind of thing. Security: I not only have a 401K (actually, it might be different letters for some public sector reason? But the same thing) but also a defined benefit pension.
Downsides: drop in social status: you'll have gone from being a Tom Wolfe Master of the Universe to a civil service bureaucrat. While the hirearchy is less abusive, there's still plenty of it -- you're sort of more an employee than an independent professional (I am trying to manage people who hate the employee nature of their jobs). That's about all I can think of.
So, check out your local AG's office?
Honestly have gotten more useful thoughtful advice in the last 30 min than in the last 3 years. I'm gonna take the kid to some nature dirt, look forward to having everything figured out for me when I check back in, 21 is a great start.
How much is appropriate to charge for consulting?
My colleague was getting jerked around by his insurance company. After few phone calls he wrote a letter to them saying that he consults as a statistician for $60/hour, and he was charging them for the past few phone calls. (He is a statistician, but not a consultant.)
They called him and kissed his ass and deducted $120 from the bill. It was the best thing I've ever heard.
My general feeling about huge career changes is that if you're thinking "I want a change, maybe... med school? Or archeology?" it's a bad idea and you should make your current credentials work for you. It's only a good idea if there's something specific that you really want that you've been obsessing over, and now you've got your chance.
24 is me obvs. And LB we have the same local AG's office. Made some headway w the SG's office (not sure if it's the same folks?) a while back though not so much headway that they hired me. Haven't looked too hard at the other divisions. On my list.
Email me if you want inside gossip -- I don't have much outside of my bureau, but I've got some. If you were applying literally in my bureau, you should definitely email me. (Litigation, which is within State Counsel.)
Just to chime in on the archaeology bit, because unless it is your undying passion and you're willing to sacrifice a decade of your life to do a PhD and earn a tiny fraction of what you make now with no guarantee of ever getting a professorship, becoming an archaeologist is totally unrealistic. The alternative is if you go to a good master's program, you may be able to work as a professional archaeologist (the people who dig up parking lots for large developers), but while the pay is pretty decent (maybe not compared to lawyer pay), the work is dull, not intellectually stimulating, physically demanding, and requires living on site for several weeks-months. And even if you do discover Richard III, the academic archaeologists horn in and do all the fun stuff, like Nova interviews.
But in general I would second 26.
28 - I definitely will. Civil service gossip is the best.
And there are specific reasons other than GET ME OUT OF HERE that I'm thinking MD and objects conservation - neuropsych phd and archeology just got thrown in there. I come from a family of archeologists weirdly so I am spared illusions about that field at least.
Stay with the lawyering! In house counsel, non-profits, and another, smaller firm all sound like good paths. My husband left big law for prosecuting, then a govt job, then was kicked out of govt and started his own practice. This has all the lawyering things you like. You say you don't want to work for yourself, so I say find a smaller, less prestigious firm-- you'll do exactly what you're doing now and you'll be happier and the money will be decent.
30
I didn't realize you had inside understanding into archaeology. Apologies if I sounded condescending. To partially contradict myself, could you make a move into art/antiquities conservation law? In that case, doing a part time masters in art history or archaeology while working, or doing a 1-year masters, would be a good idea.
then was kicked out of govt
Oooh! This sounds interesting.
32 - oh no not condescending at all I just get that absent any context saying "I want to be an archeologist" sounds like I'm saying basically "My calling is to have a veterinary remote reiki practice."
"My calling is to have a veterinary remote reiki practice."
There's a conference coming up.
33: I dunno, people get kicked out of government a lot. On a regular schedule, even.
And even if you do discover Richard III
This isn't archaeology, it's treasure hunting.
Have you considered working as a defendent in an artifact smuggling case? Possibly, with your skills, as a fence?
With a small child, you can put the stuff on the kid. Customs doesn't look as close.
Yeah but downside she's small so you can only put small stuff on her. If I'm smuggling, I'm smuggling sarcophagi for Illuminati dining tables.
Put her in a sarcophagus and don't tell anyone. They'll be so distracted by the human trafficking charge to notice the artifact smuggling. Then tell them she's your daughter and you'll walk free!
That plan, like a good sarcophagus, is airtight.
("a good sarcophagus")
A good sarcophagus is hard to find, so she'll be ok.
Have you considered going to library school for an MLS and becoming a law librarian?
I kid. Really bad idea in this case. Especially when you've got some really good advice above from a bunch of people lawyers.
Have something to add on the conservation end but it will have to wait a bit.
Given that people who seem more successful than me seem more likely than I am to be unhappy in their career than I am, I'm now claiming confusion and half-assedness as a deliberate plan.
something something rule against antiquity something
I guess I was really unhappy in my late 30s. Past that, it was like, fuck it. I've got insurance and can pay a mortgage.
I assume everybody here already did.
Sarcophagus Appropiation Strategies?
I don't know much about objects conservation but I do know something about paper/book conservation (and I'll bet ttaM knows much more). And if objects conservation is anything like paper conservation I'd say don't do it. It's not worth it. The time and effort you'll spend to get your degree is not at all reflected in how poorly you'll be remunerated in any job you're likely to land. It's a lot of work for at best $28/hr, but much more likely to be around $18/hr for starting positions. It's different if you're a head of conservation or something but it will take 15-25 years to get there.
Moby - Have you used R? Do you like it?
It's for hipsters. Also, I'm not eager to spend the effort right now. But I hear good things.
yeah objects conservation p much out of the running--a sad day for objects but i think it's the right call.
LB I sent you something.
I'd love to do objects conservation, but its really better for the objects that someone else do it.
I try to conserve mass, except in my reactor.
I'm late to this, but it sounds like you don't hate being a lawyer or even a litigator, just some very specific practices of a few large law firms (which, even at those firms, are generally worse in NY than elsewhere). Since that's the case, there's an absolutely enormous variety of litigation possibilities for you, so just do that.
Which I guess isn't very helpful. But I'm not even in NY and I can think of 5-6 smaller firms that would have a lot of what you like and not much of what you don't, so it doesn't have to be government, there are tons of private options as well.
And also, while this sounds bizarre and may be insane, and I'm not exactly speaking from experience, since I've only done a small amount of this kind of work, if you are genuinely obsessed with OBJECTS you might want to think about becoming a personal injury or products liability lawyer. From my brief forays into that world it involves a surprising amount of doing things like standing around and looking at burnt-out trucks or the rigs for cranes or whatever. More time looking at objects and thinking about them than you might think, is what I'm saying.
Echoing Unimaginative in 10 and El Tigre in 62, it sounds like consumer law might be a good fit for you. I don't know nearly as much about any of this as the real lawyers, but I did work as a receptionist/administrative assistant at a boutique consumer law firm for a few months straight out of college. It convinced me that law definitely wasn't for me personally, but for someone who is good at litigation but unhappy with big firm life it would potentially be a good fit. It's risky in that it's contingency work, but it seems like good living overall and fairly reliable. (I certainly deposited a lot of checks in the course of my work.) There are small firms that do this kind of work all over the country, and having significant litigation experience at a big firm would be a definite advantage, since that's who you would be up against a lot of the time.
Aside from that, there's always government work, as others have mentioned as well. Definitely less lucrative, and LB would know way more about the details than I do, but the state lawyers I deal with in my current job seem pretty happy with theirs. At my agency we generally deal with them on stuff like writing regulations more often than on litigation, but obviously AG offices deal with lots of different stuff and again LB would know a lot more about the details.
re: 54
To chime in, I don't really know a gigantic amount about the process of conservation, although I occasionally sit in on meetings with conservators.
But ... it's not well-paid, that's for sure. I expect our head of conservation might earn more than me, but if she does, it'll be 10-20% more at most. Cambridge* recently advertised their Head of Conservation post, and that pays _less_ than me. In fact, my assistant, who is a couple of years out of college, and was a paid intern only a year or so ago, is on a similar scale.
* who, judging by recent job adverts, are, admittedly, total cheapskates. In fact, I'd say they are paying £5-10K a year less than us, at least, for equivalent jobs, and in some cases, the disparity is bigger than that, and we aren't big payers.
64: Yeah thinking through it the conservators I know have poorly paying jobs with good benefits at Museum of Museums, except for a guy who does well as the one person who restores carvings by this one other (medival) person who a lot of private collectors own. I guess I know some textile folks in Switzerland who seem secure but then they have whatever social safety net you get in Switzerland.
60-63 - Small firms are seeming like a pretty obvious option, and I'm kind of amused/dismayed by how little insight I have into that world as a result of the narrow perspective you (I) develop not just in biglaw but in the schools that dump you (me) into biglaw--literally the first step in that search would be me googling "small law firms Babylon jobs jobs jobs what is a small firm."
Products might be fun, staring at burnt out trucks is already basically my hobby. I've gotten to do some shiv analysis in my pro bono cases, HEART EYES.
I'm really grateful to everyone, two days ago I was really thinking "I'm gonna get fired and move in with my parents and earn allowance doing dishes, that will be my life," and I feel a lot more... empowered? That may not be an appropriate response to internet stranger advice but I'm gonna own it.
I'm on my second helicopter crash case. Some hours spent staring at the wreckage has been enough to convince me never ever to get in one.
re: 65
I have a friend who is a restorer/conservator who works in central Europe, and does OK, I think. But she has a grant of some kind [EU? national government, maybe] to fund a large project out of which she is paid a solid but not outstanding salary, and then she picks up some consultancy on the side.
From a process of pure reason, I decided never to get into a helicopter crash.
CCarp you are living the dream. I feel like there's some synthesis of all my skills and interests that I'm like, THIS close to formulating. Personal injury attny for archeologists/conservators who acquire rare diseases while unearthing/conserving ancient objects full of ancient germs?
"prosecution (or defense) of piracy both digital and maritime" is also a good tagline if anyone wants it
Speaking of jobs, my boss is about to appoint someone to work under me, on the same salary as me. Seriously fucking pissed off.
Which I hope I've communicated in my politely worded but between the lines seriously fucking pissed off email.
"Your honor, my client used his bullwhip in self-defense."
69 There are a lot of legal issues involving theft/recovery/repatriation of antiquities - especially now, I follow a bunch of archaeologist academics who work in the field on twitter and business, unfortunately, is booming.
70 That sucks mightily and is some serious fucking bullshit.
Yes, I'm hoping that the 'I am going to fucking leave, and fuck your entire institution'* threat was subtle.
Basically, there's discretion on appointing people to vary salary within the pay grade. It's already fucking stupid that I am going to be managing someone on the same pay grade as me, but because they are pushing quite hard on the salary they are going to be paid the same, or (potentially) more than me. Which is straw + camel's back territory.
* we've had quite a lot of senior people leave recently, so I am literally the only person able to keep a number of core projects/services running, and am effectively being treated as head of one half of our quite large department, without the commensurate salary increase.**
** unfortunately, I don't have the sort of financial stability that would let me just quit, so it's more a case of actively starting to apply elsewhere.
As someone who made the biglaw to small firm jump (law career trajectory: nice big firm (left because not developing career fast enough); weird, very right wing, small firm (left because not significantly less pressure than big firm, but less money); horrible big firm (left because (a) horrible, and (b) I wasn't going to make partner. I might have stayed if I thought I had the option to be horrible and rich); government), I wouldn't count on a small firm being preferable.
First, it's much closer to working for yourself: if you're hoping to avoid the networking/putting yourself out there to get clients, that's small firm life. Second, you're really joined at the hip with your partners: if they're great, they're great. If they're annoying or irresponsible, you're screwed sort of more than if you just have a couple of bad coworkers, and the jobhunting process isn't really enough to vet a small firm that deeply.
If you've got your eye on a specific small firm where you know the people well and you think it's a good fit, it might be great, but other than that, a small firm is a bit of a crapshoot.
That not feeling as if you're in a position to quit over salary is a rotten place to be in, i say as someone who contemplated that a while back.
Isn't the appropriate response to 70 just to ask for a raise? (Maybe that's what your email did, but that wasn't clear to me from 73.1.)
re: 78
I did ask for a raise. That was what the veiled threat was about.
I am about to receive a small raise (for basically acting up a pay grade or two), and I'll get another in a month or two as part of a regular increment. But when they are appointing new more junior people at the same salary, that can fuck off.
We are in the stupid position though that senior management only have direct salary discretion on new appointments, so situations like this are likely to happen more often as the gap between our pay and the pay in the private sector widens. Getting raises for existing staff involves a lot of hoop-jumping.
Anyway, my boss has replied and they are invoking some kind of market salary review.
A few years ago I did get a raise, before I even asked, because otherwise I would have been making the same as the new guy I was to supervise. Now that my present position is basically certain to end in a bit less than a year, I'm getting notice that the only sure way to keep employed is to go back to making what I was before.
I haven't started any sort of a big fuss, largely because the people who I am technically, but not actually, working for right now are the same people who want me to take a pay cut and whatever else happens, I want to last out the year.
I'm effectively un-fireable. I'm on a permanent, not fixed term contract, I (demonstrably) work hard, and I'm essential to a lot of high-profile things in our institution. However, I'm not entirely sure my boss is completely rational about a lot of things, so you never know what might happen. I've rocked the boat a bit, and now will see how that pans out.
Getting raises for existing staff involves a lot of hoop-jumping.
Basically that's what is involved here. My current department jumped through some hoops and the department into which I'll have to transfer to be sure of staying is unwilling to jump into that hoop. Or they say they are. They are having enough trouble finding people that I figure I've got way better than even odds of them coming around before I need them to.
Latest news, my new appointee is now being recruited at a lower salary. Funny how quickly that happened. Minutes, indeed, after I sent my email.
What an irritating way to resolve the issue.
Isn't that actually making things worse?
We are in the stupid position though that senior management only have direct salary discretion on new appointments, so situations like this are likely to happen more often as the gap between our pay and the pay in the private sector widens. Getting raises for existing staff involves a lot of hoop-jumping.
Everyone should just agree in advance that you'll submit a resignation and then be immediately rehired at a premium.
re: 84
Yes, and not entirely fair on the new person, who was, after all, just trying to play hard ball and get the best starting salary they could.
Also, as if by miracle, my promised by long-delayed pay-rise has suddenly been authorised, and back-dated for 4 months.
I should do this sort of thing more often.
saga beginning with 70 is making me ragey (I have a lot of experience getting het up over other people's salaries and what I think they should be) and seems like an indication of crummy management practices generally. If you're an archeologist let me know and you can be the first client of my archeologist employment discrimination practice.
and thanks for 75, - the "horrible at working for myself" isn't so much that I mind networking or hustling, as that I want someone to tell me who to network with/hustle at (upon? from?). But being at a small firm where you don't mesh with partner personalities does sound like a nightmare.
"unto whom I should hustle"
"unto whom I should hustle"
Yeah, my experience of small-firm client-getting is that it's pretty much like a room full of solo practitioners, doing almost completely independent networking/hustling.
Just do the hustle.
And now my boss has begun the formal process to get me graded up, on top of the immediate and backdated increment. So, win. Or at least as much of a win as is institutionally possible.
97 to 93 or anything else about needing someone to tell you what to do.
88 -- yes, definitely don't go to a smaller firm where you don't like the leadership, that's a sure road to disaster and there's nowhere else to turn. In terms of the amount of hustling required at smaller firms there's a wide range and of course it's dependent on practice area, plaintiff/defense side, etc. I'm at a very small firm now (15 lawyers) and do almost no hustling, and hate it and am bad at it, but we have client arrangements that look more like what huge firms had 40 years ago (ie, we do a very wide range of things more or less on permanent retainer for a very few companies, and get the rest as referrals based on local reputation) than what most huge firms have now. I used to be more of a plaintiff's lawyer though at a kind of sui generis firm; that didn't require "hustling" exactly of clients but those firms are tightly dependent on lawyer referrals and relationships, and had a much more fluctuating client base.
My organization is hiring someone I will supervise and there's no issue about the hire making more than me, fortunately, but two people have withdrawn after learning we can't afford what they were hoping for, which is way more than I'm making or even think I could make here, at least for the next couple of years. I don't think they're being unreasonable, in general, just misjudging my employer's finances.
That was good, but not as good as "Dirtbag Tess Of The D'Urbervilles" or the one with "Jonathant."
A win for subtlety in communication.
Glad to hear about the raise, Minister Salmond, though LB is right that is an irritating way to raise the issue.
99 it's interesting how stressful having to generate/maintain my own client base sounds, and a bit of a mystery to me why that is the case-- I have no problem going full show pony if someone tells me "get us X client" and am actually p good at getting X client. Maybe it's the broader strategic thinking that stresses me out? I mean more generally it's easier to advocate for someone else than for yourself, see e.g. being vv difficult on behalf of clients but unwilling/unable to be as difficult on my own behalf. (That's actually part of what I like about litigating--I get to inhabit traits I didn't know I had and that don't get a lot of exercise in like, real life. And hardass not being my normal affect is part of what makes me a good in depos/on cross--approachable cuddly uptalk until oh look my foot is on your neck.)
I mean more generally it's easier to advocate for someone else than for yourself, see e.g. being vv difficult on behalf of clients but unwilling/unable to be as difficult on my own behalf.
Yeah it is. I'm seeing the zombie horde possess my friends now, making them all think "Now that I have kids, it's not fair to them if I care about any political issues other than minimizing my taxes and maximizing my property values".
I found out I was hired at the bottom of my grade level and I have 3x the relevant degrees/qualifications they were asking for. I add a lot of value here with clear potential to add much more. I told my direct supervisor at my probation review that I am deeply unhappy about it and I will be expecting him to support a jump in grade when the time comes.
Meanwhile when I heard that IT has a look at at our web surfing while on the job I made sure to periodically look at some enticing and very relevant to me positions on my work computer. Screw them.
One other thought in addition to all the good ones upthread: there is a LOT of demand for Title IX coordinators and such in colleges and universities right now, and you probably have or could plausibly fake enough background to be competitive if that sort of thing seemed interesting.
Definitely hustle people coming into unexpected lumps of cash.
Are you guys trying to talk Cly out of taking a job with me?
It's raining in Tucson. Definitely not part of the program.
Actually, you don't need to hustle all that much really. How many lawsuits do you want to do at a time anyway? And on the defense side, they've been sued and need you right now.
Artisanally hand crafted lawsuits. If your annual billable hour target is 800, just how many cases is that? 3? 4?
So much good advice in this and the last thread. I wanted to mention one thing based on my own experience. Sometimes a person just wants to up sticks and move on to a new thing. An easy way to justify this is, of course, to explain what is wrong with the job one has.
It's like wanting to break up with someone and suddenly realizing everything they do is annoying. I say, don't ignore this feeling. Do find a way to deal with it constructively, but make sure you identify what it is you need/want to leave behind.
In both this and the just-previous career oriented thread I thought that this side of things wasn't getting really addressed. Just wanting to move on to the next phase of life is totally fine. It's a personality trait, not a shortcoming.
Due to time zone issues it seems like I never read/notice these threads when they are unfolding. So I, like Ms. Stabby, end up being more or less a lurker on the site.
111 - I definitely have that tendency, and I'm trying to honor it without destroying things I actually am committed to. Instinct not impulse, sort of? I mean my job is one less impetuous people routinely burn out on, so not to minimize the fact that it does, actually, suck often.
109-10 - I've been running your off-the-cuff hours target formula over and over, keep thinking I'm forgetting to carry a one somewhere. I'm probably not there yet but... if you're willing to have your brain picked clytaemnestrastabby at gmail. Surprisingly that wasn't taken.
wtg everyone about making me feel like optimistic and grateful and like, kind of touched by this whole exchange. I owe you all a coke.
I managed to totally miss this over the weekend. A lot of great advice already and I will just add one thing: The OP made me think that if you are really interested in white collar (and "white collar boutique" wasn't just a throwaway line), a stint in prosecutorial work would not be a bad idea at all at your level of seniority -- in fact would arguably be a good idea even if you had no interest in smaller firm practice and were just angling for the best shot at a big-firm partner's office. Given the jurisdiction you are in and the type of firm you are at, there ought to be at least a few partners who could help you. But subsequent comments suggest that maybe white-collar is not what you most want to do?
Oh white collar is def what I like the best of the big firm things I could be doing (and up there among the small firm things), and while I have my qualms about being a prosecutor I would be a dummy to spit at an AUSA gig, but that probably means clerking and clerking (if I can even make it happen) means leaving the kid for a year which I can't quite make myself feel ok about. Would a year as a state/city prosecutor add value beyond whatever value I'd accrue doing white collar at a firm for that year?
Whether I've sent an email depends entirely on whether I'm too drunk to have spelled it right. Flying on instruments here, I can't really judge.
I've sent an email: what's uncertain is to whom.
Probably? It would get you a lot of trial experience more quickly than you could get at a big firm. The DA's office where you are has historically had a great reputation and is more likely to be white-collar relevant than most others. If you are looking at AUSA openings and don't want to do the clerkship consider also the Eastern District if you haven't already. You may want to talk to someone who is more plugged into your specific hiring market than I am, though -- I'm coming at this from a DC perspective.
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who earn most of their income working extra-duty jobs at bars, and the district attorneys, who are gaining experience before moving into white collar criminal defense. These are their stories.
Thanks--and I think the Babylon DA is becoming (slightly) less objectionable. Maybe I can get myself seconded over there. I don't think my firm does that, but if I ask nicely? (Re usao I'd prob have to cast further afield than the Eastern District, it's pretty competitive there and DNJ too just because it's close.)
just so you all know if you told college prisoner rights activist cly "in a decade you will be considering a becoming a prosecutor AND will use a dog daycare" I wouldn't be talking to you today because I would have set myself on fire at that moment.
119: Heh. Too much candor on my part, I guess.
120: Makes sense -- sounds as though you have a good idea of your options in that area.
122.1: I think it's pretty widely known. You just triggered the "dunk, dunk" sound in my head.
I am heading into my second consecutive all-nighter for work, at least assuming shit takes as long tonight as it did last night. I am starting to pine for a heart attack. I brought this clusterfuck on myself and it's actually the second time I've done it, only more extreme this time... I wish I could somehow express to my justly furious colleagues that I'm incredibly depressed and could barely function mentally on all those days when they were holding up their end of the bargain. There must be some euphemism for that by now. Maybe I'll just slither into the office and, rather than saying anything, limply gesture at the "kill me" sign taped to my shirt.
I do get to "watch" the overseas team attack the few remaining bugs holding up the software release in real time, again. It's like reality TV! But silent! And static! And terrifying, hastening my deadline and thus my doom, etc. etc.
Anyone else awake?
I'm here. I don't have much to say in response to 125, though, except to sympathize. That's a tough situation to be in.
Awake! Awake and in the Central time Zone after a lifetime in the Eastern one. I've done a bunch of 18-hour days for work but never an all-nighter. That's not healthy.
You had never left the Eastern Time Zone until just now?
Hi teo! Is it fiery where you are? The sky looks unsettling here over the east bay, even if the big nearby fire is way north in Napa (last I checked).
Holding steady at 10 bugs. The antipodeans are probably sleeping late. My God, how did I misjudge the amount of work to this extent? I'm starting to worry about actual cognitive damage of some kind.
Hi ned! Central time is awright. It was worse going to sleep and waking up full of dread and regret, I think, than the euphoria of being able to work in sekrit last night. I don't think euphoria is the way this night is headed.
Incomprehensible grammar is the way this night is headed.
Hi teo! Is it fiery where you are?
No, our fire season ended a couple months ago. It's actually been kind of rainy lately, although it's not raining right now.
It rained here today! I need some visine, speaking of drought.
Still up? I'm at work now (and tediously typing this on my phone)
I am. Not for long though, since I have to get up early to catch a flight.
The room is swimming impressively.
Good night, both of you. And anyone else lurking out there.
I guess it's not night for Barry. It is for me, though, and now I really am going to bed.
Oh, lk, I do hope things seem better after rest. Stressful sleep deprivation doesn't seem like a good addition to depression. There have been other threads about addressing depression that makes work too hard and I can't look for them now because it's time to herd small people out of bed, but I can try to find some for you later.
144 was me and then I never got around to finding any links. But I still can if you'd like them!
i feel like putting my career troubles out there has caused some problematic manifesting--just got a fast track interview with the govt agency i LEAST want to work with must have used the wrong spell ingredients? too much menstrual blood not enuf grave dirt
and on depression making work too hard, it's is a nightmare isn't it? first it actually does make it too hard in reality, then it magnifies your perception of the fuckups it engenders, etc. etc. I try to be pretty honest about it coworkers which has had mixed-to-positive results. plus everyone should do ketamine infusions, and then you miss work bc you are getting infused, not bc depressed. i mean not that i am telling anyone struggling that all what thems don't already know.
must have used the wrong spell ingredients?
Are you sure that the human sacrifice you made was a virgin?
147 - aren't virgin sacrifices just for jobs within the DOL?? am i looking at the wrong footnote??
Once I kick this cancer thing I am so going to look into ketamine infusions.
I've heard good things about horse tranquilizers.
ketamine infusions
Sounds like a particularly alarming herbal tea.
That's what they sedated Pokey with when he broke his arm. He still talks occasionally about that time I had all those extra eyes.
It's legit I swear. It was on NPR and my doctor has a real diploma on the wall of the van he works out of.
No but really it's a good thing (a) there is the treatment itself and (b) if you have a doctor who will refer you for it that means you prob have a doctor who is thinking creatively and hard about depression treatment generally.
It's such a nice day today, can we have class in the K-hole?
Done! Mmm, ketamine. The last part of the work was to accurately type a bunch of similar but combinatorically jumbled filenames into a script which will cause total breakdown if it's wrong. BREAKDOWN OF EVERYTHING. Radiating outward from, uh, somewhere in the South Bay.
I know I could get a different job. I know. But these people have been really decent to me. I'm even getting Stockholm Syndrome about the terrible software I have to use. Surely its user-unfriendliness leads to higher truth! Hit me harder! I am ready!
My psychiatrist says it looks like one of the most promising avenues in psych drug research right now.
Of course, the other drugs have shitty side effects, limited efficacy, or both.
159 - NMDA drugs like K are an old story; research pendulum swinging back to them after 50 years away. I don't even think the infusions are controversial for TRD at this point, and it's low dose/not risky, but they're enough of a pain in the ass that they don't make sense as first line.
I'll have to see if I can get it prescribed here; my doc didn't sound like she was able to do it herself.
if you want resources email me at name at gmail. this is an area of hard won experience for me. prob what would happen is your doctor would refer you to a dedicated clinic in your area.
Speaking of psychiatric drugs, I had thought scotch was kind of meh, but it turns out I've spent my whole life drinking crappy scotch.
I got a serious transient high out of a lot of that whole experience, when I wasn't sweating bullets. It was strange. I wasn't tired at all, and I still don't feel very tired. The sense of arrested adolescence, too: I was absolutely listening to the up-all-night-writing-a-paper music of high school (which is still peerless after 20 years). The extraordinary tenacity of some habits... At this point I'm pretty sure that I have a complex of symptoms that variously appear to be depression or ADD, and it would be nice if someone could give it a name and pithy description. Even aside from the drugs. It would help to know. Perhaps someone has written well about it; when you can concentrate long enough to write well...
164. So true. What are you drinking now?
a complex of symptoms that variously appear to be depression or ADD, and it would be nice if someone could give it a name and pithy description
"Unfogged Commenter Syndrome"
163: And here I am robbing veterinarians like some kind of farmer.
the terrible software I have to use. Surely its user-unfriendliness leads to higher truth! Hit me harder! I am ready!...
My psychiatrist says it looks like one of the most promising avenues in psych drug research right now.
New ground in the vi/emacs wars.
167 sounded familiar but was apparently only played here once before. I don't see why this is such a hilarious joke, people, like there's anything funny about commenting here.
Contrariwise, 169 made me laugh and laugh, and then I realized I don't get it. I had some idea that emacs was analogous to ketamine, but that can't be right. But it is funny! Did I mention I'm mildly sleep deprived?
I had this golden find at a conference (or something?) once: an ad for editorial staff for the "German Studies Reew," which I got to caption "Editor urgently needed. Experience with vi a plus."
169: but on what side, hm? What side?
tmux vs screen
OSX versions of GNU coreutils vs actual GNU coreutils
solr vs elasticsearch
CRLF vs the world
I'll drop this in the most recent career thread mildly anonymous although I'm sure quite identifiable to the regulars:
My boss, who took over the group ~9 month ago, seems to have a very poor understanding of my skills. All my experience and my position here until now has been on the experimental side of things, but I am significantly more proficient than most experimentalists at using the informatics tools available to the group. Because of this he seems to have decided that I'm an informatics person, wants me to take over the informatics group instead of my current experimental/logistics group. In the last two weeks he's asked me to 1) Implement an algorithm in R, and 2) Write a SVM. These are both things I have never done, have no experience with, and know only enough to know who I would ask to do such things. I told him I don't know R and he said, oh, it's easy, I learned so I'm sure you can. Do I need to give him a copy of my resume or something?
Just let him know that if he wants to pay your salary while you teach yourself R, that's great.