Pizza and panels

I went to a lunch the other day hosted by career services with a panel of recent grads at my law school working at small law firms. I really have very little intention of working at a small firm, but I had finished my reading, I was hungry, and they had free pizza.

Basically, all the attorneys said was “ the hours are shorter than biglaw but we get paid less.” No shit. Actually, not all of them agreed that the hours were necessarily shorter. When one lady said her hours were reasonable, this guy blurted out “I must be working at the wrong place.” He worked as a personal injury attorney. Yeah, buddy, you might be working in the wrong place.

Although I guess I shouldn’t rip on people who decide to become personal injury attorneys. Hell, why wouldn’t you want to spend nearly forty grand a year (probably in loans that will make the total cost of attendance somewhere more in the neighborhood of 55-60K just for tuition) to have the ability to file simple civil claims for people who have been rear ended. Just seems like kind of a waste of a really good, expensive education. Is that arrogant of me? I’ve been accused of being arrogant before.

It was interesting seeing the group of people at this small law firm panel. Not a single law review student was there, but two of my buddies, I.F. and F.D., were. That pair, I believe is in the bottom ten of the class. Not bottom ten percent, bottom ten.

Anyway, the advice the attorneys gave was useless. They all pretty much said they got their job through their sister or neighbor or knew someone. Wow, that’s great advice. Hopefully everyone there has a sister or neighbor who knows of a firm with a need for a new attorney from the bottom quarter of a school with less than 80% bar passage rate.

I’m happy I have callbacks. And I’m happy I attended that panel, because the pizza was good.