Happy Birthday Grandma!

Yesterday was my Grandma's 85th Surprise birthday party.  She is an amazing woman, raising 4 kids by herself and supporting them with only a 9th grade education after my grandfather died just a few years after he returned from fighting in World War II.  Since "Grammy" lived with my family for about 8 years, my sister and I are closer to her than most of our other cousins, and we were thrilled to be able to celebrate this milestone with her. 

At the party, she mentioned again how proud she was that I was able to get a law degree, something that was unheard of during her youth, and quite rare even in my mother's generation.  Grammy isn't easily impressed, and a compliment from her is always heartfelt, and gives the recipient immediately warm fuzzies. 

When I was in law school, there were a few students like me who were first generation college graduates.  I wonder if they feel strange like I did, discussing their degrees & aspirations with family members who had no clue what goes into completing an advanced degree.  I hope that my cousins' children (and maybe my own) will see that they can do whatever they want in life, despite no one else in the family having done it before.  Corny, but true.

Phone interview went well

So, I had my phone interview today, and it went pretty well.  I still got hammered on the "why here?" question.  I answered by saying that I want to stay in-state, and would love to start my career in MediumTown, where I would be centrally located in the middle of the state. 

They responded by reminding me that MediumTown is nothing like CollegeTown or BiggestCity I have lived in before.  I fired back by saying that my parents live in a town of 1,400 people, and I love that place as much as anywhere I lived before.  That seemed to satisfy them.  If that comment gave them the impression that I am not from BiggestCity, so be it. 

Otherwise, the interview was great.  They were very impressed by my work publicizing the CCRAA (College Cost Reduction and Access Act) and my interest in consumer law.  Which was excellent. 

I have an in-person interview in 2 weeks.  Yay!

Just knowing that there is a possibility of a job in my future puts me in a great mood!

Online job hunting

Did my semi-weekly sweep of the government job sites.  Nearby cities, counties, the state job board, even the usajobs.gov site.  Nada.  Couldn't find a thing that I am remotely qualified for. 

The one thing I have learned through all this job hunting is not to waste my time applying for government jobs unless I meet at least some of the qualifications.  Trying to emphasize similarities between what they are asking for and work I have actually done never gets me interviews. 

A friend sent me a job posting paying $27,000 to work as a housing counselor.  I think at this point, I would rather work as a paralegal.  If I have to take a non-attorney job, I would rather that it pay a decent wage.  I know that most Americans would love a job paying $27K, but not those with $110,000 in student loan debt!

Phone interview next week!

I have a phone interview with another legal services organization.  This one isn't very familiar to me, because it's in the middle of the state, in a city I have visited only a couple times in my life.   Since I know that housing law is part of the position, I am going to spend tomorrow re-reading those statutes, in the hope I might be able to talk more intelligently at the interview on this topic.

From what a former employee of the organization said, the managing attorney seems to just let staff attorneys follow their interests and take some cases that are out of their job description, but in  the attorney's area of "expertise."  I am hoping that this means I could take some consumer law cases if I worked there. 

There will be, as usual, the question about my connections to the area.  I hate this question.  Why? Because at this point, I would take a job in Nebraska if it was offered to me.  I could care less about location - I just want a damn job.  So I think I am going to just flat out say, "I think I can make anywhere my home, as long as I am here in my home state, and my work is interesting." Or something like that.

Any tips from readers on how you handle interview questions like that???

Forecast: continued unemployment

The worst thing about the legal profession is that you can go on the state bar's website and see who got the jobs that you unsuccessfully interviewed for.  I really wish that this wasn't possible.  I would rather believe that the person who got the job I coveted was a superwoman (or man) who practically invented public interest law.  I don't like knowing that the winner of my job is an ordinary student, who is no more qualified than I am.  That means that I have to take a hard look at why I didn't get the job instead, and there are no easy answers to that question.

I am starting to think that I must be terrible at interviews.  During law school, I would get almost every job I interviewed for.  That streak was broken when I started looking for post-grad work.  Obviously, I am not selling myself very well at these things.  I just need to find out where I am going wrong.

Ugh.

Networking

As a 3L, I was a project assistant for the law school's pro bono program.  The program is just getting off the ground, and having some growing pains.  The program is supposed to match attorneys with students to work on a pro bono case together, but generally there either are not enough cases or not enough attorneys to match up all the students. 

Now that I am a graduate of that fine institution, I attended the "kickoff" meeting yesterday to show my support, and unabashedly do some networking with the lawyers I knew would be there.

I met two great ones who both worked for the non-profit that wants to phone interview me next week.  They gave me some good information, within the confines of the whole, "I don't want to say anything very negative about my old employer" thing.

This morning,  I went on LinkedIn and made sure I added both to my list of "connections."  Not sure if doing this kind of thing has paid off so far, but I am hoping it will someday.

Using Social Media in a Nonprofit Job Search

Leveraging Social Media in a Nonprofit Job Search

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I loved this article about the use of social media like Linked In, Facebook and Twitter in a job search. I plan to incorporate some of these suggestions myself.

Readers: How do you use these social networking sites professionally?

Taking a Paralegal Job to Ride out the Recession?

I have been sending out resumes and networking my ass off lately..  Today, I got a call from a headhunter, asking about whether I would take a position as a paralegal working on a short term document processing project.  The pay is almost as much as our local Legal Aid group pays.  (Without the benefits and super coolness of public interest law.)

This is tempting because:

I haven't worked since April.
I haven't been able to spend any money on anything but bills and insurance since May.
I would love to get out of the house a bit more.

However, I am not sure that an employer that needs someone for 2-3 months would be very pleased if I left after a month.  I mean, what do I do if I get a real job?  I would have to quit, and I hate putting anyone in a bad position, as it could burn a bridge I might need later.

We shall see....

Google Webmaster is hilarious

So I tried out the Google Webmaster gadget that is part of the Blogger Dashboard and found some interesting stuff.  Like the most searched term to get to this blog is "Burger King Secret Menu."  I thought I was known for my honest take on law school and life afterward, but my real claim to fame is knowing that you can order "off menu" at fast food restaurants. 

Great!

Best Value Law Schools

OMG - the National Jurist ranked my law school in the top 25 for best value.  Well, so far it hasn't exactly paid off.  Maybe in a normal (non-recession) economy it would, but not right now. 

What's interesting about the list of the top 50 is that the school with the highest US News ranking is Texas (followed by Minnesota), but most of the schools listed as great values are those ranked in Tiers 3 and 4 by US News.  Not a single Harvard Law School or Yale to be found on the list.

My question is this: If the "prestige" of many of these "best value" schools is so low, how are they worth it to attend?  If you graduate in the middle of your class at my school, you are probably unemployed right now.  That's not a good value at all.  I doubt that many Harvard grads are unemployed right now, regardless of class rank.  Yet here I am waiting for a job to come my way. 

I also have to laugh about the statistic of 90+ percent of grads from my school being employed.  Not this year!

Consumer law: getting out of your cell phone contract

Most recently law school graduates, and those just beginning law school have probably moved recently.  And, if you are like me, you desperately want an IPhone, instead of whatever you are using now.  That usually means switching cell phone networks.  But, if you are in the middle of a contract, getting out means early termination fees.  There is a great article with video about how to get out of your contract early. 

Ideas for doing this include:
1) Waiting for the cell provider to change the terms of the contract, which sometimes means you can cancel without penalty,
2) Complain frequently about service issues and log your complaints,
3) Use a lot of roaming minutes, if your cell provider pays for them.  They might find it is cheaper to let you out of the contract rather than keep paying for you to roam, or
4) Move to an area with no service for that provider.

As soon as I get a job, I am going to ditch my current service, and get a nice juicy Iphone!

I got offered a job

My friend is a lawyer, and he needs a legal assistant.  In Colorado. 

If this job pays more than $40,000, I would seriously consider moving there and taking it.  I have no interviews coming up, and only 2 outstanding applications.

This state isn't doing it for me, and I absolutely loved Colorado when I stayed there for a week in 2007. 

Sad that I would consider this, but I am. 

Thoughts?