It IS tough, and even more infuriating is that many places hiring lawyers can’t find the ones they want because they figure the tight market means they can ask for the impossible. A client’s husband is overworked in IP law, but his company won’t hire anyone under a 3.9 GPA. And this is to replace two people who left.
I was in the same spot three years ago. As others have said, JAG, with your reserve experience this is the perfect place to get legal experience.
Also, careers.ohio.gov, search for attorney positions and apply for everything. Experience requirements are a guideline at best.
This is both a dreadful and impractical piece of advice.
Join the county bar association. The lawyers will probsbly welcome you into the profession, and although I wouldn’t expect job offers off the bat, youll have a chance to network and might hear of some opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed.
If you do start your own practice, theses lawyers can refer you cases and mentor you.
Why not get into the “slip and fall” business? Usually involves a brief court appearance (if the letter doesn’t work), and you get 30% of the award.
You can also work as a public funded defense attorney-in MA they pay $75/hour.
As a 2009 graduate I feel your pain, but it does seem like you made some enormous errors whose consequences you did not understand at the time. It’s not enough to have good grades in law school - were you on law review, moot court, or trials teams? Did you do an externship or participate in a legal clinic? Did you take any “skills” classes or do any volunteer work? The less name-brand your school is, the more you need to have hands-on experience that develops and demonstrates your practical lawyering skills. Your choice to do no legal work over the summer, not even part time or volunteer work, was not well informed.
Though you can’t unring that bell, it isn’t too late to get some hands-on legal experience. The first thing I’d do is call up your local public defender and see if they would allow you to ride-along on a volunteer paralegal basis. You’d be amazed the tasks an overworked PD will throw at you, if you prove yourself competent at basic stuff. Next, I’d look for one-off events where you could actually be a lawyer. With election day coming up there may be registration drives and denial-of-registration hearings. Your municipality might have a Naturalization action day where volunteer attorneys help people fill out citizenship forms. Your local courthouse might be looking for volunteer mediators and even offer training. Check with any not for profits in driving distance for upcoming volunteer needs. idealist.org is a good place to search for NFPs in your area. As others have mentioned, Bar associations (which often waive fees for new lawyers) are a good place to meet other attorneys.
And for gods sake have contact cards with your name, address, phone, and email on you at all times. You can get 200 from Vistaprint.com for like $5.
My first thought…being a small business owner, micro business legal support. May not pay alot but I bet you could easily find a ton of small businesses who need a variety of legal representation, review of contracts, composing various customer agreements, employee terminations, debt collections.
It may sound silly underpriced, but hear me out. Advertise your self to small businesses for say $30-$40 an hour for some basic stuff even glorified paralegal work.
Save a few of those little guys asses and they will tell all their friends, vendors, customers, etc. Pretty soon there will be a line at your door. Once that line begins to form… $45/hour..a few will shy away, but you should still be getting referrals from those who do not. Things start feeling busy again…$50 an hour…
This is how I have gone from charging $39/hour for onsite computer service to $80/hr don’t see why it could not work for you too.
He doesn’t even need to go JAG, he could just go officer. Hey, a job is a job and military has full medical benefits and pretty much unless you screw up major bad, they won’t fire you. You have already shown you have the discipline to ‘behave’. Navy JAG or any other branch’s JAG. Air Force can be a nice life.
The reason the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines squabble among themselves is that they don’t speak the same language. For example, take a simple phrase like, “Secure the building.”
• The Army will put guards around the place.
• The Navy will turn out the lights and lock the doors.
• The Air Force will take out a 5-year lease with an option to buy.
• The Marines will kill everybody inside and make it a command post.
Find a solo practictioner who has extra space (even in the attic or basement) and ask him/her if you can hang out there in return for doing legal research and handling cases s/he doesn’t want to bother with. Outwork the other lawyer w/o regard for how much (if anything) you will be paid. Get rid of the old girlfriend and get a new one who understands your ambition and is willing to take a chance on you. If all you really want is a 40 hour work week and paycheck, kick yourself for wasting 3 years of your life in law school and find another line of work (along with the rest of the drones).
The FBI likes J.D. applicants.
Neither of these statements is accurate, FWIW.
The government hires lawyers all the time. It’s not hard to get into the “non-sexy” jobs like Estate Attorney. Or Disablility.
Pay isnt great, but there are benefits.
I’ve seen ads on Craigslist for contract attorneys doing law and motion, court appearances, discovery review, research, and other more routine stuff. Not great pay, unreliable, but gets your feet wet.
Also, some companies provide appearance attorneys for those attorney who cannot or don’t want to appear themselves. Google them and find out how to get on their list.
This may be too special for you. The son of a friend of mine had an undergraduate degree in mining and metallurgy. Well he had started out in mining, but after a summer job 1000 feet underground changed to metallurgy. Unable to find anything, walking down a street in downtown Toronto one day he noticed a sign for, let us call it, XYZ Mining. (I don’t actually know what it was called, but I wouldn’t use the real name if I did.) He walked in off the street, somehow talked his way past the guardian dragon (aka receptionist) and told some guy, “You need legal advice”. It turned out the guy had a lawyer on retainer, but that guy cost a fortune and here was someone who could do it on the cheap. He still didn’t have a licence (in Canada you have to do something called articling, must be a lot like clerking, to get a licence). But he worked there for several years, eventually talked the lawyer on retainer into supervising his articling, even though that lawyer knew he would be losing that client–and did–but he got a lot of work done free in the meantime. Now the guy works free-lance. The mining company folded a year or so ago after one partner took all its money and disappeared, but in the meantime he has developed many new clients. His wife is a professor in a small university in a small town in the Maritimes, so he does much of his work remotely.
Sometimes you just have to sell yourself.
Are you talking about harelip or about someone who mushed his words? 
Best of luck, both to the OP and to Oakminster!
Location, location, location - it is much harder to find a job in a law firm in any of the major cities - they can be picky and choose the best of the best.
However, if you are willing to go off to a smaller town or rural area, you might have much more luck. I am sure there are some older attorneys with a decent sized law practice in some of these areas who might very well like to have a new employee to groom to take over at some point.
However, if you are interested in a sexy, cool location to live and work, think of going abroad! I know when I lived in Berlin, most of the large law firms had at least one lawyer who specialized in American law - they had plenty of cases where locals were suing an American company or business, or applying for patents, or immigration, or any number of things. Worth looking into.