As the title of the blog indicates, I'm a broke urban lawyer. I decided to elaborate on that in this post so you can get an idea what I'm up against here. (And what I'm up against isn't really all that unique. Most law school grads over the past several years are living some version of this story.)
I graduated from law school in 2011. I worked full-time during school in the HR department of a Silicon Valley tech company. I attended classes mostly at night, but sometimes I was able to take a day class because my boss was very flexible. My work schedule prevented me from taking advantage of summer associate positions and many internships, which are a major recruiting tool for after graduation jobs.
Even with full-time work (and a second almost full-time job my first year), I still graduated with over six figures in student loan debt. It took me a long time to find a job as a lawyer, so I kept working in HR for a few years. Then I got laid off from my HR job, and I relocated to another state with a lower cost of living.
I battled spurts of unemployment, and I eventually landed a temp job doing legal document review. (Or, as I like to call it, "where dreams go to die".) This was about two years ago, in October 2014. That lasted, more or less, for a year. Then the agency I was doing doc review at closed the office in my city and laid us all off.
I had been looking for a permanent legal job the entire time I was doing document review, and I hadn't found anything. Finally, in an act of desperation, I decided to channel my entrepreneurial spirit and start my own law firm. I wasn't really on board with the idea, but I didn't see any other choice at that point. I needed a job, and since I couldn't find one, I had to make one.
I tried to market myself to small businesses as an employment law and general business law consultant. I had very little success. I was burning through my meager savings at an alarming rate, and I had to resort to paying my bills with credit cards. Someone at my church who ran a home care agency needed a caregiver for an elderly woman, and since I had caregiving experience from a prior job, I got hired for a very part-time gig. It helped stretch things out a little bit, though it felt like a huge professional setback. I kept trying to build my law practice during this time, but I still wasn't having much success. I found a client here or there, but I had a hard time getting them to pay me when I did the work for them.
The woman I cared for moved back east, so that job ended. I was getting down to the last two dollars in my bank account, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I decided to give up on my law firm, since it was a money drain - I was spending money and not earning anything back. In a fit of desperation, I applied to like 30 jobs in one day. A few weeks later, I got a phone call from one of the places I applied to. It was a firm located out of state, and they needed someone to do local court appearances for clients who have disability hearings before the Social Security Administration. They were willing to train me, and they were pretty upfront that it was going to be a long time before I would see any money. (I work on contingency, and I'm not an employee of the firm. Their firm contracts with my firm and we split the money.) But the two parts of having my law practice that I dislike are finding clients and collecting money, so it works out well. They find the clients, I do the legal work, and they do the administrative work. Win/win.
I was still broke because the payment pipeline is slow. Fortunately, another document review agency offered me a project at the same time. I took it, and I've been doing document review as my day job and my solo practice (the social security stuff and occasional employment law clients on the side) as a secondary endeavor. The document review people are flexible about my court schedule - I go to court a few times per month - and the social security people don't care if I write my briefs in the evening from home in my pajamas.
On paper it looks doable. In practice, I feel like it's a giant juggling act. Neither job currently pays enough to live off of alone. Together, they barely make enough for me to get by. So for the foreseeable future, I have to work 60-70 hours per week doing the two job shuffle and hope that I don't drop any balls along the way.
On top of that, I have a chronic health condition. It's mostly under control, but I have flare-ups from time to time. The biggest trigger for the flare-ups is stress. Unfortunately, this whole "all work, no money" situation is extremely stressful. I live a frugal lifestyle. I have a modest apartment and a used car. I cook most of my own meals and rarely eat out. I buy from the thrift store. I don't have cable, and if I want to see a movie, I check it out from the library.
I still sometimes find that there's month at the end of my money.
This isn't exactly the lifestyle I was told to expect when I went to law school. I make less than I made as a receptionist eight years ago, and when I apply to non-lawyer jobs, even HR jobs that I would have been offered in a heartbeat 5 years ago, I'm told that I won't even be given an interview because I'm "overqualified". So, because I did what I was taught to do from childhood - go to school and work hard - I'm mired in poverty for probably the rest of my life. If I hadn't gone to law school, I would have less debt, a higher salary, and a lower workload.
It kind of sucks.
A lot of blogs at this point would blame the situation on various people or social factors. I'm not going to do that. It is what it is at this point, and playing the blame game won't fix the situation I'm in. I may not be wholly responsible for getting myself into this mess, but I'm the only one who can get myself out of it.
Realistically, I don't know how I'm going to do it. I physically can't work any more hours, and I've pretty much reached the limit of how many expenses I can cut. I have nothing saved for retirement - how could I possibly save anything when every penny I earn is earmarked for rent and food and the minimum payments on my debt? I'm probably one more emergency away from bankruptcy. (I managed to, by the skin of my teeth and the generosity of friends and family, weather 4 major emergencies and 1 minor emergency over the past 6 months, but I think I've reached my limit.)
Hopefully my solo practice will take off soon and become profitable. I'm very close to finally clearing my overhead. Maybe in a few months I'll actually earn money from it. I feel like I'm kind of in a vicious cycle, though. I have to do document review to keep the bills paid, but the time I'm spending on it is taking away from time I could be spending building my practice. So my practice isn't operating at its best because I can't spend enough time on it, but if I spend more time on it, I won't be able to spend time at document review earning money to pay my bills.
I have grit, determination, and creativity at my disposal, even though I don't have a lot of time or money to throw at my debt problem. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to get to the other side, but I'm determined that I will. Hopefully before it's time for me to pay for my not-yet-conceived children to go to college.
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