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Have you been following the story on abovethelaw about the hooker lawyer?</p>
<p>Related to the stripper phenomenon, the [Super</a> Freakonomics](<a href=“http://freakonomicsbook.com/superfreakonomics/about-superfreakonomics/][i]Super”>http://freakonomicsbook.com/superfreakonomics/about-superfreakonomics/) book has a discussion on the economics of prostitution, including the market segmentation between high end and low end prostitutes. The high end ones can often make enough money that they may find the income attractive compared to other jobs that they could do.</p>
<p>Few things surprise me anymore. We had a local judge with a sterling 30 year legal career who was disbarred a couple of years ago after fooling around with a stripper and getting mixed up in all sorts of illegal financial dealings. He was smart and well-heeled, but he was stupid.</p>
<p>[Ex-stripper</a> who brought down appellate judge is sentenced for bank fraud - St. Petersburg Times](<a href=“http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/ex-stripper-who-brought-down-appellate-judge-is-sentenced-for-bank-fraud/1130289]Ex-stripper”>http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/ex-stripper-who-brought-down-appellate-judge-is-sentenced-for-bank-fraud/1130289)</p>
<p>I find nothing surprising in the basics of the story - I personally know a young lawyer who waited tables nights and weekends to pay the bills while working as a lawyer during the day early in her career.</p>
<p>mantori-suzuki, many lawyers are not amused at lawyer jokes because there are a significant number of wingnuts loose who actually do hate lawyers and the “sea” of lawyer jokes gives them encouragement. Lawyers - particularly family law lawyers - are threatened and assaulted more often than you’d think. Here’s a comment posted to a youtube video of a man shooting a lawyer outside a courthouse:
Yup - a yock-a-minute.</p>
<p>It’s not a hypothetical issue.</p>
<p>This story, if it is true, puts a human face on both women who work in strip clubs and out of work lawyers who have student loans to pay back. The protagonist of the story doesn’t see herself as a victim, she is doing what she needs to do to get on her feet.</p>
<p>I never had student loans. I also had a generous mother with resources who helped us with gifts. I’ve always worked but even with the extra help its been hard to get ahead. It would have been so much harder if I had really been on my own. This story reminds me how much easier the road was for me.</p>
<p>I am always dubious of stories like this one, not that they happen, but rather that there is some expose of it. It is just too tempting for someone to make up a story like this, and especially since this has political connotations, whether it is the bad economy, the cost of college, you name it…</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you look at how many lawyers that are produced each year and how much it costs to go to law school (let alone with the cost of undergrad), it isn’t surprising that something like this could happen. Given that a law student could come out with student loans in the range of a typical mortgage in many places, and given that a lot of jobs young lawyers find don’t pay that well, not a big surprise.</p>
<p>I agree that the story is unfortunately quite believable. Even big, welathy prestigious firms, when they are hiring, are hiring a lot of bright, well-educated young attorneys as contract employees at $50k/yr with no benefits and no oportunity for forward progression (non-partner track). They claim these attorneys won’t have the work schedule that a partner-track associate would. Not believing it for a minute.</p>
<p>As I said, I don’t find it unbelievable that a lawyer turns to stripping to make ends meet. The details of this one just don’t sound believable to me. Maybe it is just so very poorly written. </p>
<p>She’s getting her master’s degree to bolster her credentials? Her financial aide package wasn’t as much as she’d hoped for? She likes the hours because she has time to write papers for her master’s degree? </p>
<p>There is a new town mentioned. If she moved, then why not move to a place where there are more cocktail waitress jobs if that’s what she wanted. She said there were no cocktail waitress jobs but she started off at this place as a cocktail waitress and then chose to become a stripper. </p>
<p>Then there is the Lifetime moviesque details about the camaraderie of the women coupled with the boorishness of the men. The strip joint is less hostile than the law offices in which she worked. She’s taking her magical master’s degree to a new town for a fresh start and will never look back! All that is needed is a picture of her standing on a dark hill with a turnip in her hand saying, “As God as my witness, I will never take my top off again.” </p>
<p>I’m not buying it.</p>
<p>Cartera, I think she would be holding a g-string in that scene, not a turnip.</p>
<p>kluge, although I’m not going to stop making lawyer jokes just because some psycho might use it as an excuse to kill somebody, I do understand your point. Still, I’ve played along with the “engineers-are-nerds-with-pocket-protectors-and-thick-glasses” schtick for my whole adult life, not to mention the common (and patently false) belief that we’re lousy lovers, and I’ve managed to escape injury to both my body and my ego.</p>
<p>Then again, most stereotypes have their genesis in fact. Engineers are thought to be nerds and lousy lovers because many of us (not to say most) allow our logical brains routinely to overrule our emotional brains. Lawyers are thought to be amoral sharks because many of them (not to say most) use the law to run over people simply because the law makes it possible, not because it is right or good. To my credit, although I am fully capable of using the laws of physics to incapacitate people I dislike or disagree with, I have thus far resisted the temptation to do so.</p>
<p>So, having taken your point, I will think before I tell my next lawyer joke. I can’t promise more, and none of this changes the fact that I would rather be surrounded by strippers than lawyers. It’s not personal; it’s just my emotional brain at work.</p>
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<p>Mantori, you might actually like my lawyer husband. He’s also an engineer and he enjoys lawyer jokes, and likes to tell them himself. ;)</p>
<p>I interact with attorneys more than any other group of people because of my job. Over all, I find them to be just regular folk, and generally quite a moral, ethical, hard working group. Of course, the other group I hang with quite a bit is made up of politicians.</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
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<p>I wonder who owns the strip club, what he makes, who he bribes, what the neighbors think.</p>
<p>I think this article is an appropriate addition to this thread:</p>
<p><a href=“For Law School Graduates, Debts if Not Job Offers - The New York Times”>For Law School Graduates, Debts if Not Job Offers - The New York Times;
<p>Wow, I’m a headhunter for lawyers and that guy managed to go to a law school I have never heard of. He certainly didn’t help himself in that article.</p>
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<p>Exactly. People attending law schools ranked in the bottom half of the Tier 4 schools should expect a similar fate. It’s usually running neck and neck with Cooley, which is considered a joke in the world of law schools.</p>
<p>It is sad that so many folks view law school as their magic ticket to “the big time” and don’t realize that there are so many under and unemployed attorneys. Add to that, the # of attorneys who decide they actually don’t LIKE law & want to switch careers (many of us DO switch careers). This all relates back to the crushing debt issue and people borrowing MUCH more than they can realistically expect to repay within a reasonable time.</p>
<p>There are many graduating from even highly respected law schools struggling to find law jobs or even law-related jobs. It’s a tough market and a glut of attorneys, supply & demand.</p>
<p>I have not heard of many of the law schools mentioned in the article either. I’ve always figured that if you can’t go to the flagship state law schools or your or another state or comparable, look long & hard about your plans.</p>
<p>Engineering and other fields are also graduating folks who can’t find jobs with varying amounts of debt incurred as well. Fortunately, most only have 4 or 5 years of debt rather than 7 (3 years of professional school + 4 years undergrad).</p>
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TJSL is the lowest ranked ABA accredited law school in California* - and its tuition is **still **$41K per year. The state university law schools are even more - $45- $50K per year. That’s what makes me see red - not just that law school grads can’t get jobs, but that the cost of law school bears absolutely no relationship to the actual cost of providing the education, so the JD/baristas are carrying a mountain of debt. It’s a scandal fueled by non-dischargeable student loans.</p>
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<li>having said that; I have a niece who went there, passed the bar, and has built a successful legal career.</li>
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<p>I’ve noticed that some very highly-placed people in the business world have law degrees. I wonder if a lower-tier program is best for people who want to bolster their existing credentials with a greater knowledge of the law, as opposed to people who wish to practice it.</p>