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An Open Letter to Chad Schmidt of Counsel on Call

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chad Schmidt of Counsel on Call, the focus of the Globe article that caused me so much consternation, replied to one of my subsequent posts, where his comments can be found. I'd like to share my response with the rest of my readers.

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Dear Mr. Schmidt,

I've held off replying for a bit because I wanted to give a thoughtful reply, not a dashed off remark that might come off as sarcastic, as I easily could have. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read my response and thinking about your quotes in the article.

I was not "upset" by your comments at all. That would imply that I'm a fragile girl who can't take more of the same old stereotypes about contract attorneys and doc reviewers. That is not the case. I know the drill; I know that plenty of contract attorneys are disillusioned and/or comfortable with their lot in life and can be lazy and unreliable. That is not me. And that is not the vast majority of the other men and women that I've had the pleasure of working with.

But that is not the main issue I was addressing.

My problem was more with the article and the Globe's lopsided, lazy, and vapid reporting. Although I'm sure you're happy that your company got a lead story on the Business section of the Globe, let's squarely call the article what it is: a propaganda piece. As I said in my letter to the editor, the newspaper squandered its opportunity to report on the larger problem, which is not the lawyers who have made their bucks and would like to work "flextime" and attend to their personal lives. Rather, the story is the young graduates who are mired in debt and floundering simply because their law school employs a mandatory 2.8 GPA curve. The stereotype that needs defying at this point is that "all attorneys make the big bucks out of law school," not the "contract attorneys can't find a job" one.

I was never one of those lawyer wannabes that had champagne wishes and caviar dreams. I thought that I could make a decent living, help people, delve into interesting issues and problems, and pay off my student debt in the process. This is not the case, as I have testified using this blog during the past year.

And I never expected to know everything out of the gate. However, it is becoming apparent that few law firms are willing to take on a young graduate and teach them the tools of the trade. Where's the money in that? And that's what the article was really about, though of course it never mentioned it specifically. Cash. How can we make more of it? The big money isn't in the junior level attorneys; not for the recruiting firms, not for the law firms, and not for the corporations. And unless we're clicking on documents or manage to find a sympathetic employer who's willing to train in a tough economy, we'll keep clicking. There's no apprenticeship for us, the middle-of-the-pack, unconnected, young Tier 2 law school attorneys.

My name is Kristina, and I went to a Tier 2 school, squarely in the middle of the pack. My father was a restaurant manager. My mother was a secretary. I worked damn hard in high school to go to one of the best universities in America. I worked hard in law school too, but kept coming up short. Where does that leave me?

Recruiters get a bad rep too, and it is exactly because of this kind of reporting, which portrayed you as callous and bottom line. You make your money from the client, Mr. Schmidt, and we contractors help you to do so. It's interesting that you noted that you talk to "attorneys about [this plight] every day," when I have never had a recruiter try to give me a contact that could help further my career. In fact, they would discourage me from taking a half day off in order to interview for those permanent jobs. Of course, it simply doesn't make business sense.

You note that "there are a lot of very dedicated people here trying to make the profession better and unearthing more opportunities for everyone." All of your permanent jobs are for those who have 2+ years experience in the field. Do you talk to your clients about hiring more entry level candidates? Do you mention that summer associate classes are shrinking every year but the pool of graduates is growing larger and larger every year? I don't mean to sound terse, but I would love to hear what you are doing to help young attorneys. Is there a way to help us on our career paths and still make a profit? If so, I would love to hear it.

Again, you didn't have to take the time to read and respond, and I am pleasantly surprised. I would love to continue the dialogue in anyway that I can.

Sincerely,
Kristina

Full post as published by Wicked Words on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).