Associates: Compare Your Job to Your Time with TFA Forum

[jrthor10]

If it's to 8 year-olds? Roughly nine minutes. I spent a whopping half-hour preparing for my last contested three-hour hearing in front of a crowded courtroom, two opposing parties, five attorneys, an ornery judge, and a client who is paying me a lot of money to look good. (And yes, I won.)

I always hear these mythical stories about teachers having to work all the time, but all the teachers I know have a shit ton of time off and are out and about every weekend. Funny how that works.

I don't think a teacher has ever, in the history of the world, canceled dinner plans for work.

Hell teaches don't even have meetings after hours. If there are meetings, they cancel school that day. Just lol.

If big lawyers billed hours how teachers count theirs, we'd each bill 3500 a year.

DF you literally have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to teaching. Not really surprised, though. I used to find TLS interesting and potentially helpful. Since you decided to start posting every two minutes in every forum imaginable it has really forced me away. You either spew nonsense on topics you have no clue about, or you start topics to "warn" others, which ironically, only serve the purpose of convincing more people you are weird, and you're advice should be ignored.

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I hope you were the guy I helped ding for an SA.

The topic was asking about comparing Big Law to TFA. Not Big Law to teaching generally. Your graph is about as helpful as one comparing the hours a 1st-year TFA corps member spends working to the hours worked for anyone involved in the legal profession. It just isn't relevant.

Also notice that I didn't try to make any claims about how many hours a TFA teacher puts into their job--I merely pointed out that you are making a lot of assumptions when you suggest that such a TFA teacher would never miss dinner for work-related responsibilities or that TFA teachers don't have meetings except on days that school is canceled. Those things are very, very false.

[WhiskeynCoke]

ITT: People who have never taught speak authoritatively on how "easy" it is.

For those of you who apparently have the reading comprehension skills of a disadvantaged 8 year old, the OP clearly asked for a comparison between biglaw and teach for America, NOT teaching "in general."

TFA does NOT equal "regular" teaching. TFA is its own beast, with it's own variety of insurmountable difficulties. Unlike other posters here, I won't pretend to truly understand the challenges that TFA presents, as I have never done TFA myself. However, I have enough close friends who have done TFA to know that it can be extraordinarily difficult and emotionally destructive. TFA people are sent to the worst school districts in the country where they have NO ties. Think about it.

For example, a close friend of mine spent 2 years on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Come back and talk when you've had to deal with 11 year olds who are already alcoholics in your class, drug-addled parents who blame you for all their child's problems and nearly assault you, unsupportive administration, having inadequate resources, being 22 and having no idea what you're doing, having to come up with everything from scratch, being in the middle of nowhere, etc.. The hard part isn't the actual "teaching," it's everything else.

Though biglaw is still probably worse, the point is that you guys clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You aren't qualified to comment on this subject. You should be embarrassed. Seriously.

Edit: Also, as a biglaw attorney you make well over 5x what a TFA grunt does... so, yeah....

TBF I did teach on a rez, with all the awful, emotionally-trying bullshit. It wouldn't have been easier at 5x the pay. Money can't buy you mental health.

Sounds like you are qualified to speak on the subject then (biglaw v. TFA). For OP's sake, you should do so.

Also, come on... working a shitty job for $25k/yr is obviously worse than working the same shitty job for $160k/yr + bonus. The difference is that in the first situation, not only does your job suck, you also have to live in poverty. Biglaw + ramen noodle diet would be far worse, no?

[DELG]

I dunno man. It at least had some hope of being fulfilling, some of the time, and giving you some sense that you weren't just mindlessly squandering your time on this planet.

[WhiskeynCoke]

I dunno man. It at least had some hope of being fulfilling, some of the time, and giving you some sense that you weren't just mindlessly squandering your time on this planet.

I guess this is kind of a beginning to a substantive response to OP's question. In the words of every law professor I've ever had: "say more!"

So, you'd trade your biglaw job for a 25k/yr teaching job on an Indian reservation? Right now?

[Desert Fox]

The topic was asking about comparing Big Law to TFA. Not Big Law to teaching generally. Your graph is about as helpful as one comparing the hours a 1st-year TFA corps member spends working to the hours worked for anyone involved in the legal profession. It just isn't relevant.

Also notice that I didn't try to make any claims about how many hours a TFA teacher puts into their job--I merely pointed out that you are making a lot of assumptions when you suggest that such a TFA teacher would never miss dinner for work-related responsibilities or that TFA teachers don't have meetings except on days that school is canceled. Those things are very, very false.

TFA is just being a first year teacher. So I'm not sure what your point is.

[skri65]

DF: FWIW, my teaching experience was 70 hr/week in a constant wheel-of-crisis. I doubt that this decision is as clear-cut as you think.

If you turned teaching kids 9 months a year with 6.5 hours of class time into a 70 hour/week wheel of crisis, big law will destroy you.

You clearly know nothing about teaching and teachers, especially those who enter the profession as unqualified and untrained as those in TFA.

"You don't understand how hard this job that someone with literally no qualifications or training can do!"

They can't, hence the problem with TFA and hence the reason it is so difficult. I'm not even arguing biglaw is less difficult, but it is very clear you undervalue how impossible the task is for those in TFA. Moreover, you are making statements which show how you lack any sense of what a first year teacher in TFA does..

My fiancé did TFA. She woke up at 5:30am every day, got home at around 5:30pm, and worked on her lesson plans till around 9 or so, sometimes later if I couldn't cook her dinner. She woke up at 5:30am the next day and did it all again. Her job was to teach 25 kids at two different grade levels how to speak English. All of the kids spoke Spanish, and my fiancé did not. Throughout the year, her class grew by ten, all of whom spoke no English, thus making it difficult for her to make a lesson plan that applies to the kids because they were of all different ages and education. She received little to no support from the administration or other teachers because they all had beef with TFA. If I recall, TFA trained her for about a month before throwing her into the fire. She earned 38K in a school located in a shitty inner city neighborhood. She also worked summers, at marginal additional income.

[skri65]

The topic was asking about comparing Big Law to TFA. Not Big Law to teaching generally. Your graph is about as helpful as one comparing the hours a 1st-year TFA corps member spends working to the hours worked for anyone involved in the legal profession. It just isn't relevant.

Also notice that I didn't try to make any claims about how many hours a TFA teacher puts into their job--I merely pointed out that you are making a lot of assumptions when you suggest that such a TFA teacher would never miss dinner for work-related responsibilities or that TFA teachers don't have meetings except on days that school is canceled. Those things are very, very false.

TFA is just being a first year teacher. So I'm not sure what your point is.

If you don't understand why doing TFA is qualitatively (and significantly) different than being a first year teacher, perhaps you should educate yourself before making statements you have no business making.

[Desert Fox]

The topic was asking about comparing Big Law to TFA. Not Big Law to teaching generally. Your graph is about as helpful as one comparing the hours a 1st-year TFA corps member spends working to the hours worked for anyone involved in the legal profession. It just isn't relevant.

Also notice that I didn't try to make any claims about how many hours a TFA teacher puts into their job--I merely pointed out that you are making a lot of assumptions when you suggest that such a TFA teacher would never miss dinner for work-related responsibilities or that TFA teachers don't have meetings except on days that school is canceled. Those things are very, very false.

TFA is just being a first year teacher. So I'm not sure what your point is.

If you don't understand why doing TFA is qualitatively (and significantly) different than being a first year teacher, perhaps you should educate yourself before making statements you have no business making.

That is what TFA is. So why don't you explain it.

[DELG]

I dunno man. It at least had some hope of being fulfilling, some of the time, and giving you some sense that you weren't just mindlessly squandering your time on this planet.

I guess this is kind of a beginning to a substantive response to OP's question. In the words of every law professor I've ever had: "say more!"

So, you'd trade your biglaw job for a 25k/yr teaching job on an Indian reservation? Right now?

No, I have a kid and husband and shit that I can't very well drag out to the armpit of America, and also I like being a lawyer and teaching would be a step in the wrong direction. And also teaching mostly felt like trying to bail out the titanic with a teaspoon in terms of trying to reduce human suffering. But not teaching and staying at my firm don't have a ton to do with money either way.

[WhiskeynCoke]

I dunno man. It at least had some hope of being fulfilling, some of the time, and giving you some sense that you weren't just mindlessly squandering your time on this planet.

I guess this is kind of a beginning to a substantive response to OP's question. In the words of every law professor I've ever had: "say more!"

So, you'd trade your biglaw job for a 25k/yr teaching job on an Indian reservation? Right now?

No, I have a kid and husband and shit that I can't very well drag out to the armpit of America, and also I like being a lawyer and teaching would be a step in the wrong direction. And also teaching mostly felt like trying to bail out the titanic with a teaspoon in terms of trying to reduce human suffering. But not teaching and staying at my firm don't have a ton to do with money either way.

These two statements, taken together, could conceivably be construed as a commendation of biglaw. Intentional? Also, they seem to kind of contradict your prior post, where you describe your work in biglaw as "mindlessly squandering your time on this planet."

Plus, your description of TFA giving you "some hope of being fulfilling" vs. the feeling of "bailing out the titanic w/ a teaspoon in terms of trying to reduce human suffering" also seem a little at odds.

I guess what I'm getting at is... I can't tell if you're saying biglaw is worse, or TFA is worse. (in your opinion)

[patogordo]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

[DELG]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

This, but also, wow it's almost like I am saying 1) there are more jobs than teaching and biglaw and 2) that doing something good mostly ineffectually is better emotionally than doing something exclusively morally neutral.

[WhiskeynCoke]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

This, but also, wow it's almost like I am saying 1) there are more jobs than teaching and biglaw and 2) that doing something good mostly ineffectually is better emotionally than doing something exclusively morally neutral.

re: 1) See Thread Title

re: 2) Makes sense. Some people also value their financial futures and career trajectories though. (i.e. your last post)

[DELG]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

This, but also, wow it's almost like I am saying 1) there are more jobs than teaching and biglaw and 2) that doing something good mostly ineffectually is better emotionally than doing something exclusively morally neutral.

re: 1) See Thread Title

re: 2) Makes sense. Some people also value their financial futures and career trajectories though. (i.e. your last post)

I mean I think OP's question is pretty dumb. "If you've done time in a Peruvian prison, can you compare it to doing time in a Russian one?" Not really sure what you're hoping to learn except yes, there are many opportunities for the overeducated children of the upper middle class to make themselves miserable while not accomplishing much of anything.

[WhiskeynCoke]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

This, but also, wow it's almost like I am saying 1) there are more jobs than teaching and biglaw and 2) that doing something good mostly ineffectually is better emotionally than doing something exclusively morally neutral.

re: 1) See Thread Title

re: 2) Makes sense. Some people also value their financial futures and career trajectories though. (i.e. your last post)

I mean I think OP's question is pretty dumb. "If you've done time in a Peruvian prison, can you compare it to doing time in a Russian one?" Not really sure what you're hoping to learn except yes, there are many opportunities for the overeducated children of the upper middle class to make themselves miserable while not accomplishing much of anything.

I imagine OP is someone who has done TFA, is on a biglaw trajectory, and is looking for what to expect in terms of comparable misery (rather than looking for a buffet of career options). I'm someone who has done relatively shitty, moderately low-paying, dead-end, non "morally fulfilling" work for years who is heading to biglaw, and is looking to hear from more voices here than just DF on how shitty it is.

I guess seeing how others compare biglaw to TFA would be somewhat informative/relevant.

[kcdc1]

she's saying everything is terrible so kill yourself

This, but also, wow it's almost like I am saying 1) there are more jobs than teaching and biglaw and 2) that doing something good mostly ineffectually is better emotionally than doing something exclusively morally neutral.

re: 1) See Thread Title

re: 2) Makes sense. Some people also value their financial futures and career trajectories though. (i.e. your last post)

I mean I think OP's question is pretty dumb. "If you've done time in a Peruvian prison, can you compare it to doing time in a Russian one?" Not really sure what you're hoping to learn except yes, there are many opportunities for the overeducated children of the upper middle class to make themselves miserable while not accomplishing much of anything.

You're assuming that the discussion was intended to argue that BigLaw isn't so bad. The thread is mostly for entertainment, but to the extent that there is some informative value, this thread might help people who have spent time in a Peruvian prison before law school (TFA) better gauge how bad their future Russian prison will be.

[Desert Fox]

The point is for OP to prove to herself that the fact that she flamed out of TFA doesn't mean she'll flame out of law.

[baal hadad]

why not just let the TFA kids fail and do a crud job i mean everyone else expects em to fail too why should you be any different

[Desert Fox]

If you spend 80 hours a week on a job that the average person does in 40, here's your sign /redneck TLSour.

[A. Nony Mouse]

@smallfirmassociate: I guess I don't get why having had crappy teachers means that the job is easy. Most jobs are easy if you don't actually do what you're supposed to. Not being held accountable for not doing the job doesn't mean that the job is easy - just that you can get away with not doing it properly.

Well, not being held accountable for a job means you can really suck at it, so that reduces the stress and overall difficulty of doing the job. I mean, considering you can basically half-ass your entire career and still get full benefits and regular raises, there's not a lot of pressure on teachers.

1) pressure isn't the only thing that makes a job bad. 2) this is a huge generalization based on your experience with crappy teachers 3) yet again, this doesn't say anything about whether it's hard actually to teach rather than just suck at your job.

But then, hours aren't the only things that make a job hard. Biglaw hours suck, but lots of people here have said a trained monkey could do the actual work.

A trained monkey who can complete law school. The trained monkeys who can complete undergrad at a bad school are a whole different animal. There's a good study out there about how poorly-educated our teachers are. Basically, they are underachievers from disproportionately terrible undergrads. Statistically, education is one of the easiest jobs you can do with the fewest barriers to entry and the worst quality control.

I was thinking about how much I'd love to see the average biglaw partner get thrown into a classroom of 8 year olds, and see how well that went.

(and tbf to DELG et al., I don't think trained monkeys can do biglaw, but people do say that sometimes. And the whole comma jockey stuff doesn't strike me as especially hard in itself - it's the conditions/expectations that are the problem.)

[MKC]

You're assuming that the discussion was intended to argue that BigLaw isn't so bad. The thread is mostly for entertainment, but to the extent that there is some informative value, this thread might help people who have spent time in a Peruvian prison before law school (TFA) better gauge how bad their future Russian prison will be.

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.

Seemed relevant because of Russian prison references.

[kcdc1]

The point is for OP to prove to herself that the fact that she flamed out of TFA doesn't mean she'll flame out of law.

Completely off-topic, but I'm tickled about being pegged as an insecure 22-year-old female.

[ymmv]

You're assuming that the discussion was intended to argue that BigLaw isn't so bad. The thread is mostly for entertainment, but to the extent that there is some informative value, this thread might help people who have spent time in a Peruvian prison before law school (TFA) better gauge how bad their future Russian prison will be.

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.

Seemed relevant because of Russian prison references.

This was your personal GOAT post until you ETA'd explaining the joke.

[smallfirmassociate]

My fiancé did TFA. She woke up at 5:30am every day, got home at around 5:30pm, and worked on her lesson plans till around 9 or so, sometimes later if I couldn't cook her dinner. She woke up at 5:30am the next day and did it all again. Her job was to teach 25 kids at two different grade levels how to speak English. All of the kids spoke Spanish, and my fiancé did not. Throughout the year, her class grew by ten, all of whom spoke no English, thus making it difficult for her to make a lesson plan that applies to the kids because they were of all different ages and education. She received little to no support from the administration or other teachers because they all had beef with TFA. If I recall, TFA trained her for about a month before throwing her into the fire. She earned 38K in a school located in a shitty inner city neighborhood. She also worked summers, at marginal additional income.

Yeah, but she didn't have to do much that that. Your fiance was really busy because of her personality, not her job. That's what TFA knows, and it's why they recruit people like her. She could have mailed in a lot of that stuff. I mean, if she was doing lesson plans until 9 or so for a revolving door of kids, most of whom aren't learning much and won't be assessed much, and whose assessments won't be held against her given the circumstances around the kids, then that's commendable and all, but it's her choice.

You could put some 20-year vet career slacker teacher in that role and she'd be like, "Fine, I'm gonna do what I do and they're either gonna learn or not," then she's gonna order two fried fish sandwiches over lunch and waddle out of work at 3 p.m. and not think one thought about it until the next morning. That's not an option in biglaw, and to the extent that it is, you certainly won't be employed for more than a few years.

[smallfirmassociate]

considering you can basically half-ass your entire career and still get full benefits and regular raises, there's not a lot of pressure on teachers.

1) pressure isn't the only thing that makes a job bad. 2) this is a huge generalization based on your experience with crappy teachers 3) yet again, this doesn't say anything about whether it's hard actually to teach rather than just suck at your job.

Are you honestly claiming that public school systems do a good job of firing teachers who half-ass their jobs?

I was thinking about how much I'd love to see the average biglaw partner get thrown into a classroom of 8 year olds, and see how well that went.

(and tbf to DELG et al., I don't think trained monkeys can do biglaw, but people do say that sometimes. And the whole comma jockey stuff doesn't strike me as especially hard in itself - it's the conditions/expectations that are the problem.)

Give the biglaw lawyers a few days to research and prepare before the first day of the school year, and a lot of them will do fine. Certainly no worse than my teachers did. Give the teachers a few days to research and prepare for biglaw, and almost all of them will be totally lost. I mean, the average schoolteacher scored like a 23 on the ACT in high school. We joke about how dumb some lawyers are, but you do realize that even bottom-half students at tier-three shithole law schools scored higher than that, right?

Statistically-speaking, with some reasonable assumptions (e.g. that ACT scores correlate moderately with LSAT scores), well over half of teachers couldn't sniff admission to the top 100 law schools.