Making the switch to criminal law? Forum

[Anonymous User]

First-year attorney here. Graduated from a T30 around the middle of my class and got a job in insurance defense out of law school making a little over $80k. The billable hour requirement is fairly high at around 1900. I am not enjoying it. The partners I've worked with nitpick over tiny little details in documents just to have their personal preferences met in a way that doesn't even seem to track with legal acumen or accuracy but rather some idiosyncratic preference. I haven't had much in the way of mentoring or support. Instead the tendency at the firm I'm at is to assign something with minimal effort put into providing instructions or advice, while maybe providing a prior example to work off of, and then to harshly criticize if the result doesn't meet expectations. Whether that's due to laziness or being too busy or just not caring, the end result is the same. I don't find most of the cases that interesting where I am, either, which probably doesn't help. I don't really care that much about personal injury, particularly premises liability stuff. Even car accidents seem so straightforward that they're nothing stimulating. Med mal seems fairly interesting, but even then you're working with adjusters, and I don't enjoy having to worry about billable hours.

Since I find much of the PI world uninteresting, I am not sure if even switching to the plaintiff side would help. Transactional might be a better fit, but it seems hard to break into in my area. I did an internship with a PD office during law school and liked it. I didn't like some of the clients and am not sure if I'd enjoy being a PD as much as a prosecutor, because I'd rather be able to filter my clients in criminal defense, but I enjoyed poring through the discovery and strategizing on the cases. People in criminal also seem more laid back and less egotistical than those I've encountered at private firms. I feel like my staying at a private firm doing boring cases the rest of my career and having unneeded stress would just be a way of trying to "feel" like I am some big-firm attorney when the reality is that my Big Law hopes were destroyed when I failed to get into a T13. The main hesitation I have is that it would be, obviously, a pay cut going into criminal and I have certain expenses already set in stone. I'm also introverted although I have some public speaking experience. But perhaps after a year or so of being frugal it would be OK as my pay increased. Should I just go for criminal? Anyone make the switch that didn't like PI/civil litigation and enjoy it?

[Anonymous User]

I would wait until you've been at your current firm for at least a year and then go for criminal. A lot of local prosecutor/public defender offices are not that selective because they really need people, and this is especially true outside of the major metro areas. I say wait a year because if you apply with less than a year of experience then someone reading your application might think that you will similarly bail on the criminal work after a few months. At least with one year of firm experience, you can persuasively say that you gave it a genuine try and tried it out for a while before you concluded that you didn't like it.

Also, you might explore applying to criminal defense firms that might have better pay than prosecutor/public defender offices.

[Wanderingdrock]

Two things.

1. How much of a pay cut are we really talking? Counting all the benefits of a government job (PD), I'm not sure you're really "making" that much less than your current salary, assuming minimal other benefits at the current gig. And that's not counting the psychic income you expect from having more interesting cases and generally better satisfaction with your work.

2. However, I'd caution you that the way you wrote this post makes me think you might not realize what you're getting into with PD work. I've never been one but I've known some. One in particular I remember talking about her caseload - something like 70 cases a week, with the vast majority pleading out. She was neither working humane hours nor getting the chance to "pore over" cases, for the most part. It probably depends where you are, but that's not the only horror story I've heard. On the other hand, she did say it was incredible legal training and worthwhile work; she seemed to be getting psychic income of the sort she wanted, and she ended up getting her dream job as a law school professor as her next gig.

[Anonymous User]

Two things.

1. How much of a pay cut are we really talking? Counting all the benefits of a government job (PD), I'm not sure you're really "making" that much less than your current salary, assuming minimal other benefits at the current gig. And that's not counting the psychic income you expect from having more interesting cases and generally better satisfaction with your work.

2. However, I'd caution you that the way you wrote this post makes me think you might not realize what you're getting into with PD work. I've never been one but I've known some. One in particular I remember talking about her caseload - something like 70 cases a week, with the vast majority pleading out. She was neither working humane hours nor getting the chance to "pore over" cases, for the most part. It probably depends where you are, but that's not the only horror story I've heard. On the other hand, she did say it was incredible legal training and worthwhile work; she seemed to be getting psychic income of the sort she wanted, and she ended up getting her dream job as a law school professor as her next gig.

About $20K less. And yeah, I have worried a bit about what you're warning about; I don't know if that is as common with ADAs or not, but currently I've got an interview lined up for an ADA position.

[OldSchoolLitigator]

You should look at getting on court-appointed panels. I was a federal CJA panel attorney for 17 years, absolutely loved 15 of those years, and never made less than $90k (including in the early 2000s). Some panels are hard to get on, but at least at one point Vermont was so desperate for panel attorneys that they paid more junior attorneys 30 bucks an hour to associate with order cja attorneys in the hopes that the junior attorneys would eventually become full panel attorneys. (The federal cja rate is about $174/hour now.) If I were young, I'd move to Vermont and do that.

[Wanderingdrock]

About $20K less. And yeah, I have worried a bit about what you're warning about; I don't know if that is as common with ADAs or not, but currently I've got an interview lined up for an ADA position.

Wow, public defenders get shafted in your area. Starting salary in my market I'm pretty sure is over $60k, not counting benefits.

[Anonymous User]

About $20K less. And yeah, I have worried a bit about what you're warning about; I don't know if that is as common with ADAs or not, but currently I've got an interview lined up for an ADA position.

Wow, public defenders get shafted in your area. Starting salary in my market I'm pretty sure is over $60k, not counting benefits.

It would be over $60k here before benefits. My salary is over $80k now.

[Wanderingdrock]

About $20K less. And yeah, I have worried a bit about what you're warning about; I don't know if that is as common with ADAs or not, but currently I've got an interview lined up for an ADA position.

Wow, public defenders get shafted in your area. Starting salary in my market I'm pretty sure is over $60k, not counting benefits.

It would be over $60k here before benefits. My salary is over $80k now.

Then we're talking past each other. I was assuming your current job comes with minimal benefits. Over $60k plus government benefits is a lot less than a 20k difference in total comp.

[CanadianWolf]

As a self-proclaimed introvert, do you think that you would be comfortable doing trial work ?

Do you think that you would be effective as a trial attorney given your personality type (introvert) ?

Plaintiff's side personal injury work is quite different than the defense side and, typically, is much more lucrative. Wouldn't switching sides in your current industry be easier and more lucrative than switching to criminal law ?

[Anonymous User]

As a self-proclaimed introvert, do you think that you would be comfortable doing trial work ?

Do you think that you would be effective as a trial attorney given your personality type (introvert) ?

Plaintiff's side personal injury work is quite different than the defense side and, typically, is much more lucrative. Wouldn't switching sides in your current industry be easier and more lucrative than switching to criminal law ?

I have been thinking of doing that. I would rather be a plaintiffs' lawyer than do defense. Then I could be a trial lawyer but get substantial breaks in between trials and the trials wouldn't involve people's freedom or cause as much stress.