Non-Big law summer salary?

[queenie]

I am wondering how much a 2L summer job in a non-big law field might pay? I know it's going to vary but I would love to have a general sense in terms of budgeting. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

It’s going to vary so much that the question is nearly meaningless. On the low end, you might be at minimum wage or on a stipend below minimum wage (unless the LSO’s regulations re: minimum articling salaries apply to summers, which I haven’t checked). I know one person who worked in criminal defence for a summer and actually lost money once the cost of their car and parking were factored in (and yes, those expenses had to be incurred for work). 

Completely unpaid 2L summer gigs in private firms are rarer, but if you take an internship somewhere instead of a job it’s entirely possible you won’t get paid. 

On the high end, outside of big law you might secure a job at a good boutique or PI firm that pays close to Bay Street levels. Alternatively, a lot of in house positions will have pay closer to equivalent to $1000-1400/week. 

[legalevil]

2 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

On the high end, outside of big law you might secure a job at a good boutique or PI firm that pays close to Bay Street levels. Alternatively, a lot of in house positions will have pay closer to equivalent to $1000-1400/week. 

sorry for my ignorance here but what is a PI firm?

[MapleLeafs]

2 minutes ago, legalevil said:

sorry for my ignorance here but what is a PI firm?

personal injury 

[Rashabon]

2 hours ago, legalevil said:

sorry for my ignorance here but what is a PI firm?

A firm for Dicks.

[LAWWAL]

17 hours ago, Rashabon said:

A firm for Dicks.

why?

[easttowest]

I recall making something like $18/hr which was determined by adding what the firm got from the province for hiring a student to the minimum wage at the time.

[GGrievous]

I saw a posting that was unpaid for full-time hours. It was a "fellowship" at a non-profit, but I was pretty grossed out by it still. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Barry

[goosie]

I worked in house during 2L summer at a national corporation. Not working in a non-big law field - I was mostly doing corp/commercial work - but I thought I'd give the numbers anyway for the sake of comparison. I was paid about $20.50/hr for 35 hrs/wk. In retrospect I could have probably gotten more since it added up to about $720/wk and now I know other in house summer students and similarly sized corporations make almost double (like the numbers mentioned above - $1k-1.4k). I didn't know that at the time and probably wouldn't have felt like I was in a position to negotiate anyway. (Also, I was definitely working more than 35 hours, probably 45/wk).

[Deadpool]

10 minutes ago, Barry said:

I saw a posting that was unpaid for full-time hours. It was a "fellowship" at a non-profit, but I was pretty grossed out by it still. 

If money is not an issue, and this is a well-known non-profit organization, then this sounds like a good opportunity. These types of positions with non-profits are very rare for law students. They can provide experience, help you make connections, and get your foot in the door if you want to work in the public sector. So, you have to do your own cost-benefit analysis on whether this type of arrangement is worth it in the long run for your career.

[GGrievous]

4 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

If money is not an issue, and this is a well-known non-profit organization, then this sounds like a good opportunity. These types of positions with non-profits are very rare for law students. They can provide experience, help you make connections, and get your foot in the door if you want to work in the public sector. So, you have to do your own cost-benefit analysis on whether this type of arrangement is worth it in the long run for your career.

It's a well-known organization, and an excellent organization. The experience is likely very valuable. I do think it's taking advantage to expect full-time hours. I get that non-profits have budget issues but surely they can at least provide a stipend, or provide students the opportunity to get experience while still giving them time to work elsewhere or have time for other summer activities. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Barry

[CleanHands]

18 minutes ago, Barry said:

I saw a posting that was unpaid for full-time hours. It was a "fellowship" at a non-profit, but I was pretty grossed out by it still. 

 

1 minute ago, Deadpool said:

If money is not an issue, and this is a well-known non-profit organization, then this sounds like a good opportunity. These types of positions with non-profits are very rare for law students. They can provide experience, help you make connections, and get your foot in the door if you want to work in the public sector. So, you have to do your own cost-benefit analysis on whether this type of arrangement is worth it in the long run for your career.

 

1 minute ago, Barry said:

It's a well-known organization, and an excellent organization. The experience is likely very valuable. I do think it's taking advantage to expect full-time hours. I get that non-profits have budget issues but surely they can at least provide a stipend. 

I would have happily done this with the UBC Innocence Project or Innocence Canada (for examples of what tickles my fancy, but there are opportunities out there for all sorts of pet causes) if I had failed to secure a paid summer criminal law job.

Another thing to keep in mind is that at UBC at least, there were a good number of grants available to pay stipends to students who took on these kinds of unpaid non-profit roles (when the organization didn't pay the students directly). They were less than minimum wage but they were still something. Without having investigated, I assume UBC isn't the only law school in the country where students are offered these. 

I do get that it really sucks to be a highly educated professional deep in student debt and not entitled to the same employment standards as teenagers without secondary education or any work experience or skills. But these are positions that do provide a lot of value to the students involved, law students are handed six figure LOCs like candy so a summer without income won't make them starve, and really one has to look at these positions more like volunteering for long hours than like a job. It's better they exist in this form than don't exist at all.

[CleanHands]

27 minutes ago, Barry said:

I get that non-profits have budget issues but surely they can at least provide a stipend, or provide students the opportunity to get experience while still giving them time to work elsewhere or have time for other summer activities. 

Upon reflection I also wanted to address this, having some degree of experience and insight into these matters.

• Sometimes they literally cannot afford a stipend. Or at least coming up with the money for a stipend would mean being unable to cover a separate very necessary and higher priority expense. I will point out that the lawyers on salary at these kinds of organizations make a fraction of what they would elsewhere--if a few extra grand can be scrounged up to be spend on wages honestly they deserve it more than students. These kind of organizations tend to be very, very lean and stretch their shoestrings as far as they can go. So I think that paying even a few thousands dollars to a student could in many cases be more onerous than you suggest. To use my Innocence Project example, paying a student a stipend would equate to something along the lines of not being able to hire a private investigator to pursue a potentially fruitful line of inquiry (and that's even with the actual legal work is being done almost exclusively pro bono by volunteer supervising lawyers and students, and a woefully underpaid director).
• It takes time and resources to go through the onboarding processes with student volunteers (recruitment and selection, IT setup, briefing on files/projects, etc), and--as I mentioned above--these organizations are short on both manhours and resources. Then in order to do any real work said student volunteers need to invest a decent chunk of time up front to familiarize themselves with their files, the organization's rules, etc. In many cases it is more of a detriment than an asset to take on volunteers who are only involved on a limited basis, as the volume and quality of their output is ultimately of less value than what would have been produced if the people recruiting and managing them instead spent time on the work themselves.

I don't want to harp on you because I like you and I am sympathetic to an aversion to having to work for free (as opposed to more limited volunteering). But I think that often times students lack the perspective of what these things look like on the other end of the equation.

[GGrievous]

18 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

-

I appreciate the insight from you and @Deadpool and I shouldn't really assume the worst of an organization without a deeper understanding of their financials. There are some positions that exist because no one else wants to do that kind of work, and doing it for free as a student volunteer, or on a pro-bono basis is the only way it'll get done. I appreciate that and those who do it. I also know that students are eager and can be easily taken advantage of in their desperation to get experience, but yeah obviously your example is one where that certainly isn't the case. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Barry

[CleanHands]

6 minutes ago, Barry said:

I appreciate the insight from you and @Deadpool and I shouldn't really assume the worst of an organization without a deeper understanding of their financials. There are some positions that exist because no one else wants to do that kind of work, and doing it for free as a student volunteer, or on a pro-bono basis is the only way it'll get done. I appreciate that and those who do it. I also know that students are eager and can be easily taken advantage of in their desperation to get experience, but yeah obviously your example is one where that certainly isn't the case. 

Oh yeah, to be clear, if it's a "position that exists because no one else wants to do that kind of work," certainly don't do it for free. lol

The kind of work I was thinking of is work that tons of lawyers would absolutely love to do but don't have the time to do and can't bring themselves to do for free instead of billing $300/hr with their paid work. Given the way you characterized the organization in question I figured it would likely fall into this category.

I can't keep track of the amount of lawyers I've spoken to who loved and miss the volunteer work they did in law school and regret that they haven't done anything they consider as interesting or meaningful since graduating.

[123]

1 hour ago, CleanHands said:

Oh yeah, to be clear, if it's a "position that exists because no one else wants to do that kind of work," certainly don't do it for free. lol

The kind of work I was thinking of is work that tons of lawyers would absolutely love to do but don't have the time to do and can't bring themselves to do for free instead of billing $300/hr with their paid work. Given the way you characterized the organization in question I figured it would likely fall into this category.

I can't keep track of the amount of lawyers I've spoken to who loved and miss the volunteer work they did in law school and regret that they haven't done anything they consider as interesting or meaningful since graduating.

Yeah. I turn away plenty of clients with interesting, worthwhile cases. Not because they pay poorly (they do) or because I don't want them (I do). But rather just because I've already committed myself to existing client matters, and I can't start working something else, if that's going to detract from my ability to fulfill my existing obligations.

One of the benefits of being a student is that you typically don't have a tonne of pre-existing familial or work/client obligations. So if you see something in a clinical position or role with an existing organization where you'd get to do something interesting or unusual, now is the time. You'll get other chances to do interesting stuff. But it's never going to be easier to drop everything and commit to some short-term project or cause. 

[123]

2 hours ago, Barry said:

I get that non-profits have budget issues but surely they can at least provide a stipend, or provide students the opportunity to get experience while still giving them time to work elsewhere or have time for other summer activities. 

2 hours ago, CleanHands said:

• It takes time and resources to go through the onboarding processes with student volunteers (recruitment and selection, IT setup, briefing on files/projects, etc), and--as I mentioned above--these organizations are short on both manhours and resources. Then in order to do any real work said student volunteers need to invest a decent chunk of time up front to familiarize themselves with their files, the organization's rules, etc. In many cases it is more of a detriment than an asset to take on volunteers who are only involved on a limited basis, as the volume and quality of their output is ultimately of less value than what would have been produced if the people recruiting and managing them instead spent time on the work themselves.

I'll probably hire a student eventually, and I will pay them.

It's occurred to me though that the more I pay, the more value I'll want to squeeze out of each hour of work. That probably means that if I pay them a competitive wage, they're not going to get as much of the interesting stuff. The more nuanced, complex work requires more training, skill, and supervision. When you're working for LAO certificates and relatively small flat fee retainers, it's not worth regularly paying a student to spend several hours to do something that I can do in an hour, and that I'll still have to give up billable time to review and revise. I would give them some interesting assignments -- I would want a student to get some educational value out of their experience with me. But I'd be preparing to eat their time on those, and their benefit to my business would be doing stuff that's simple enough that someone with basically no experience can do it without needing constant oversight and guidance. 

I got a tonne of really interesting experience as a student volunteer, or at for credit clinics (where I was essentially paying lawyers to supervise my volunteer work). The experience I got has been worth many times I what I would've been paid in an hourly wage or stipend, as I've had the skills and confidence to do cases that not all junior lawyers do. If you're going to commit to doing something for free, the key, I think, is picking wisely. There are lots of firms that will exploit your labour. There are non-profits that will have you sit and do menial work. Pick something with a history and tradition of providing good experiences. Ask around with upper years. Do your due diligence, and you can find super valuable unpaid positions. 

[GGrievous]

21 minutes ago, realpseudonym said:

There are lots of firms that will exploit your labour. There are non-profits that will have you sit and do menial work. 

Pick something with a history and tradition of providing good experiences. Ask around with upper years. Do your due diligence, and you can find super valuable unpaid positions. 

It's funny because I actually currently have an unpaid position and it's not only valuable to the point where I'd actually probably pay them to participate in it, but also the only thing I'm enjoying about law school. Would I be doing it full time if I could do it in lieu of classes? abso-fucking-lutely.

Your points are all great though, and I'm grateful to get perspective from the employer side, and the practical considerations that go into paying and giving work to a student. This particular position had a job description list, some of it seemed interesting, some of it seemed like menial stuff/waste of time, so I guess my concern was with them both "squeezing each hour of work" of a 40 hour work week, and not paying. 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Barry