Worth Rolling the Dice on Temp Agencies?

As mentioned in a previous post, this is an issue I am presently struggling with. Whether or not you like it, choosing to take the temp agency leap of faith is a major gamble given the present state of our economy.

Why is it a gamble? For so many reasons, really. For one, the plethora of unemployed attorneys means that wages are lower, especially in the temp market. Expect to see entry level hourly rates of no more than $20 in major metropolitan areas. Moreover, chances are better than not temp positions do not provide benefits. Subtract at least 3-5k annually if health insurance is something you simply cannot live without. If you are planning to start a family, you should also weigh the fact that temp experience is not guaranteed to translate into permanent work. Lets face it, the minimum experience to be considered remotely marketable today is two years. No one can predict how long it will take for this to change, or if it ever will. Consider that when the legal job market received its last blow, in the early 90s, it took three plus years for any semblance of normalization. The magnitude of this recession is beyond comparison. If you have your heart set on having children or buying a home in the next few years, you had better look elsewhere.

Lets say that you tough it out, and gain a year or two of temp experience. There is no guarantee that experience will be looked upon favorably by prospective employers. Why not? Simply put, the chances of you doing any substantive legal work during your first year of temping is slim to none. You will most likely hold document review positions here and there. Now I spoke with a senior hiring partner at a firm in New York, who was very candid in telling me that her firm does not consider document review experience to be desirable. In that context, understand you will also be competing against a whole host of candidates with substantive experience either in the form of clerkship or attorney work. I know of quite a few attorneys from my law school that have one and two years of clerkship experience, and have been unable to secure employment therefrom.

Lastly, it is important to bear in mind that if you are temping in the private sector and your loans enter repayment, low wages will likely force you to choose IBR (Income Based Repayment). If you are paying 15% of your AGI, then you will not be paying down your principal. Rolling the dice on temp work could very well mean increasing what you will have to repay. It is true that the government will pick up the balance of your student loans after 25 years of continuous payment. This is not as attractive, however, as the 10 years offered to those working in the public sector, and far riskier as well.

I am not telling anyone not to choose temp work. I am simply outlining the pros and cons of making such a decision. Unfortunately, at the moment there are far more cons than pros. Again, this is a decision I am reckoning with presently, and while I wholeheartedly desire to practice law, I may have to take my skills to public sector or elsewhere. I have to remember that the decision I make affects other peoples' lives. Staying in limbo and increasing my debt for the next few years may not be all that worthwhile.