OPIA Blog

Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising

Top reasons to be a public interest lawyer

Equal Justice Works posted a nice blog entry about the top reasons to be a public interest lawyer. Here is a truncated list:

#4: Responsibility–more responsibility earlier.
#6: Money–yes, money. A surprise to me but given the current climate, the playing field has become more and more leveled.
#9: Fun–You’re breaking down institutions and messing up the status quo against huge corporations (potentially). What isn’t exciting about that?
#3: Community–I know this is chronologically out of order, but it might be worth mentioning last. There there is a great and powerful sense of community among public interest lawyers. This helps drive their efforts and causes.

October 8th, 2009 Posted by opia | Uncategorized | No Comments

The myth of low paying government jobs

According to a recent column by Boston Globe’s conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby, federal civil servant employees’ salary is rising and holding a comparative advantage vs. private sector employees.

The figures are quite astonishing, actually. The federal civil servants enjoyed an average annual salary of $79,197, whereas the private employee was earned $49,935. The numbers are even more stark when taking into account the benefit packages: $119,982 for federal civilian vs. $59,909 for private employees. It should also be noted that these figures came from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis but the study that compared federal civilian employee salaries vs. private sector employee salaries was done by the Cato Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

These statistics are not misleading in of themselves, but they don’t illustrate the whole story. They do not, for example, take into account types of profession or geographic region. The statistics are essentially raw data that lumps compensation together into one pool. The Cato Institute is not necessarily distorting data, but it is leaving out some essential information for the reader. For the reader who might want to accurately compare a lawyer in private practice in Montana vs. a lawyer in Washington, D.C the study, unfortunately, falls short.

October 4th, 2009 Posted by opia | Jobs, News | 1 Comment

   

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