After eight full months of unsuccessful job seeking, I had the oddest phone call yesterday.  Some small law firm has found my resume on the state’s unemployment site and they’re interested in interviewing me. 

Now, I believe that I’m obligated to do this interview — especially if I want to squeeze my remaining $1251.24 from the state’s unemployment fund.

Is this job, you ask, in my desired niche of television?  No, of course not.  Those folks don’t need to advertise.  Rather, it’s a job that many consider scraping the bottom of the legal employment battle — worker’s compensation.  Now Worker’s Comp is the bastard step-cousin of the world of plaintiff’s work.  You may know them as ambulance chasers.  I know them as hard working folks who don’t make much money except when they stumble on the odd tobacco or breast implant litigation — despite what George Bush said when signing legislation to close those judicial ‘hellholes.’  But, as always, I digress.

This is an interesting position to be in.  I’ve already had the dead end legal job, and here I am interviewing for another.  After all, an attorney describes worker’s comp this way:

I interviewed with a W/C defense firm that wanted me to bill 2000 hours per year for the princely sum of $50k. I didn’t stick around to hear the details.

These firms make their money by handling cases in volume. Large volume. All the defense firms’ offices I have visited look the same. Files everywhere, like someone took a file cannon and shot files all over the office - giant, stuffed redweld files, bulging with doctors’ reports and with the case name written in magic marker on the front. (Confidentiality be damned!)

Add to all of this the fact that reform legislation passed last year might actually be successful in reducing W/C litigation - and you have a field that I wouldn’t enter except as a last resort. Also, consider the fact that once you enter this area of practice, it could be very hard to practice any other type of law.

Now, this last $1251 comes with strings, no?

So, the good Googler that I am, I’ve done some research.  The firm’s manager is a Harvard Law graduate.  Now that’s interesting . . . .   I suspet there’s more to this story.  Not many of those folks eeking it out on their own, searching unemployment sites for attorneys.  There myst be some real story here, but I have a meeting this evening.  I can’t decide what tact I’m going to take, but after I battle traffic on the 101, it should be very interesting . . . .