Lawyers and Anxiety

I was talking with a lawyer friend of mine the other night who wanted some dating advice from me.  A woman on a dating site had messaged him asking my friend to tell her more about himself.  He called me in a panic.

“So tell her about yourself.  What’s the big deal?”

“Well, everything there is to know about me is in my profile.”

“Come on, I’ve seen your profile.  All it says is that you’re a lawyer and you like to watch sports.”

“Yeah, I know, what else is there to tell?”

“Well, what do you think about all day?  What new things do you want to try?  What do you think the meaning of life is?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Haven’t you ever read a book that’s completely out of the realm of what you would normally read?  Or listened to some world radio station at random just to see if you like it?”

“Why would I do that?”


I didn’t know how to respond.  On the one hand, I understood where he was coming from because I used to be him.  When I practiced law, I stopped reading books for pleasure altogether.  And as for music, the only kind I liked to listen to was anything that could put me to sleep at night the fastest.  (I had a hard time sleeping back then.) 

And on the other hand, I knew he needed a kick in the ass.  His lack of engagement with his own life is a classic sign of lawyer malaise/burnout.  So I told him I was going to send him an assignment.  I would send him a list of activities he could perform that might bring him enjoyment and teach him a little bit about himself. 

As I wrote the list, I started thinking more about my previous life as an attorney.  The tone in my friend’s voice revealed some universal truths about being a lawyer.  Lawyers are anxious about virtually every transaction that occurs in their lives (hence, my friend’s panic about the woman who messaged him) and lawyers tend to not cultivate their own personalities and lives since they are often so busy sorting out messes others have made with theirs.  This lack of engagement with one’s own life inevitably leads to more anxiety.  I’ll give you some examples from my own experience. 

When I practiced law, I remember procrastinating all the time.  I would put off writing a brief until the last minute because most of the time, the assignment was just so achingly boring that I had a hard time accepting the fact that I actually had to complete it.  A heavy cloud of deadlines constantly loomed over my head as a result, and a large knot took up residence in my stomach.  

I also had a hard time making decisions.  I would get a settlement offer from a prosecutor or from opposing counsel in a civil case, and my mind would run through every possible scenario for how things could turn out based on how I advised my client to proceed.  It paralyzed me because I could not stop running through these scenarios, even after my client made a decision and the matter was settled.  Settlement only provided more scenarios that involved claims of malpractice or regrets about not pushing the client’s luck at trial and possibly getting a better result.

Since I operated inside of an anxiety-ridden world at work, these same anxieties spilled over into my personal life, specifically finances.  I would pay my bills on time, but I had no plan for saving, for paying off my husband’s and my enormous student loan debt, or for saving up an emergency fund that would cover a few months of expenses in the event of an emergency. If I got a bonus at work or we ended up with more money than expected at the end of the month, we used the windfall to pay off our credit card balance, or some other expense would pop up seemingly out of nowhere.    

I got so used to consoling myself with new clothes, magazines, dinners out, even a new car.  I rationalized this behavior with the belief that if I could not enjoy what I did for most of my days, I would at least look good and be well entertained after hours.  I never wanted to budget because the thought of taking stock of my debt would only accentuate the fact that there was no way out of practicing law for the foreseeable future.  Not with student loan payments, car payments, and credit card payments to think about.

And then an amazing thing happened after I quit law.  Not right away, but soon afterward, I found myself feeling a bit more hopeful about my future.  At the end of the workday, I had time to think about what I wanted out of life and to make a plan for how to get there.  In my lawyering days, all I thought about after work was heading for the wine bottle when I walked in the door, or dreading the next morning when I would have to wake up and repeat the same miserable day over and over again.

I wonder to this day if there is a way I could have happily practiced law.  I don’t think there is.  I think if I had continued on the path I was going down, I would have become more and more disengaged with my own existence.  Maybe to the point where I would panic when someone asked me about myself because, like my friend who was emailed by a potential date the other night, I had nothing to say. 

These days, I still suffer from anxiety, but of a different variety.  Now I have many goals I would like to achieve and not enough time to reach them all.  Most of them have nothing to do with work.  I am reading again and enjoying music.  I don’t waste money anymore trying to console myself with material goods that are temporary and can never fill an emotional void.  I am finally dealing with my law school debt, a debt that will soon be a distant memory.  And I am confident that if someone asks me to talk about my life, I will actually have something to say.

Are you an anxiety-ridden attorney?  Do you find yourself disengaged with your life or do you think it's possible to find a good work-life balance while practicing law?

The Pizza Diaries, Part 4: Stereotypes and Tipping

I’m no stranger to the service industry.  In fact, when I decided to get a second job, I knew the only way I would make good money at a night job would be to earn tips.  I knew this because after I graduated high school, I worked various day jobs while going to college, but I always supplemented my income by waitressing at night.  If I made $10 per hour during the day, I knew at night, I could make $15 or more waiting tables. When I decided it was time to get my hustle on again, I thought of pizza delivery because I could earn tips without the inevitable back pain, leg pain, and side work that go with serving gigs.

But there’s an ugly side to working in an industry where workers rely on tips.  I’m talking about stereotyping people based on how some service industry workers believe certain groups of people tip or don’t tip.


I don’t just mean racial stereotyping, although that certainly occurs.  There are all sorts of stereotypes out there about tipping.  Here are just a few that I’ve heard throughout my years in the service industry:

1.   Smokers tip better than non-smokers.
2.   Men tip better than women.
3.   Drinkers tip better than non-drinkers.
4.   Old people tip in change, if at all.
5.   If an attractive woman waits on a (hetero) couple and the female half of the couple grabs the check, that server is not going to be tipped well.
6.   If a customer requests to speak with a server’s manager to tell him or her about what a great job the server is doing, that server is going to get stiffed. (This one is actually true.)
7.   If someone asks a server for a special favor and promises a big tip in the end, that server is going to get stiffed. (This one is true, too.)
8.   Women servers should remove their wedding rings, so men will tip better.
9.   African-Americans don’t tip.
10. Indian people don’t tip.
11. Chinese people don’t tip.
12. Military people don’t tip.
13. Teenagers don’t tip.

In my experience, with the exception of 6 and 7 (I’m still bitter about these, over ten years later), these stereotypes are just that – stereotypes.  They’re not actually true, and the times that they seem true are few and far between.  But they remain nonetheless.  I think it’s because people prefer a predictable world.  It makes us feel safer somehow.  When you wait on a hundred AARP members who tip 20%, and then one leaves you a quarter, you think, “I knew it!  Old people are so cheap.”  It makes you feel armed for what lies ahead.  The next elderly person you wait on can’t possibly hurt you because you know who they are.

I wish I could say I never succumb to the temptation of stereotyping, but during my stint as a pizza delivery driver, I had a couple of bad nights.  Normally, I tried to be above it.  Like when Lou, my favorite driver (the Thai man who spoke kitchen Spanish) tried to engage me in a lesson on the realities of our industry.

Lou:  “Oh no, look at you next ticket.”
Me:  “What are you talking about?”
Lou:  “Look at the name.  Gupta.”  [Eye roll]
Me:  “Oh, come on, Lou, you don’t actually believe that stuff, do you?”
Lou:  “It true!  Not my fault!”
Me:  “Well, sure, if you go around acting negative like that, no one’s going to want to tip you.”
Lou:  “Oh, that what you think?  Eh, maybe.”

Later that night, Lou asked me how that delivery went.  “Fine,” I said.  “He gave me five bucks.”  I thought this would make him see the light a bit, but instead, he replied, “Oh, you got lucky then. That good tip for Indian.”  Sigh.

But like I said, I did have a couple of bad nights.

I remember a certain weekend during which I seemed to encounter just about every bad stereotype known in the industry.  On Friday night, I went to one guy’s house.  He appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, and he seemed friendly enough.  Then his wife came to the door and grabbed the credit card slip.  She crossed a dark line through the area marked “gratuity” and shut the door quickly without handing me a dime.

Later on I stopped by another house and was greeted by a developmentally disabled boy, probably about thirteen.  He told me his mom was not home, so I handed him the credit card slip to fill out (his mom had apparently called the order in from her office since she had to work late).  He could barely write his name at the bottom of it, and he was too young to know how to tip, so I got zilch on that delivery as well.

On Saturday night, I went to an apartment where a bunch of late twenty-something’s were having a party.   An African-American guy asked me how much the pizzas were for and paid me in cash, rounding up to the next dollar.  This left me with a few pennies.  Fuck, I thought.  With gas and depreciation, I am officially paying to deliver pizzas, rather than the other way around.

I remember getting teary-eyed while driving from house to house that weekend.  Why were people so shitty?  Why were old married women such bitter, hateful creatures?  Why did it have to be the black guy who ordered the pizzas at that party?  What kind of a mother leaves a disabled teenager at home to take care of the check?  She could have called in the tip when she ordered!  Probably some single mom, always looking for a handout.

It’s amazing how years of liberal education and political idealism can be abandoned because of a few bad tippers.

But that Sunday night, things changed.

I struggled on my first delivery.  I could not find my customer’s house for lack of streetlights, and when I finally did find it, the gate did not work.  I had to park at the bottom of a seemingly endless driveway and walk uphill to the door.  An elderly man greeted me.  He asked me if I would come inside and set the pizzas on the counter.

Sure, I thought.  And I’m sure you’ll give me a nice shiny quarter for my trouble.

When I walked inside, I saw a gray-haired woman seated on a couch.  “Hello, there!”  She sang.  “Thanks for bringing these inside.”  I set down two boxes – a pizza and an order of breadsticks – and handed over the credit card slip.  The man appeared to do some calculations, then added twenty percent to the bill.

I practically skipped back to my car.

The next couple of deliveries went smoothly, and everyone seemed to be tipping me generously.  It occurred to me that perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something.  Like, not to become an asshole over a couple of lousy tips.

Later in the evening, I walked up to a modest home and rang the doorbell.  There were the usual sounds – a dog barking, some feet shuffling down a hallway.  Then the door opened and I was greeted by a young boy who appeared to have Down’s Syndrome.  He was proudly holding up a ten-dollar bill.  “This is for you!” he cried.

A dark-haired woman in her mid-forties stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders.  “He was so excited for you to get here so he could give you the tip.”

When I got back to my car, I drove a few blocks and then parked on a dark, quiet street in the neighborhood.  After turning off the engine, I sat there for a few minutes in complete silence.  I pulled the folded ten-dollar bill out of my pocket and stared at it for a long time.  The universe was indeed trying to tell me something.  Listen, I told myself.  Just listen.  

On my last delivery, I drove to the far end of a never-ending, cookie-cutter, behemoth of an apartment complex.  I could not find close parking, but it did not matter since the customer had only ordered a medium pizza (not too heavy to carry) which came to about $19.  After walking about one block, I rang the bell and an African-American woman opened the door.  I smiled and handed her the pizza.  After looking at the bill, she fished a twenty and a five from her purse and handed them to me.

“Keep the change,” she said.

“Oh, thank you so much.  That’s very nice of you,” I said.

“Sure,” she replied.  “You work hard.”

From that point forward, I felt a sea change from within.  I decided not to let a couple of bad days turn me into an unrecognizable version of my former self.  I decided that no matter how bad things got, I would choose to be happy, not bitter.  I would work hard and sometimes that would have to be my only reward.  And I reminded myself that bad tippers are everywhere, as are good tippers.  As Lou and I discussed one evening at the pizzeria:

Me:  “You know, I’ve noticed that if I get stiffed by one customer, the next one always gives me a really good tip.”

Lou:  “Yes, that how it happen.  Universe always balance things out in the end.”

The Pizza Diaries, Part 3: Just the Facts

For those of you considering taking on a second job to eliminate debt faster, read on for some of my experiences with moonlighting.  

We’ll start with the positive.

1.  The money was terrific.  The area I delivered in happened to be quite wealthy, and the pizza was obscenely overpriced, so on average, I earned between $21-25 per hour.  My base pay was $8.50 per hour, plus $1.50 per delivery.  I would make about two deliveries per hour, and the minimum tip was usually $5.  If I had a big order, it was not unusual to earn $15.   My shifts were usually about three hours – longer if I had to close – so I ended up bringing home over $300 per week. 


2.  I had a lot of time to think.  Pizza delivery involved being in my car 80% of the time, so I had time to listen to podcasts and think about life, and where I want to be in five years.  I stuck mostly to financial podcasts (Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, and Clark Howard), but I mixed in some podcasts by Alan Watts, one of my favorite philosophers.  I thought a lot about Buddhism actually, a religion I’ve always gravitated toward.  I am fascinated by the four noble truths, and I constantly strive to rid myself of unhealthy attachments.  I’m working on staying in that mindset.    

3.  I lost weight.  I would often forget to bring a snack to eat in between my day job and the pizza job, and then by the time I got home, I just wanted to eat dinner and go to bed, so I never really ate dessert.  Over the course of the 5-6 months I delivered, I lost about 5 pounds, which was a lot for me.

4.  I learned to be more efficient at my day job.  I had to be at the pizzeria on time for every shift, so I could never leave my day job later than 5:30.  This meant I had to finish all of my work in time to fly out the door in time to make my shift.  I found myself surfing the internet a lot less and finishing projects earlier than scheduled. 

5.  I was spending less money than ever before.  Because I worked so many hours during the week, I never had time to pick up takeout for dinner or to go shopping at all.  On the weekends, when I was home during the day, my husband and I had to catch up on household chores and we would have to get in some long workouts together since I didn’t have much time to workout during the week. 

6.  On average, during my pizza delivery career, our debt snowball payments were about $5,000 per month.  This sounds great, but I feel sick every time I think about how much money we could have socked away if we were not paying off debt with all of it.

And, the negative…..

1.  My self-esteem took a big plunge.  To be clear, I did not feel bad about myself for delivering pizza.  I felt bad about myself for sometimes enjoying it.  On more than one occasion, I caught myself laughing with one of the drivers about a particularly horrid customer (the guy with the bulging left eye who always smelled like cat pee) or humming while I swept the floor of the driver’s area before closing, and I would think there was something very wrong with me.  Was I in some sort of arrested development, unable to move on from the pure adolescent joy of goofing off at work and feeling pride in an honest night’s work?

In the end, I realized the answer to this question was no, I did not suffer from arrested development.  After I quit, I did not miss delivering pizzas at all.  Those nights when I enjoyed my work, I was simply living the way I always should – with the knowledge that it is possible to be happy, regardless of circumstance. 

2.  My marriage suffered from neglect.  I like to think of myself as a superwoman sometimes, but in reality, one simply can’t be in a million places at once.  Because of my hectic work schedule, my husband ended up doing all of the housework.  I felt guilty about this because normally, we each contribute as much as possible, which means I vacuum and clean the kitchen and bathroom, while he cooks and does the laundry.  I know it was really hard on him to work so many hours at work, and then come home and pick up the slack for me.  I don’t think I appreciated him as much as I could have for how well he kept the house without any help from me. 

As for our sex life?  My god, is that all you ever think about?

3.  I felt alone.  I didn’t tell a lot of people about my moonlighting gig.  The few people I did tell weren’t very supportive.  I think they were worried about me working too much, but I could have used more encouragement.

4.  I was exhausted.  Sometimes I could not find parking near my customer’s house or apartment, so I had to walk a few blocks to get to my destination.  On those occasions, I would have to remind myself how much bad karma I would reap if I simply left the pizza on the side of the road (so I would not be considered a thief), drove home, and went to bed.  A couple of times, I almost fell asleep while driving, which is extremely dangerous.

All in all, I ended up making a nice chunk of change, and I saved a lot of money from not having any time to shop or eat out.  But pizza delivery is not for the faint of heart.  It stripped me of my ego, my energy, and camaraderie with my fellow man.

In a lot of ways, it was like practicing law.

The Pizza Diaries, Part 2: What I Wouldn't Give for a Flux Capacitor

My first week as a pizza delivery driver, all I could think about was what I would do if I were ever invited into Doc Brown’s DeLorean.  I guess the first thing I would do is pay a visit to my twenty-six year-old self and beat the shit out of me with my LSAT study guide.  And then I’d rip up my Grad Plus Loan application. 

But according to the most senior driver at the pizzeria, I was supremely lucky. 

Drivers at Papa John’s have to make pizzas and wash dishes in between deliveries, "Reed" informed me.   At the local mom-and-pop pizzeria we worked for, on the other hand, drivers basically just sat around during slow periods.

“Reed” had worked at Papa John’s for a number of years, and held a bit of a grudge from what I gathered.  Maybe his bitterness stemmed from the time he had to wait for a seventy-five year-old naked woman (with some hygiene deficiencies) to sign her credit card slip before he could escape to the welcoming bosom of his rusted-out, Clinton-era Corolla.  Or maybe it started the afternoon he had to watch the first-in delivery driver scamper away with four separate deliveries while Reed stared dejectedly at the blank order screen in the kitchen’s expediting area.  A blank screen is the bane of every driver’s existence.  A blank screen equals no pending orders equals no hope.

“There’s not even an industry term for taking four deliveries at one time.  I guess you’d have to say he took two doubles.” 

“Doubles” are a driver’s dream.  You get to take two orders out at once, which saves on time and gas.  And you get double the tips.  “Triples” are better, but a triple is the unicorn of the pizza delivery business.  No one’s ever really witnessed one, and only the youngest, least experienced drivers believe in its existence. 

Reed swept me under his wing immediately.  I liked to think it was because he saw me as Eliza Doolittle with a thermal delivery bag, someone he could mold into a street-savvy driver who knew all the shortcuts and speed traps.  In reality, I think he was simply relieved I spoke English.  He’d been waiting to unload some Papa John’s angst for a while, I could tell.

I would be lying if I said I feigned interest in his Papa John’s saga because there was no feigning on my part.  My brow involuntarily furrowed as he described the scores of no-tipping customers he had encountered.  The mobile home parks with no marked addresses as far as the eye could see.  The Super Bowl Sunday when two of the cooks called in sick and he got stuck manning the oven rather than raking in tips on the biggest pizza day of the year.

I got lucky, Reed told me.

I wished I felt that way, but that first week of moonlighting as a pizza delivery driver, I felt anything but.  I had been hired in the span of about twelve minutes, nine of which were comprised of me filling out a single-sided, one-page employment application.  Had I been convicted of a felony?  Did I have any violations on my driving record?  When was I available to work?  No, no, and any night after 5:30p.m.  Once they saw my clean driving record, I was in.

I didn’t really have any time to consider what I was getting myself into.  I accepted the job immediately and was to start only a few short days later.  I could wear whatever I wanted, aside from a company-provided polo shirt.  I also received a hat, which was optional.  Before my first shift, I changed into my uniform in the restaurant bathroom.  I took one glimpse of myself in the mirror and decided the hat had to go.  The hat I could not bear.

I kept my head down while walking through the main area of the restaurant, just in case I ran into any colleagues.  I wasn’t ready for that kind of radical honesty just yet.  I should’ve opted to keep my head down while on deliveries as well.  The first time I was met with a sympathetic look at a customer’s door, I was mortified.  I had really sunk to a new low.  “I guess everyone needs a job,” the bleached-blonde forty-something woman condescended.  A peek over her shoulder into her living room revealed a serious hoarding addiction, and yet, she felt sorry for me. 

But after I got over the initial shame, I started to have a little fun with it.  My favorite driver, “Lou,” was a Thai man who spoke kitchen Spanish.  “Estoy cerrando!” he would declare to the cooks in faux exasperation.  “Y tu tambien?” 

We called each other “partners” since we were scheduled to close together on Mondays, and then eventually on Saturdays.  “Hey, path-nah!”he would greet me on those evenings.  While we waited for the order screen to light up, he provided me with remedial Spanish lessons, while I regaled him with descriptions of what I would feast on when I got home. He loved to hear what my husband would be cooking for me on those nights, since he was divorced and mostly ate at the pizzeria.  Employees got free meals anytime.

Lou took care of me, while Reed taught me to look out for numero uno. 

Lou:  “No steal tip.  Whatever credit card slip say, I put in computer, even if zero.  You no want that stress on your conscience.”

Reed: “You know, if you get an order over a hundred dollars, and they tip you in cash, you can just tell the managers you got stiffed, and the restaurant’ll pay you ten percent.”

The one mandate on which they both agreed?  Avoid complaints at all costs.  Any driver who received a complaint about his or her driving was automatically suspended for three shifts while the restaurant investigated. 

That, incidentally, is what pizza delivery has in common with the practice of law.  One can be incompetent as hell, but can continue to practice as long as he or she flies under the radar.  If the Bar gets wind of any shenanigans, one’s career can be toast.

My time travel fantasy did not disappear overnight, but it gradually faded from an all-consuming obsession into a tolerable foggy notion in the back of my mind.  I tried not to feed it too much, but I did develop a ritual I would perform at the beginning of each shift.  As I drove away from the pizzeria with my first delivery each evening, I would listen to Huey Lewis and the News’ “Power of Love.” 

What can I say?  It helped.

The Pizza Diaries, Part 1: The Things We Do for Love

I didn’t have much of a family growing up.  That’s not to say that I did not have parents, or a decent number of siblings.  What I mean is that I never felt a real sense of family.

My mother grew up outside the United States, in a poverty-ridden locale.  She was functionally illiterate when she came to the United States, which limited her employment prospects.  In fact, the only jobs she ever had while I knew her involved cleaning up after people or animals.  I suppose this contributed quite a bit to her rage issues, although I have not quite gotten to the point where I have forgiven her for being emotionally and physically abusive to me.  I suppose that does not matter much these days, since she died this past November.  It had been a number of years since I had seen her, but it still hurts.  It’s funny, she never cared much for people, but she really liked animals.  So now every time I cuddle with my dog or watch one of my cats sitting near an open window pane, soaking in a warm afternoon breeze, I think of her.

I was never close with my dad.  Before I was born, he worked in the finance industry.  Sometime just before or after I was born, he was prosecuted for securities fraud, and he spent some time in jail.  After his release, he found work as a bartender, which meant he spent most nights away from home.  Eventually, he owned his own small business, although not successfully.  He has declared bankruptcy more than once but still insists that someday he’s really going to get his business off the ground.  Growing up, he watched my mother abuse us, but always told us afterward that she did it because she loved us and wanted what was best for us.  I never felt close to him.  Growing up, I remember thinking that living with him was like living with a distant uncle. 

Most of my high school friends dreamt of going to prestigious universities and partying hard until it was time to declare a major.  Many of them had financially supportive parents who insisted that their children “focus on studying” (read: play beer pong and sleep around) instead of working during their college years.  This was not the case with my parents.  In fact, at the ripe old age of fourteen – the legal working age in my state – I got my first job in a restaurant, refilling the salad bar.  I paid for my own school enrollment fees (even though I went to a public high school, we still had to pay $70 to register at the beginning of the year), class pictures, and yearbooks.  I knew the writing was on the wall.  If I wanted out, I was going to have to find a way to do it myself.  Hence, the only goal I had in high school was figuring out how to move out of my parents’ house as soon as it was legally and financially possible.

Shortly after graduating high school, I moved out and officially began my adulthood.  My immediate observations about my new life were: 1) I enjoyed the stability of living on my own; and 2) I really wished I had a family.  But since I knew the family I had was completely dysfunctional and violent, I made a promise to myself that one day, when I got married and had children of my own (if I decided to go the kids route), I would try to create the most perfect family life imaginable.  A pretty tall order for someone who once had to barricade herself and her little sister in a bedroom while their mother threatened to kill their father with the loaded pistol their father had insisted on keeping in the house “for protection.”

A few failed relationships later, I met my husband.  This was about a year and a half before I enrolled in law school.  It was a couple months before my twenty-sixth birthday, and I felt a bit older and wiser when it came to relationships.  However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of panic and dread when my then-boyfriend began talking about marriage. 

I struggled for the first few years of our relationship, and even after we got engaged, I broke it off at one point.  I felt like I could never make a marriage work since I had never witnessed a healthy one growing up.

During the summer before my last year of law school, I completed an internship that required me to live away from my husband (my then-boyfriend/ex-fiance) for three months.  I missed him every day, not only because he was my best friend, but also because my internship was further solidifying the gut feeling I had that law was not for me.  It was a pretty lonely summer. 

A few things you should know about my husband.  He is the funniest person I have ever met.  He is the best friend anyone could ever have.  He gives love unconditionally.  He truly wants me to be happy, even when I am content to pout and dwell on my past mistakes.  And he calls his parents every Sunday.  What more could a girl ask for?

All this is to say that I would do anything for him.  Which is why, when we finally set a wedding date and I realized I was bringing a mountain of student loan debt into our marriage, I kind of lost myself in a sea of panic and shame.  His love and support had meant the world to me, and all I had to give in return was a graduated repayment plan. 

After I quit my attorney position and we moved thousands of miles away for his new job, I still felt guilty.  He made great money and yet, we could never quite save anything because we had so many payments to make each month.  My private student loan, my federal student loan, his (comparatively small) student loan, and our car payment.  If we were ever going to achieve Leave It to Beaver euphoria, the loan payments had to go.

So I started surfing the web for personal finance books and articles, and came across this story about a couple who erased $70,000 in debt in one year.

The author happened to mention Dave Ramsey in her interview, which made me seek out his books and podcasts.  I didn’t actually purchase any of these items at first.  I’m a natural skeptic, so I didn’t want to pour money into financial products that promised dramatic results using little effort.  So I went to the library to check out his books, and I downloaded free one-hour podcasts from iTunes. 

At around that time, I found out that one of my sisters was in huge financial trouble.  She and her husband were in debt to the IRS to the tune of $50K +, and she was having an affair.  To top it off, she had acquired a shopping addiction that only made their financial outlook worse.  She had decided to move out of their house and back to our hometown (about a thousand miles away) so she could get her old job back and try to get out of debt.  In reality, she was moving back home in order to be closer to the man with whom she was having an affair.  Hearing all of this made me appreciate my husband more, and I reaffirmed my commitment to never go down the same destructive paths my family had chosen.

Now, I know my fixation on achieving marital and familial bliss is neurotic and unreasonable.  But I think it’s better to work toward that than to slide into debt, affairs, and empty consumerism.  Don’t worry, I’m in therapy.  I know there’s a happy medium; I just have to internalize that fact in my head and my heart.   

I got my husband on board with a new get-out-of-debt plan, a bit reluctantly, and we began making real progress almost immediately.  After only five months, our car loan was gone.  At that point, I started considering getting a second job.  At first, my husband was against it because it would take away from what I really wanted to do: write.  But I insisted it would only be temporary and we would be debt-free that much sooner, so then I could follow my writing dream without guilt.

I took the pizza job the last week of October last year, and started the first week of November.  I did it out of love for my family.  A family that included my husband, our dog, our cats, our siblings and our parents.  I did it to show that I will do whatever it takes to make sure my husband and I have the best financial future possible.  I also did it to change my family tree, so maybe someday I can finance my nieces’ and nephew’s college educations the way my siblings will not be able to. 

A couple weeks after I started delivering pizza at night, my mother died.  I found out in the morning before work.  I did not call in sick, though.  I went to my day job, and that night, I put the magnetic topper on my car and made about eight deliveries during my shift.  While I drove to expensive mansion after expensive mansion that evening, I listened to a song called “Still Loving You” by Stephen Allen Davis – over and over again – thought about my mother, and cried.  I kept my head down when I handed out pizzas to my customers so they could not see my red swollen eyes. 

When I got home that night, I crawled into bed with my husband and cried myself to sleep.  The only thoughts going through my head were:  1) I missed my mom; and 2) Even on a day when I felt like the world had ended, I had done what I could to take care of my family. 

So that’s how my pizza delivery career began.  With an ending. 

The Start of My Blue Period

I took a long break from posting on my blog for one simple reason: I had no time.

A little background.  For about the past year, my husband and I have been paying off every debt we have, following Dave Ramsey’s seven baby steps.  We only had two types of debt, our car and our student loans.  Our car note was about $18,000 and our student loans, combined, were over $100K.  So we got cracking on our car note first, since that was our smallest debt.  A year later, we are down to my federal student loan, which means we’ll be living pretty lean for about one more year.  How have we been able to make such dramatic progress in only one year?  Work, work, work.

My husband works a salaried position (meaning he works a lot more than 40 hours per week), and he travels a lot for work, so there was no practical way for him to get a second job.  I therefore took it upon myself to find creative ways to generate more income.

My first moonlighting job was working for an attorney, proofreading briefs and filing them.  The work wasn’t so bad, but the hours were too sporadic for my taste.  I would work ten hours for her one week, then have a month off.  I needed something steadier.  So I turned to Dave Ramsey’s radio program for inspiration and found myself taking the ultimate “gazelle intense” job: pizza delivery woman.  My husband was not crazy about the idea, but since we live in a pretty safe area, he did not stand in my way.  I promised him I would only work three nights a week, and that once he saw how much progress we made, he would agree it was a good decision for me to take on another job.

My experience with pizza delivery turned out much differently than I originally envisioned it.  Stay tuned for more posts about my experiences as a delivery driver, as I cannot possibly fit it all into one post. 

As a side note: I sometimes reference Dave Ramsey in my blog, and I feel I need to clarify something about his influence on me.  Anyone who googles Dave Ramsey or already knows a bit about him, knows that he is an evangelical Christian.  His message of living debt-free and building wealth is peppered with biblical references.  Although my husband and I do not share his religious point of view, we have benefitted a great deal from following his financial advice.  If you’re looking for a get-out-of-debt plan, check him out, even if you’re not religious.  He’s kind of like Suze Orman, but even more conservative (i.e. he does not advise taking on any kind of debt, save for a fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgage, while Suze says it’s ok to take on car debt provided you pay it off within three years).  Like I told one of my friends who asked to borrow my copy of The Total Money Makeover, if you’re not religious, just insert the name “Shakespeare” every time you see a reference to “God” or “Jesus.”

I hope you enjoy my pizza diaries! 

A Hollow Victory

As you can see from the pic posted here, I have fully repaid one of my student loans.  This particular loan came directly from my school, which is why I cut out references to my alma mater's name.  That leaves me with one other loan that I am currently repaying, and then I am done.  I have about one more year, give or take, of Spartan living before I am debt-free, and I can close the dark chapter of my life known as Law School.  When I received this payoff notice, at first I felt a sense of pride and hope.  Soon I would actually be able to save some of the money I earn and build wealth for my future.

But after I read and re-read the second sentence, pride and hope were replaced with frustration and sadness.  Because I repaid my loan, some other poor schmuck now has the ability to take out crippling student loan debt.  And my school's low default rate remains intact, resulting in further federal student loan funding.


I suppose some might believe that since I repaid my loan, as so many fellow alumni of my school have, then I must have benefited from higher education.  After all, how could I earn enough to repay my loan in under five years if my employment prospects had not brightened as a result of my degrees?

Having the benefit of hindsight, I can honestly say now that I did benefit somewhat from my earning my bachelor's degree.  The positions I've held since graduating have all required a four-year degree (save for some moonlighting jobs I have taken in order to repay my loans at a faster rate), and almost everyone has one nowadays, so it's hard to compete in the marketplace without one.  BUT.  I should not have taken out student loan debt to earn it.  Although I worked almost full-time during my undergraduate years, I realize now that I could have cash-flowed my BA had I worked and saved for a couple more years before enrolling.  It might have taken me longer to get through my program, but probably not as many more months or years as it has taken me to pay off half of my loans.  And, I would not have had to pay interest.

As far as my law degree is concerned, I can honestly say now that I did not benefit from earning my JD.  The positions I've held since graduating (aside from any associate/law school intern positions) have been obtained by omitting or downplaying my law degree on resumes and applications.  I do not list my JD on my resume (a resume is, after all, just a marketing tool), and when I fill out applications, I only list my JD if I am asked to list all of my higher education degrees.  The fact of the matter is simply that employers do not want to employ lawyers or JD's in non-lawyer positions.  Unless that lawyer or JD is going to run a fortune 500 company or teach law.  Last time I checked, I think all of those positions have been filled.

I am not sure what else to say about law school to those considering it, except: Don't go.  Please.  You will absolutely regret it.  I do not know any happy lawyers, or any recent graduates who are happy that they decided to attend.  I cannot put it any simpler.  It will leave you in a financial hole that will take years, if not decades, to crawl out of.  And the legal market is saturated.  What else can be said?

I hope this post will give some of my fellow JD's and recovering lawyers some hope for their financial futures.  I am not debt-free yet, but I know I will be soon.  At that point, I will be able to say that law school took [X number of] years from me, rather than my entire life.

The Flawed Law School Model

I have referenced the law school "scam" and the failed/flawed law school model many times, but now I think I should discuss in further detail what exactly I mean when I reference these.  Here are my thoughts (in no pariclar order of importance). 

Law school does not prepare students to be small business owners.

At orientation, there were many speakers who described the rigors of a legal education, the stress that comes with applying to the Bar, the "many doors" that JD's open, all peppered with jokes about the fancy cars that most lawyers drive. What none of these speakers mentioned is that most attorneys, especially in the current job market, are basically on their own. They did not tell me that career services would not help those students who were ranked below the top 33% of their classes, and would instead tell them they would need to hang out their own shingles. (True story: an unfortunate classmate of mine had a 3.0 GPA, and was ranked just in the middle of the class. She was paying out-of-state tuition, and had racked up $160,000 in loans, when she went to career services for help in finding a job. She was told to hang out her own shingle, even though she had no business training and the law school did not offer a course in operating one's own practice.) I was lucky enough to find a decent-paying job upon graduation, but if I had not, I would have been in the same boat as many of my classmates, forced to run a small business with no training and no idea how to even practice law.

If you are considering law school, I implore you to first ask yourself whether you know how to run a business, and if so, do you think you can run that business successfully when you do not even know if you are competent to offer your services?

Which brings me to my next point.

Law school does not prepare students for the actual practice of law.

I completed an internship during the summer after my 2L year at the DA's office. This provided me with courtroom experience, but most of my fellow students were not as fortunate. Most law students take classes that involve listening to lectures, reading case law and statutes, and maybe conducting an exercise or two in oral argument. None of which matter when you are faced with an actual client sitting across your desk.

Even with my valuable experience of representing the State in the courtroom for a few weeks, I still had no idea how to conduct a client meeting, or how to structure a fee agreement. Or even how to go about suing someone in the state in which I practiced. All of that knowledge came later, after I had the opportunity to work with more experienced attorneys who showed me the ropes and who made me calendar deadlines properly.

This is a critical failure of the current law school model. No one knows what they're doing upon graduation. New graduates are in need of mentors, but oftentimes they end up on their own, and they end up failing or quitting or moving back in with their parents because they cannot develop enough business to support themselves.

Here is a valuable law school exercise that I will provide you at no charge: go to the Supreme Court's website and read through some of the opinions. Then go to your state legislature's website, or your city/municipality's website and read a chapter of statutes or ordinances. Pick out a topic that interests you like criminal law, or insurance regulation. Once you have finished reading your cases and statutes/ordinances, ask yourself what you would tell a client who was arrested, or who felt he had been defrauded by his insurance company. How would you tell him to proceed? What would you tell him you could do for him? How much would you charge him? What timeline would you provide for resolving his case? Do you think he will prevail?

If you feel that after reading the materials I assigned you, you could confidently answer these questions, then law school is for you. There are two reasons I say this: you are either a) a genius who will be picked up by one of the big firms and you will not have to worry about figuring things out yourself, or b) so delusional that you probably do not have the mental faculties required to complete a JD, so you will never have to worry about practicing on your own.

The study of law is nothing like actual law practice.

This flows from my previous point that law school does not prepare one for the practice of law. In law school, students partake in the Socratic method. You read a bunch of materials and the professor drills you on them, questions everything you say. You must defend your position on a topic that is almost always interesting and has vast political implications. At the end of the semester, the professor will read your essay exam and provide you with a grade that reflects how well he or she believes you have retained the lessons imparted during the past few months.

In reality, when you practice law, most of the time you will be sitting alone in a room, keeping track of billable hours, and drafting mind-numbing research memos. One after the other. Westlaw and/or Lexis will become your best friends and worst enemies. Your research topics will most likely involve issues that no one cares about, save for the client. Can Janie sue her classmate for spilling soda at prom, which caused her to slip and fall and sprain her ankle? What is Fred's recourse when his insurance company offers him less than he had anticipated for the car that he totaled? Can Pam get a restraining order on her ex-boyfriend even though he has never hit her, but her parents think he is controlling? If Pam gets that restraining order, how will that affect her ex's child support obligations or custody arrangement?

Oh, and did I mention the best part? No one will read these memos. You see, your supervising attorney does not have time to read them because he or she tees off at 3:00 sharp. He or she would simply like to know the answer to the question, in 10 seconds or less, and will then direct you to file the memo away, just in case the client ever questions the bill. That memo will serve as proof that actual work was performed for the client. But no one will grade you on it. No one will tell you how awesome your case law synthesis turned out or want to speak with you further about the greater implications of the answers to these legal questions. No one cares, you see, because no one wants to actually practice law. They just want to make enough money to afford country club dues and to pawn off research assignments on young associates, who will then turn around and do the same in a few years when it's their turn.  And you will not be one of these lucky young associates because the legal job market is steadily shrinking and most small firms will not even consider anyone not in the top half of their class (which leaves a lot of graduates with their cheese out in the wind) and the big firms will only consider the top 10-20%, depending on school ranking. 

If you are considering law school, ask yourself if you could handle working in a field in which no one will ever give you positive feedback, whether it is a supervising attorney or a client. The supervising attorneys will only gripe if there are holes in your research, but will otherwise remain silent, and clients will only complain about your bill. If you manage a favorable outcome for them, it was because their cause was just. If you do not, it is because you were incompetent. Do you want this for yourself? Or, more appropriately, would you ever wish this on anyone?

Unless you have a scholarship or a rich relative paying your tuition, your income will almost never justify the amount spent earning your JD.

Consider that the average law school debt for public school graduates is a little over $68K and over $109K for private schools (for the 2009-2010 school year). Suppose you are able to spread out $68K over 30 years. Your payments, assuming a 6% interest rate, will be $408 per month. $109K spread out over 30 years will be $654 per month. Remember, this assumes 6% interest, and that you can spread the loans out over 30 years. So that's between $4,896 and $7,848 per year spent on student loan payments, not counting undergraduate degree payments. You can only deduct $2,500 per year on your federal income taxes, and only for the first five years after you begin repaying. Considering the average attorney salary has been steadily dropping (to about $63K currently), this means you will be spending somewhere around 10% of your income on student loan payments. Considering that the average salary for a college graduate is $46K, what exactly have you gained from earning a law degree? A few thousand dollars a year? Which will be eaten away by all of the extra hours spent working in a field that will eat away at your soul and make you want to auction off your JD.

Let’s do a little math here and figure out just how well you’ll be living with a JD and an annual salary of $63K.  Would you like to buy a house? Have a car? Health insurance? Contribute to your retirement? Ok, then, let’s go!

Assuming you are single, you will be in the 25% federal tax bracket. And we’ll assume state and local taxes are 5%, give or take. And your health insurance premiums are $300 per month. And that you contribute 2.5% of your salary to your 401(k). Here are your pre-tax deductions:

$5,250 is your gross monthly pay.

After deducting $300 for health insurance premiums and $131.25 for 401(k), you are left with $4,818.75. Now comes Big Bertha, also known as the IRS. Deduct 30% for federal, state, and local taxes, which brings your monthly take-home to $3,373.13.

Now let’s say you purchase a $165,000 home with no money down and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 5% interest. Your mortgage payment will be $885.76. Assume property taxes to be about 3%, which is $4,950 annually. That’s $412.50 per month. (My husband’s and my property taxes were a lot higher than this, but we are from a ridiculously expensive state). Ok, here’s your monthly budget:

$3,373.13

-$885.76 (mortgage)
-$412.50 (property taxes)
-$150.00 (heating, cooling, and electricity, which will vary by state and climate)
-$100 (phone/cell)
-$100 (cable, internet)
-$300 (car payment)
-$100 (car insurance)
-$400 (groceries)
-$200 (gas)
$724.87 (surplus)

Now, how are you going to spend that extra $725 per month that you have lying around? Movies, clothing, furniture, meals out? Oh, wait, I forgot one of the most important deductions. Your student loan! Let’s take away $654, assuming you have $100K in student loan debt at 6% interest amortized over 30 years. That leaves you with $71. You can spend it however you want – credit card bill, clothing, dates (which you probably won’t have many of, since people with six-figure debt do not have much value on the marriage market), anything! Just be sure not to have any emergencies, like a broken down car or a molar in need of a root canal.  And absolutely no vacations or kids!  (If you really want to find some extra cushion in your budget, you can always drive a beater until you are sixty, or take on a second job.)  But remember, it is all worth it because you are a prestigious attorney.

If you are considering law school, think about whether you actually want to practice law, and are willing to mortgage your future in the hopes of successfully building a career in a field in which salaries continue to decrease, as well as demand. Do you think you will be able to later out-earn your current financial stupidity?

Law schools lie about employment statistics.

Another topic not discussed at orientation? Graduate employment statistics. The speakers did not clarify whether the 97% boasted at my school reflected the number of graduates who were actually employed in the legal field, or if that figure included graduates who were forced to find work in other lucrative fields. Nor did anyone discuss the way in which employment statistics are calculated, and whether the statistics are actually plausible.

If you are considering law school, the first thing you should do is write down a list of the schools you would like to attend.  Then pick out your top choice, and get your hands on a list containing the names of its most recent graduates.  (Try attending a graduation and obtaining a program there, or call up the school and say you had a relative who recently graduated and were wondering if you could get a copy of the program.)  Now the real fun will begin.  Wait a few months, then go to the Bar website for the state in which the school is located and start looking up the names of the graduates.  See how many you find that list an actual employer under their contact information, rather than their home address.  For the names that do not appear anywhere, begin looking those up on other Bar websites until you have exhausted all of your resources.  Now count the names of those who you did not find, or who did not list an employer in their contact information.  Take that number and subtract it from the number of total graduates you looked up.  Then divide that number by the total number of graduates you looked up and you will arrive at an accurate employment figure.  But that will all take too long or require too much effort, you say?  I say you’re right, it’s better to just go six figures into debt by relying on a brochure than to conduct any actual research yourself.  I'm sure the guy who wrote the brochure dotted his i's and crossed his t's.  I mean, what's in it for him to fudge the numbers? (I should probably warn you that your hesitation at embarking on such an involved research assignment does not bode well for your future as a practicing attorney.  Just sayin’.) 

The Bottom Line

My point in discussing the flawed law school model is not to piss on anyone's dreams of becoming the next Perry Mason. What I would like to see is transparency in advertising employment statistics, frankness when discussing job prospects with students, course offerings in how to run one's own practice, tuition rates that reflect current market demand and compensation, and more opportunities for students to observe and experience the reality of law practice.

Are you considering law school? And if so, is there anything that could convince you not to go, or do you think you have made up your mind no matter what?

Netflix Corner: Maxed Out

For those of you living with minuscule entertainment budgets due to crushing student loan debt (or any other kind of debt for that matter), leaving you chained to Netflix streaming or youtube on  the weekends, check out Maxed Out, a 2006 documentary that eerily predicts the collapse of the housing market, and the economy as a whole, after far too many years of access to easy credit.  A major portion of the documentary focuses on credit card debt, but it also touches on the real estate bubble, predatory lending tactics employed on college campuses, and interviews with some pond scum, aka "collection agents."  

This is not the sort of movie to watch alone at night, since it is quite dark at times (stories of two students with outrageous credit card bills who eventually committed suicide are included), and because we all know what happened just a couple years after the movie was filmed. 

On the other hand, there are some lighter moments that highlight just how valuable an education is when it comes to succeeding in the marketplace.  Listen closely at about an hour and five minutes in as a real estate broker who doubled her money during the housing bubble describes a "track" home and informs us that the "medium" price of a house is $268,000. 

I wish someone would make a similar documentary based entirely on student loan debt in the U.S.  It is truly frightening that many people carry student loan balances equal to or greater than a typical mortgage.

Any other movie suggestions that will keep people like me motivated to pay off their student loans early and stay out of debt permanently? 

How Many Doors Did Your JD Open?

For anyone who's bitter about high student loan debt and/or the dearth of (paying) legal jobs out there, check out this piece from Nando of Third Tier Reality, which sheds some unflattering light on the higher education scam.  It includes some sobering statistics regarding the glut of student loan debt in the U.S., the lack of available jobs that require advanced degrees, as well as the frighteningly inflated tuition prices some law schools are charging their "customers" these days.  

Also, if you feel like getting involved in protesting or sharing your views on the higher education scam, check out the upcoming protest scheduled to take place October 8th in San Diego, California.