So, you’ve got your law degree that you’ve been carrying around with you since graduating law school, which isn’t weird at all. Still, despite your ill-fitting suit and your ability to yell “Objection” at the right time, you’re having trouble getting that job as a lawyer. Maybe you should stop trying to get work in the lawyer-filled big city, and take your fancy lawyering out to Nebraska. WNYC talked to a real lawyer who’s done it, and he’s swimming in clients!WNYC’s The Takeaway has a new job fair series, and they’re starting with legal careers. In the second half of the podcast, about the 8 minute mark, host John Hockenberry talks to John Thomas, who’s the only lawyer in Center, Nebraska. Do you have trouble finding clients? Well head to Center, and take John Thomas’ 300 clients so that he can retire already.
Don’t want to go to Nebraska? Other states in the Midwest, like Iowa and South Dakota need lawyers in their small towns according to Thomas. If you listen to the podcast, you’ll hear about the cases you’d be handling and the driving that being the only lawyer for hundreds of square miles entails, but look at it this way: you won’t be out there doing cases that will end up on an episode of Law and Order: SVU, but at least you’ll have work. Plus, the Nebraska Bar Association is even working on a plan to help law graduates pay their student loans if they practice in small towns. Your friends trying to be investment lawyers in New York? They’ll be debt-ridden and stuck at Trader Joe’s.