Those whose husbands make $200,000 or more, what do they do?

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 12:01 pm

ectomorph wrote:

My husband works at a lawyer job, comparable to what this woman used to do, and it is completely incompatible with being a good mother.

All of you mothers who are judging this woman for leaving her job, are you working from 7am to 12am, and on call 24/6??? If you have any spare time at all maybe you should be working as a cleaning lady at night, or do babysitting, so you have to take fewer scholarships?

I assume you mean your husband is a lawyer. Please see my post, you can be a part time lawyer. I did it. I was making several thousand a month and never worked those crazy hours. I worked in the middle of the day. There is the option not to be on warp speed and still be an effective attorney.

abby1776

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 12:51 pm

amother wrote:

I am also an attorney and work those crazy hours to make 250+ a year. There are very few part time lawyer job - and unless you have your own firm, which is difficult also, getting your own clients etc. In most big law firms "part time" means 40 hours a week and then they pay you as if you are working 20.

abby1776

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 12:58 pm

Also in order to make $250,000 a year - if you had your own practice and charged $250 hour (lets forget about overhead) - you would need to bill 80 hours a week to make $240,000 before taxes. A "regular" workweek is 40 hours a week. Being a part time lawyer is not the way to make 250,000 a year.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 1:00 pm

abby1776 wrote:

I understand that it is not the typical which is why I said transaction based legal work. There is no pressure to produce hourly billings. It is not so hard to get clients. Charge slightly less as I said. Most clients are not happy with the way legal work is done. They don'tneed high powered firms with big lobbies. If a bankruptcy is $2500, then charge $2000 and you will be flooded. If you charge less for closings the same thing will happen.

I also worked for firms part time. I did wills for a real estate firm. I also worked part time for a litigation firm. There are jobs for if you create them.

SacN

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 1:03 pm

Another lawyers wife here.

I work part time, and we don't make near that much (because we live in Israel, and he is beginning his career), but when I hear a lawyer mommy say she quit because it wasn't working for her family, the only criticism I can possibly think is, gosh, how did they even manage for as long as they did it?

My DH sees my kids on some Fridays and on Shabbos. He does NO housework (though he does try)--when would he? At midnight? And he is always under stress from work deadlines and coworkers.

I absolutely cannot imagine how this could be something that would work for the average mother.
Don't get on her case for accepting scholarship.

abby1776

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 1:14 pm

amother wrote:

You don't make 250,000 a year that way. I don't know how long a bankrupcy filing or transaction takes because I don't do that kind of legal work. If you charge 2000 per bankrupcy transaction you need 125 transactions to make $250,000 before takes. How long does it take to do 125 Bankrupcy transactions? If it takes 4 hours to do a transaction then you are right, if it takes 40 hours to do a transaction, then you would need to work 5000 hours to make $250,000.

Yes there are ways to do part time legal work, but you are not going to make the kind of money this thread is talking about working part time. At any job, except maybe investment banking.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 1:19 pm

abby1776 wrote:

You missed the point. The point was that the lawyer mom has other options than to work crazy hours or depend on other people paying her tuition. Nothing precludes her from working part time.

She could even work teaching part time either in a classroom or over the Internet. If she is in a classroom, she gets a tuition reduction. She is an asset to the school rather than a burden.

Nothing says she must make a quarter million a year. She could make $60,000 and still contribute. Using your model she would only have to bill 240 hours a year to earn $60,000. Clearly doable. That is less than 5 hours a week.

As I said, I think there is something in halacha so that the schools can't force moms to work so this discussion is theoretical.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 1:26 pm

abby1776 wrote:

Again, the point is not that she can make $250,000 part time. The point is whether morally it is right that other parents pay your bill when you have the training and knowledge to earn the money say another $60,000 part time.

BTW the full time lawyer rarely handles the file in these transactions. Bankruptcy attorneys can use untrained assistants to imput the bankruptcy for the most part because the programs do most of the work. They can use paralegals with experience to handle client contact. The same for closings.

seeker

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:10 pm

I haven't read this whole thread so maybe I'm missing pieces, but in response to the last couple of posts - having the training and knowledge to earn money does not = the ability to do so. You do not know the personal private circumstances of this woman's life. You don't know her level of strength and energy, her mental health, her children's needs. If she and her husband have determined that this is the right thing for her to be doing at this time, lay off. If you feel so strongly about working hard to pay tuition and so on, then YOU go to law school and start doing it. (maybe you did already. In that case, keep up the great work and STILL leave amother alone. Just because you do something doesn't mean others can.)

Maya

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:12 pm

amother wrote:

In my legal-related field, we were told it's unethical to charge less than the going rate in order to get clients.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:17 pm

Maya wrote:

In my legal-related field, we were told it's unethical to charge less than the going rate in order to get clients.

I don't know what a legal related field means. Are you a title closer? You can't discount those rates which are set by the state. There is no price fixing for attorney fees. That would be unethical. You can charge whatever you want.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:31 pm

seeker wrote:

I don't feel anything one way or another what that poster should be doing. A different poster brought up the point that someone else is paying for her kids tuition. That it is not fair. I brought up the point that it is possible to work part time. Law isn't an all or none.

Maya

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:40 pm

amother wrote:

If prices would be fixed by the state, I would imagine it would be illegal to charge less. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about unethical. I understand anyone can charge what they want, but there's still a concept of ethics in these situations. Unless, of course, you don't care about being ethical.

Either way, carry on.

MaBelleVie

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:41 pm

We can keep pretending that part time work from home options abound for lawyers... Or we can be real and admit that it isn't possible to the large majority of people.

We can also talk about schools that inflate the tuition rate so that parents are either forced to subsidize others, or request a reduced rate and be made to feel guilty that they're accepting charity. It is practically unheard of for an institution to consider a person's earning potential vs actual income. That's a practically impossible undertaking anyway because the variables are so complex.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:45 pm

I will tell you that when we lived in Riverdale, SAR told us they would not give us financial aid (K was over $15K) because of my husband's future earning potential. He was in his medical training at the time.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:57 pm

Maya wrote:

It is unethical to give advice when you have no idea what you are talking about. There is no price fixing for the services of an attorney for the 3rd time. That would not only be unethical and immoral, it would possibly be criminal.

Your legal related field doesn't qualify you to give ethical advice to attorneys.

Jeanette

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 2:58 pm

Maya wrote:

It's not unethical to charge below the going rate for a service. It may not be financially feasible if overhead ends up costing you more than what you get paid. But if it works out for you there is nothing unethical about it.

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 3:01 pm

Amother from Riverdale-
What did they expect you to do?
were they willing to work out a loan instead of scholarship? (to add to ur student debt?? shock

)
People struggle so much when going through school this really boggles me, they should have refused every person who was not in med school working towards being able to afford this expense

Maya

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 3:02 pm

amother wrote:

Whoa. Okay. Rolling Eyes

amother

Sun, Oct 05 2014, 4:01 pm

amother wrote:

If it weren't private information, I could give you a list of doctors whose kids receive financial aid at SAR. And it s not like I'm on the tuition committee; these are friends. I'm not doubting you, but you have to appeal.