Today, an attorney friend who does contract work sent me an e-mail forward. One of the contract companies that she works for is looking for people to staff a "Short-term Chinese language project, 2-3 day assignment paying $50/hr in downtown DC. No law degree required."
People with language skills usually love these language projects because the hourly pay is higher than regular attorney contract project. But that is just the problem!!! For example, take this project, it will pay $50/hr, and no law degree required. Normal attorney contract projects will pay from $35/hr-$40/hr. Basically, the market place is telling us that a JD is not worth as much as a language skill.
So let's do the math, three years of JD, at least $200,000 spent...hmmmm....how much would it cost for me to study abroad for one year (and usually with one year immersed in a foreign language, you pick up enough to do simple translations or reading of documents etc, which is all you need for these "language" projects). So in the three years it will take me to get that "Esquire" behind my name, I would have picked up three different languages while travelling the world.
And according to the pay rate of these projects:
1. As an attorney, with 40 hr a week of work, I would make $1400.
2. As someone who can speak and read a foreign language, I would make $2000
if we take in overtime, usually overtime is required in these projects, then the gap would increase even more. (overtime will result in a pay of 1.5 times the hourly rate)
Let's take the usual 50 hr week
1. As an attorney: $1925
1. As a language "specialist": $2750
the difference is $825 - basically, a language is worth $825 more a week, which is $9900 more a year than 3 years of JD, and then the painful process of studying for the bar on those nice summer days for 8 hrs a day, 7 days a week for 2 month immediately upon graduation to obtain that 'Esquire".
in short, so an "esquire" is not worth the $825 a week law firms would pay someone immersed in another language.
