I fail to see the problem with the Craigslist ad. It's a little desperate, but it certainly doesn't deserve hate mail.

Dear Craigslist Poster,

We hate you.

Kind regards,

The Breadline

$20 says he went to a TTTTTT and got a tax LLM at NYU thinking it would wipe the smell off his JD

I don't understand why a guy who went to a top-10 school was working as a contract attorney.

This is one example of what some like to call "economics."

idiotic. if this model catches on, firms will have hundreds of TTT recruiters sendign them garbage resumes. it will be no different than the current model, only the recruiters will be a middleman now instead.

the reason employers pay recruiters is for quality hires - to skip the process of dealing with 100's of TTT resumes on their desks.

if a recruiter is already being paid by a firm, it's got to be ethical violation - and more- to take a kickback from a potential hire too.

this whole post/concept is idiotic. the attorney on CL clearly is a TTT with no education.

Nice attention to detail...

What about a job for $95K/year. Loophole!

Nice attention to detail...

What about a job for $95K/year. Loophole!

Makes sense to me, why the hate mail? A free market means people can try different approaches. If someone gets a job through a recruiter, paying e.g. $100K annually, if the firm had hired that person directly maybe without the recruiter fee they'd negotiate e.g. $100K plus a $20K signing bonus or $110K annually or whatever. In essence jobseekers are already paying the recruiters (in that example $20K), it's just "invisible" to the candidates what the arrangement between recruiter and employer is so doesn't bother people as much.

If the guy lands a job (obviously, recruiters might not go for it, could be a contractual or other problem depending upon their arrangements with client firms etc.), what's wrong? He's also offering only to pay for actually finding him work, NOT for merely getting him an interview.

People pay for resume experts, job coaches, interview preparation, to help them find jobs and don't get hate mail.

Old news, OCIAdvantage.com has been doing this for a while and they charge way less.

Nice attention to detail...

What about a job for $95K/year. Loophole!

"per annum" huh?

Why not just skip the middleman and put in all bold caps at the top of your resume - "I will pay you $5,000 to hire me." You gotta think outside the box.

5K is a pittance for a recruiter, relative to what they get from a firm for a placement. So Its just kind of silly. And accepting the money would probably get a recruiter permanently black-balled from top firms, which might choose pejoratively to label it a "kick-back."

per annum sounds like something a british person would say. maybe that explains the LLM and unemployability.

I'd like the number of the recruiter pictured above, pls thx

Side question: I'm using a recruiter now. How often should I follow up with the dood? I don't want to disappear in a stack of papers. I don't want to be annoying, desperate, and needy either.

17 - seconded. she can have my resume anytime.

Shouldn't this function be performed at no additional cost by the law school career service dept. considering the $$$ paid for the LL.M.?

Instead of hiring a recruiter per se, you should instead someone who will help you dig up jobs, give you resume advice, contacts, leads, and so on. You submit the resumes, you interview, the whole bit. The "recruiter," or whoever you hire, will have no contact with the companies, but if his or her leads turn into a job for you, then you pay up. I think that's fair, and more likely to land you a job than the recruiter submitting you for positions.

yes the guy's british. he says in the ad he's from the uk and worked at a mid-sized firm.

Foreign trained lawyers with a US LLM are, and always have been, unemployable. This is nothing new.

23: foreign trained lawyer with a US LLM here. V5 NYC. You fail.

24 -it wasn implied that paralegal work doesn't count, nor does a job in which you are basically just an overpriced translator that the bill crazy dinero to their clients for.

There is no way that this will change anything, only a swindler would take that guy's money.

As a recruiter, if I could help him, he would not have to pay me, the firm would take care of that. If I send anything other than great resumes to firms then I lose the credibility that is my stock in trade. Finally, I have been expressly told by many firms that they will not consider people who have been laid off.

The Market will provide.

Considering that in my experience, recruiters won't even give the time of day to someone without a JD from a T14 (LLM doesn't count), permanent employment from a top lawfirm, or book of business, I suppose I can't blame the guy for at least trying to get a recuiter's attention. Probably won't work, though.

Of course he can't find a job. Everybody knows Brits can't be assed to work unless they're getting paid to be sat on the sofa with endless cans of lager and a plate of hob nobs.

And he probably doesn't have a work authorization card either.

26 - Of course. Why would any firm worth a damn want someone else's sloppy seconds.

It's the same reason all of these 7th years from V10 NYC firms who get "the talk" can't lateral into another lower-ranked firm. If your firm doesn't want to keep you as an employee, why should mine?

Bobby Jindal here with a Republican response and saying I hope I didn't commit political suicide the other night on primetime TV.

29: Do you mean Brits can't be forced to work through anal sex? Or did you mean that Brits will not work under the threats from a beast of burden?

29: "Of course he can't find a job. Everybody knows Brits can't be assed to work unless they're getting paid to be sat on the sofa with endless cans of lager and a plate of hob nobs.

And he probably doesn't have a work authorization card either."

Is English your first language?

Foreign trained lawyers have to get a US LLM in order to be able to take the NY bar.

34 - no, that is not the case. If you are from NZ, Australia, Canada (and other countries too I'm sure, though I don't know the specifics thereof), you can sit the NY Bar with just your LLB.

Should be "for anything THAT is supposed to last more than a month."

That is all.

25: 23 here. Once you get laid off (if you haven't already) you can come and blow me while I'm sitting pretty in my V5 office.

25: 24 here. Once you get laid off (if you haven't already) you can come and blow me while I'm sitting pretty in my V5 office.

25: 24 here. Once you get laid off (if you haven't already) you can come and blow me while I'm sitting pretty in my V5 office.

she's a little chunky for 5k, no?

Elie,

Where do you get this picture? Am i supposed to look at her or the resume being passed onto her?

to 7, 15, and 26- based on the payscale he is seeking, it sounds like he is not looking for a "biglaw" job, so some variation on this pay system might work for this particular situation. of course, if I were a recruiter, I would require some form of payment upfront regardless of result, to compensate for the fact that my ultimate commission would be much lower than in the "biglaw" scenario. as others have suggested, perhaps the recruiter could just act as a "consultant" on a fee-based system (rather than commission), and review/revise resume, help with cover letters, etc., but not be an express go-between (so it is clear to target company that they are not expected to pay a commission). If this is supposed to be "on top of" a regular commission paid by a firm, the problem is that this is likely some violation of recruiter's duties to the law firm paying commission. In this economy, I am sure "some" recruiter would accept double-payment, but probably not a good recruiter.

You'd have to be an idiot to submit through a recruiter in this market, unless it's an exclusively retained search for which the recruiter is doing all screening for the hiring party (i.e., s/he gets paid no matter who they hire). Legal recruiting seems to attract a disproportionate number of dishonest, incompetent and/or scummy ex-lawyers...

You'd have to be an idiot to submit through a recruiter in this market, unless it's an exclusively retained search for which the recruiter is doing all screening for the hiring party (i.e., s/he gets paid no matter who they hire). Legal recruiting seems to attract a disproportionate number of dishonest, incompetent and/or scummy ex-lawyers...

Let's cut all the speculation. How much of a cut do head hunters get?

Recruiters, like "consultants," are useless bottom-feeders.

In this job market, and this economy, why would any firm pay a recruiter? Yeah, I get it, lawyers' time is soooo valuable that they don't want to have to wade through hundreds of resumes. But come on. How long does it really take to look at resume and determine if you want to bring someone in for an interview? A few seconds, maybe.

But if offering to pay a recruiter gets this guy a job, more power to him.

18 - You can send an email as often as you like, I would say don't call more than every two weeks.

45 - They get 25 - 30% of the base salary. Not to mention the warm and fuzzy feeling you get from helping your fellow man.

18 - You can send an email as often as you like, I would say don't call more than every two weeks.

45 - They get 25 - 30% of the base salary. Not to mention the warm and fuzzy feeling of doing good for your fellow man.

I think it's outside the bounds of my business license to take money from a candidate.

How about India? Is a JD from India and an LLM from HYS worth anything?

Funny he thinks it's appropriate to announce his "male, early-mid twenties" status on Craigslist.

Recruiters have something to lose from this, I would think, if employers think they are going for the payoff over the best candidates in the pool. It's as if you were on the market for a house, and found out that that what you thought was a buyer's broker is getting incented by some of the prospective sellers -- and hiding it from you, since this dude wants the arrangement kept "confidential." Also, who throws around lingo like "sucks" when trying to land a job from strangers?

nearly all recruiters must sign contracts saying they have not been pad by the person they are recommending.

thus-this guy is essentially encouraging the commission of fruad

"Sometimes job seekers are advised to avoid working with a recruiter because it makes them more expensive, since the employer has to pay the recruiter a fee on top of the new hire's salary. If the new hire foots the recruitment bill, the game changes."

Umm, if the new hire foots the recruitment bill, he or she will be paying a whole lot more than $3-5k. Considering recruiters generally take a fee of about 25% of an attorney's annual base salary, even a job with a salary of $100k will require a $25,000 fee.

I agree with an earlier poster who advised people ought not be calling recruiters in this market. If you are out of work, about to be out of work, or fear you will soon be out of work, you need to research some firms and target those you are interested in yourself. Getting a recruiter involved will not help you and, in comparison with other candidates who apply directly, will hurt you. Firms don't like paying those fees even when the market is good -- and most recruiters add absolutely no value to the hiring process.

"Sometimes job seekers are advised to avoid working with a recruiter because it makes them more expensive, since the employer has to pay the recruiter a fee on top of the new hire's salary. If the new hire foots the recruitment bill, the game changes."

Umm, if the new hire foots the recruitment bill, he or she will be paying a whole lot more than $3-5k. Considering recruiters generally take a fee of about 25% of an attorney's annual base salary, even a job with a salary of $100k will require a $25,000 fee.

I agree with an earlier poster who advised people ought not be calling recruiters in this market. If you are out of work, about to be out of work, or fear you will soon be out of work, you need to research some firms and target those you are interested in yourself. Getting a recruiter involved will not help you and, in comparison with other candidates who apply directly, will hurt you. Firms don't like paying those fees even when the market is good -- and most recruiters add absolutely no value to the hiring process.

This guy can't have much experience doing contract work if he thinks it's wise to be offering "$300 for anything which is supposed to last more than a month." Nearly all the contract gigs I've ever had have been "supposed to" last that long, and often they are over in a week or less. The agencies don't want to be caught short with people disappearing from an assignment so they always err towards saying the duration will be longer rather than shorter, and often the firms themselves don't have realistic ideas about how much work they have. Yet so many of you turdburglars in these comments seem to think that throwing money at someone is equivalent to having experience or observational abilities. Good luck with that . . .

I think the posting's hilarious - and sadly, a good idea. Beats mailing out hundreds of resumes/cover letters by hand (or using one of those services that lets you apply to biglaw firms automatically)

I think the posting's hilarious - and sadly, a good idea. Beats mailing out hundreds of resumes/cover letters by hand (or using one of those services that lets you apply to biglaw firms automatically)

I think the posting's hilarious - and sadly, a good idea. Beats mailing out hundreds of resumes/cover letters by hand (or using one of those websites that lets you apply to biglaw firms automatically)

I think the posting's hilarious - and sadly, a good idea. Beats mailing out hundreds of resumes/cover letters by hand (or using one of those websites that lets you apply to biglaw firms automatically)