so here's the story

I guess I should explain my situation before I start my oh-so-awesome new job as a paralegal. That will make it clearer as to why I'm so adverse to the idea of making $16-17 an hour.

I went to a top 10 law school. I didn't do especially well there, but the attitude was always "everyone gets jobs, so go have another beer." I did a public interest internship after my 1st year of law school, and then I managed to get an offer to be a summer associate at a large firm in NYC after my second year. That summer the firm was busy, and I managed to do some substantive work while drinking myself into a stupor and gaining 30 pounds at the same time. Then my 3rd year of law school, my firm started buying out their 1st year associates. Everyone who took the deal seemed to be able to find work at other big firms, but it definitely indicated that something wasn't right.

In the winter came real lay offs, and then more lay offs in the spring. I took a $10K loan from my firm, so I'd have something to live on for the summer, and I studied for and took the New York bar exam. During that time, rumors of dissolution hit the internet, but the firm continued to deny anything of the sort. They had pushed our start date back about a month, so I spent 2 months in Southeast Asia. It's not like there was anything I could do anyway.

I moved to NYC in October and started working later that month. I was able to find a studio apartment on Wall Street only a 10 minute walk from work, so I signed a 12 month lease (only option at the time). Since I was in the financial services department in the firm, work was seriously lacking, but there were still nights I stayed past midnight. There were constantly rumors about possible mergers with other firms, and since my office was on the floor with the managing partner, I saw a lot of action--meetings with people from outside the firm involving members of the managing committee.

Then a few days before Christmas around 11am, two partners from my team emailed me (and the other 1st years on my team) asking us to meet them in a conference room. They informed us that the firm was dissolving, and 100 or so lawyers were being taken over to another firm, but we would not be among the lucky ones. None of the 1st years would be. We were told we would be paid for another 60 days thanks to the WARN Act, but there would be no severance pay. Many of the 1st years asked about the $10K loan that we had begun paying back in November, but no straight answer was ever given. We were also told we should continue coming into the office for the next 60 days even though the firm was dissolving as of December 31st.

Slowly most of the 1st years just stopped showing up more than a few hours a week. I realized I wasn't going to be able to find any work in New York that would pay the bills, so I decided to move back home. I tried to sign up to take the February Tennessee bar exam, but I missed the deadline while I was still thought I would be staying in the city. (The next exam isn't until July.) I left NYC in February. I stayed with my mother for about a month, and then my brother and I moved into a small house near both of my parents.

I've been looking for work in Nashville since I got here, and the best offer I've gotten has been this paralegal position. Pretty depressing to go from making $160K a year to $16 an hour, but at this point beggers can't be choosers.