What is your official job title and how long have you been at this position in this company?

I am an attorney at the New York City Department of Finance, and I've been there since 1988.

What are your responsibilities/role in your company?

My roles are legal research, reviewing and editing documents, sorting correspondents to decide who should handle each piece of a case, and ordering subpoenas.

Tell me a bit about a day in the life of working in your position. Do you work with a team?

When I come in, I walk into my own office like all the other attorneys, and it varies each day what I do. There could be correspondents to sort, there could be legal research needed on issues of confidentiality and disclosure––which is a big part of the work I do––and since every project is different it's all very unpredictable. Also, the great majority of my communication with people is by email.

Is the work environment at your particular company collegial or more rigid/competitive/professional? Where have you worked in the past and why did you leave your previous employers?

Collegial, definitely, which I am very happy about. There isn't a lot of advancement in the firm because the top staff has been there for a long time, so the attorneys on my level or a level below all help each other out. It's all quite friendly.

Did you change career paths? Why or why not?

This job I have now is actually a job I had basically right out of law school, but I am interested in pursuing personal interests after retirement. There was no specific reason why I never left, but I am content in my spot and I guess when I got married and had a family I didn't want to start making big changes because that is already a big change itself.

Compensation: What is the salary like? Fringe benefits (paid sick leave, insurance)? What are the hours like? Flexibility for vacations or maternity/paternity/family leave?

I would say a junior lawyer straight out of law school would start between $70,000-$80,000. We got a lot of paid leave and even have a separate category for sick leave. The insurance is decent, and I have about 27 days of vacation a year. Regarding salary, there really isn't an opportunity to get a raise because there is a fixed amount of money going around provided by New York City. The city is also quite lenient with religious holidays and such. My hours are fortunately very reasonable which is actually untypical of lawyers. When I come home, I'll look at emails once or twice but I can pretty much forget about the office. But many other lawyers would be doing courtwork and preparing lots of papers and legal research on a greater volume than I am, so they have to put in those extra hours of effort.

What type of problems do you face?

The main problem I face is insufficient information. I might need to find out something but that record is lost. Sometimes I need to get information from someplace else which drags on projects. Secondly, we are always short on resources. We constantly need to send documents to court, and the fact that it is difficult to get mail out quickly also makes the processes so much longer.

If one day I'd like to have a position like you, where do I start? What kind of education do I need? Does your job require any special training or further educational development?

You would certainly need law school, and then there are many kinds of law you could branch off into. We have tax lawyers who have to do an additional law degree and earn an LLM after working for a bit at the office, we have litigation lawyers

Did you find any particular internships during your high school or college years or summers to help you get to where you are today? Any extracurriculars or independent study projects or research as an undergrad to qualify to be in your position now?

Between college and my job I had internships at firms, but not really before then. I think it's important to get internships during college and try out different things even if you think you have your mind set on a specific career. Even within law, think outside the box: there are many denominations, like environmental law, tenant law, etc. Find out what you're good at.

College background: Do you think your college institution opened doors for you in this career path that may not have been possible for you otherwise? Do you think prestige or an Ivy League education offers more opportunities or hard work can produce the same results?

I went to Columbia University, but I think it depends on how hard of a worker you are. You can make connections anywhere you go, in my opinion. I do think Ivy Leagues can open doors for people through social networking, but I didn't really figure out how to use that to my advantage back then. It did help me get government interviews. I would also recommend that you should talk to your professors often and find out their passions and interests and see what your fellow students plan to do, because you might find a connection that could land you an internship or a job.

In your line of work, how much do you rely on your college education vs. professional experience? Do you find yourself using most of your undergraduate/college learning?

I definitely rely on my hands-on work experience more as a lawyer. I've picked up general knowledge of the area I work in and legal research methods.

What type of personality would fit best in your position?

You'd have to be thoughtful, analytical, methodical, be familiar with terms, and not be snobbish. What I mean by that is that you won't always have someone making photocopies of documents for you––you'll be doing that by yourself sometimes.

Are there any big pros and cons of this career path that you know now that you wish you knew before?

I love that my job offers so much day to day learning as well as plenty of opportunities to help the public. I would say the main con is the lack of financial opportunity, but I knew that when I took this job.

What made you choose this career path? In today's culture of being a jack-of-all-trades/generalist culture over specialization, do you see yourself staying in this field or exploring other interests in the short or long term future?

I got into law because I'm passionate about humanities like political science. I never really left because I'm quite comfortable, but I do see myself exploring other interests of mine in the long term, such as rabbinical school or something in academia.

What advice do you have for a student like me who is interested in pursuing your same career choice?

Never assume that what you think you want to be is your ultimate path. Explore your passions and try to find a niche for yourself after college. Regarding my position, find law related internships even if they aren't what you thought you'd like because you might love it.