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If you have ever questioned what you could do with your law degree---beyond practicing---you have reached the right post.  Perhaps it happened while watching a lunchtime speaker panel on alternative careers in law.  Maybe it was during the 9th week of your Admin Law class when Chevron just didn't hold the mystique it once did.  You may have experienced it was while volunteering at a local legal aid clinic and realizing the complexities of public problems often extend beyond the realm of law.  Or, maybe it was after submitting your 536th timesheet of billable hours to your managing attorney.

Whenever you experienced that moment when you realized that using your law degree to be an attorney is an option but not the only option, you may have started wondering...so, what else can I do with my J.D.?

Here is a list.  A warning though, or caveat emptor, it contains everything from job titles, concepts, names of famous JDs, and more.  What's more interesting is that some of the most surprising entries are based on real non-law options that have been exercised (find out more in the "Related Resources). It is a mixed bag at best, so use it as a brainstorming tool...a place to start from as you create your perfect job title.

And here we go...

While it may be a great time to be in law school, considering future forecasts of possible sunshine and warm weather, those in the legal job or internship market right now may feel like they are standing in a frigid rainstorm, without an umbrella. 

Before you get swept away in the current, consider these tips to help you land a legal job or internship in today's economy.  

1. Commit to the search.  And this doesn't just mean money.  Considering the amount of time you have invested in applying to law school, learning the legalese, and reading resources like this one, you are obviously interested in making the most of the experience.  Spend time tailoring your cover letters to specific employers and judges you apply to.  It can get tedious and may seem superfluous, but treat it like a routine that you go through for each separate application.  A focused application will have an effect on the reviewers and could mean the difference between an interview or the circular file. 

If you have recently cleared the Bar exam and are unemployed, you have likely given thought, time, and maybe even some blood, sweat, and tears to finding a job.  And somewhere along the line you may have thought to yourself, wouldn't it be so much easier if you just put out a shingle? 

Or, case scenario two, you have a good job practicing as an attorney but your hours are long, you don't love the work or work environment, and you don't feel directly connected to the cases you  handle.  You spend your time working for the Man or Woman, and feel like you have nothing to show for it.  And then you find yourself wondering, what if you didn't report to anyone...what if you were the Man or the Woman? 

Why be original and face blank stares and quizzical looks from interviewers, colleagues, and managers when you can alter your vocabulary ever so slightly to pave the way for cheers, high-fives, and a big ol' pat on the back?

If you are fresh out of the law school scene and trying to make your way in the workplace or through interviews, you might be up on the legal lingo, but now you need to make sure you are hip with the business buzzwords.  Here's your primer to workplace cliches, as compiled by PR Newswire. 

We have all been there.  Searching for the perfect job.  Or sometimes, searching for any job at all.  It's a tough station in life...getting hopes high with a promising job post and then then working furiously to tailor your resume and cover letter, only to hear that they will keep you 'in mind for the future', or never hear back at all.  If you are in the doldrums of job searching, don't let up.  Sign up for those job listing e-newsletters, go to the job fairs, network your worries away.

But in the process of job search and research, always be ready to laugh.  A little at yourself, tactfully at others, and wholeheartedly at the comedy of the career search.

And ripe for the giggles and howls, is Resumania.  A seemingly simple landing page with a never-ending scrolling bar and zero graphics may make you wonder whether it was created by your five-year old niece or eighty-seven year old great uncle, once removed.  But once you start reading the entries and the quippy responses you will be sold.  You may even call your niece and great uncle, once removed, to apologize for doubting them.

Here are some of our top picks from Resumania.com.  Enjoy.  No really, have a ball.

While many attorneys out there are watching the economy bludgeon then throttle their dreams of becoming rich and important partners, many aspiring jurists who wanted to go to the University of Miami School of Law are about to witness the economy bludgeon and throttle their dreams of becoming attorneys in the first place. 

The law school received more acceptances than its algorithm, or whatever, predicted, so now the school is offering students incentives to defer their enrollment until next fall in order to avoid an overcrowded 1L class.  The incentives aren't much, but apparently the dean of the school is hoping that this will give people some time to think over whether they really want to enter the legal world, or whether they're just looking at the current economic realities and thinking "Law school - why not?" 

We all know that this is an unprecedented time for law firm layoffs.  The legal job market is tough these days, to say the least.  Many attorneys are finding themselves without a job and wondering what course to follow for their future, and what first steps to take along that path.

In order to help answer these questions, West has created Between Cases, a site with free resources for those looking for new jobs, trying to brush up on their skills in between jobs, thinking about starting their own firm, or even attorneys who just want to learn how to increase their business.

The post title says what you need to know about our favorite stories this week.  Read on for more:

The Big Story of the Week

• The New York Times had a feature on the current challenges faced by BigLaw firms, with White & Case as the star.

How's Your Career This Week?

• Free podcast! About job-hunting! The ABA Journal has details.
• Here's the Texan take on the state of the law job market, courtesy of the Austin American-Statesman.
• Career options: the National Law Journal reminds you that your military is hiring lawyers.

Learning From the Best

• The case for BLS: Above the Law says that at Brooklyn Law School, you can learn from a real-life mob lawyer! How are these things not factored into the U.S. News Rankings?
• Also worth a read: the Village Voice piece that spawned the ATL story. Only in New York, indeed.

Last week brought a flurry of legal-blog postings about a new (and Greedy-sounding) book by an attorney/author who goes by "ZZ."  China High: My Fast Times in the 010: A Beijing Memoir is ZZ's memoir of living large in Beijing in the early 2000s, indulging in a no-holds-barred sex-and-drugs lifestyle after being posted to Sidley Austin's Beijing office.  It may be a coming-of-age story, a fascinating expose of modern China, and a cautionary tale about the horrors of the Chinese prison system (where ZZ apparently has a brief stay during the course of the story), but what we really want from this book is a sort of combination career/travel guide for the aspiring international associate.

We admit that we have not read China High yet, but, in true blogger fashion, we are willing to speculate wildly based on whatever meta-information we can glean from the internet, which in this case means book reviews from Bloomberg and the Far Eastern Economic Review.  Here, then, are the questions we would be most interested in if we were actually sitting down to read China High:

OK, that's not true.  In fact, we calculate that at least 72% of these links do not relate to the Supreme Court in any way.  You're welcome.

Firm Life: Win Some, Lose Some

• It was just another superhero Friday in the life of The Namby Pamby.
• Texas firms are definitely cutting the summer entertainment budget, notes Texas Lawyer.
• Good news for some laid-off associates at Mayer Brown, for whom, JD Journal reports, the firm found in-house placements with clients.
• Bad news, though, for some not-laid-off associates at Mayer Brown's Chicago office, where Above the Law reported a swine flu appearance.  (Not that we wish to fuel the swine-flu hysteria.  Here, as a counterweight to this scare item, is the CDC's H1N1 infection stats page.  We're lawyers, not doctors, but those death numbers do not look scary-big to us.)
  

Law School: What Is It Good For?

The ABA Journal is really on top of the law-school beat this week:

• In its Question of the Week, it asks lawyers: if you had it to do over, would you still go to law school?
• Then it notes that law school grads apparently have no clue about the business of law.  Shocking!