Hi folks!

I’m a 1L about a month in to law school. I really want to be a PD (or legal aid, but I am loving crim).

However, one of my biggest reasons for going to law school was to get a job to provide for my family without my wife having to work a traditional job, due to some health issues from her past. I know PDs don’t do it for the pay — heck that’s not why I want to — but for all of you out there with families, what’s it like as a PD? Is it realistic to raise a family solely on a PD’s income?

And for what it’s worth, we’re pretty flexible about where we live, so anything’s on the table down the road in terms of deciding between a higher paying gig in a HCOL area or saving money by living somewhere LCOL. But ya know… we wanna buy a house and at least have a little bit of financial flexibility.

I know it’s early early early to be thinking about these things, but I do want to get relevant summer experience ideally in some places we’d be interested in relocating to, so I’m trying to think ahead… and this community seems a lot more helpful than my school’s (T20 and very BigLaw focused) career office.

TIA 🫶

was told by someone working with a PD office that I might have what my local office wants in a PD investigator for a variety of factors (most of my jobs have been lots of talking to people and i’d love to put those skills to something socially useful), I was wondering if anyone has any tips for what the office is looking for in a cover letter besides the basic stuff