Phoenix Development News (3)

[PhxPavilion]

Less lawyers is a good thing.

[dtnphx]

Girls, girls, you're both pretty.

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by Don B.

At this point, I'm giving up on the legal field entirely. I'm surviving on photography and the occasional odd contract work for fellow law school buds and that is about it. Phoenix's legal biz is in the toilet. When I can't even get an interview in my chosen field and I have 17 years experience, you know there is something wrong.

--don

Thanks for the honest if blunt assessment. I had hoped (but not expected) to hear better. Oh well, there's always New York.

[SunDevil]

best thing I ever did was drop out of law school in the summer of 2008. Landed a job with the federal government just as the economic crisis hit and now I'm in line to be making 70K/year in 2 years. With benefits, it's pretty dang good..

[westbev93]

Take it from this lawyer. Your chances of finding a good job are better in Phoenix than NYC. Unless you went to a good law school, you will move to NYC to find yourself working in a sweatshop full of insurance defense lawyers essentially working as a claims adjuster. You will get paid very little for Phoenix salaries, let alone NYC.

You are better off moving to a small town somewhere. Like Yuma or Sierra Vista.

The market is soft right now. When I am looking to hire an attorney, I get 5 times more resumes than I used to. Consequently, I end up with better experienced candidates than I used to.

Of course, there is always government work.

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by westbev93

Take it from this lawyer. Your chances of finding a good job are better in Phoenix than NYC. Unless you went to a good law school, you will move to NYC to find yourself working in a sweatshop full of insurance defense lawyers essentially working as a claims adjuster. You will get paid very little for Phoenix salaries, let alone NYC.

You are better off moving to a small town somewhere. Like Yuma or Sierra Vista.

The market is soft right now. When I am looking to hire an attorney, I get 5 times more resumes than I used to. Consequently, I end up with better experienced candidates than I used to.

Of course, there is always government work.

Thanks for the advice. I go to a USNWR top 10 law school. Does this change the calculus for me?

Also, any advice on how to go about obtaining entry level government work in Arizona?

P.S. I'm really mainly interested in working in Phoenix/Scottsdale/Tempe - skyscraper fan you know.

[HX_Guy]

Phoenix board to hear plea for dog park at Ramada site

17 comments by Emily Gersema - Nov. 2, 2010 10:02 AM
The Arizona Republic

Downtown Phoenix neighbors' debate with the city over a parking lot is turning into dog fight.

Thursday the Phoenix Board of Adjustment will hear an appeal by the homeowners association for St. Croix Villas to build a dog park on half of the site of the former Ramada Inn at Taylor and First streets.

Ramada Inn demolition photos

City officials have said the parking lot would be there for up to five years for the Sheraton Hotel, whose capital-improvement fund provided $1.2 million for the $6 million purchase of the Ramada property. The rest of the funds came from bonds that the voters approved in 2006.

City officials said the temporary parking designation gives the future user of the property, Arizona State University Downtown Phoenix, time to raise money to build a law school on the site. ASU would have broken ground by now, but because of the state budget crisis, it must focus on arranging funding.

Petitions circulated

St. Croix Villas HOA treasurer Sean Sweat is circulating petitions to gather downtown residents' support for a dog park. He said up to 30 other downtown residents and supporters are helping him by asking people to sign the petition.

Sweat has pieced together a package marketing the idea that includes a picture of a sad-faced boxer mix sitting next to the words "Love dogs, not cars" and a map of what he and his neighbors envision for the dog park. He has sent messages on Twitter and Facebook urging supporters to attend Thursday's meeting.

Sweat believes the demand for a dog park downtown is huge because the area has no dog parks. Of Phoenix's five dog parks, the closest to downtown is at Steele Indian School Park near Third Street and Indian School Road, 3 miles north of the Ramada site.

The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 37 percent of U.S. households have a dog. By multiplying that average with the estimated number of condo and apartment residents in downtown complexes and lofts, Sweat figures roughly 700 dog owners live within a half-mile of the Ramada site.

"I've had tons of people on Twitter tell me that they'd like to move downtown but they don't because it's not dog-friendly," Sweat said.

The costs of a dog park

David Urbinato, a spokesman for the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department, said staff members estimate the annual cost of maintaining a 2-acre turf, off-leash dog park at $50,000 to $75,000, or $25,000 to $50,000 for a 1-acre park.

"Water alone would cost in the ballpark of $8,550 a year for 1 acre, $17,000 for a 2-acre park," he said.

Sweat had hoped ASU officials would back the residents' effort to get a dog park, but the university's chief spokesman, Virgil Renzulli, said this isn't a fight ASU will take part in.

Jeremy Legg, a Phoenix economic-development program manager, said the city is obligated to finish the project because the bond funds that the city tapped were dedicated to supporting higher-education facilities, such as ASU Downtown Phoenix projects, not dog parks.

Mayor Phil Gordon said the city wouldn't be able to justify to taxpayers spending money on a dog park that would be open for five years or less.



Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoen...-park-ramada-inn-site.html#ixzz149qab2dV

The Mayor does have a point about it only being around for 5 years. If it was sometime more permanent, I think they would have a better chance at having it happen but to put all that money into something temporary?

[westbev93]

If you go to a Top 10 law school, you will find a job regardless of where you decide to live.

As for finding government work in AZ, I'm not sure who is hiring right now. I always remind law grads to look into judicial clerkships at both the state and federal level. It is a good experience and opens up doors in the legal community (as well as give you a nice contact in a judge).

If you are truly in a Top 10 law school, you can find a job in Phoenix somewhere even if it is not one of the biggest firms like Snell.

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by westbev93

If you go to a Top 10 law school, you will find a job regardless of where you decide to live.

As for finding government work in AZ, I'm not sure who is hiring right now. I always remind law grads to look into judicial clerkships at both the state and federal level. It is a good experience and opens up doors in the legal community (as well as give you a nice contact in a judge).

If you are truly in a Top 10 law school, you can find a job in Phoenix somewhere even if it is not one of the biggest firms like Snell.

Thank you for this. Obviously, I would love to work for a big firm like Snell but I'm open to pretty much anything that pays a decent wage and where the work is interesting. There isn't a lot of information on the internet about the Phoenix market like there is about some other major metros and my school feeds a plurality of its students into large east coast firms so career services is primarily focused on developing information about that, rather than more secondary markets. I love Arizona though so I want to do what I can to make sure coming back is an option. To paraphrase Mayor Gordon, you can't really appreciate Phoenix till you've lived back east.

Judges at the state level give much weight to grades in hiring clerks?



"best thing I ever did was drop out of law school in the summer of 2008. Landed a job with the federal government just as the economic crisis hit and now I'm in line to be making 70K/year in 2 years. With benefits, it's pretty dang good.."

Trust me, I know there is a good chance I could be making more money in another field. Always wanted to be a lawyer and I'm stubborn.

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

The Mayor does have a point about it only being around for 5 years. If it was sometime more permanent, I think they would have a better chance at having it happen but to put all that money into something temporary?

The Mayor and everyone in power are frankly full of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 on this issue. Who says the Law School is going to be built in 5 years? What if it gets pushed back? What if ASU changes their mind? A zillion things could happen between now and then that prevent it from happening.

Haven't we seen this song and dance over and over and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 over in Central Phoenix? Developer lets building intentionally fall into disrepair (i.e. the Ramada), developer claims the building is too pricey to save, developer knocks over building promising a development of great awesomeness, said development never occurs, we end up with a dirt lot or parking lot.

How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be snookered by this same plan? And this time its the City itself doing it, its outrageous!

Finally, who said the dog park would have to be permanent? I've seen no renderings or plans for this future law school building. What about this mythical law school building necessitates it taking up an entire City block? It would be much better if the building was built denser and taller and only on the South side of the block.

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

The Mayor and everyone in power are frankly full of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 on this issue. Who says the Law School is going to be built in 5 years? What if it gets pushed back? What if ASU changes their mind? A zillion things could happen between now and then that prevent it from happening.

Haven't we seen this song and dance over and over and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 over in Central Phoenix? Developer lets building intentionally fall into disrepair (i.e. the Ramada), developer claims the building is too pricey to save, developer knocks over building promising a development of great awesomeness, said development never occurs, we end up with a dirt lot or parking lot.

How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be snookered by this same plan? And this time its the City itself doing it, its outrageous!

Finally, who said the dog park would have to be permanent? I've seen no renderings or plans for this future law school building. What about this mythical law school building necessitates it taking up an entire City block? It would be much better if the building was built denser and taller and only on the South side of the block.

TBF, I've never seen a major law school that didn't taking up at least one city block. PSOL doesn't but its not quite the same. Classrooms, library, faculty offices, it takes up more space than you might imagine.

[HX_Guy]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

The Mayor and everyone in power are frankly full of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 on this issue. Who says the Law School is going to be built in 5 years? What if it gets pushed back? What if ASU changes their mind? A zillion things could happen between now and then that prevent it from happening.

Haven't we seen this song and dance over and over and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 over in Central Phoenix? Developer lets building intentionally fall into disrepair (i.e. the Ramada), developer claims the building is too pricey to save, developer knocks over building promising a development of great awesomeness, said development never occurs, we end up with a dirt lot or parking lot.

How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be snookered by this same plan? And this time its the City itself doing it, its outrageous!

Finally, who said the dog park would have to be permanent? I've seen no renderings or plans for this future law school building. What about this mythical law school building necessitates it taking up an entire City block? It would be much better if the building was built denser and taller and only on the South side of the block.

Well, not sure how much truth there is to this, but according to the above posted article...

"Jeremy Legg, a Phoenix economic-development program manager, said the city is obligated to finish the project because the bond funds that the city tapped were dedicated to supporting higher-education facilities, such as ASU Downtown Phoenix projects, not dog parks."

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

TBF, I've never seen a major law school that didn't taking up at least one city block. PSOL doesn't but its not quite the same. Classrooms, library, faculty offices, it takes up more space than you might imagine.

Why couldn't that be done vertically? Buildings taking up a city block, which many modern buildings do, is a bad idea. Look at the block over at Monroe and Central. You have 44 Monroe, the Hotel San Carlos, the Professional Building, etc. all crammed onto one block. It creates a visual diversity, a permeable edge on the ground floor, etc. In short, its far and away the best square block in the Valley, its what we need to be emulating.

A law school isn't a factory or research lab or hospital, it can go vertical if there's the will and desire to Im quite sure.

[westbev93]

For me the question is what happens when the current Dean at ASU's law school leaves? Will ASU still pursue this, or will we have torn down the Ramada Inn for nothing? The Dean has been the driving force in moving the law school as far as I know. Armstrong Hall is admittedly 🞵🞵🞵🞵, but the law library at ASU is almost brand new and in great shape. Further, members of the local bar contributed large sums to build that library. Seems odd to abandon it now even if it does make sense to move the law school downtown and closer to the legal heart of AZ. If the Dean leaves before the law school move is past the point of no return, will it still move forward?

@trigirdbers-every judge has different criteria for hiring. The one I clerked for thought grades were the best indicator of competence as a clerk. Others like to hire from their alma mater. Others purportedly used entirely inappropriate criteria for selecting clerks.

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

Why couldn't that be done vertically? Buildings taking up a city block, which many modern buildings do, is a bad idea. Look at the block over at Monroe and Central. You have 44 Monroe, the Hotel San Carlos, the Professional Building, etc. all crammed onto one block. It creates a visual diversity, a permeable edge on the ground floor, etc. In short, its far and away the best square block in the Valley, its what we need to be emulating.

A law school isn't a factory or research lab or hospital, it can go vertical if there's the will and desire to Im quite sure.

Yet even small urban law schools like Chicago (which has a midrise for a library) and Penn take up one full city block +. I'm not saying it couldn't be done in less but it would probably not be the sort of learning environment that a school would want to have. I'm guessing if it isn't done in Chicago or Philadelphia, it won't be done in Phoenix.


"Others purportedly used entirely inappropriate criteria for selecting clerks."

Such as?

[bwonger06]

It really depends how they build out the block. Is it going to be something similar to Georgetown which is more like a satellite campus with its own gym, dorms, library and classrooms or a more traditional law school which is integrated into the campus setting with just one or two buildings totally devoted to law school.

And talking about college degrees, AZ will look like the dumbest state in the US if we elect brewer as governor because she would be the only sitting governor to get elected directly into the role without a college degree.

And to trigirdbers, if you have decent grades (top 25-50%) and on some kind of law review I would say you have a really good shot at landing a job if there are still spots available. I would contact a few alumni who are Partners at the big firms and ask to speak to them for 10 or 15 minutes (check websites for college and name). Ask them about AZ, how they made the transition from an elite school to AZ, any kind of advice, etc. At the end what kind of advice he can give for a person wanting to move back to Phoenix and which firms are hiring.

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by bwonger06

And talking about college degrees, AZ will look like the dumbest state in the US if we elect brewer as governor because she would be the only sitting governor to get elected directly into the role with a college degree.
.

I assume you mean without?

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

Yet even small urban law schools like Chicago (which has a midrise for a library) and Penn take up one full city block +. I'm not saying it couldn't be done in less but it would probably not be the sort of learning environment that a school would want to have. I'm guessing if it isn't done in Chicago or Philadelphia, it won't be done in Phoenix.

That just doesn't make any sense to me. What about a law school means it needs a wider footprint than say a journalism school? In fact if you think about it, the opposite should be true. The Broadcast Journalism school needs big TV studios with room for lots of people, the ability to glide big studio cameras around the floor, etc.

A law school is seemingly a bunch of classrooms and maybe a library. Do we even know if ASU plans to put the Law Library downtown? One would think, but since they have that one in Tempe...its all very confusing.

Even a library doesn't need to necessarily take up a whole city block. For instance this was the library at my University in St Louis, it took up about half a block:


I don't mean to be obnoxious, Im just curious as to why a law school building needs to be squat and wide other than thats what other cities have.

[bwonger06]

Nevermind, Wisconsin beat us to the dubious honor.

[SunDevil]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

I assume you mean without?



That just doesn't make any sense to me. What about a law school means it needs a wider footprint than say a journalism school? In fact if you think about it, the opposite should be true. The Broadcast Journalism school needs big TV studios with room for lots of people, the ability to glide big studio cameras around the floor, etc.

A law school is seemingly a bunch of classrooms and maybe a library. Do we even know if ASU plans to put the Law Library downtown? One would think, but since they have that one in Tempe...its all very confusing.

One thing I can think of is a large courtroom/classroom like this:

this is larger than most any news studio.


As for finding government jobs... look on http://www.usajobs.gov/

[trigirdbers]

Originally Posted by bwonger06

It really depends how they build out the block. Is it going to be something similar to Georgetown which is more like a satellite campus with its own gym, dorms, library and classrooms or a more traditional law school which is integrated into the campus setting with just one or two buildings totally devoted to law school.

And talking about college degrees, AZ will look like the dumbest state in the US if we elect brewer as governor because she would be the only sitting governor to get elected directly into the role without a college degree.

And to trigirdbers, if you have decent grades (top 25-50%) and on some kind of law review I would say you have a really good shot at landing a job if there are still spots available. I would contact a few alumni who are Partners at the big firms and ask to speak to them for 10 or 15 minutes (check websites for college and name). Ask them about AZ, how they made the transition from an elite school to AZ, any kind of advice, etc. At the end what kind of advice he can give for a person wanting to move back to Phoenix and which firms are hiring.

Doesn't matter if it is intigrated with the main campus. Both examples I cited (Penn and Chicago) are on the same campus as the main universities. They still take up 1-2 city blocks.

Law schools are super assertive about the vast majority of their space being dedicated space. The library itself won't take up a whole block but I think you guys are seriously "misunderestimating" how large a law library is. Also, the classrooms are huge as has been pointed out and law schools tend to have a shitton of faculty that need their own offices. In addition, many schools contain "clinics" which sound tiny and cute untill you consider that they are fully operational midsized law firms. Add in a moot court room, an event hall, and lounges and pretty soon we're talking real space.

Take a look at this http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamsjp2010/3051031169/ to get an idea. The school stretches from the neo-classical building in the front to the five story building in the background. Also http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http...1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=66&ty=79 (building in foreground not yet complete).

You realy think ASU is going to go denser than either?

I don't know of a single law school in the country where the law libary and classrooms arn't within walking distance.

To the above, yah, planning on contacting alums at firms. There arn't that many alums of my law school that work in PHX although there are a good number of alums of my undergrad's LS (also very highly regarded) that do. I might try that as well.

I am aware of USA jobs. I am also aware of how much it 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵. I was hoping to find a better way.