Offered 3 days a week doing closing file prep at a two-attorney firm. Is that a way in or a side road?

$22k for a year of training is a real number and I'd want to see it written as a number, which you did, so credit for that. But you've priced the gap and not the exit. What's the pay for a real estate paralegal with three years in your market? If it's $62k you've got a payback. If it's $48k you're buying something other than income and you should be honest about what.

I hire on the service side and closing file experience is one of the few things on a resume I actually read. Someone who has chased an HOA estoppel and knows what a payoff good-through date does to a wire has been trained by consequences.

On your travel question, plumb, the mechanics do move. Escrow states run closings through title companies rather than attorneys, but the file is the same file. Payoffs, taxes, prorations, recording. The thing that doesn't move is your relationships, which are the actual asset after five years.

On software: I've watched document generation get much better and it has not reduced the number of people I need. It moved them from typing to catching. The catching is the job.

Lenders live and die on whether the closing file is clean. Bad payoff figure, wrong vesting on the deed, missing signature page on the note, and my funding gets pushed a week. The people who prevent that get called by name.

I'd take the seat, but I'd negotiate the six months down to three with a defined review, in writing. Verbal promotion timelines slip.

Pick the work where a mistake is expensive. That's what I wish someone had told me at your stage, after five years running a service business. Nobody pays a premium for work where the downside is small. Deeds and settlement statements are expensive to get wrong, and that's why the seat has value.

One caution though. Working inside a firm is not the same as being able to do the work yourself, because the attorney is the one carrying the license and the judgment. Some of what looks like the job is the attorney's call and always will be. Know which parts you're allowed to own before you build a plan on it.

Total beginner here so ignore me if this is off, but tally's payback question is the one I'd get stuck on too. Also 60% of a file on day one seems fine? I understood 5% of the first HUD-type statement someone showed me.