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Just not the way you think.....



For the full post, see Professor Henderson's blog (link)

That map looks to be good (or at least not horrible) news for people looking for jobs on the west coast.

Whoops.

A law prof falls victim to using "less" when he means "fewer." This makes me sad.

I would've preferred a less sucky presentation of the geographic data. The data shows that half the losses are concentrated in NYC, but that's misleading because NYC is by far the largest legal market. About a quarter of the overall NLJ250 is in NYC, so even if NYC did no worse than other markets on a per-capita basis, it'd still show up badly on that chart.

My theory about the complete idiocy of accepting a firm job in NYC is confirmed.

rayiner wrote:I would've preferred a less sucky presentation of the geographic data. The data shows that half the losses are concentrated in NYC, but that's misleading because NYC is by far the largest legal market. About a quarter of the overall NLJ250 is in NYC, so even if NYC did no worse than other markets on a per-capita basis, it'd still show up badly on that chart.

Good point. Just wanted to say that.

The underlying NLJ250 article is useful. http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1

(if you have a login)

The salient numbers:

The NLJ250 shrank from 131,928 lawyers to 126,669 lawyers, a decrease of 4%. This almost wipes out the growth in 2008, which was 4.3%. The last three times the total attorney count decreased was 1992/1993, where they decreased by 1%.

More troubling are the associate count figures. They dropped 8.7% compared to last year, from 67,648 to 61,733. This drop reflects the 2,748 associates deferred from NLJ250 firms, or 42% of the incoming class of 2009.

EDIT: Looking at historical data, this takes the associate population back to 2006 levels. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=61206

Washington is doing shockingly well too, comparatively.

rayiner wrote:The underlying NLJ250 article is useful. http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1

(if you have a login)

The salient numbers:

The NLJ250 shrank from 131,928 lawyers to 126,669 lawyers, a decrease of 4%. This almost wipes out the growth in 2008, which was 4.3%. The last three times the total attorney count decreased was 1992/1993, where they decreased by 1%.

More troubling are the associate count figures. They dropped 8.7% compared to last year, from 67,648 to 61,733. This drop reflects the 2,748 associates deferred from NLJ250 firms, or 42% of the incoming class of 2009.

EDIT: Looking at historical data, this takes the associate population back to 2006 levels. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=61206

You know, all the talk about the economy doesn't really bother me that much, but that article was fucking depressing.

And yet OCI was kinder to NYC than any other city... guess they're just more optimistic about a quick 2 years recovery than the other markets.

i've heard of other areas being worse than nyc regarding no-offers, specifically texas

M51 wrote:And yet OCI was kinder to NYC than any other city... guess they're just more optimistic about a quick 2 years recovery than the other markets.

The data is unhelpful because it doesn't give a breakdown of how many lawyers work at NYC headquartered firms to begin with. So NYC could be harmed less than it looks in the data. Moreover, NYC is still by far the largest legal market. So if NYC has a hiring rate (per-capita) half that of other places, it'll still hire more overall than markets that are a quarter or a fifth the size.

Interesting. Texas was affected more than I previously believed.

kittenmittons wrote:Interesting. Texas was affected more than I previously believed.

Exactly what I was thinking... my friends and family who practice in Dallas and Austin claim the market hasn't been hurt down there very much. Anyone have any personal experience w/ the Texas market?

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sorry this might be a stupid question...but what does ITE stand for?

kh86 wrote:sorry this might be a stupid question...but what does ITE stand for?

IN THIS ECONOMY.

This was a misleading, disappointing thread.

rayiner wrote:I would've preferred a less sucky presentation of the geographic data. The data shows that half the losses are concentrated in NYC, but that's misleading because NYC is by far the largest legal market. About a quarter of the overall NLJ250 is in NYC, so even if NYC did no worse than other markets on a per-capita basis, it'd still show up badly on that chart.

In other news, NYC suffered a stunning percentage of Wall Street job losses.

so texas doesn't lay off associates...but instead they choose to hire much less from this year's class...

either way someone is getting hurt

Let's do this data in a better way.

The top 10 markets:

rayiner wrote:Let's do this data in a better way.

The top 10 markets:

Code: Select all

City	Attorneys	Change	Change (%)
NYC    27374     -2037      -7
CHI    18433     -873       -5
DC     12108     -162       -1
PHIL   7000      -413       -6
BST    4826      -104       -2
LA     4432      -106       -2
ATL    4150      -234       -6
SF     3747      -22        -1
HST    3080      -176       -6
DAL    2551      -161       -6

Interesting that SF looks so good, since Thelen and Heller Ehrman exploded. Thought it was worse here.

This article has an alternative measurement: empty law office space.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1 ... quare_Feet

The scale of the surplus varies from city to city, according to the survey. San Francisco has the most, with more than 1.7 million square feet -- more than twice as much as any other U.S. city. Part of that glut owed to the dissolution last year of locally based firms Heller Ehrman and Thelen. Chicago has 859,000 square feet of unused law firm office space, partly because Kirkland & Ellis abandoned its former headquarters in favor of a brand new building where it occupies 650,000 square feet on 24 floors. Washington, D.C., has 750,000 square feet of unused law firm space, while New York and Los Angeles both have 500,000 square feet. Of the 10 large law firm markets surveyed, Boston has the least amount of available space, at 181,730 square feet.

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does every profession have stupid fights over east coast/west coast? i mean i thought it was only rapper/producer that did this stuff at first